Bard as a Tank for Boxing and other questions

J

Jouer

Dalayan Beginner
Executive summary: How well can a bard serve as a tank for boxing with a druid? Does this combo eventually fail at higher levels when mobs hit harder, limit itself only to certain content, etc.?

More info:
Coming to SoD with a friend and starting from scratch. We're both long time MMO gamers (EQ1 beta), but are basically new here and trying to figure out what to play. He's decided on a wizzy and is not going to dual box. I will be dual boxing and am wondering what will work best with him. We both eventually are interested in end game play, but right now, since these are our new toons here, we're more focused on what will let us best level so that we can later twink other alts, etc.

I'm leaning towards a Druid/Bard combo to box using the bard as a tank, but am wondering if this is viable. Would something else be better with the druid here, for example, a pally or whatever? What would let us level the fastest while letting us see the most content?

Any help or perspective you guys could provide on this would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
 
I would not say bards fail as a tank but your going to encounter rough patches where your bard will get owned without having very good gear. It will work but your going to have trouble tanking things past 60 most likely.

If you just care about getting a foothold and being able to explore alts and what not you should probably just make a paladin over the bard
 
bard/druid will level fine but you'll likely kite rather than tank for most of leveling up from about 20 to 65. The wizard will be able to help here with ranged aoe dps as well.

At 65 your bard will start to not be the greatest tank for a while until you get kitted out in some good plate gear, and at the high end they are really more relegated to off tanking/dps than actually tanking. They will still be just fine as a tank in most xp group content and can keep pretty good aggro by spamming aoe songs.
 
Unless you plan on being in a high end gear, like Otcho said, you will fall short on boxing white cons and such but IMO it is a pretty fun duo.
 
I am pretty sure the roughest parts of bard/druid are going to be 55-65 and the first 100+ aa's you will probably need to group or do some horrible rat camping in necropolis
 
Otcho said:
I am pretty sure the roughest parts of bard/druid are going to be 55-65 and the first 100+ aa's you will probably need to group or do some horrible rat camping in necropolis
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Yep. Had the same issue with my ranger / dr00d duo.

After 100-150 AAs, power through. =)
 
Jouer said:
Executive summary: How well can a bard serve as a tank for boxing with a druid? Does this combo eventually fail at higher levels when mobs hit harder, limit itself only to certain content, etc.?

More info:
Coming to SoD with a friend and starting from scratch. We're both long time MMO gamers (EQ1 beta), but are basically new here and trying to figure out what to play. He's decided on a wizzy and is not going to dual box. I will be dual boxing and am wondering what will work best with him. We both eventually are interested in end game play, but right now, since these are our new toons here, we're more focused on what will let us best level so that we can later twink other alts, etc.

I'm leaning towards a Druid/Bard combo to box using the bard as a tank, but am wondering if this is viable. Would something else be better with the druid here, for example, a pally or whatever? What would let us level the fastest while letting us see the most content?

Any help or perspective you guys could provide on this would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
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Bards definitely aren't very good tanks while leveling. Once you get some raid gear they work really well, but i'd recommend a paladin unless you plan on pushing to the highest of the high end.
 
Good stuff - thanks for the prompt replies! Sounds like Druid/Bard may not be the best boxing combo after all.

Any logic chosing a War over a Pally or some other class with the druid for this kind of setup?

Thanks again.
 
the three tank classes each have their own benefits:

warriors are by far the best at mitigating damage, however they are the most gear dependent of a gear dependent subset. they also are not great at keeping aggro on mutiple targets, since their melee dps/procs are their primary way to generate aggro.

shadowknights have great duoing utility with their ability to feign death to split pulls and lifetaps to heal themselves while tanking, but they will not tank quite as well as a warrior. Shadowknights use single target spells to keep aggro but they give a lot of hate, so you can keep aggro on multiple mobs by switching targets.

paladins are the group tank of choice right now, because they can heal your group with group hot spells and keep aggro on multiple targets with relative ease by using their pbaoe blind and stun spells, however they do not take damage wuite as well as either of the other two tanks.


two other "Halfsie tanks' are bards and monks, they are very gear dependent but once they are set up the bards dps/copy of every spell in the game and the monk's FD splits and dps will make up for some of what they can't do in pure tanking ability.
 
Bard/Cleric is pretty powerful if you were considering not druid as a healer box.
 
I think it depends on how you want to play, and how high end you anticipate going. Wiz+bard+druid would be an amazing team for kiting, and could also kill thing just fine with the bard tanking. Kiting gets harder as you near 65 though. Mobs start summoning, most of the good exp/loot is in dungeons, etc.

A cleric instead of the druid, or one of the traditional tanks and either cleric or shaman, would handle level 65 content better. There's really nothing stopping you from just filling up the group with people you meet though.

One final thing I'd toss out is that the advantages druids have compared to other healers are transportation, tracking, evac, and damage shields. Wizard+bard covers all of those except damage shields, but you can usually get a DS pretty easily from another players.

Even very unconventional groups can do all but the very hardest of content, albeit maybe not as efficiently. If you play the class(es) you enjoy, you'll figure out how to make it work.
 
Jouer said:
Good stuff - thanks for the prompt replies! Sounds like Druid/Bard may not be the best boxing combo after all.

Any logic chosing a War over a Pally or some other class with the druid for this kind of setup?

Thanks again.
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Like Tyrone pointed out, warriors are very gear dependant but as far as holding aggro on multiple target is... it really isn't hard. You just need to switch targets efficiently.
 
If you are always going to be playing together, bard+cleric might be a better idea than bard+druid (since bard gets track, wizard gets ports, and wizard can be dps. cleric will even out a weaker tank with bigger heals than a druid during lvling up).

However if you will be playing on your own with the combo druid dps and ports will be nice, I suppose you also have the dmg shield from druid going for you.

Bard can be an absolutely awesome tank for exp in the right gear for the level, if you can get some nice stuff they also get some spells for ae agro really early in levels and thus can tank multiples for faster exp/lvling. If you have weak gear you might be better off kiting, but still the combo won't be bad.

Bards have been known to get better exp solo than a good full group is able to get at same gear/aa/tomes, so I wouldnt worry much about the choice.
 
Bard + druid is an awesome combo if you don't expect to tank unreasonnably tough mobs in the end.
Of course, like any plate class, it will give it's full potential at 65 only after a good bit of aa and farming for gear.

EDIT: by good bit, I mean 250+
 
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Through a strange series of coincidences I have ended up with Bard/Cleric duo. Bard tanks much better with a solid cleric healing him. While he can tank, he can not tank like a real tank. With similar gear, I think my Cleric could probably tank almost as well as the Bard, to be honest.

If I started over, for duoing, with a Bard/healer, I would go with Bard/Druid for the wider range of spell options.

For getting groups/raids, having a solid cleric is always nice.

But if you really want a tank/healer combo then don't get a bard, get a real tank.

And an incredibly effective duoing combo can be Monk/Druid.
 
The biggest advice that I would give you is to have your wizard buddy box an enchanter. I know that you said he doesn't want to box, but he can literally park it AFK in zone as a buffbot. You will get the exact same experience with or without a 4th player in group so it hinders you in no ways.

Having access to a KEI/empower bot at 65 is a godsend and will save you a lot of time/money trying to get others to buff you later. Again, he doesn't actually have to play the character other than cast mana regen, haste, and then find a nice corner to AFK in while he plays the wizard.

As to bard/druid/cleric. Play whatever you will have the most fun with.
 
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