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I would like to try to dispute the statement
"A Bard that isn't playing an instrument is a misused character".
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[long, extremely well-thought-out analysis deleted]
That's probably the best "How to build a Fighting Bard" analysis I've seen; nice job. I don't know if Ironworks has a facility to archive such useful information, but I'm certainly going to keep a copy.
And it's an irrefutable counter to a claim like "It's impossible to have a Bard that's a pretty good melee character". However, that wasn't what I said. If anything, your excellent analysis just serves to support my point:
1) With detailed analysis and rigorous development, it is possible to build a Bard that is, at best, the third-best melee fighter in the game ("at best" because I'm not convinced that an appropriately-developed and -equipped Samurai wouldn't out-perform the Bard as a hack'n'slasher)
2) While this third-best melee fighter is doing all that fighting, who is playing all those heavy, expensive instruments you gathered?
3) Since no one is playing any of those instruments (oops--gave away the answer to #2 there), what good are they doing anyone?
That's my point about the Bard: her raison d'etre is to play; any time she isn't doing that, you're giving away her Bard'ness in exchange for something that a number of other classes do better than her.
I agree, though, that the Bard-only items rock. Someone at Sir-Tech must have had a definite "thing" for the Bard class; it seems to have received a *lot* of thought, effort, and TLC.
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....Mainly this is possible through the discovery that Piety actually does very little for casters. It's direct and indirect effect on spell points is small and with Soul Shield, Element Shield and Magic Screen in place, Iron Will is mostly redundant (and only benefits each character that independently has it). It is ironic that even for the Priest the starting minimum Piety level of 60 is quite sufficient for all purposes, as far as I can tell.
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Isn't that silly? You'd think that something as in-your-face as a primary character statistic would have a definite, measureable, and (at least in some cases) indispensable value. I.e., there would be some number of classes (Priest being the obvious one) or skills for which a high Piety was critical, and you'd pay a large penalty if you didn't develop it. That certainly doesn't seem to be the case in Wiz8.