Guide to the Bardic Arts This guide will cover the following aspects of barding: I. Bardic skills in general II. Training suggestions III. How to profit from your skills as a minstrel I. Bardic skills in general As you know, there are four skills related to barding on this shard: Musicianship, Discordance, Peacemaking, and Provocation. Musicianship is checked on every attempt to Discord, Peacemake, or Provoke a monster. Your chance of passing this check is simply equal to your skill; at a Musicianship skill of 63.4, you have a 63.4% chance of passing the skill check. If you pass the check, your attempt to Discord/Peacemake/Provoke will continue and whichever of those you're trying to use will checked. At that state, however, a complex calculation occurs that compares your skill and your instrument to the Barding Difficulty of the monster you've targeted. Aside: Barding Difficulty is listed in the Bestiary for all animals and monsters. This is a rough number; in fact, the actual barding difficulty varies a bit by the precise stats/skills of the individual monster of the type you're targeting. (You can see this exact number at GM Animal Lore by using that skill in-game). If your Peace/Provoke/Disco skill is the same as the barding difficulty listed for the monster or animal, you have a 50% chance of success. If your skill is 25.0 or more lower than that value, you have a 0% chance for success. And if your skill is 25.0 or more above that value, you have a 100% chance of success. As with all skills in the game, if you have a 0% chance of success or a 100% chance of success, you will not be able to gain skill. So it is important to find monsters at an appropriate training level for you. Finally, there is one last chance to succeed at Provoking/Peacemaking/Discording your target, if the target has a barding difficulty > 100. If you have Grandmastery in Musicianship and the relevant skill, you will have a 5% chance upon failure to "barely" succeed at barding your target. You get another 5% bons from GM Discordance. (Note that this means this chance is 10% for trying to Discord an animal at GM Music & Disco with no other skills needed). This bonus is necessary as there are many monsters (bosses for example) for whom you will never succeed at barding from the first check, because your barding skill will always be more than 25 points below their Barding Difficulty. So what do the skills do? Peacemaking can briefly stop all combat in an area if you target yourself with the skill. If targeting a monster, you can get them to stop aggressing whatever they're currently fighting for a bit longer period. Provocation will require two targets, and if successful they will fight each other. And Discordance lops off 20% of the stats and skills of its target while it is in effect. II. Training suggestions Because Musicianship is always checked first, and if you fail it you have no chance at using, and raising, the actual barding skill you're attempting, it is generally wisest to get Musicianship up to 90-100 before even attempting to raise one of the other skills. To do this, simply buy a couple dozen of your favorite instrument, and make a macro that uses that instrument type over and over by double-clicking it. There is no skill delay check here, so you don't even need a pause in your macro. It should look something like this: Use item by type (drum) ...with the Loop checkbox checked. Peacemaking is the next easiest skill to train. Simply activate it and target yourself to attempt to briefly stop all aggression in the area. You can GM the skill this way. Provocation is a bit harder than Peacemaking since it requires targets of an appropriate difficulty. The best place to train Provocation up to around 75 is the Moonglow Zoo. Simply target the Frost Troll in one cage, and any monster in another cage as the second target. After 75, you have two choices for best gains: Pirate Sailors in Occlo, or Ogre Lords in Wrong. Why not Wyverns at Wyvern Isle? Well, they have a lower difficulty than the Pirate Sailor or the Ogre Lord. And, because GM instruments (which people commonly use for training due to their increased durability) give you a higher effective skill, you actually can reach a point with Wyverns in which you stop gaining because you have a 100% chance of success thanks to your GM instrument. For Discordance, gaining skill is a bit trickier. Again, you need to be mindful of the Barding Difficulty of your target. In this case though, you benefit from the fact that Discordance is not an "aggressive" action. So you can Discord a friendly monster without being attacked. The difficulty arises in that the Discordance effect will last until you leave the Line of Sight of the monster for 16 seconds or more. And you cannot further gain Discordance skill by using that skill on a monster already being discorded. Wodan recommends this macro to be the most efficient: Code: !Loop Assistant.Macros.DoubleClickTypeAction|3741|True2 Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|15 Assistant.Macros.WaitForTargetAction|3 Assistant.Macros.AbsoluteTargetAction|0|0|434080|4509|1390|23|55 Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:15 Assistant.Macros.SpeechAction|0|52|3|ENU|2|16|7|GUARDS Assistant.Macros.IfAction|4|0|you attempt to disrupt Assistant.Macros.ElseAction Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|21 Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:17 Assistant.Macros.EndIfAction Even more sophisticated is to have multiple targets you can cycle through. This allows you to Discord each of them in turn, and when they're all under the effects, Hiding for 16 seconds ends the effect on all of them at once and you can begin again. Here is some detail I how I did this: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=1646&start=15#p17085 And here is the Ogre Lord method: III. How to profit from your skills as a minstrel In most games, Bards play a supporting role to a party. This can certainly be done in UO as well. Among a swarm of monsters, Provocation can be best to eliminate monsters two at a time, keeping them occupied. Discordance can make very powerful enemies (bosses, etc.) have significantly lowered skills and stats. This is not terribly helpful for things like HP and Strength - 2,000 is still more than enough! - but for skills like Wrestling, it reduces their chance to hit your party and increases your party's chance to hit them. Finally, Peacemaking can also be used, either on the area to allow a moment to escape, or on a target to keep them from damaging party members for a bit. However, Bards can also serve as an individual income source. As a supporting skill, Discordance or Peacemaking can allow your weapon skills, magery, or pets, to have an easier time killing monsters. Provocation is valuable by itself, allowing you to use monsters' strengths against them. To attain the highest income rate possible, it's best to choose monsters that have a lot of offense but not too much defense. This will generally be monsters that can either poison other monsters, or can cast spells on them, effectively "mana dumping" each other. Dragons, Drakes, Titans, Cyclops, Liches, Lich Lords, Terathans, and Ophidians, are all effective income sources for a bard.
Great Guide, wanted to contribute some information on the bonus applied when you have multiple barding skills and when attempting very difficulty creatures. Also when attempting to maintain control of a provoked creature you need to stay within 30 tiles of the creature once 30 seconds has passed. If you creature no longer detects you presence at that point, the control will expire. Barding Skill Update from Patch 25 Discordance Modified the success chance of the discord skill to have a bonus to success should you meet the following conditions 100 Discordance 100 Musicianship A target with a barding difficulty of over 100 (calculated after instrument bonus's are applied) Should these conditions be meet, no matter how difficult the monster you will always have at least a 10% chance to succeed. Keep in mind the discordance skill's duration is based on the barding difficulty of the targeted creature. So even if you succeed on a very hard creature, the effects will be short. Provoke Modified the success chance of the provoke skill to have a bonus to success should you meet the following conditions 100 Provocation 100 Musicianship A target with a barding difficulty of over 100 (calculated after instrument bonus's are applied) Should these conditions be meet, no matter how difficult the monster you will always have at least a 5% chance to succeed. Should you also have 100 Discordance you will receive an additional 5% bonus to success. Should you only succeed due to the bonus chance you will see a slightly different message indicating you "barely" succeeded in your provocation attempt. Peacemaking Modified the success chance of the peacemaking skill to have a bonus to success should you meet the following conditions 100 Peacemaking 100 Musicianship A target with a barding difficulty of over 100 (calculated after instrument bonus's are applied) Should these conditions be meet, no matter how difficult the monster you will always have at least a 5% chance to succeed. Should you also have 100 Discordance you will receive an additional 5% bonus to success. Should you only succeed due to the bonus chance you will see a slightly different message indicating you "barely" succeeded in your peacemaking attempt.
I have a little addition to your Discord Macro. You actually check if the Discord was successful and then trigger hiding. I had my Discord Macro setup this way but ran into deadlocks when for some reason the discord isn't broken the first time. You get revealed or the SysMsg isn't interpreted properly and from then on the target remains in discord and you never get the success message again to trigger another 16s of Hiding. Instead, I changed my macro to check for the FAILURE message and made it look like this: Code: !Loop Assistant.Macros.DoubleClickTypeAction|3741|True2 Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|15 Assistant.Macros.WaitForTargetAction|3 Assistant.Macros.AbsoluteTargetAction|0|0|434080|4509|1390|23|55 Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:15 Assistant.Macros.SpeechAction|0|52|3|ENU|2|16|7|GUARDS Assistant.Macros.IfAction|4|0|you attempt to disrupt Assistant.Macros.ElseAction Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|21 Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:17 Assistant.Macros.EndIfAction This will check if you FAILED discord. If you did, nothing happens but there is an ELSE branch that will trigger the hiding. This way you will hide when discord DIDN'T fail.
I just elaborated on Wodan's macro that he posted and changed it for multiple targets as the link in the Dalavar's original guide for cycling multiple targets was not working for me! This is working for me but there may be a better way to do it. Code: !Loop Assistant.Macros.DoubleClickTypeAction|3741|True Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|15 Assistant.Macros.WaitForTargetAction|3 Assistant.Macros.AbsoluteTargetAction|0|0|216873|4510|1354|23|220 Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:12 Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|15 Assistant.Macros.WaitForTargetAction|3 Assistant.Macros.AbsoluteTargetAction|0|0|291715|4506|1357|23|29 Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:12 Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|15 Assistant.Macros.WaitForTargetAction|3 Assistant.Macros.AbsoluteTargetAction|0|0|217376|4506|1359|23|25 Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:12 Assistant.Macros.SpeechAction|0|52|3|ENU|2|16|7|GUARDS Assistant.Macros.IfAction|4|0|you attempt to disrupt Assistant.Macros.ElseAction Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|21 Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:17 Assistant.Macros.EndIfAction Now you just need to re-target and it is good to go.
What is the percentage of stat and skill loss a creature will receive? I'm sure certain variables need to be considered... so GM music GM Discord with a Slayer (exorcism) instrument vs a Balron. Will they lose 15%, 20%, 5%? is it a set number or a random scale?
Is there an index of some sort of approximate barding difficulty for various mobs? What could I peace with 80 peace 80 music? Also how long does a direct peace last for (as opposed to targeting myself)
Geo, each beast in bestiary has its barding difficulty. Not sure about the second question, it's based on chance, everytime something lands a hit on the NPC, there is a chance the NPC is no longer peaced anymore. Musicianship is always required so just assume it will always be 100. All bard skills have an initial check of musicianship before the relevant skill check. So make sure you have musicianship to 100.
I was doing kind of a wonky build. I was about to drop peace and music and just wanted to see if there was any way I could make it work. Looks like I'll have to drop it.
Just FYI - At 65ish discord, I am getting a drop of ~10% in health/str/wrestling. Still going up, so we will see if it's 20%. Also, i think it's important to note, that only appears to break after hiding for 16 seconds, simply breaking LOS doesn't seem to work. I worked discord at Moonglow Zoo and would walk behind a wall for 20 seconds (couldn't cast on my target) and the discord wouldn't break... What's worked for me: started with 50 discord 50-73: four drakes (tame) in a house - discord each, hide. 50-73 took 4ish hours. 73-90 (thus far): four pirates in Occlo provo house.
I tweaked the macro a little maybe its useful for others, or if you have improvements. Click Instrument Use Disco, Wait For Target, Absolute Target #1 Pause 1 second If SysMessage "already" Hide for 16 seconds Else Pause 11 seconds Use Disco, Wait For Target, Absolute Target #2 Pause 1 Second If SysMessage "already" Hide for 16 seconds Else Pause 11 seconds Code: !Loop Assistant.Macros.DoubleClickTypeAction|3741|True Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|15 Assistant.Macros.WaitForTargetAction|2 Assistant.Macros.AbsoluteTargetAction|0|0|435185|3416|2599|55|401 Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:01 Assistant.Macros.IfAction|4|0|already Assistant.Macros.HotKeyAction|1044081| Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:16 Assistant.Macros.ElseAction Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:11 Assistant.Macros.EndIfAction Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|15 Assistant.Macros.WaitForTargetAction|2 Assistant.Macros.AbsoluteTargetAction|0|0|435260|3420|2599|55|400 Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:01 Assistant.Macros.IfAction|4|0|already Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|21 Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:16 Assistant.Macros.ElseAction Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:11 Assistant.Macros.EndIfAction
Just sharing a macro that I'm using for raising Enticement / Discordance only. Code: !Loop Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|15 Assistant.Macros.WaitForTargetAction|30 Assistant.Macros.AbsoluteTargetAction|0|0|439385|1114|2730|6|42 Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:12 Assistant.Macros.IfAction|4|0|but fail Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|15 Assistant.Macros.WaitForTargetAction|30 Assistant.Macros.AbsoluteTargetAction|0|0|439385|1114|2730|6|42 Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:12 Assistant.Macros.EndIfAction Assistant.Macros.WalkAction|0 Assistant.Macros.WalkAction|0 Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|21 Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:16 Assistant.Macros.WalkAction|4 Assistant.Macros.WalkAction|4 This entices one creature trapped inside your house and then pauses for 12 seconds. If your attempt to entice failed, you will retry until successful. Once successful, we now need to hide so the monster loses their debuff (sparkles and shit around them), so it moves your character out of line of sight a bit, going north one tile, and then using the Hiding skill. I tried this without moving and consistently failed my attempt to hide. You need to be out of line of sight. Anyways, hide and remain hidden for 16 seconds. Then move back down (south) one tile to start all over enticing the creature. Here's how it looks in my small tower: The spot I'm currently at is in line of sight of the trapped creature. I move north (I guess starting up the ladder) so I can always successfully hide / get out of combat. You could cast invisibility on yourself as an alternative but that is a waste of reagents IMO. You'll need to edit 3rd and 8th lines of the macro (both Absolute Targets) by right-mouse clicking and selecting "Re-Target". Then target the trapped creature. That should be all! Hope it helps someone out there who is deciding to drop one skill for Enticement like I am. Edit: Updated macro, now chooses instrument when yours eventually breaks (keep a few on you). Also supports up to 3 monsters. One thing I seem to have made a mistake on is that the macro won't actually retry until successful enticement, it seems to only retry once. Not sure how to infinitely retry but just wanted to point that out so as not to spread misinformation. I'm also moving further up stairs in home to successfully hide. Code: !Loop Assistant.Macros.DoubleClickTypeAction|3741|True // First beast Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|15 Assistant.Macros.WaitForTargetAction|30 Assistant.Macros.AbsoluteTargetAction|0|0|439385|1114|2730|6|42 Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:12 Assistant.Macros.IfAction|4|0|but fail Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|15 Assistant.Macros.WaitForTargetAction|30 Assistant.Macros.AbsoluteTargetAction|0|0|439385|1114|2730|6|42 Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:12 Assistant.Macros.EndIfAction // Second beast Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|15 Assistant.Macros.WaitForTargetAction|30 Assistant.Macros.AbsoluteTargetAction|0|0|681178|1116|2729|6|30 Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:12 Assistant.Macros.IfAction|4|0|but fail Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|15 Assistant.Macros.WaitForTargetAction|30 Assistant.Macros.AbsoluteTargetAction|0|0|681178|1116|2729|6|30 Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:12 Assistant.Macros.EndIfAction // Third beast Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|15 Assistant.Macros.WaitForTargetAction|30 Assistant.Macros.AbsoluteTargetAction|0|0|680412|1115|2731|6|28 Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:12 Assistant.Macros.IfAction|4|0|but fail Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|15 Assistant.Macros.WaitForTargetAction|30 Assistant.Macros.AbsoluteTargetAction|0|0|680412|1115|2731|6|28 Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:12 Assistant.Macros.EndIfAction Assistant.Macros.WalkAction|0 Assistant.Macros.WalkAction|0 Assistant.Macros.WalkAction|0 Assistant.Macros.WalkAction|0 Assistant.Macros.UseSkillAction|21 Assistant.Macros.PauseAction|00:00:16 Assistant.Macros.WalkAction|4 Assistant.Macros.WalkAction|4 Assistant.Macros.WalkAction|4 Assistant.Macros.WalkAction|4
I would like to point out another method to train Disco up to GM entirely AFK. This may take a little longer but you won't have to set anything up in your house or elsewhere. Just get yourself a frenzied ostard and a nightmare and follow Baler's Disco Guide. There are faster ways, yes, but I don't think there are easier ways.
Also you can set a char from another account in front of your macroing char so they are aggrod on. No movement of char needed since razor hates chars taking steps. And you can hide your little heart away. And just thought of this too. Should work. Can put your horse/tamed animal between you and agro and should target tamed creature.
@Chris - could you please let us know if that 5% percent bonus that bard skills give to each other still works? Your first post here is quite old, and some things seem to be different now. For example discordance has always lasted until death of the monster for me (unless the bard hides of course), only peace breaks.
To follow-up on Airin's post, I have a more specific question about template passive bonuses: Provocation success chance is supposed to be slightly increased by having gm enticement on the template. Peacemaking success chance is supposed to be slightly increased by having gm enticement on the template. Is there a success chance bonus increase that is even higher if Provocation, Enticement, and Peacemaking (all four bard skills GM, musicianship GM as well) are all included on the template? For this era of production, I thought the answer was "no" but I do not remember well and this shard has had some balance tweaks. Does anyone know the code well on passive bard success chance bonuses due to multiple bard skills at GM? Thanks, Luven
I have GM music and 65 real disco (gained with tamed 8 scorpions). I found out that I can not just discord dragons with GM instrument, also the skill gain is fast. You don't have to suffer to make a setup against other aggresive creatures if you have taming, or have a friend tamer. You can just sit at home with 2 dragons with disco/invis macro and just run it with peace of mind. Thats what I am doing now.
@Yehoshua - yes, taming definitely helps a lot with disco training. Just be careful and monitor dragon loyalty, if they go wild, they will roast you with that fire breath . If you plan to be afk for longer, you could try pirates at provo house. 65 real skill and GM instrument is enough for them.
