Dirge or troub for soloing a bard?

**Amnerys**

As everyone else seems to be saying, I vote dirge. I'm biased though. My main is a dirge and since I don't really have any alts (OMGWHA?!) she's all I've ever played. SMILEY

I soloed her a lot. It's not too hard to find a group since people want your buffs. DPS isn't too bad. You can invis and sneak around a lot of places without help. And by the time you reach the higher levels, you can heal and resurrect. The only thing I can't do as a dirge is bring people to me (COH) but otherwise I don't have a single complaint.

**Vydak**

Thank you all! Very helpful!

I didn't mean to say I was going to be purely solo, I just recognize that there are certain stretches of the game that are mostly teamless content(60-80), and below that where some soloing is needed to stack on the AAs. Overall though I love teaming when it is available!

Looks like it is dirge then SMILEY

**Dreamaria**

And you can always betray if you think that's going to be better at a later date. Little bit of an option, going from coercer to illusionist didn't seem to hard when i did it, don't think changing from dirge to troub would be out of the question either.

**Griffinhart**

I recently leveled a new Troub to 80. I had no problems soloing him at all. Mez and charm really help a lot. Charm (even with the super short duration) is fantastic for pulling solo encounters and for quickly handling that pesky add. Mez is great for when you start losing a fight. Mez the mob and use your songs to regen enough health and power to finish the fight.

Troubs are fantastic in groups too. At least if your group plays well with mezzers. I've taken my troub through RE2 several times now, replacing the spot usually given to enchanters because I can help manage the adds on the X2 fight.

Two observations about troubs in general that I have made:

There are far fewer high level troubs than there are dirges. I like that to be honest. Actually on my server the least played class at 80 is the troub.

I wasn't 80 for more than 30 minutes before I started getting asked to raid out of the blue. A very novel occurance since my other level 80's are a Wizard and Fury.

The same thing happened to a guildy/RL friend. He finally got his Troub to 80 and almost immediated started getting asked to hit zones and raids by complete strangers.

**greenmantle**

Guillermo@Butcherblock wrote:

Last note on trouby, I got to lvl 79 and was trying to finish out Jarsath Wastes. Finally got the quest where you have to swim around and kill 79^ and 80^ sharks/swordfish. I just couldn't kill one. Jesters cap, precision of the maestro, stun, debuff, big guns and still the fish taking huge chunks of my life. Ended up just forcing 80th lvl doing old world stuff and will try this quest some other time.
So in conclusion if you wan't a scouty type fun soloer I'd roll a swash or brig. I do love bards but they are for groups and these words should never be used in same sentence: solo, bard, fun.

Have to agree i have an 80 dirge with decent equipment ( not raid but good group quest ) the 80^ s in skyfire stomp me into bits and dance on the pieces solo. I love dirge's and soloed a lot of the way to 80 but i wouldnt call them low stress soloers. Swashie rolls through the same mobs and can even handle an add, warden tags a saber tooth and i can watch tv while i quest there, dirge dies a few times gets a group and does maidens again.

**Sizzle**

As a soloer I asked this question once of the bard forums and will NEVER forget the answer I got...

How would you rather kill yourself... With a rusty spoon or a ball of wax?

**SugarGirl**

I VOTE TROUB!!!

(Just because there are already waaaay too many Dirges coming up SMILEY

**Breanut**

I leveled a troub to 70 (cap at the time) and then betrayed to dirge. Leveled the dirge to 80 and haven't regreted betraying a single day. I do a lot of soloing and noticed a considerable difference in my survival rate once I betrayed.