My stupid question du jour

[Mawie]

<DIV>I'm a level 51 troubador. I'm pretty up on most of my spells and skills, but I am completely stupid when it comes to lullaby. Can someone explain to me how to effectively use this spell in both solo and group situations? I'm really at a loss with it at this point.</DIV>

[ShiroiOokami]

Lullaby is one of our more powerful and useful spells. It's our one and only Mez spell, and it's a single target one, so we need to pick our targets carefully. It's got a relatively short cast time, but a long recast timer, making holding down multiple mobs tricky. Mez will break when it receives any sort of damage (but not debuffs!), but it also prevents AOE once its landed. It won't stop DOTs that are already applied from ticking and breaking Mez, but it will stop new ones as long as the caster isn't targeting the Mezzed mob directly. Mez is either resisted outright, or it lasts for its full duration - Mezzes are no longer mitigated, and do not resist periodically like charm. Your best bet for a good use for this spell comes from getting adds. If you see a mob pathing close to you, or one starts beating on your healer/wizzy, you can switch target, mez him, and then return to the fight. This prevents your tank from getting too distracted trying to keep hate on multiple encounters, and also your healer from switching targets around for healing. You can also use this spell against difficult multi-mob encounters, such as a named mob with several adds. Mez the named (or a particularly annoying friend of his) while your group kills the rest, then can turn their full attention on whatever you've mezzed. Solo encounters work much the same way. In a multi-mob solo encounter you can lock one down with Mez as an opener, then kill the rest. You can even wait for the spell to recycle and cast it on a second or even third mob, allowing you to take em on one at a time (as long as you last long enough to keep casting). On particularly hard fights that you need to win, such as for a quest (or in a duel), you can mez a solo target and wait for your health and power to regen before continuing. I don't recommend it, but it is possible to solo a ^^^ heroic this way, by mezzing, backing up, debuffing/slowing, then hitting him with your ranged attacks and mezzing again, repeating this until it dies. There's another post that's got some good tactics about using your more powerful Charm spell. <div></div>

[WooTast]

Upgrading to Adept 3, or Master 1 if you can find it, is really helpful. OP you're on Neriak server, right?  There's been a Master 1 of Lullaby for sale on the Qeynos broker for over a week. The starting price was 11pp or so and it's been lowered every day. I paid 3pp for that Master and consider it really worthwhile.  I've mezzed Cazel and held him on ice as group members revive and buff up quite a few times <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> <div></div>

[Mawie]

<P>Thanks for the replies guys. I think I might actually give this spell a shot the next time I log on. Maybe I will even see if I can do a ^^^. But if I do attempt that, should I stick to greens and blues and avoid all else? Or should I be super daring and just go for a yellow ^^^?</P> <P> </P> <P>And Woo, I have an 18 sorcerer on Neriak. My troubador is on MIstmoore. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P>

[ForgottenFoundling]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Mawie wrote:<BR> <P>Thanks for the replies guys. I think I might actually give this spell a shot the next time I log on. Maybe I will even see if I can do a ^^^. But if I do attempt that, should I stick to greens and blues and avoid all else? Or should I be super daring and just go for a yellow ^^^?</P> <P> </P> <P>And Woo, I have an 18 sorcerer on Neriak. My troubador is on MIstmoore. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>Stick to blues and greens until you have a feel for what you need to do.  Yellows are nasty because we don't have good mitigation or avoidance and they chew us up entirely too fast.  Of course, with the right tactics and gear they're doable, but the fights are painfully slow.

[Sanju]

You'll likely get less resists on greens and blues, too. (Also, take off Aria when you're trying to mez. I've had it proc and break it before, not sure if that's been fixed, but I wouldn't bet on it.) <div></div>

[Jehannum]

<P>Mezzing with Aria is perfectly safe - it's debuffing that isn't.  If the mez procs damage, it'll strike before the mez so the mob doesn't wake.  If the mez doesn't land, it can't proc and wake the mob.  The real issue is with stuff like the debuffs because I've noticed they do strike "removed from AE" mobs and <STRONG>can</STRONG> proc damage to wake the mobs up.  Same for taunts, if you've got the kind of quality tank who actually realises that AE taunts won't hit a bard-mezzed subject.  Usually when the tank wakes it up with a taunt it's fairly safe to leave awake, unless it's a big fight (like Cazel) in which case <STRONG>turn off aria</STRONG> while mezzing him.  Turn it (and Precision) on afterward if you like, when he's being burnt down, but if it's your task to mez him make sure he stays that way by turning off the damage procs.</P> <P>As to resists, don't worry.  Keep your skill up there, keep Daelis running (may not help but it seems to, and if you're proccing it'll enhance that), and if the mob is yellow stick a snare first to help the mez land.  Again, that may not help but it does seem to.  On a similar note, land Zander and snare both on an orange before mezzing and for the love of Innoruuk, remember not to use Kian's.  It reduces resists, true, but it's tricky to cancel fast enough not to break mez <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P>This methodology allowed me to mez the Hand and Fist for Carpet 4 while I was level 56 (after the orange-is-death patch) using zander, mez, snare, mez.  I even managed to get a Shrill off on the djinn.</P>

[pera]

With Zanders and dove song i was able to keep Cazel easly mezzed with mabye only a few resists.   But other than Lulluby try to get Zanders to AdeptIII, i beleive at that level it is a 490ish debuff to all magic resists. and its the only one like it that we get. <div></div>

[jirik]

Have had lullabye cause Aria to proc .... is a fairly rare occurence but does happen .... I went through a phase that I was mezzing everything to raise my subligation.  May have had 4 times out of several hundred fights.

[Jehannum]

Heh... I mezzed a single-arrow-up mob to death, before Aria got reduced.  It's the same 30% as any other spell, and when I got 4 in a row I figured "what the heck, why wake the poor SOB up, let's see how long this takes."  Turns out it takes longer than using Precision, Shrill and debuffs <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  A <STRONG>LOT</STRONG> longer <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Since the nerf to Aria's proc damage I certainly wouldn't recommend relying on mez-to-death except in truly exceptional circumstances.  You have to time things so you neither lapse mez nor run out of power... Easier by far to use mez instead in such a situation for recovery cycles - lay down debuffs, dots, melee damage and shrills, then strike the mez while turning off the dot and auto-attack to recover with Quiron's and Bria's running.  A prismatic or other power regen item is great for this; we can *almost* chain-mez with the right gear, and as long as s/he's careful, a troubadour can gain power slowly while keeping a low-orange or high-yellow ^^^ mezzed.</DIV>

[pera]

Hehe for that same reason I almost alwasy turn Aria's off in groups where i know i will be mezzing because their group taunts/debuffs and what not can cause it to proc and break the mez. <div></div>