Bard fade getting worse with gear feels really broken.

With fade changing to a % based rather than flat number, it's in a really weird place on TLP servers. I feel like they really didn't think about how this would play out when they re-designed it.

Once PoP launched, I had every piece of raid gear I could get WITHOUT mana on it because that was a thing in Velious/Luclin. When I first got fade on mischief, I had ~3000 mana and 15 mana regen. I could literally do anything with fade. It was completely broken. I'd fade to invis cause why not? Pull any named from anywhere to anywhere no matter how deep it was. Your 12% of 3000 mana being 360 means mana regen chugs right through it. I made 25 krono just zooming around Plane of Innovation killing named and selling spells at the start because I could fade endlessly.

It's broken and probably needs a nerf.

But then the "brokenness" goes in the opposite direction. Instead of upgrading you, fade gets worse as you get PoP raid gear. It all has mana on it. I'm sure in gates of discord I'll be digging out my old Velious gear for stuff like uqua since I know I'll have to split everything there. It just seems ridiculous that getting geared as a bard puller is basically downgrading. If we had a reason to do rathe council again, I'm sure i'd be taking gear off for it now that my mana is ~9000 and 15 mana regen barely moves that with 1300+ mana cost fades.

The big problem is how long this will last. We don't get an upgrade on it until 75, so until TSS bards basically get worse with every upgrade. I can't comprehend wearing velious gear in PoR for tricky zones with lots of splitting. I haven't raid pulled before mischief so I have no idea if we have encounters like Rathe council where I need to fade 12 times to split them all in 30 minutes or whatever it was, but I feel like the two extremes for fade are just completely broken. It really needs to go back to being flat so gearing up doesn't downgrade it, or at least let bards use VoQ/Beast crack/Paragon/any mana regen buffs to make up for it.

Fade is mana% based because by design it's not supposed to be used endlessly or "way more often" by high mana bards. It's just too powerful a skill. Arguably more powerful than FD. But I get what you're saying.

They propably should adjust the %cost of fade for each expansion accordingly so that you don't get punished with better gear.
Alternatively (preferrably) just put way more mana regen on bard gear. It's ridiculously low anyway.

By this logic they should change all spells to be mana% based. It is not fair that high mana clerics can cast more heals or high mana wizards can do more damage. After all, heals and nukes are very powerful. Arguably more powerful than buffs.

I mean if your down to make every bard song cost a % of the bards mana I could get behind that. After all, bard songs are very powerful.

It sounds like the issue is the opposite and fade can be used more often by low mana bards and it becomes more difficult to use the more you gear up.

Fade should have just had the mana cost go up with player levels instead of being a % if they wanted to limit it without creating this issue.

Agreed, this is such a feels bad moment when you get new gear you a class defining ability.

Old fade that cost a flat mana cost was also broken, but their "fix" was dumb.

Yeah, it's a pretty bad design. A flat rate increase by level makes more sense. This was designed more with live in mind. It's still a bad design on live, but it also matters far less with extra regen tools and OOC regen.

I'm not sure you actually read the post?

I don't think the ability to escape combat and become invisible at will is a particularly "broken" concept. It exists in many games. Though linked mobs tend to be pervasive elsewhere too, and makes the most logical sense. I guess it's too hard to implement that retroactively in EQ.

The problem is the game has gotten too easy. If those named mobs proceeded to eat you for lunch even after getting them single, the balance is not an issue.

I use rejuv potions and have developed a bit of an alcohol problem to gank my mana pool. My bard is near bis with tons of mana and I have no problem singling every boss in pof to c1 in under 20 minutes.

At worst it uses 12% of your mana. Back in the day it was almost 50%. smh
It also gets lower cost at later expansions. 6% at TSS, then 2% at UF

The way it works defacto punishes you for having better stats. You have a static amount of mana regen but a flexible mana pool and the larger your mana pool the more it costs to use Fade and the longer it takes for you to recover that mana.

That said, I love that people question why my bard has a horse... you don't get penalized for being on a horse as a bard the way you do as a rogue or berserker... so why not.

Because your kick wont work.

Selo's is faster.

I said it when they did this, and I'll say it again
If you are too lom to fade start getting naked as you run

What if he has this? Would make his horse faster than Selo's.

Best solution is swap to camp bard.

Working as intended i would argue.. you get to be super op and drown in krono for a short time. And then RIP. Balanced.

Is that actually faster than a bard with selo's and the aa's that increase a bard's run speed cap?