| Bards are usually underestimated in leveling speed imo. They have very decent dps with their own buffs(you're looking at like +20%dmg with a melee song), but they speed up leveling by a lot compared to most other classes if you quest, because they have the speed/invis songs(cuts travelling time by a lot, not as much an issue since there's rifts everywhere now, but still very good). Running around at 200%speed at level 10, and around 350% at level 20 makes a huge difference when questing.
You also get regen songs which actually work(they fixed them a bit before I quit and they still look like they work). You just slap a few gear switch when you change songs to regen, or make a half combat half regen song if you don't like sitting there doing nothing.
The class itself is really great imo, making your own songs is awesome, and you get a lot of powerful stuff. From what I get they actually fixed the damage songs since I last played too, and you can pretty much solo any monster in the game as long as you have arrows and time by kiting them. Oh and Fox overtake the Hare animation was fucking great. I believe they switched it with the animation on Striking the Mountain though, which somewhat makes it less cool.
As for getting crafted gear, I guess it's more an issue at low level where you don't really have the money to buy stuff. At least I don't, I already had to spend like all my money getting 6slots bags at level 10. At 20 I doubt I'll have so much I can actually buy a full set of crafted thestran armor of health(which is probably expensive enough since it's good). |