EQDiva

Yes, we certainly can tank in certain situations when necessary. But better than a warrior or knight? Ummm, no :lol Granted, I don't have that particular ancient song so I don't know that agro on it but even so, any tank worth their weight in salt can keep agro better than us. I'm not saying we can't on occasion pull it away from them, just saying over the entire fight they are better. Also there is more to tanking than agro. We just dont get the same HP, AC cap, disciplines, etc that the tank classes get. When matched against a warrior or pally of equal level/gear, we are going to be outtanked. But that's fine, cause that's not what we are about. We are the jack of all trades. So what if we can't out tank them, we can hold our own tanking when we have to. Let's see a warrior single pull a room, or a pally mez 3 mobs...I didn't think so :p

I have the ancient mezz. At 65, with 4200 unbuffed hp, AL bludgeon (160dd and 50pt Lifetap proc augd) and Kos Staff with 150dd proc, I cannot take aggro from anyone who wants aggro. The ancient mezz doesnt work on mobs over 59. At 65, I dont exp or raid a lot where the mobs can be affected by it. I havent noticed any more aggro from that mezz then any other mezz. I will tinker with it and see if I can yank aggro from anyone. But my only question is, why would I want to if there is a better tank available.

while its true that the LV 60 anc. mezz dosen't work on mobs over LV 59 it is treated much like rapture, generating even more aggro upon a resist, (i.e you use a unresitable song, that generaties a huge ammout of aggro allready that is then resisted by the mobs LV, ask a wiz or mag what generates more aggro? a resisted or unresisted nuke, and they will tell you that the resisted nuke is a larger aggro then the nuke that gets though, Sapper i would just like to conferm that you are twisting, Anc. Mezz, Slow, and 4 chants as well? and as to the weapons your using, while nice, dont generate that much aggo, its a DD thats not that much aggro, now a rune hammer or something that process a LV 65 stun or slow is a diffenet story, and really, i would use the Epic in a offhand;to up the DPS on your chants, w/ IM 3 you sould be putting out some decent DPS w/ the chants (100 per chant), you got good gear and good damage mitigation, but Harmony Attack 5 might help a bit more, War, pallys and SK will usually be better tanks then bards, still I feel perfectally confident tanking in BoT at anytime as long as its not a wing mini, and to answer your last question its beacouse i am a bard and i am flexable and at least on Kane Bayle where theres not a huge population i like to be able to fufill allmost any role in a group, and isint that what being a bard is all about?

Prob with Ancient mez is the 40% mem blur. That would make the agro list reset all the time. But I hold agro fine off my cleric who is healing and in melee, while I am melee tanking a mob. If I switch to 4 dots I can hold agro from people nuking, dotting, spam healing easily from a normal group. The key is to just be the puller and get in a dot or two on your way to the group. The puller gets an agro bonus.

Unless I am solo dot kiting out of boredom, I never twist chants/slow in a raid in an exp group. Cant really think of any group makeup where I wouldnt sing muse at least. I have no experience in the elemental planes though, so maybe I would up there. My guild has quite a few bards, have had 5 in VT. Usually we talk in channel (not always, but usually) and figure out who is doing AE mana, AE resists. Our biggest issue so far is stopping gaters with bellow AA, mana drain, and/or the 63 DD song. Other then the mana drain or 63dd song, most of us are twisting muse, and Pov at least. I cant see any time where I would be trying to provide DPS. The best I can do, with no resists, and TDoK in hand, is 630 per tick with DOTs and Assonance. I can get that damage in DS alone almost singing warsong and PoV. That still leaves me a twist for muse to help dotters/nukers and give any melee more haste. Like I said, I have no experience in the elemental planes, but I have never, ever been in a situation where I could sit back and say "I would benefit my raid or group the most if I sang dots and tried to get aggro". Caveat that last statement with one exception, in exp groups, if the we have one tank type, and he/she dies, then YES I want aggro. But I dont sit down, mem 6 songs (without getting summoned or beaten on, get all 6 going, get aggro built up from those dots, slows, and mezzes, and take aggro. I just say "HOSing, stick Root, I'll tank" Proximity aggro is a nice thing sometimes. And I always have HoS and Rot memmed.

my first post to put it in propper contest was place on a bard tanking in a single group event in a teir 3 or lower zone, not in a raid, FYI, also i have to ask? [The best I can do, with no resists, and TDoK in hand, is 630 per tick with DOTs and Assonance. I can get that damage in DS alone almost singing warsong and PoV] How? sure i can see this on a unslowable mob that flurries and quads, i.e. AoW w/ the bard being in the MT group, 630damage off a Zek/ warsong DS in 3 seconds? seems a bit unbelieaveable; oh and [But I dont sit down, mem 6 songs (without getting summoned or beaten on, get all 6 going, get aggro built up from those dots, slows, and mezzes, and take aggro. I just say "HOSing, stick Root, I'll tank"] --- mem Kazumis then hit DA when the group tank goes down and use the saved song line ups off the spell book button to mem the spells and jump in, this works especially nice as Kazumi drops party aggro to 1 for evey person, also a nice trick to help over nuke wiz's safely in a 4wiz 1 druid 1 bard DPS raid group, the kazumis is kinda a nice reset button to quickly establish aggro in a bad situation, just click yours off first and you have a new chance to pick up the aggro, works wonders

CeleadorKB, once again I can just admire the versatality of our class. Kazumi does clean out the aggro list, kazumi would buy time to mem a new favorite lineup (I love scribble notes btw). A fresh aggro list means, just as you say, we have a chance to get to the top fairly fast, and stay on top as long as no one else tries to take aggro from us. I have never been in a situation where I needed to do that, but it certainly is possible, and as long as the group is on the ball, would certainly be an effective way to handle the death of the group's MT. As for the DOT damage vs the DS damage, even slowed, most mobs hit for 1-2 times a tick from what I can see. Given the ability for most mobs to double, triple, or quad while dual weilding, they can easily take 3 or 4 hits from the DS each tick. I am pretty sure (no parser, just going off memory) that I get around 60-70 DS with PoV and warsong going, so that is about 180-280 damage per tick from DS alone. So I stand corrected, even with that halfass math, yes DPS is better with DOTs by at least 100%, probably more. However, I still am providing much more DPS per tick for my group singing Muse, Warsong and PoV while meleeing. Cant parse that, dont think there is any way to prove it, but I am pretty sure that 30% overcap haste, 60DS, and 15% to DD and DOTs, and my melee DPS is doing more to the mob then my Singing 4 DOTs and bashing with drum and offhand melee dps. Its all about skill and what we can do with our class Celea. I dont for a second doubt your skill or abilities, different strokes for different folks, and from the sounds of it, your stroking pretty damn good ;o) Thanks fer the new tactic, I may just put Kazumis in my normal lineup now. Just gotta figure out what to drop..

/agree Sapper Also, the part I hate about tanking when I do tank is that you are gonna get interupted at times, and that really sucks when trying to keep the DoT damage going :mad: However, as Celeador is saying, when we are asked to do it we are capable of tanking in a Teir3 and lower situation. I never knew that the DA song wiped agro as well. I'll have to keep that in mind in the future, seems like a good technique :)

DA doesn't whipe agro... the mobs simple ignore you while your DA is up. They put that code in years ago when some of higher end guilds used to have clerics DA and sit at the feet of a named. Back then the mobs would agro on anything sitting so it was an exploit having total agro on a person who couldn't be hurt. Now the mob will ignore you until your DA wears off. I pull HT mobs with DA sometimes so they waste there HT. Actually I don't usually dot things on raids unless there junk mobs... but remember our dots lower resists a lot so it could easily have benifits from using them on named.

yeah Paeros, HoS, Disease dot are nice for mobs that can only be slowed with Disease slow.

Just to add to the list of mobs tanked by a bard, took a group of a cleric, beastlord, druid, and another bard and killed Gorenere, Talendor, Zlandicar, Klandicar, Zelnithak, and Doomshade all in 1 night. I tanked them all no problem and no deaths or wipes all night. Held aggro just fine with 2 DoTs, CoM and PoV and weapon DPS. [url]http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=713432[/url] [image]http://www.silenttempest.com/~Kirrath/Kirrath.jpg[/image]

hm sinfonian, my ac = your hp :D

I find that Marr in the twist generates alot of hate...like the kind that gets you killed if you sing it before the tank gets heavy on the hate amount. So if you want to tank it sould be in the mix along with the 2 or 3 other songs. The other real surprise is the dex debuff song sworddancing. I have not tested this extensively, but I found the mob would almost always turn and smash my brains in off the tank when this song was used. Try different combos. But giving marr and sword dancing and 2 dots might be not too bad. For me soloing any mob, I am at the point where the 128 damage shield is doing almost as good as 4 dots for kill rate. Safer too...fade with a dot and it is bad news..or try to mez for a quick heal. Moose

Duvane, I think you misread my post (waaaay down there long ago). I said an extra 1200 HPs. I admit that I have those 1200 new HPs since that time, and I still can't tank. Reason being, a gnome chanter meleeing can out aggro me, which is FINE by me, 99.9% of the time. Today though, I wanted aggro and couldn't get it, then again I didn't try very hard. I am not a tank, though I add decent DPS in my own right, and crank up the DPS of the group very nicely. That's what we do. =) Sinfonian

Hehe, my bard has 3992 unbuffed and 6544 buffed hps (or thereabouts). With Windblade + slimestone fragment of shock, I can keep aggro off my cousins well enough for me to effectively tank mobs in Riwwi / Barindu. Quite nice I must say :)