Best Sword Combos for the Bard
by
Wesley Jordan AKA Cynic

I tried swords of blood, vampire, haste, etc. But after a great deal of experimentation I found two combos to be the most useful. Both of them include Griswald's Edge because of it's knockback ability. If I ever see a King's Sword of the Bear I might trade up, but until then I'll hang onto it.

I'm of the firm opinion that knockback is the most important ability for a Bard when fighting HTH. With this ability, you can put your back in a corner (limiting the max number of HTH attackers at one time to 3), and using the multi-hit ability keep knocking them all back on their heels. This acts to keep them in a perpetual "approach" mode, which allows you to strike them again and again since most of the monsters need to "set up" before they
actually attack you. If you can catch them in that half a step before they're ready you can fight a never ending stream of opponents and only rarely take a hit. I used this technique on the knights on levels 14-16, and may have taken a score of HTH hits total. you must, however pay attention to the speed of their approach so you don't allow one the time it needs to set up and hit you.

Now, apparently the trick to the Bard's multi-strike ability is that the monsters need to be adjacent to one another. For example, you're backed into a corner and defending to the east, southeast, and south. Attacks come from east and south, wouldn't be adjacent, but all other combos would. Also, if 3 should occupy all the adjacent squares at the moment of your swing, you can strike all three at once. Nothing is cooler than to kill "three with one blow", if I may plagiarize <G>.

Now, the combos I like best (of those I've tried) are:

Griswald's Edge - King's Sword of Stars and
Griswald's Edge - Doppleganger's Sword of Brilliance (only Dop. sword I've found thus far).

With the GE-KSOS you have a to hit of 230% and damage of 117-170+. Hell/Hell Blood Knights go down with but a couple of swings. The GE-DSOB combo gives a lower to hit and damage, but you can generate a tremendous number of opponents thereby increasing your XP's. I've had a single monster replicate into as many as a dozen. Note that oils can substantially increase your damage and to hit totals, but you need to apply them to a weapon that you're not likely to trade up from. I like to wait until I start the Hell levels before applying them, just in case <G>.

Given that the Bard should have a strong Mana Shield by the time she attempts Hell, I found the Blood suffix (health drain) weapons to be useless. If you could find a top of the line Vampire suffix (mana drain) weapon, that might be a valid alternative to the KSOS. I tried a GE-Haste combo, but didn't see a noticeable increase in number of swings. Griswald's Edge already gives you a fast attack, and since the knockback slows down the tempo of the combat anyway it's plenty fast.

Cynic

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