EQDiva

Hello all, I am returning to the game after a good 4 years absence. My roommate came along and he is considering playing a bard. I played a bard to 63 before I quit EQ so as much as I love the class I have decided to try something new. I know a good bit about bard but it has been a long time. So I should be able to help him out a bit with how to twist and what not. My question is this, what would be a good duo partner for a bard? I have been thinking to make a shaman because I always wanted to be a shaman back in the day. However I think it has been about 8 years since i have played a character that has NOT been twinked in some fasion! we are starting completely from SCRATCH. I remember my bard being a great soloer but I also had very very good gear on him for his lvl. So would a completely untwinked bard and shaman be a good duo? And also, where could we go about trying to get decent gear? I know its alot, but thank you for your time.

I've never done that combination before. Possible ways to make that work: 1) Bard tanks while shaman buffs, heals, debuffs, Dots, and does some melee. Bards don't make great tanks though, and the melee can interrupt song twisting often. 2) Shaman tanks/DoTs/debuffs, while bard adds haste and some dps. Shaman are so-so tanks too, but with haste and slow can be formidable. 3) Shaman DoTs and sends pet after mob, while bard kites with chants. One problem you have with this pair is that your abilities overlap a bit, particularly with slows and hastes. Another way to go would be SK / bard. Slow with bard, SK can tank and maintain aggro. Plus, I hear SKs are fun to play.

I 2 box a bard/shaman with the bard being my main. I love this combo since my bard can tank most content with my shammy slow/healing. That way I can take ANY 4 classes to fill out my group and not have to be picky on the classes. The shaman IMO is the best combo for a bard since the shaman has slow and the BEST melee buffs. Once the shaman get pet affinity AA, then the pet gets benefits from the bards songs and becomes a decent dps pet too.

Just out of curiosity - how are you able to hold aggro against SHM slow and dots? Of course once you got high enough to actually put aggro augs in your weapons it should become easier. But I have a hard time imagine that combo in lower levels without the SHM being the tank for the most time.

I really have no issues holding aggro. I use my 1.5 main hand with two chaotic strike 4 augs and RoSN offhand. To hold aggro I use 3 dots and the new Jonathons rk2 that gives 106% increase to proc rate. I tank quite a bit in full groups with mages and wizzies not being able to steal aggro for the most part. If they tke aggro I just give myself a bit more room on the pulls to give the dots time to get me more aggro before the mob is to the group.

I also box a bard/shammy, and have no issues holding aggro. Not sure how it would go at the lower levels, I seem to recall it went in chunks... I'd have issues where I'd pull aggro constantly, then a few levels later be unable to pull aggro... but it's been 3 years since I was there, kinda vague atm. Now, using 4x chants, Notched Blade of Bloodletting and Shademaul both with anger augs, shammy can land slow after 2-5 swings and not pull aggro, then run 2 dots (max dot crit aa's) and the odd nuke, as well as HoT's and splash heals and not pull aggro. Haven't met a tank yet who doesn't have issues when I run 5 dots on shammy, 3 is too much for any DPS class I've tried to use as a tank yet, 4 starts to give problems, 5 gives main raid tank fits. Grith

Hi, Shaman is a great class to duo with any other class, slows, has buffes, heals, cures, dots... etc. But neither Bard nor Shaman is a DPS class, so if you start from scrath and don't twink any, you are going to find out 2 things at first: 1- Stuff takes quite a while to die. 2- Untill you get at least 3 dots, shaman gonna end up tanking. Also, bards songs are in general pretty crappy without a mod. My advice to you and your friend is to take your time doing the noob quests, the rewards and experience is decent. Stay in tutorial till like level 10, exp flies there and you get some items there with at least decent AC, 2 or 3 of them with a bit of STATs and maybe some HPs, and 1 or 2 with focus effects (mana preservation, haste...) If one class choice has to be a bard, I would pick something else other than a shaman, maybe a necro, wiz or druid. If you want to tank mobs with bard, you are pretty screwed till higher levels because you need to have access to instrument mods, AAs, better weapons and equipment to even think about tanking any and, nonetheless, you are going to tank worst than any other class except silkies. On the other hand, if one class has to be a shaman, I would get a class that complements shaman better, a tank class, SK, Pally or Warrior. A mage and a shaman might be interesting too. Good luck.

I also box a 75 shaman with my bard.  I am able to start casting debuffs, & slows with when the mob reaches 95% and never gain aggro.  When you start stacking on the dots for longer fights you just have to watch your aggro and know your DPS output on your Bard.  Shamans also get VP aa, which is a manaless root - recast 2 min.  The duration of the song is such that you can continually keep the mob rooted and root/rot-dot the mob to death.  Just dont do any DD damage or the root will have a chance to break.

 If you are going to be tanking with your bard just make sure your other class is a healer type.... Cleric, Druid, Shaman.  Everyone plays the game differently and you just need to find the right class that works for you.

Aye, any healer class.  Seen great reasons to use any of shammy/cleric/druid, all for obvious reasons.

Personally, I love having a cleric backup to go up against the big hitters.  HP/AC buffs, huge heals, and actually reasonable semi-afk dps with pets/nukes/ds's if the mob is mid level and I need a bit of assistance.  But most of all, Divine Arbitration and clicky on epic shield.  If I get a bit lax and start to watch telly, one click of that to get things sorted as my health plummets has saved me more often than I should really admit.

But shammy would be a great class and a fun balance to the bard abilities.  Not much you couldn't handle with that combo, and you could both solo well too.  Very self sufficient classes.

 

Don't forget to do the newbie stuff in crescent reach as well, nice little items for free and a few minutes of your time including a neck item, belt, etc. Quick XP in CR as well, I usually skip the tutorial nowadays and go straight there and I don't twink as I find the good twink stuff is getting pretty pricey.

I loved my shammy.  I think I stopped playing when he was 40something, but he was already doing well at slowing, debuffing and healing etc. with Sinfonian holding Agro. Of course he was 65 at the time (75 or whatever level they've got now didn't exist, neither did 70 for that matter).  Two boxing was fun, even with an ancient machine that didn't even allow me to look up from the ground with the second box. 

 Cleric was nice too, but in later levels, I mostly used him to autofollow into hostile territory behind a nekid Sinfonian to resurrect me, then gate back to pimping buffs for profit.

 

Sinfonian Barelytone

My Wife and I Duo very well together and have for many levels.

 I play a bard, she plays a paladin. She's got the heals, and for a long time I couldn't match her agro so I never really needed to worry about taking a heal. Just toss a slow, keep the haste flying and feed the paladin with mana and it's game over for many things you may encounter.

 

Granted we now play high end characters, I'm in half anguish gear and swinging my 2.0 proudly, but we Duo'd effectively together from about level 50 (When Planes of power came out for me timeline wise), up through now. Just keep a good balance and don't be afraid to stop and grind a few aa's with your duo partner along the way. Though, admittedly, Fading memories helped immensly with this =) 

 As to the quesiton about whether or not a shaman would be an excellent duoing partner, yes. Absolutely. The wife also plays a 68 shaman to back up my 75 bard, and we do very well together. (Reccommend Chaotic Strike procs or an anger proc of somekind in the lower levels to help with agro if going someplace potentially a little above you in levels though)

 A druid friend and I have been duoing a lot of stuff the past few months and it works well.  We were both high level and geared well when we met though, so not sure how it would be at lower levels, or with lower gear, but I'm sure it wouldn't be much different.  It is nice having her to heal as well as DPSing well.  As an added plus, a porting class + bard speed means getting anywhere in the EQ world pretty speedily Lol.  To keep aggro so she can drop nukes better I sing Jonthan's and 3 DoTs, and have clicky mana song for her, though I would probably drop a DoT for mana song on her if I didn't have that.  Also I use 3 CS procs + Lure of Ice atm which helps her from pulling aggro, though she certainly can and does sometimes if she gets feisty lol.

 

Another thing that helps, if a mob gets a good round on me or she starts a heal too late (darn her!) if I die she can just evac herself and be back to me for a rez fairly easily.  This has saved us time on numerous occasions. 

I have enjoyed the Bard/Druid duo over the years.  My wife recently retired from eq so I have kept her account active for her hopeful return.  I love having the druid around when I am kitiing, snares for the mobs who like to run plus adding in some dots or the odd nuke quickens the kill.  As for head to head fighting she has learned my bards pros and cons as a tank and we can do fairly well.  Of course we always try to start out full buffed but as time passes and buffs fade she can still keep me up.  I can hydra the team in both kiting and heads up melee but nothing comes close to what we can do with each of ourselves at the keyboards.

Pick a duo and make the most of it, I am sure there will be hickups along the way but remember it is more the enjoyment of a friends company than anything else.

Any class that can root or snare and DoT is a good duo.  Just figure out who will usually get aggro, and develop a plan together that ensures aggro stays with whichever one of you it is, so that the mob's behavior will be conistent.