With the change to fading memories (Rank 2 isn't until serpent's spine) being now 12% of mana versus the 900 it used to be, its a detriment to have a larger mana pool. On agnarr at least, your limited to the 15 worn flowing thought and any +mana regen aa clickies (Celestial Cloak) as your only source of mana regen. Someone with a smaller mana pool can use fading memories , assuming capped FT, much more often than someone with better gear. Sure, you can argue that you can cast Denon's more, but really, after the change to it's targets how many bards truly cast this, especially in raids, as is highly inefficient as well. Ultimately, just feels as if a mana pool is of little use , at least in end game.
I recommend you start asking for mod rods. It doesn't solve this "unfair advantage" that bards with worse mana pools get... But you'll be able to fade way more often once you start picking up rods.
I currently box a bard on mangler, I find the mana regen pretty laughable, im pleased i generally only use the bard now for a melody box. As I dont raid with that char there are limited group items providing mana regen, I currently have 6 mana regen/tick (or 7 if i sit) It takes almost 16 minutes to regen from 1 fade at the moment almost 80 minutes to regen back to full after a death.
It definitely comes across as lazy programming, maybe a little oblivious too. Not only does it diminish character progression by remaining constant in cost, the dynamic with fixed FT really does disincentivize progression. If they are going to be so lazy that things cost a specific percentage why not have FT or all mana regen be percentage based too? Don't stop there, dumb the game down as much as possible. Either returning to 900 mana for rank 1 or using fixed mana amounts for bards at all ranks would make way more sense since they have a completely different mana system. Used on cooldown mod rods are the equivalent of 7.2 FT, if you have a mage feeding you constantly. More FT isn't the solution to bad game design though, it just masks the flaws.
Yeah, you can't just mash it for free invis or to drop aggro 10x in a row doing a mad dash through a SI zone, though that was true of the 900 mana version as well (mostly). I'm in agreement that the change to % is pretty bad in this era since it actively penalizes you for upgrading flat mana on your gear and tried to advocate for 6/4/2 ranks back when it was implemented but DBG didn't go for it.
Every raid bard should have a hotkey setup to use Denon's on raids. While mana is limited it great for burning pack of trash. They even nerfed Denon's to a 5 target limit because guilds were using AE down all of the trash in P5 of time. Anytime you are dealing with a pack of mobs, bard should be popping denon's.
I agree that the % of mana for fading memories punishes bards are they progress. Watching my bard die and then limp through his nearly 8000 mana pool regen process at 17 regen/tick is painful and limiting to what he can do in a group. Denon's has already been nerfed to 5 mobs a cast, and fading memories becomes less available the better my gear gets. If they want it to be percentage based, 12% is too punishing, especially as users above have noted flowing thought for bards is not percentage based. This is on Agnarr.
For reference Denon's was max 4 targets for 95+% of EQ history. Bards also used to not be able to Mod rod or get AA mana regen clickie buffs which more then make up for the every so slightly increased mana Fade.
Dirge is still really good. On Agnarr you can use your Mana bar prolly on 2 fights, and do some pretty sick DPS. Plus you can still use it for p5 trash clear, it's def not as good but if your raid has 8 bards and they're all dirging trash that stuff will die real quick.
I'm not hating on Dirge, or saying it's useless, I was mostly talking about Fading Memories and it's percentage based usage.
With crap gear the % change makes it cost less then mana then the original cost of 900. If you have like BIS PoT gear fade cost about 17% more mana per cast, however if you have the clickie cloak your mana regen is increased by more then 20% and mod rod spam also gives you even more then 20%. So the changes with Bard mana over time more then make up for the "nerf" to fade. It's weird to complain about the mana changes when you have it much better then it was in the old days
I thought the 12%percent for fading memories is based on your base mana, not current total. Because I can certainly use FM more than 8 times before running out of mana.