Bard is my favourite class. It's both easy to play and very complex. A lot of the complexity of the bard gameplay is actually before you swing the sword and get into an encounter. During the game most of the complexities are made simple as pie with socials which are macros for a set of actions.
Most classes can use socials/macros but bards probably need them the most with one of the most powerful bard only features almost requiring it.
Bards sing songs which are like very short duration spells, often with duration in the seconds.
Like spell casters, bards scribe songs (vs spells) into a spe.. err song book (shift-K by default will open the book) and then memorise the songs into the spell gems (with click and carry the spell from the book or use the spell gem right-click menu). Each gem has a number which is important later. (You get more spell gems at certain level points but you can still never have everything in there.)
At the simplest, the bard can start a song by clicking on the spell gem and stop it by clicking on
any gem, including the same one. If the song isn't stopped, the bard will continue to repeat and pulse the song, overwriting the previous pulse for an endless duration. For all caster classes, a spell cast is one and done and needs to be reactivated manually (or by macro).
Because each song has a short duration, it's possible to stop one song, start another, stop the song, and restart the first within the duration of the first to have both songs active at the same time. In the long past, this was the only way to have multiple songs active and was called "twisting". It was super easy to have two active at the same time, even adding a third wasn't very hard, but getting four or more songs to be active at once took a bit of effort and finessing. But, twisting like that is VERY hard on the wrist and makes it impossible to converse or do anything else in battle. And then a lot more songs and abilities were added over the years making twisting not only difficult but entirely impractical.
So... a new bard only mechanic was added, /melody. The bard can string together multiple songs to make a melody with then being played in the specified succession. /melody 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 would play each of the songs in the screenshot above then repeat until either a spell gem is clicked or the command /stopstong is used (or the bard gets stunned or dies or other things to interrupt their concert). While it is possible to type it into game anytime you want to use a melody, it really works best when used as a macro.
Barding in a macro (including melody and assist)
Making macros is easy and also complex 😋.
Select a blank Hot Key on the hot key bar. Right-click for the menu, select Assign Social > Page 2 (or higher) > New Social. Page 1 is filled with pre-made socials but there are 9 more pages to create your own.
Each line of the social can have different commands also called "slash" (/) commands. There are several websites with good and updated lists of the commands that can be used: https://everquest.fanra.info/wiki/Useful_commands is just one of the many (and it's missing some...). This Social above is a sample from my level 80s bard.
; or # are comments, anything after one of those two characters is ignored. I use it to remind me what the / command is for, especially if it's triggering something by a number alone.
First in the Social is another "macro" using the Bandolier (b will bring it up by default) to change weapon slots and make sure my bard is equipped with her weapons instead of an instrument (or else she would be El Kabong!)
To make a Bandolier set, equip the weapon slots with what you want and then Add. Give the set a one-word name.
Warning: You need to manually update your bandolier if you get new equipment or it will blindly try to equip the old. To update, equip the items you want and Add using the same name as before. The new 'add' of the same name will overwrite the old.
The next line in my social is an assist.
Simply "/assist" will use who you are targetting at the time and switch your target to theirs. It will also, bu default, turn on your auto attack. (/assist off will change your target and not auto attack). But... that means you need to target someone to assist them.
"/assist [character]" (i.e. /assist Heba) will switch your target to whomever that character is targetting. However, this might mean you need to change the name (or even spell a complex one) any time the group's assist has changed.
So, to make it easier, you can use the Extended Target window's target slots. "/xtar 1" is the top slot.
And, you can assign how that extended target slots get filled, too! The top spot for me is usually the "Group Assist's Target" which assumes you're in a group and the group has a "Main Assist" assigned to someone as a role. Healers and others who need to target specific characters can have target slots assigned to those specific characters which makes healing out of group on a raid easier. A save sets was added recently which is far more useful to those tho need to have different complex configurations for the window. When you have a slot assigned rather than auto, the icon as the front will change.
Note: If you don't assign something specific for an extended target slot, it will be filled with your current targets. You can use /xtar without assigning any slots, it just might not be as precise on a group assist.
A reminder of the Social we're detailing...
On the third line I have a pause. The pause is measured in tenths of a second (or something like that) and, while it's listed first, executes second. A short pause between "instant" commands helps to make sure they execute especially if there is lag. You might need to adjust pauses from time to time to account for lag in certain zone types.
/stopsong is the bard only stop the current song or melody. This clears the way to start a new song or melody.
Then the /melody with the songs I want to cycle through and repeat. The melody uses the spell gem numbers so you do need to make sure they're memorised in the same order (which is why spell sets are very important, you can find the save and load at the bottom of the spell gem bar - another macro!).
And then, because /xtar doesn't start auto attack, I have that for the last line. This also is a visual cue for me that the macro completed since my bard won't be attacking unless it does.
Casting spells in a Social-macro
A caster can use a similar set up, but the pauses between spell casting would be the casting time, often not instant even if the duration is. A caster would need to /cast [spell gem number] for each spell to cast and each on its own line or preceded by a /pause.
Skills, Disciplines, and Alternate Abilities
All classes have Skills and Alternate Abilities. Skills unlock as you level up and then need to have "skill-ups" to make them more useful. All melee, hybrid or 'pure' have Disciplines that are usually learned from Tomes. Some melee classes get them earlier than others. Alternate Abilities are generally from a second XP type known colloquially as AA XP that you can start earning at level 51. AA have different categories with some specific to your class or archetype. All can be triggered from a Social.
Going our of order from the screenshot...
Skills/Abilities
First, skills or normal abilities are those this you can add to your Ability tiles, normal skills and combat related skills. Different classes get different skills they can activate.
These number from 1 to 10. In the non-combat, you have 6 and the the numbering carries on to the combat tiles, skipping the top two for attack types, for 7 to 10. You can trigger them directly from the Ability tiles or hold-drag-and-drop them on to your bars or you can use them in a Social.
If you want to add one of these into a social you need to have /doability and then the number for the tile it's on. In the Social above, /doability 7 is a kick because it's on the 7th tile. And then I add a comment to remind myself that's what that number is.
Disciplines
Disciples are extra combat related abilities often in the form of a short boost (couple minutes for most).
Alt-C will display your Combat Abilities tiles and the S button above them will show you the learned Disciplines. You can make hot keys to put on the Combat Abilities tiles or directly on your hot bars and trigger them there or you can use them in a social. You don't need a hot key of a discipline to use it in a social.
If you want to add a discipline to a social you need /discipline (or /disc) then at least first word of the the discipline name, example /disc Deftdance (spelling counts) will trigger the Deftdance Discipline. If the reuse timer isn't ready for the discipline when you trigger the Social, you'll get a notice in your chat window, but the macro will continue on. Disciplines are usually an instant activation, no casting time.
Alternate Advancement Abilities (AA)
There are two major types of Alternate Abilities: Can Trigger and Passive. For the ones you can trigger, you can make a Hot key and add it to your hot bar or you can use it in a social.
AA that can be trigger have an Ability Activation ID. This is the number you need in the command to trigger the AA with "/alt activate [number]". In my Social example above /alt activate 3506 will activate Fierce Eye. I add a comment with the name of the AA 'cause I would never be able to remember what number is which and I might want to adjust them to work better together. While activating AA is usually instant, a short pause between the commands helps to make everything flow smoother. Like Disciplines, if the AA is not ready to be reused again when a macro triggers it, it will put a message in your chat and carry on, just like a wayward son.
Foraging by Social
All clasess/races can pick up ground spawn (i.e. items that appear in the world that can be picked up) but only some races and classes get a special ability to pick stuff without even looking for it seeing it. Forage can also be taken by all classes with AA points. If you have the forage skill, you can put it on an ability tile and trigger it when it's available. But... if you do pick up something, you then need to open your inventory to drop it in.
But... foraging without effort can be done very easily and effortlessly with a Social and a keybind.
First the Social:
/timer at the top of a Social will make the key light up when it's been activated and then, when the timer ends, go back to the normal 'ready' appearance. This lets you know when it's ready to be used again. /timer is in less than 1/10ths of a second but can also be affected by lag. I tweak it until it's cool down is close to a hot key with the ability I want to track.
/stand - cause you can't be sitting to forage for some crazy reason.
If you look back up at my ability tiles, forage is in the second spot, /doability, this is followed by a 'drop this into my inventory without thinking about it /autoinventory after a brief pause.
When you get to mastery in forage, you can pick up a second item so another short pause and throw it in the bag.
I put the hot key for my forage on my first hotbar in on the 10th spot. Then...
Since I use my left/right keys to move, I link the Hot Button 10 on Hotbar 1 to the LEFT key. It's red because that's also the same key used to move left. So, any time I use the left arrow key to move left, I also trigger the forage with auto inventory Social.
You can do similar with Tracking to skill it up. Link it to a movement key and in no time, bam, master. But.. you also get to see how very very red that zone is you're crossing in the middle of the night with zombies and skeletons so very high above your level.
Firiona Vie Language Lessons
Firiona Vie was started as a "Roleplay Preferred" server many many years ago. As part of it's special ruleset, characters only have their racial language(s) when they start. There is no "Common" language. This can make communication a bit... interesting when a Vah Shir bard wants to talk with an Iksar monk. But, it's rather easy to learn/teach languages, using... you guessed it, Social macros.
Side note: Because everyone starts with their home language on Firiona Vie, Elvish and, to a lesser extent, Dark Elvish are usually used as the "common" language. If you only learn one language other than your racial, learn Elvish.
The fastest skill-ups for language will happen when you're grouped with the teacher. If you have a high INT or WIS you should learn faster.
As the teacher, create a social with /g [text] on each line. The text doesn't matter to the mechanic, so have fun with it!
If you want to switch languages, there is a /command to do it, but... it might be easier to just use the chat window controls. (if you have more than one chat window, you sometimes have to set all of them to be on the language you want to use)
Once you have the language you want to teach selected and the macro made, just spam the group with it. Really that simple. Oh... and you can teach yourself, too. If you have at least 1 point in a language and a mercenary to make a group.. babble away to the merc using that language. 😜