Bard or Druid, and Beastlord...

[Kuttykins]

When this summer gets around. I will be going to my dad's and he has two compters and two accounts one with a 65 Bard and other with a 65 Druid. I will be spending at lease a week to get him his flags on the Bard. I can box them both well, I have a 65 Druid myself and I know how to kite.

My Question is which class would be better to box with? I kind of firgured Bard if i want to kite, but kiting can get very dull.  :)  :)

[Tastian]

Yeah really depends what you are doing.  If I were just pounding easy blue stuff down I'd take the bard.  You don't really need the heals from druid and the extra mana/haste/etc from bard just makes you kill all the faster.  If I felt like doing harder mobs like in BoT and stuff where druid heals could eliminate downtime or even keep me up well killing harder mobs then I'd do that.  Always nice to have options.  8)

[Rhajah]

pardon my asking, but how on earth do you 2-box a Bard?  I'm assuming you'd want to be doing twisting, instrument swapping, meleeing, etc - so how do you manage to 2 box that?

Thanks.

[Jaeren]

It's not a fun process to 2box a bard. I used to two box a bard & a cleric (for a while even on one computer). You control the 2nd char in 3 second bursts or need to be ambidexterous :P

[Kuttykins]

Two boxxing a bard is easy, Invis the beastlord and Quad with the bard ^^

[Et^Cetera]

Most peoples idea of 2-boxing a bard is to leave him/her sat there with mana song running.  :?

[Kuttykins]

Lol that is because most don't know how to play a bard.

[Coprolith]

Two boxxing a bard is easy, Invis the beastlord and Quad with the bard ^^

I take it then you're only goal is to PL the beastlord otherwise there's no point in setting up your 2boxing like this. In that case your choice depends on who can kill mobs faster, the bard or the druid. /shrug, dunno, never played a bard. I do know that if I just singlepull mobs with my BL and have the druid sit in the background nuking and healing the BL, i can kill 4 mobs in a row a whole lot faster then my druid can quad.

/hugs

[Jaeren]

Depends on the style the bard is used for. Chant kiting, the beastlord would be faster prob. A swarm kiting bard though uses the other mobs to kill his target for him, so they go down very fast. One of the more accurate things said about bards in general is that after the first initial 30ish levels, powerlevelign a bard is useless if you can figure out swarmkiting. A swarm kiting bard can level MUCH faster than any other class. It's a lto of work though and not for everyone.

As far as back to the original question, if you can swarm kite.. Play the bard & swarm, let the other char suck up xp is prob the fastest, though maybe not the most fun way. otherwise, it's up to your personal play style and what is the most fun / efficient for your style.

[Dakat]

Boxing, depending on which classes you chose to box with, one of them will always not perform to their peak if someone was actually playing that character.  Knowing this, you would want to pick a character that will actually be a benefit to the other.

I play my beast most always. When I want to box, I have many choises.  My main offensive character is the Beast.  I can put in a cleric, bard, necro, druid, paladin or an enchanter.  The easiest character to box with the beast is the cleric.  Since they don't melee or nuke and can sit back for the most part and heal whenever necessary.  The hardest, to actually get full benefits from both characters is a bard.  Bard brings a little bit of everything to the table.  You got mezes, paci's, dots, haste to name a few.

For me, I find that I get more benefit and less hastle with a druid than any other class I box.  Most places I solo is outdoors due to boxing the druid. Using them to paci static spawns and single pull.  Offering a damage shield, and very strong dots that come second to the necro and pretty tied with the bard.

Tactics with any class will differ.  I like to tank with the beast, and use another character as support.  For the bard they would play mana song to start, as i get everything buffed and ready. Park pet and run out to pull. Mob comes in, I attack it with pet and beast and switch to the bard.  I'll assist melee and twist some songs until the beast is getting low on life or is getting out of range of mob. Then Ill jump back over and reposition the beast and continue from there.  Kiting might be possible, but then your losing all your atk capabilities the beast offers.  

Playing with a druid as support, you get a lot of utility out of them.  Make pet, get buffed up (don't forget to buff your pet with druid 9 or similar buff). Druid goes out, pacis the area, pulls with a snare and brings mob to camp. Engage with the beast and pet until the beast has agro.  Switch back to the druid and throw out your dots. Druids can solo using the root and rot method. So having a perminate root (the beast) on a mob makes it that much easier for the druid.  Then you can heal the beast, evac if necessary, or go to another camp quickly in another zone.  

When I'm playing though, the roles are reversed. I use the beast to powerlevel the druid or the bard.  So I kill mobs that my beast can do solo. Then adding the extra toon to assist makes the killing go twice as fast in most situations.

Maybe this will give you some insite in what you want to accomplish.

[Pussinbootz]

I just buff up both toon, thorn up and pull three or four mobs with snare and hand of Ro. ( use only zero damage spells) The mobs beat down on the thorned druid and the beastie hits from behind. I make sure I get a hit on each mod, then work on the highest level on to build melee skills.
Problem is now that I am almost finished with TOFS, where do I go next? Gunthak? Nadox? I need low toon content with lots of mobs.