Bard DPS increase required..

Sirene is the actual uptime of Dicho Fury (bst) 25s per cast? I thought it was around 18 to 22 averaging around 20? Are you counting a ghost tick or something else I am not thinking of

Just for clarification, it was the Woodwind Finesse focus effect on an instrument that was nerfed, which allowed bard PBAE mez songs to last an extra tick when equipped. The mez songs themselves didn't change. It was a pretty pointless change since 1.) it was one of the few reasons to ever equip an instrument (so much for that), and 2.) bards could still mez lock mobs using A Tune Stuck in Your Head AA, which can be active every 10 of 13 minutes these days. Bards didn't even touch the power of enchanters then, and they still don't now. In fact, bard mez is pretty pathetic... 3 second cast times for both a single target mez song and pbae 6-limit mez that lasts the same duration as the recast (30s). Bards don't even have a target ae mez, so they can't effectively CC a group of mobs from afar... rangers can do a better job.

Based on this, rough calculation.

I liked the part where you got bent over a chair with facts, logic, and numbers, and yet you're still spewing the same argument over and over because it's the only thing you have to say about a class you couldn't care less about. You're one of those really, really stupid people that get offended when people use words you don't understand, aren't you?

Wow, this fransisco guy really is a piece of work, eh?

Anyways, thanks as always for your amazing Bard-related contributions to these discussions, Sirene! If anyone is ever going to be able to get the real facts across to the devs about the shortcomings of our class, it will be you who does it~

Can post facts all day long.. don't matter to trolls. Really wish they would go away.

Bards need tons of love.

Some thing that should be changed to make bards what they should be both improved DPS and improved ADPS.

All abilities/AA should have recast reduced to 3min. This would be to simply make it so they can all be synced with Epic and FE. This would make it so bards sustain is much higher and closer to their burn. At the very least adjusting all cast time to 6min to link them to every other Epic and FE round.

Epic and FE..
I am not entirely sure if they are intended to be up 2/3 of the time (epic at any rate). I would really love to have epic up on instant cast time. Improvements to FE are needed and really on many occasions FE is takes a back seat to other classes ADPS abilities.

Reflexive disc line
This should have its recast reduced to every 10sec with of course mana and HP return adjusted to keep in line with desired mana per second. This would bump bard DPS by a good amount.

QT improvement.
If the recast is reduced as above that should cover melee groups. There is so many stacking issues with QT and with it being the lesser of all other HH effects i would like to just see it as a 80-100% up time.
I would like to see something added to it to help casters. example. reduced cast times and or global cool downs. Would make sense as the name is "Quick Time"

Spires
need lots of work to bring them up to a worthy current ADPS abilities.

Dots and nukes.
Would be nice if all the dots were combined. also do something with the use of debuff slots for raids.
Nukes just make one nuke line with no push. i am not sure what the stubbornness is with the push and having 2 silly lines.
Make it so a bard can twist 1 dot and 1 nuke with our other ADPS songs.

ADPS songs
Really would love to see some creative improvements to these as most of them have gone unchanged for years and have not even remotely kept up with the increasing damage people output. Like it has been said many times 90% of all bards song power comes from 2 songs.

I forgot to add something that is very much needed in raid situations.

Range of songs and more importantly Epic and other Group buffs need to be significantly increased.

This is not such a big deal in melee groups but caster groups its horrible.

You should see his post in the TLP forums about someone not even acknowledging reason/logic in a discussion, irony at its finest.

like your idea to reduce the recast times on aa
i think we need 2 kick aa or one kick as a disp 5 to 10 k spammable and more damage on selos kick

I know some very good bards. Their ADPS is awesome. But currently that is their role. Raids don't need pullers or CC, groups dont' need pullers or CC. Maybe let them dps a little.
Don't increase their ADPS, just let them hit harder. Pure melee, it's easy, give them a free aa that makes them do a little more damage. (you can do it easy... tank stances precident)

Hey stop thank you for your post !

The problem with adps is that they farmed it out to to many classes this in effect reduced bard adps benefits substantially given that those adps effects are better than the bards. In addition base song effects that are utility lines have been discontinued and are no longer usable due to no upgrades.
If you scroll back in this post another poster gives a good explanation on how many other classes got ADPS.

What we lost through omission

No rune effects that are meaningful we used to have a damage reduction tied to a rune but our top rune damage reduction song has a 2k rune its no longer viable.

our DS song has not been upgraded in 3 or 4 expansions

As you stated in your post, just about every class has ADPS now. We now have manaburn from the wizards, scarlet cheetah fang from rangers, dicho fury from beasts, precision from warriors, tyvls from SKs, and the list goes on and on. In addition, every single DPS class got synergy abilties with EoK, and some of them are very respectable ADPS.

To say bards should not get much of a DPS boost because people are still under the impression they are the premier ADPS class just isn't the case anymore. ADPS is now the job of the entire raid, not just in the hands of a few classes.

They either need to provide bards with a massive ADPS boost to make them once again the "premier" ADPS class, or they need to add short refresh discs and other melee abilities to make them respectable DPS. I really don't see them doing the former since they seem to be trending towards making every class solid ADPS, so the latter I feel is their only course of action.

flash000 said: ↑

“Aura of Might & Roar of the Dragon (AA version)
Ideally id like this as a song and as an aura that would uplift group stats by say +200 to 500+ haste + mana recovery proc + end recovery proc”

I don't think increasing stats by 500 would make a very big difference in DPS, so I don't think this is worth pursuing.

The numbers on the stat buff could be raised I think shaman buffs do add to dps through increased str agi dex, stam could add to hp and ac effects.


For haste - I think there is a hardcap of 225% and we cannot physically get more haste out of the game aside from getting Decrease Weapon Delay % (from Quick Time). This effect has sort of become the realm of BST and every request we've made to improve the % on Quick Time in recent years has been turned down.

Instead of haste how about a flurry effect adding more attacks?
group gets 50% increase to flurry bard gets 100%
+20% to groups combat skills damage
+40% to bards

For mana and end recovery proc, I do not think the developers would go for it, in the most recent expansion they were wary about adding more mana / end return abilities as they feel resources should require management and shouldn't be infinite.

With the amount of self recovery most classes have I find it absurd how much they reduced our group recover effects for mana and end. I think the big issue with it was that it was a massive mana dump all in one shot. If it was a smaller proc effect then it would be more viable to give it back to us.


flash000 said: ↑

“Echoing Delusion
AA AE mez instant cast but all messed mobs have a linked rune if you break one they all break but on break they get a slow effect”

An instant cast AE mez would be interesting, but I'm not sure the developers would be able to code something like a linked rune, it's an interesting idea. We could ask for an AE mez that additionally does a debuff.
flash000 said: ↑

“Fragment of sound
AA pet summon summons level 20ish shadow man pet to assist with pulls.”

What benefit does this have over our abilities like Boastful Bellow? I'm not sure how a level 20 pet helps pulling.

A level 20 pet does not draw assist aggro at all you can send one into a pack of 50 mobs and pull single every time. I have seen sk pull named single out of a pack of 20 mobs.

flash000 said: ↑

“Echoing Barrier
Our runes are way out of date as well as our damage shield songs. I suggest a new song set to replace them the song would be a straight damage reduction per hit of 20% and reflects back to attacker 10%”

I like the idea of upgrading our rune/defensive songs, that would be helpful.
flash000 said: ↑

“Blade Dance
Similar to deft dance but riposte attacks back to mob”

This one is viable but what is really valuable about it? Do you want a secondary version of Deftdance, or are you looking for more DPS with this ability.

Riposte reflects damage back to attacker if we can get this unlinked to deftdance it would also give us a few minutes of tanking ability.

flash000 said: ↑

“Offensive section

It seems like every class has a drop the hammer button but bards.

Selos slash
targeted jump forward to mob + damage buff + mele attack
increases damage x 5 to x10 random for 1hit 90000 drains 50% end

using selos speed to charge and strike the mob”

These are OK ideas, although I think 50% endurance is a bit steep. I dont think the dev will give us a big dps boom unless its steep for us to use.
flash000 said: ↑

“Performers Pantomime
Randomly copies a group members attack ability.”

This is a cool idea, but not sure if viable. I do not know if EQ can check what classes we have in our group when we cast a spell. Maybe it could do a random ability from a set of several types? Would be interesting, but what is the goal of the ability?

DPS if we are solo this aa would be inactive its dependent on who you group with. It seems most classes are unwilling to give us a straight dps boost if our dps was somehow linked to being grouped with a class that can trigger an effect this would cast, it may make them feel it is not a straight dps boost


flash000 said: ↑

“Selos after image
Summons 10 pets that hit 1 to 3 times then despawn that are identical to bard and have high damage and high accuracy.”

I feel like between Lyrical Prankster and Song of Stone bards already have quite a few pets. Maybe it could just be a combat ability strike that does decent dmg?

What i failed to mention is that these would spawn 1 at a time this is a dps and tanking ability. Increasing dodge and each pet that attacks have a high dps attack for 2 or 3 hits.

I was bouncing some ideas for some bard stuff for us off of Sieren to get some feedback on what to have class reps go to devs with anyone have any ideas that might be useful?

one other idea i had was like sk epic make the effect higher for bards themselves than it is for their groups? double the effect for bards or more?

#Bardlivesmatter

#eqdevwedontcareaboutbards

Victim mentality is a real pain. I don't get the trolling, other than victim mentality, and "your class" nonsense sort of thing. There is no your class or my class. Everyone in the game can play whatever they want.

Some good info here, thanks for the great posts! Out of all the things that bards could certainly use, the one that killed the class for me was the fade change. Bards used to be incredibly fluid to play, and could sustain that play over the long hall, which was not only fun while pulling, but necessary. EQ moves at a certain speed, and bards got left behind. The rate at which groups chew through mobs in a camp, denotes that bards need to be able to be active non stop. Christ, I'd make fade free of mana altogether.

I have to say, I really dislike DBGs endless tinkering with things that don't need to be fixed. Spend your time improving classes, not taking things away from them that make the game less fun. I will never understand in a million years, how anyone that works as a game dev can get behind nerfing fade.... to what end?

Here's an idea, let bards use their mana for BURN, instead of utility. Two birds, one stone. That way you can justify the horrendous mana regen, and it's actually a good limiter to keeping on lid on how much a bard could do. Pull anything that's utility out of the mana cost pool, and give them a few, high cost burst, or a sustained mana usage that buffs melee damage while active.... Let bards use their mana for fun instead of work.

#ZerkerLivesMatter but we can give the bards some more tank abilities i think. Yeah they want to tank better. Kinda like they say monks should. Tank abilities for all!

Actually, I was thinking about tanking for bards.

They are plate class, and if they could toggle whether bard songs generate aggro or not, they could probably generate quite a lot of aggro. Give them good shield AA and defensive AA, and we have a new group tank class.

It should be balanced towards 1-2 yellow con EoK trash mobs, or one EoK group named, in group gear. Better tanking than a ranger, worse tanking than Pally, SK, Warrior. No raid tanking.

Build it up slowly, start with the bard song aggro toggle. Do not make them uber like the other tank classes with stances and what have we not, it should take effort to keep them alive against a group named.

A group with a bard as tank would have to use CC in some situations, which would be welcomed by many that like that aspect of the game.

And normalize their mana regen already... it is silly that they have a seperate mana system, different from the rest.