The time for ideas is at hand. Bounced it around in serverwide.bards a bit, but more thoughts here good too. From the idea's bounced around so far; So far, we've seen the BP clicks to improve DPS, then the BP clicks for defensive. If nothing else, to alternate them between expansions isn't a bad idea, which'll bring us back this time to a dps boost. Swarm pets aren't a good idea it appears to get more dps, we've overflowing with lag causing pets already, so not sure this is worth asking for more. The Bst BP clicks from a while ago seem decent, get 10 procs that add damage (and would be easy to make a group/raid version). Something chromatic based, lots of procs, lots of damage, self only? I normally prefer group > self, but it just seems to be tricky to get something that's a good boost, so if it means we get a self only dps boost from it, it's perhaps the biggest dps boost we can get to see (as we can get something that'll be 'pure damage' without having to worry about other focus effects/instrument boosts). Nothing that leaves a debuff icon on the mob (there's enough of them as is). Sound ok? Other thoughts/ideas/needs?
The current arpeggio BP click is my favorite (2nd/3rd spire type). If we're seeing a level increase, I would be really unhappy not to get an upgrade. It would be nice if the spell damage portion of Arpeggio worked on DoTs. i.e. not limited by min or max duration. Necros are the only DPS who get pretty much nothing out of our BP. [39401] Masterful Dorian Root Duration: 12s (2 ticks), Extendable: No, Dispelable: Yes Max Hits: 52 Outgoing Hit Successes 1: Increase Spell Damage Bonus by 1433 3: Limit Min Level: 85 4: Limit Max Level: 100 (lose 5% per level) 5: Limit Type: Exclude Procs 7: Limit Min Mana Cost: 10 8: Limit Type: Detrimental 9: Limit Max Duration: 0s 11: Increase Hit Damage Bonus by 255 12: Cast on Fade: Masterful Dorian Third A clicky Harmony of Tone (with < 2s cast) would be pretty good also. To be honest, I'm not interested in tanking or personal DPS (on a BP clicky). If the timers weren't shared, it would be fine. The RoF clicky is good, but I've hardly ever used it - the VoA/CotF clickies are almost always a better choice. For the focus, some new ideas: - extended duration of Aria and Harmony of Tone (so they have the same duration as the rest of our songs) - if we one day get a newer disc than Thousand Blades, hastening that instead would be decent (likely a topic for another thread)
Too late to edit my post, but a perfect way to extend Aria & Harmony of Tone would be to give the BP a special kind of Instrument Finesse (as long as it is updated to level 100 or 105 songs, which is still needed on the few RoF items that have this effect). ex: [12382] Percussion Finesse Classes: BRD/254 Skill: Singing Target: Self Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes Casting: 0s Duration: 03:15:00 (1950 ticks), Dispelable: Yes 1: Increase Duration by 6s 2: Limit Max Level: 95 (lose 20% per level) 3: Limit Class: BRD 4: Limit Bard Skill: Percusion 5: Limit Effect: Exclude Melee Delay Increases the duration of percussion instrument based bard songs by 1 tick. Aria and Harmony of Tone are not the same instrument type (Singing/Percussion), so it would be more complicated (or one of the song types could be changed). I think a working Instrument Finesse on the BP would be pretty interesting.
Next round of bard BP's for the next expansion should look like this (if there are at least 3 tiers of progression): Tier 1 - Instant Group Damage Shield clickable. The Horn of Unity is a most excellent item to have as a bard. Would be handy to have a insta cast version (most likely a weaker version but still insta cast). Tier 2 - Rhyme of Refuge for the survivability (scaled for whatever content). Tier 3 - DPS click for melee and casters. Or maybe just put a damage shield on the survivability click and have it scale. We could really use a insta click group DS right now. Something like 75-100 dmg, and 20-30 ac boost? Could take it a bit further and add a knockback proc on the dmg shield that will knock the player backwards slightly when hit (if hit by 100's of mobs it will push you into the wall). Just wanted to get my 2 cents in.
As it appears to be a level cap raise, asked for a dps style clicky. An expansion without a level cap raise, can look at defensive/utility.
not sure how effective this would be but im wanting some others opinions what if the bp effect was both a stat cap lifter and all song cap lifter for group ?? I was thinking how some of our songs really rocket up some stats but the caps keep the actuals lower it would be nice to have a few seconds to have our stat songs give full bonus for a few second this could be a indirect dps buff and nice combo burn defense depending how the stats play out? Comments?
