I laughed, i cried ... but mostly i laughed *edit* my wife raids with me and by this guys standards we are 2 of the people who sold our souls for 30 pieces of silver to raid ... i swear it was even funnier to watch her face when reading this thread rofl
The values for SPAs 286 (spell damage) and 433 (melee damage) in my initial post are incorrect. My thanks to a number of studious parsers in this thread for pointing that out. After discussing these changes with Aristo the following should happen in the next full patch: Dichotomic Psalm The endurance cost will be reduced Dichotomic Psalm of Potential The spell damage focus will be increased slightly Dichotomic Psalm of Empowerment The melee damage effect will be increased substantially The mana restored will be increased and the endurance restored will be reduced so that the line better mirrors the ratios offered by the Crescendo line
I highly doubt the end result still isn't a nerf to a highly overpowered initial version. Maybe try starting your own mage thread and maybe you can get a reasonable increase to yours.
The brief on planned fixes is indeed welcome, but issues remain. My perspective is that as a concept, combo Crescendo & fixed_Fatesong combined with a lil' melee boost is a very fine thing. What's missing really is an awareness that bards need something somewhat more than fair when their songs get full targets, since that condition is so rare; in the case of a combo song, the actual requirement for the song to be at-potential is that much harder to realize. And, further, an awareness that bards are mechanically excluded from whole swathes of resource restoration, so putting a cost on bard abilities is so much more impactful than it is on the 15 other classes. In its broken form, the "Crescendo part" of Dichotomic Psalm was so potent that no one even cared what the rest was [not] doing. Now, with the Crescendo part fixed, and a new very serious cost to the bard attached, analysis has to be made of the song's worth. In its broken form, and through the first fix thanks apparently to some broken SPAs, Dicho's adps was about on the scale of Storm Blade, the level 69 proc song. Fixing the song, if the next fix makes it match Dzarn's stated intention for the previous one, would boost performance by about an order of magnitude. A significant change, usually. I'm skeptical it'll be on target (just beaten down that way ), but even if it's newly correct, it would take another tripling to roughly match Suffering, which is already third string behind Aria & War March, and doesn't have an associated cost.
Thanks, this is welcome news. Though I'll confess, I believe the endurance return never needed reduced, let alone needing reduced now for a second time. Do you think you could also discuss the hit limit counter with Aristo as well? If weapon delays impact the damage return as stated before, it does not make sense to have this ability (which has a painfully short duration, large cost, and large for a bard song reuse time) be less effective for classes that employ the "death by 1000 paper cuts" role in the game versus those that swing the big slow stick.
Any plans for Bards to get the Rest line of discs? Almost any endurance cost on this is going to result in extended periods of OOC medding since endurance recovers so slowly compared to mana.
As a magician, I realize that the bard Dicho initial changes were grossly unfair and needed to be changed to a compromise for both sides. While I still am sad at the rain changes, I am smart enough to have some understanding as to why they happened that way. And I personally still use rains on solo/group content so from that perspective the rain changes did not affect that area of gameplay...
Laxmi wins this thread, IMHO, for giving his account of leveling a bard for dicho and reaching 105 just before it got nerfed. Independent of his concern, he's pointing this out: DBG let this slide until the expansion cycle was basically over. That's complete nonsense. If they didn't think that people would come to rely on the ability by this point in the expansion cycle, then I'd like a toke of whatever it is they've been passing around the office. Actually, for me, I could give a rat's butt. I don't particularly like being treated like the group's mana battery, and the other recent bard nerfs (to Fade, specifically) have actually made me a useful puller (particularly in raid situations) again, so the class is still more fun to play than it has been in a while. That said: This is a nonsense nerf (even in its 'fixed' version now promised to us), and it exists in the context of a nonsense ability system, where some classes get devastatingly powerful dichos and others get dichos they shouldn't even waste a spell gem on. Dicho shouldn't have been launched in this woeful state of imbalance, and it should have been fixed a lot faster than this, and in general it should be fixed in a comprehensive way, not just by singling out some perceived 'worst offender' class for taking advantage of their OP dicho, and then swinging a nerf bat directly at their head. It actually beggars belief how bad DBG is at hearing where each class stands in terms of its ability to fulfill the mission assigned to it, and then make adjustments. Bards, I think, are in the upper quarter of urgency, in terms of how poorly they fulfill their intended role at this particular point in time, but a couple other classes are equally messed up. Too bad for them and the people who play them.
It's frustrating for me as a returning player to find my favorite class in such a weak state that I can't justify trying to get one to level cap. It's not just the Dicho change either. They just seem much weaker relative to other classes and relative to other time periods. Almost non-existent personal dps, relegated to "melee" or "caster" groups instead of the true hybrid they always were, and super squishy. Sure, they can pull really well, but then what? Doesn't seem like a good enough reason to bring a Bard along--let alone play one. I may play one to 70-80 soon, but that would just be for casual fun and not serious progression/completion that nearly any other class would have an easier time getting into and pushing through.
Don't let one ability nerf get you down so much. Bard is still a good and needed class. My group has always and still revolves around my SK and Bard. The ADPS and regen assistance is still top notch and personal DPS is nothing to scoff at (I see roughly 50% of what my BST and RNG do sustained over long parses). Also keep in mind that guilds are still stocking up on a TON of bards for raids... you want one in almost every group. There are plenty of reasons for that OTHER than Dicho.
If you read what I wrote, it has very little to do with Dicho. That was just an extra kick in the musical nuts.
That's not the point. It's just an acknowledgment of where Bards still have something over most other classes. However, I don't think it makes up for what they lack.
While it hasn't come up much in this thread, you know bards play 20 other songs besides Dicho each minute, right?
