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4 months ago ::
Feb 06, 2013 - 12:31PM
#1
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Date Joined:
Mar 30, 2011
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Howdy Guys,
I'm thinking of playing a bard in a buddies upcoming game and after looking through all my options I've decided to go Half-elf and MC into swordmage so that I can use heavy and light blades as my implements. My question however, is this; Most of the abilities I've taken are Ranged X abilities which, to my understanding, will grant OAs to any adjacent enemies when I use them in melee. Is there a feat to mitigate this without going pure implement build and picking up White Lotus Dueling Expertise and Staff Expertise? Or am I better off going the Skald route and changning up my character a bit?
Thanks for the help
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4 months ago ::
Feb 06, 2013 - 12:47PM
#2
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Date Joined:
Nov 16, 2007
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You don't even have to MC swordmage (wasted skill), you can use a songblade.
Your ranged implement attacks will provoke, but experience tells me ranged bards are rarely in a situation where they have to provoke, and when they do, it's intentional to trigger mark punishment. I haven't seen it become a big issue.
If it does become an issue, you can just MC Psion for Dishearten or Dimensional Scramble and a good trained skill, and grab Staff Expertise instead.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 06, 2013 - 4:11PM
#3
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Date Joined:
Jul 16, 2010
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Your ranged implement attacks will provoke, but experience tells me ranged bards are rarely in a situation where they have to provoke, and when they do, it's intentional to trigger mark punishment.
This, basically. There are two things you can do to mitigate the OA issue.
1) Position yourself so that you aren't adjacent to an enemy, if at all possible. Your Defender is responsible for helping with this, among other things.
2) Since you have a sword anyway, take a handful of melee attacks so you always have an OA-free option. Your encounter and daily melee attacks basically suck until level 7, but War Song Strike and Guiding Strike are both decent enough at-wills.
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4 months ago ::
Feb 06, 2013 - 4:26PM
#4
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Date Joined:
May 27, 2011
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And if you're going half-elf, you could always Dilletante for something like Eldritch Strike or Virtuous Strike. Not only does it give you a melee attack, it gives you something you can use for an MBA if necessary (and you can take it from encounter to at-will in Paragon).
Out of curiosity, since you're looking at half-elf are you planning on going Valor Bard?
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4 months ago ::
Feb 06, 2013 - 4:38PM
#5
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Date Joined:
Sep 17, 2007
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You don't even have to MC swordmage (wasted skill), you can use a songblade.
Your ranged implement attacks will provoke, but experience tells me ranged bards are rarely in a situation where they have to provoke, and when they do, it's intentional to trigger mark punishment. I haven't seen it become a big issue.
If it does become an issue, you can just MC Psion for Dishearten or Dimensional Scramble and a good trained skill, and grab Staff Expertise instead.
Using a songblade is kind of a bad idea because it costs you your weapon enchant though. It's much better to just pony up a feat for Arcane Implement Proficiency.
Mountain Cleave Rule: You can have any sort of fun, including broken, silly fun, so long as I get to have that fun too (e. g., if you can warp reality with your spells, I can cleave mountains with my blade).
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4 months ago ::
Feb 06, 2013 - 4:45PM
#6
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Date Joined:
Feb 26, 2011
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And if you're going half-elf, you could always Dilletante for something like Eldritch Strike or Virtuous Strike. Not only does it give you a melee attack, it gives you something you can use for an MBA if necessary (and you can take it from encounter to at-will in Paragon).
Out of curiosity, since you're looking at half-elf are you planning on going Valor Bard?
General best bet for a Half-elf bard is Magic Weapon
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4 months ago ::
Feb 06, 2013 - 5:00PM
#7
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Date Joined:
May 27, 2011
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And if you're going half-elf, you could always Dilletante for something like Eldritch Strike or Virtuous Strike. Not only does it give you a melee attack, it gives you something you can use for an MBA if necessary (and you can take it from encounter to at-will in Paragon).
Out of curiosity, since you're looking at half-elf are you planning on going Valor Bard?
General best bet for a Half-elf bard is Magic Weapon
Well, that would go under "something like...."
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4 months ago ::
Feb 06, 2013 - 5:20PM
#8
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Combo'ing Eldtrich Strike with the level 1 encounter Lesser dimensional step creates an interesting repsotioning trick
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4 months ago ::
Feb 06, 2013 - 5:23PM
#9
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Your ranged implement attacks will provoke, but experience tells me ranged bards are rarely in a situation where they have to provoke, and when they do, it's intentional to trigger mark punishment.
This, basically. There are two things you can do to mitigate the OA issue.
1) Position yourself so that you aren't adjacent to an enemy, if at all possible. Your Defender is responsible for helping with this, among other things.
2) Since you have a sword anyway, take a handful of melee attacks so you always have an OA-free option. Your encounter and daily melee attacks basically suck until level 7, but War Song Strike and Guiding Strike are both decent enough at-wills.
Slayer's Song is a good melee daily for comboing with staggering note (especially if the mba ally is a rogue) but in generally without the skald aura, you have few melee daily choices and most arent that good. Melee Cunning Bards have some chalenges in this department in general...
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4 months ago ::
Feb 06, 2013 - 5:30PM
#10
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Date Joined:
Feb 26, 2011
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Close Burst dailies work fine, and most of the heroic dailies are meh anyways.
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