*Disclaimer* This is not to be taken as a fully fleshed ready to be implemented idea but more as a proof of concept. I am looking at this from the point of design and not balance (balance is always tweaked after design) Over many of the expansions ADPS has been quite exciting for people who receive it. There is that big dopamine punch when you see your numbers real big because your buddy hit his buttons. However ADPS has lacked skill expression for the most part especially in the Bard class. With bard its mostly just looking at your group composition and the encounter and picking a line up of songs. This design I feel with some simple updates could be much more fulfilling skill expressive and Thematically accurate. My idea is to add songs that give buffs that synergize with each other to create interesting combos. For instance say we have songs: Song 1 : Increase Critical strike damage by X Song 2 : Spells proc mana regen recourse Song 3 : Increase damage bonus by X Song 4 : Increase Critical nuke damage by X Song 5 : Melee attacks restore endurance on hit Song 6 : Increase Spell damage by X Song 7 : Decrease Wep Delay by X Song 8 : Decrease Recast Time by X Song 9 : Reduce mana cost of spells by X Song 10 : Increase chance to flurry/extra swing by X We now have 10 simple songs but you can combine them in different ways depending on what you want. The idea is to have scaler and payoff songs. A scaler being something that makes the numbers bigger and payoff being something that takes advantage of the large number. For instance the Bard can make his melee attack many times in a round and then he can choose to take advantage of that by giving them a sizable endurance regen opportunity or increase the damage of the swings. For casters he can increase the damage of the spells or give them sustained damage. The bard would be expected to adapt and change how he is supporting his group bases on the circumstances. For instance you engage your raid encounter and you start off full burn. Then there is the add phase so you swap to your sustained damage setup. After a while you see your group is running low on resources so you swap to your regen setup. Something happens a couple people die so you turn back on your burn set up to try and race the mobs/phase down.
Is your hidden thesis that bard adps is irrelevant now? Because that hasn't been my experience. All classes suffer from "set lineup" syndrome in EQ (where you could just input a sequence of keys to press with timing delays and pretty much cover what you should do). Bards would be one of the last classes I'd even think about changing before many others. I'd argue that we need fewer big multiple adps things. I'd rather a majority of damage be from what a character is pressing/doing/casting, not from some wild multiples when everything lines up right ... or they manage to have a bard in group.
Not irrelevant but not skill expressive. APDS is just very boring gameplay style that could be made much more interesting with some small changes. I think the large multipliers when everything lines up is a good thing. Two people working together should produce results that are greater than the sum of the parts. It creates a lot more depth and interesting gameplay then some background buffs. The bard should be a class where they identify what their group needs/wants and support that playstyle for extraordinary results. So many of the support songs are either bad or boring right now for bards.
But there will still be a best linup. Good bards will play that linup, or…not be good bards. Any bard attempting to "express skill" by not playing the best linup will just be bad to some degree.
That already happens, even with ADPS mostly compressed. I refuse to tell you the number of bards I have to talk out of spa286 songs or worse, but rest assured : it's more than 0.
I may be misunderstanding what you mean by line up but I would disagree and say that is only true if you design it that way. As of right now you play mostly the same songs regardless of the situation with maybe at most 1 or 2 swaps if burn or if not. Bards ADPS is basically a walking aura when it could be more involved.
This would be cool. There's a whole lot of untapped creativity to be had in bard songs and how bards are played. In classic EQ, bards were special because they had this (incomplete) massive list of abilities they could use: - snare - mez - charm - pacify - slow - DoTs - DDs - AE DD - fear - dispel - stat buffs - resist buffs - run speed - HP regen - mana regen - haste - locate corpse - faction buffs - identify - enduring breath - levitate - invis - see invis - damage shields - absorb magic dmg Not to compare live to classic EQ, but in this list many of these abilities aren't special any more and many classes have them (if not all). Now we have a different list of good things that bards do, but if you look at other classes, they too have many abilities, utility, and synergy with different classes. If we look at the Enumerated SPA List there are tons of things which could be done with bard songs, some of which Shakara mentioned - - twincast - focused range/duration/cost/damage - improved defensive chance (riposte etc) - 1 charge immunity to (root, mez, stun, etc) - improve chance of TS success - luck Generally the AA system has a lot of the interesting SPA use, and these tend to be powerful and controlled by short duration and longer reuse time. I don't think that means those SPAs can't be used on spells or songs though, it just has to be tuned. But yeah, I would love to have more options to choose from in songs, and to have active playing matter more.
The synergy lines for bards / enchanters have made ADPS more fun too, in my opinion. Weaving an insult in that gives a modest DD to an enemy + self buff while granting a significant boost to your group mates is more fun than yet-another-ADPS-song bards can carelessly weave in. This is especially true when you're a bard reaching your potential by doing all kinds of wack-a-doo CC/utility/pull things in a group setting and are try-harding to eek out a bit of extra group DPS by switching to a mob being attacked, dumping an insult on them and then going back to CC/pulling. Same with enchanters. Somehow frequently popping off a DD on a mob to proc synergy is way more fun than playing whack-a-mole with Night's Perpetual Terror with the herd of cats you're raiding with.
/e prepares for the onslaught of naysaying, name calling, and "they will never do that because this or that".. I had a few ideas to improve our adps songs. I am sure they are fraught with "you can't do this because this". Primarily Melee DPS groups -------- (NEW SONG LINE) KINSONG The purpose of this song is to fill the gap between epic clicks with a much smaller boost to critical hit chance and damage. It may not be AS useful in raids since some of it wont stack with other classes adps abilities. Notes - shaman/bard epic will overwrite/block this song. Classes: BRD/120 Skill: Singing, Max Focus: 320% Target: Target Group AE Range: 75' Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes Focusable: Yes Casting: 3s, Recast: 90s Duration: 12s+ (2 ticks) Song, Dispelable: Yes 7: Increase Critical Hit Damage by 105% of Base Damage (Non Stacking) 8: Increase Chance to Critical Hit by 10% 9: Increase Chance to Critical Nuke by 3% 10: Increase Chance to Critical DoT by 3% 12: Increase Accuracy by 50 (NEW) WARMARCH The purpose of this song is to combine the attractive parts of Jonthan's and share. Classes: BRD/119 Skill: Brass, Max Focus: 320% Target: Target Group AE Range: 75' Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes Focusable: Yes Casting: 3s, Recast: 15s Duration: 12s+ (2 ticks) Song, Dispelable: Yes 1: Increase Melee Haste by 60% 2: Increase STR by 319 3: Increase Damage Shield by 978 4: Increase ATK by 217 6: Increase Hit Damage by 6% (v185) 7: Increase Min Hit Damage by 175% 8: Increase Worn Proc Rate by 105% Primarily Mana Eaters -------- (NEW)DD FOCUS (all SPA 303 abilities overwrite/block this song) The purpose of this song is to combine all DD spell types, and add damage pre-crit. Classes: BRD/117 Skill: Singing, Max Focus: 320% Target: Target Group AE Range: 75' Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes Focusable: Yes Casting: 3s, Recast: 15s Duration: 12s+ (2 ticks) Song, Dispelable: Yes 1: Increase Spell Damage by 4231 (SPA 303) 2: Limit Effect: Current HP 3: Limit Min Level: 111 4: Limit Max Level: 120 (lose 5% per level) 5: Limit Type: Detrimental 6: Limit Target: Exclude Caster AE 7: Limit Target: Exclude Caster PB 8: Limit Target: Exclude Target AE 9: Limit Target: Exclude Old Giants 10: Limit Max Duration: 0s 11: Limit Min Mana Cost: 10 12: Limit Resist: Fire 13: Limit Resist: Cold 14: Limit Resist: Magic 15: Limit Resist: Poison 16: Limit Resist: Disease 17: Limit Resist: Corruption (NEW) POTENCY (all SPA 303 abilities overwrite/block this song) The purpose of this song is to combine all DOT types, and add damage pre-crit. Classes: BRD/116 Skill: Singing, Max Focus: 320% Target: Target Group AE Range: 75' Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes Focusable: Yes Casting: 3s, Recast: 15s Duration: 12s+ (2 ticks) Song, Dispelable: Yes 1: Increase Spell Damage by 2706 (SPA 303) 3: Limit Effect: Current HP 4: Limit Min Level: 111 5: Limit Max Level: 120 (lose 5% per level) 6: Limit Type: Detrimental 7: Limit Target: Exclude Caster AE 8: Limit Target: Exclude Caster PB 9: Limit Target: Exclude Target AE 10: Limit Min Duration: 18s 11: Limit Min Mana Cost: 10 12: Limit Resist: Fire 13: Limit Resist: Cold 14: Limit Resist: Magic 15: Limit Resist: Poison 16: Limit Resist: Disease 17: Limit Resist: Corruption I have also been looking at some substantial overhauls to the Arcane line, Heal Focus, and Dissident songs. Try not to be too harsh.
For sure, I just dont want to walk all over other classes and keep things focused on our adps. DoT DoT bards are fun, but I chose this class to make others better, not just me haha.
Here is aiming high (NEW)DD FOCUS (all SPA 303 abilities overwtite/block this song) Classes: BRD/117 Skill: Singing, Max Focus: 320% Target: Target Group AE Range: 75' Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes Focusable: Yes Casting: 3s, Recast: 15s Duration: 12s+ (2 ticks) Song, Dispelable: Yes 1: Increase Spell Damage by 5% (SPA 413) 2: Limit Effect: Current HP 3: Limit Min Level: 111 4: Limit Max Level: 120 (lose 5% per level) 5: Limit Type: Detrimental 6: Limit Target: Exclude Caster AE 7: Limit Target: Exclude Caster PB 8: Limit Target: Exclude Target AE 9: Limit Target: Exclude Old Giants 10: Limit Max Duration: 0s 11: Limit Min Mana Cost: 10 12: Limit Resist: Fire 13: Limit Resist: Cold 14: Limit Resist: Magic 15: Limit Resist: Poison 16: Limit Resist: Disease 17: Limit Resist: Corruption
The interesting thing about using an SPA 413 focus is Kizant's webapp can be used to really accurately calculate the benefit via turning on/off Fortifying Aura. The DPS should scale linearly, meaning that a 1% SPA 413 focus will add 1/4th the DPS of Foritfying Aura, an 8% SPA 413 focus will add 2x the DPS of Fortifying, etc., assuming the same focus restrictions. Just for reference, in some different situations with the variables I generally use for modeling (happy to elaborate for those interested, but omitting for now for brevity): Raid Baseline (Bard/Dru/Enc, no activated AAs other than Season's Wrath): Without Fortifying: 493,838 DPS With Fortifying: 500,986 DPS Difference: 7,148 DPS, or 1,787 DPS per % Raid Sustained (Baseline + Great Wolf, Bard Epic, Fierce Eye) Without Fortifying: 710,428 DPS With Fortifying: 721,327 DPS Difference: 10,899 DPS, or 2,725 DPS per % Raid ITC Burst (Raid Sustained Case + All burst abilities): Without Fortifying: 1,506,227 DPS With Fortifying: 1,532,066 DPS Difference: 25,839 DPS, or 6,460 DPS per % Note: This weave includes Spear of Molten Arcronite, which is level 110. A 5% focus would be more than reasonable based on those DPS numbers. With the max duration, the benefit to Wizards should be slightly higher than to Mages, and the benefit to Druids/Enchanters will be much lower. You could probably therefore estimate the benefit to the group at around 4x that to one Mage in terms of DPS. I think it would be fine to remove the Max Duration to consolidate the DoT/DD songs too, but either way it would be nice to have actually impactful SPAs on Bard caster ADPS songs.
Very good info! I would be curious to see the delta between what bards add to melee dps vs caster dps, then match our caster adps abilities to provide that same increase percentage to caster groups.
By the way, I love this idea, a lot. I think its time we get 2 auras (one aura, one echo), and more meaningful, but focused aura effects that we can mix and match for different situations. AC + Dodge increase Twincast HP Boost Hundred Hands Mana/End/Health regeneration New abilities I would like to see Placeable traps that either - Mezz, Snare, DD, etc. Targeted Silence Single group songs for Fear, Snare, Charm, etc immunity (with a counter) (thanks Sirene!) A controllable group Shadowstep (splash style targeting) MGB AA that allows all of our group buff songs to be AE for a short time
I really like a lot of these ideas as well and I think FOCUS is what the bard class really needs right now. We are just too much of a big ball of stats caused mainly by a lot of our ADPS AAs and songs being grossly overloaded (Fierce Eye and Quick Time are like a paragraph long). We need more specialized songs and AAs with higher payoff but more situational. I really like the idea of MGB songs as well cause you could create situations where you could have short term mega bard combos that would not be possible with just one bard worth of songs.
I'd sort of like to see instruments play a role for bards again. Make the drums allow bards to use DoTs on raids by having them block the Chant debuffs from being cast when drum is equipped and amplifying DoT damage more to justify debuff slots on raids. Make the lutes/mandolins actually amplify the mana regen component of Chorus AE regen song and reduce the reuse/duration of crescendo Make the horns/brass instruments remove the push from insults and remove the reuse timer so it can be chain rolled while mana holds, and add additional ATK to War March Make the wind instruments add duration to AE Mez again, add extra duration to single mez and charm, add additional counters to Arcane Symphony
Having to /bando twice per tick to get full performance out of songs sounds awful. You're talking about returning to no-/melody days.
aDPS would much more satisfy if the source of the damage others did was tagged in a way it could be recorded for people to see. Ie: with a parser you could see that while the top parsing beserker did x dps the bards would show he contributed x adps. Not a change in mechanics but a change in who gets recognized for the credit.