Shattered Kingdoms

10% regen at 10 wis and no mana trains is a different amount than 10% regen at 25 wis and 3 mana trains. You're getting a lot more bang for your buck in the second case, even though the % stayed the same.

Sure, but my point is that spending trains on mana as a bard (or mercenary) just isn't worth it. The amount of regen that just those trains will give you isn't, in my experience, going to amount to much.

Or to put it in your words, 20% regen while sleeping with 20 wis and 0 mana trains isn't much less than 22% regen while sleeping with 20 wis and 5 mana trains, and if you ask me, that's more like what you're going to get if you train mana without meditation or trance to back it up.

If a bard has extra stat points to spare and wants to train mana, go right ahead, but I think there are better options.

Correct me if Im wrong didnt D make a statement that HP and Mana trains give you more HP and mana than Con and wisdom trains? (it doesnt give you the other bonus like for and will saves)

I think he said that it depends on that amount of wis/con, and that at the high levels of wis/con you will get more HP from 1 point in those stats than from one train. Going from 24 to 25 wis, for example, will give you more mana than a single mana train, but the point is that you still might want to train mana and mod wis, because mana gear doesn't increase your regen rate like training mana does.

Max mana is almost a requirement to play gm bard. If you do max mana and know the timing of how many lines of songs you can sing per tic, you can sleep in time and recover songs of healing plus dancing mana. Played a few bards without max mana before my recent string of gm bards (Mitro, Pibbs, Iktinos), but they were immensely painful to play (given the amount of sleeping it took to recover). However this also means that my bards were stat-starved, and are rubbish after dying before the intricate process of re-consecrating gear to make up for very low stats.

In PvE, a well prepared and equipped bard is tons of fun. In PvP, they are extremely squishy. But they are very rewarding to play. Persuade isn't too bad in my opinion, but would be much better if warlock and shaman NPCs that could cast accordingly actually existed.

I have max mana maxe moded wisdom and I get 13% sleeping in an inn. I think trance is appropriate. Persaude is still junk, when I try to persuade mentor level NPCs and have over six failures in a row, the success rate needs looked at. I mean charm and petrification are "I win" spells and they succeed far more than persuade.

Sorry this is going to be a long post.
Having played Ellilium for quite some time now, these are my observations on some of the matters forementioned.

Intricate is right, if you want to play at full effectiveness.
Dex, Int, and Cha are all primaries for a bard. Str, Con and Wis you still want as high as possible for obvious reasons.
HP (your squishy), mana (sleep a day in the wild), arts (scrolls+), move (everything drains you PE, combat, dancing, chords) you want most if not all of them.
Even ignoring half those, your looking at having no more than a dozen points to use on stats, and you basically need max stats in everything.

Songs of Sleep: the issue I have here is the number of creatures that 'heave' their bulk around, a 2nd rank bard will get bashed, stopping the dancing, hindering your own party, which is why the other songs tend to get more use in PvEI am curious about this as well, ONLY songs of protection has this currently that I have noticed, and it was CHANGED to this a few months back. All of a sudden it is giving a deflection bonus, which overwrites armor and shield, where it was previously stacking as a competence bonus.
Could we get confirmation on whether this is as intended, or an oversight?

Something along this line I do feel is sorely needed. C major is the only chord useable in a group currently. A new chord, possibly as high as Mentor or Master in status that would deal damage between c and f, not sure on secondary effect if any.

I would have to agree here, the problem I always have with bards is the choice, sing a song, and if things go bad your plain screwed. You can not eat/drink/quaff/recite without first stopping, and the 'stop' lag feels way too long in combat.
Or I can basically ignore my ability to aid the party, and just throw in some chords, which means only c major, and this is not always an option, as so many keys will shatter from the very first chord.

Not exactly, I find I can operate great on my own except in very tough areas. If well geared, and already prepped via persuade spells, f minor allows me to destroy most groups or single targets before they can do any serious damage to me. However this is primarily due to being a sprite.


Persuade: couple buffs (okay, more than a couple) is about right, could use some tweaking though. Nearly useless with a Charisma below 20, success and fails seem to just come in random waves no matter where you are at or above this mark. (have compared to Elf bards)

Meditation: I do think they need something to increase mana regen. Not sure if gaining this at Expert like a Paladin or Hellion would be too powerful? Someone who has more experience with these hybrid classes may be able to say more.

Shield Block: Not sure why they do not have it already. Dance too much in combination? Anything to help increase defense would be nice, though I do not think this is necessary.

This would be interesting, not a stretch either, considering songs can already dispel.

HP Pool: Well yeah... squishy, if they are landing blows 2-3 rounds is right. Not sure how they compare to the other adventurer classes in this regard.


The biggest thing that would help bards in my opinion, would be reducing if not removing the lag after you stop singing or dancing.
This would give a chance for a reaction at least, I would be fine with the lag being redirected to a period of time during which you can do other things, but can not start up a new song or start dancing again.

It has not been changed. The song always granted a deflection bonus.