Bard Template

So you're telling me I am the top Theratan killer with a gimped template? http://www.uorenaissance.com/?page=m_player_mobKills&fn=8599

I have both Wrestling and Eval!! and no Disco!!

Total kills is just a measure of time played, not necessarily efficiency. That said, I think those skills do have some use. Eval int is especially useful against monsters that gheal spam.

It all depends what you're fighting too. Disco is at its best against tough monsters with a trillion hp.

Can someone explain what they mean by "magic" doubles magery damage please?

Magic damage is doubled in pve. So if an energy bolt does 25 dmg in pvp, it'll do 50 in pvm.

Is a T-hunter really that successful without mining? I thought mining was needed to not only locate the chest but also to dig it up. I'm working on a bard myself and am contemplating which two skills to add to my Mage/med/music/Provo/hiding. I don't feel that I need peacemaking much (I could be wrong) and I'm not sure how enticement would benefit a bard.

There's really no need for mining. MIning increases the range at which you can dig up treasure. You'll be using t-map libraries to find the spot anyway and they'll take you to the exact tile. As for the skills to finish out your template. . . there's just too many ways to go. If you do want lockpicking and cartography I've found peacemaking more useful than hiding. It's really six of this and half a dozen of the other, though. Some people just use another character to kill the chest spawn anyway which makes the rest of your t-hunters template pretty moot.

Thank you Godric! That leaves just one question unanswered... What benefits does discord (a.k.a. Enticement) bring to a bard's arsenal? I know it makes a beast/monster approach you in a non-threatening manner, which to me sounds to be only useful for a tamer, but I also heard someone say it increases the success chance of provo?

It certainly does not make the beasts come at you in a less threatening manner. Discordance (Enticement) drops the stats/skills of the target until it dies or you break line of sight for a short time.
Having the skill provides a %5 bonus to success chance on Peacemaking or Provocation, if you have one of those skills.

Practically speaking, discord can help your bard in allowing you to even out the fight between mismatched creatures that you've provo'd. It's not neccessary and I'm sure you'll mostly find it on tamers but I put it on my pure bard. I like it mostly because it gives me one more thing to do to entertain myself while playing the bard which can be pretty boring if you just provo and cast blade spirits. If you've got room on your template it will improve your effectiveness but I can't really recommend it over other practical skills like hiding, wrestling and resist. If you ask me, the 5% bonus is not worth picking up the skill, though. Again, it's just a matter of taste.

Since it seems pertinent, my first bard on this shard was a t-hunter (LP, carto, music, provo, peace, mage, med.) I prefer peace to the hiding alternative as it allows me to stop a single mob and and toss a summon or just go about my business rather than hiding or running. After playing him for awhile I realized that I used him much more to hunt things like dragons and ogres lords than to dig up treasure so I built a "pure" bard (music, provo, disco, peace, mage, med, inscribe.) I much prefer this template for general hunting but I'm sure he'd still be too fragile for some people's taste. This template makes the bard skills on my t-hunter mostly useless to me. The t-hunter dies enough that I'm gonna have to bring another character in just to rez him anyway so I might as well just use him to dig treasure and pick the locks and let another bard or a tamer deal with the spawn. (I'll be dropping music, peace and provo for hiding, stealth and remove trap when I'm not feeling so lazy.)

I also frequently hunt with people that have mixes of wrestling, resist, eval or hiding on their provo-only bards and I do really appreciate having one of those templates at my back. If I had it to do over again my first character would be a 5x mage with music and provo. If I could only have one character that'd be it, too.