Well I finally dinged 3L2 on Kediedia, my battle bard, and I just wanted to share some thoughts/ideas incase anyone else was thinking about leveling one themselves.

My spec at 43.5 was;
33 Nurture
9 Regrowth
20 Blunt
37 music

The 37 music for the insta AOE mez was a must. I was trying to run without it but because i'm not running as a celt, my casting speed was just too slow. SOS was absolutely needed, not just for group play but also to help kite some of the tougher melee classes. I decided to go with IP1 and it was most definently a difference maker in several fights.

Toughest class to fight against?--Spirit master and armsman. Ran into Smokeyz (sp?) a few times and that polearm just did too much damage.

It was a lot of fun and if you have the inclination to have a challenging class to play in the BGs, go for it. Next stop for me is thid but not until at least level 47+SC'ed. If you need a bard for an XP grp around that level during US primetime look me up. See you guys out there.

If you hurry up, you might still meet my mincer in Thid. Don't think I've ever fought a battle bard on that. It'll be like pop idol, 2 solo musicians competing for glory, haha.

Problem with battlebard, once you have your initial RR abilities, you won't see much improvement, such as having SOS/purge, because bard simply doesn't have enough good RA's for solo play at higher RR. They're great in the BGs though.

Spiritmaster is not a tough match considering the pet should be mezzed before you start on the SM. And you should be kiting the Armsman into the dirt. If he won't come for you, then run away ^^. IMO, toughest match is against stealthers who use the snare poisons.

Blunt is a bad idea I think, being a firby is a bad idea also. Sure, the 30 str is decent, but the way it scales for bard, I'm sure you can hardly notice a difference in damage. I've done test on my human bard with dmg differences buffed and unbuffed. I really couldn't tell enough difference to justify playing a Firbolg and losing the casting time. After a 4s off stun with shield, with a celt, you can get off 2 big heals unless they open after stun with a stun of their own.. Not sure about Firby because I haven't tried it.

33 nurture isn't really necessary. You won't get away from anyone with 43 music, and the next fastest speed is still below your 23 nurture. Therefor, I believe you should be sitting on 23 nurture instead, with those points put into regrowth for bigger heals during stuns.

And to beat a minstrel, you're gonna need 44 music for the hymn of body resist. Besides that and minstrel using RR5 to unmez pet, really not much of a problem beating one with a battlebard.

With the SM's it was a matter of timing. I would have the pet mezzed then go to work, but if I miss timed my amnesia's combined with my slow swing speed I just couldn't kill them fast enough if they got a lifetap off on me before the pet was back and intercepting...

With regard to SB's and inf's I only ever ran into a few in wilt and most where still autotraining stealth so the fight was fairly easy, but I can already tell that Thid is a totally different atmosphere.

Yea I'm seeing blunt as not the best choice going forward. And your point about the 33 speed vs 23 speed makes sense.

The RA that are available are few. Right now I have IP1, SOS1, Purge1, Aug Dex2, Serenity1. For thid i'm debating IP2 vs Purge 2. What about Mastery of Focus 1 to help with the last DD shout and mezzes vs resists?

What are your thoughts at lvl 49.5 for spec...
Regrowth 17
Nurture 23
Music 47
Blades 34

I'll probably run the spec I have been on for now until I get to level 49. Would be hard to keep up with group demands with only blue endo and green mana regen while trying to xp. But I have a respec all stone sitting in my vault ready to go.

This is all IMO, so sorry if it sounds preachy ;p


Personally, if I ever bothered to respec my battlebard, this is what I'd do, assuming I'd be 49.5 instead of 50...


music- 46
blades- 21
nurture- 23
regrowth- 33

Just trust me when I say... Having the 33 heal, will do so much for you when you manage to get the 21 blades style off. 46 music may seem like a waste, but DO NOT understimate the Hymns of Resist. You should always be running your resist songs during a fight. Do some research into the other classes, and find out what type of spells they have. If you notice a fighter class is using many heat procs, then use the heat resist.


As for the debate on purge2/IP2, I say purge2 without thinking. If you want any chance to beat a stealther, you'll absolutely need purge 2. Not sure why you'd rather have IP2.


Get a faster weapon, you're a bard, not a warrior. I recommend around speed 2.9 or faster.

21 blades seems low, but don't test it on mobs, as they're harder to hit than players. I doubt you'll be able to see much difference in hitrate/dmg between 21 blades and 34 blades. If the backstyle at 34 blades was worth a damn, I'd say go for it, but I played with it for awhile and found it to be the most useless backstyle in the game.

And I definitely recommend MoF 3 as soon as you can comfortably get it. It will make a big difference in your mezzes landing.

edit: at 50, you can bring that 46 music up to 47.

i remember your bard in wilton, guess the only real chance you had to do anything was teaming up with 2-3 ns and farm solos at mpk

Well, I guess the bard, out of the 3 speeder classes, is the one LEAST designed for solo work. A class with that much utility would be wasted running solo. Also, in contrast to mincers (mezz/stun) and skalds (mezz/snare) you only have one type of CC, which makes kiting 1v1 annoyingly hard. On top of that, reinf doesn't give you quite the protection that chain does...

this is why they added 2x dd and single-root to bards on live

@Seethoven--Thanks for the advice, gonna level to about 47/48 then use my respec stone and go with the spec you recommended. Do you have a specific blade you would recommend? Not much in housing (<3p that is) and nothing player crafted that isn't 3.3 or higher. My template originally didn't have much +regrowth in it so I need to rework that. It's hard to justify an expensive template though for a battle bard...

@calvoHP--Thing about mids is they normally start to group up and then the action gets really fun. Had a lot of really fun fights with mids

there was a bard that knew what to do and was in the same lv range as kediedia,

annoying as hell, not so greedy, knew when to run and when to attack/kite
tpumps
guess he must have other alts, still lv 45 and 1k rps, i fought him mostly on nights (east coast timeframe)

kediedia wrote:@calvoHP--Thing about mids is they normally start to group up and then the action gets really fun. Had a lot of really fun fights with mids

the 2-3 times i stop running solo and made duo, ur groups quit after 1 round

When acting as a supporter, as a bard really should be, I always find myself overextending; pushing too soon. Guess that probably comes with experience....or teamspeak lol

kediedia wrote:@Seethoven--Thanks for the advice, gonna level to about 47/48 then use my respec stone and go with the spec you recommended. Do you have a specific blade you would recommend? Not much in housing (<3p that is) and nothing player crafted that isn't 3.3 or higher. My template originally didn't have much +regrowth in it so I need to rework that. It's hard to justify an expensive template though for a battle bard...

@calvoHP--Thing about mids is they normally start to group up and then the action gets really fun. Had a lot of really fun fights with mids

I used a crafted 2.9spd on mine. It's the short scythe you see on peoples' hips sometimes.