Make Bard class fun again

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Starkxx, Oct 6, 2019.

  1. Starkxx Journeyman

    With the recent nerf to VS and the upcoming changes to fade. There definitely needs to be some changes in order for the Bard class to not just be a #melodybot. Here are some ideas or suggestions that may help suffice those changes.

    Bards are a support class and we just make everyone better except ourselves. We are the lowest out of the melee class. SK's can outparse us yet we can't tank worth anything even as plate wearers. Our disc hasn't been updated in what seems to be a millennium, still using a lvl 69 disc. I bet rogues can also chime in on that as well on updated discs but that's a different story.

    1) Breather - Bellows, VS, Dissident requires endurance. We have never gotten any type of endurance regen except for self rally. But how useful is it when you need to be out of combat and below 30%.

    2) Meditation - Increase meditation skill past (1). My mana pool is 250k without any buffs. So with the new changes to fade (12% of maximum mana to activate). It will cost me at least 30k mana to fade without any buffs. Fade, synergy, alliance requires mana to use.

    3) Jonthan's Mightful Caretaker - Make that a AA self only like the song.

    4) Amplication - Make that an innate AA.

    5) Thousand Blades - Lvl 69 disc. Definitely needs an update.

    6) Selos - Improved ranks. No mount or anyone should be faster than selos.

    7) Twinsong - Improved ranks. Currently only at 5%.

    8) Lasping Lullaby - Make an AE blur song. Lasping lullaby single target has a rare % to blur and with the bard mez not lasting more than 36s. Take for example 3 mobs mezzed. Takes a few casts to blur 1 target. By the time you have 2nd mob blurred, the mez on the 3rd mob will start to wear off & you need to remez. Once you remez, the 2 blurred mobs are back on aggro.


    Lets not make Bards obselete!
  2. Nniki Augur

    The nerf to the unlimited target count on Vainglorious Shout was understandable. It doesn't really affect bards on live all that much imo. The main annoyance is not being able to use it to AE old content anymore. The increased endurance cost at the same time wasn't really necessary though with the lack of endurance recovery options.

    I don't think the fade changes for bards are going to be that significant.
    Aside from the slight increase in mana cost that was already auto-incrementing with every level anyway (it's currently 4k atm... 2% is like 5k for raiding bards), there's the benefit of always receiving the invisibility effect once again. Otherwise, it sounds like everything else will remain the same.

    Unless you plan on sitting to regenerate your mana, I don't believe increasing the meditation skill cap will help. The meditation skill affects sitting mana regeneration and reduces the time to memorize spells. Bards received the Scribble Notes AA to make up for the memorization time difference. It's the lack of benefiting from most spell effects that makes up the primary difference in mana regeneration rates.
    That line was in the June 7th, 1999 game update. There was probably a check excluding the bard class added in the mana regeneration logic associated with that change.

    While I do think the bard's discipline space has been underutilized by spell development over the years, Thousand Blades uses percentage-based modifiers, so it doesn't necessarily need an update. Many older disciplines across classes don't get upgraded due to this reason.

    Bards have 6 different disciplines (one of which is a line that gets upgraded): Puretone and Resistant disciplines are both useless on live. Thousand Blades, Deftdance, Reflexive, and (seldomly) Fearless are the useful ones. There's plenty of room for growth here; it's just been ignored for whatever reason.

    Being "fastest" has always been a unique trait for bards. I was sad to see the RoS raid mount (85 velocity) exceed the Selo's Sonata AA (81 velocity). Previous raid mounts were 75 velocity. Bards were technically given an "upgraded" version of the song with EoK: Selo's Accelerato has a velocity of 88. Obviously it's slightly faster (excluding strafing where the mount is 95 and the song is 90), but no bard is actually going to use that song regularly if at all: 1.) It takes up a song slot, 2.) It has a 3-second cast time, 3.) It only lasts 24 seconds (with AA), and 4.) it blocks the AA version (expected, but annoying nonetheless).

    Bards have had a duration of at least 2.5 minutes (nowadays 5 minutes with AA) since Luclin (2001) with Selo's Accelerating Chorus (L49). Composer's Greaves were added with Planes of Power (2002) with a 1-second cast time. Selo's Sonata AA came out with Secrets of Faydwer (2007) eliminating the need to memorize the song or use a clicky, and it is instant-cast. I'm not sure if increasing the speed of the AA is the right course of action (not sure if it'd have adverse affects on the non-bards in group), but the song version is found wanting at the very least. If the duration was 2.5 min base and the cast time still instant, an AA that just used the best scribed version of the song would be a nice option.

    This actually matches what has been given to casters via the Twincast AA. Although, they do get activated ways of forcing a 100% chance of twincast as well.
    Zunnoab and Vumad like this.
  3. Allayna Augur

    You forgot the nerf to dissonant chord and dicho. Bards are super odd though. They get included on the hate mask. They have no taunt. They wear plate.
    Yinla likes this.
  4. zhay Journeyman

    Bards are the forgotten class in everquest. It have been a while since Dev worked on something really usefull for bards.

    I actually think, we have so few real players left in game, that our need never get to the top of the pile of things which need to be done - and when changes comes, it is (like this fade) a result of trying to fix something for other classes.

    Maybe - someday we can actually have a dev trying to play bard class- he are welcome to come to AB and maybe after such a real live experiance he will understand the problems bard class have in modern EQ

    zhay
  5. Tucoh Augur

    If we're talking about fun I think the two biggest things I miss being able to do on my bard is charm and tank.

    As a warrior main I think bards (along with rangers, monks and enchanters for that matter) should be a viable stand-in tank for plate tanks / pets, though not nearly as good. In other words, if a plate tank is 100% of a tank, a nec/bst/mag pet is 80%, a bard should be 60%. Right now they're at like 20%.

    Charm is fun and is one of the few high risk, high reward abilities in EQ, but it hasn't been generally useful to bards for a long time, and that's a shame. I'm charming on my mage group with my enchanter and it's a tremendous amount of fun.

    So, in my opinion:
    1. Add a new self-only song that dramatically increases the hate generated by any action + having a high mod taunt proc + dramatically increases the defensive abilities of the bard.

    2. Increase the charm cap of Voice of Jembel to 109 (or increase all charms to 110...), and add a melee buff to it, similar to what enchanters get with Transfixer's Command. It used to be that if I wanted to get as much as I could out of my bard, I'd have a charmed mob in many situations. Now the charmed mobs are only available in stupidly easy areas and do so little damage it's just a waste of time.

    3. Add Increase Magnification by 115% to Quicktime.
    Vumad likes this.
  6. Funky Augur

    as much as i would love to have more ways to get mana/endurance back (breather, hiatus, paragon, etc.), also remember bards are immune to nearly every mana drain.. we still eat the endurance drains yes, but not mana.

    so if you get the dev's to go into giving us more ways to get endurance/mana back... you could have to deal with the mana drains also from now on.

    and i doubt that we would get enough of a boost to end/mana regen to really offset the drains
    Vumad and Nniki like this.
  7. svann Augur

    This part isnt so. You dont need to be out of combat, just take no offensive actions and dont get hit. Just stand back, sing buff songs and wait for rally to tick down.
    Funky likes this.
  8. Funky Augur


    true, but still sucks just standing there for 30sec... can't attack, no detrimental songs.. back to the good ole /melody bot lol
  9. Lianeb Augur

    Bards are the only class in Everquest where if a raid leader went to the bard store, he would say, “i’ll take 9 of those”
    Elyssanda, Funky, Maedhros and 2 others like this.
  10. Tucoh Augur

    Yeah the bard's core capability (ADPS, pulling, utility) is pretty good right now, so I'm a bit dubious about recommendations that improve their DPS/ADPS. I just think they're a shadow of their former self.

    Maybe it's just nostalgia but I have fond memories in early EQ of being the puller, tank, buffer, source of mana regen and maintaining a charmed pet to deal substantial damage, but could only do all of that if I was really try-harding in the pre-melody, pre-gina trigger days. I was able to do 2x more than anyone in my group, but only if I was putting 5x more effort than any other person in the group.
    Ferriciean, Elyssanda, Vumad and 2 others like this.
  11. Eggolas Augur

    Ah, the good old days of twisting songs and really commanding the character. Of course, those sore wrists and carpal tunnel problems likely led to the /melody change. An hour of actively twisting songs could be painful.
    code-zero, AcemoneyFV and Tucoh like this.
  12. Tucoh Augur

    yeah it 1 1 was really 2 2 the bad 3 3 old days
    svann likes this.
  13. yosco Augur


    How many events still incorporate a severe, unavoidable mana drain compared to how many require bards to use mana-sucking songs to produce halfway decent dps?
  14. Nniki Augur

    You can even get hit actually. Riposte is the issue here. Using a non-weapon bandolier or facing away are options too.
  15. bbanz Elder

    And the store owner says, "Only 3 in stock. The rest expired from boredom."
    Funky likes this.
  16. Thunderkiks Augur

    Well one thing will be changing at least. We will be able to use Hiatus in combat, which will be great for endurance.
  17. Nniki Augur

    Bards don't get Hiatus lol.
    Thunderkiks likes this.
  18. Thunderkiks Augur

    Ah crap. Well never mind me then
    Nniki likes this.
  19. Nniki Augur

    That's always been the problem for bard development. From the outside, everyone says bards are amazing to have in group and raid (it's true), but from the inside, there's always been little active gameplay. Melody does most of the work, click Epic and Fierce Eye every 3 minutes, a burn every 10-12 minutes... not much action. Pulling can add some flavor in group content, but nowadays that's not really a big deal. Bellow, Shout, and Alliance actually gave bards something to focus on. Some prefer the inactivity, but I think most would rather be more involved in the fighting (i.e. "playing" the game).

    I'd say the Bellow and Vainglorious Shout changes weren't that bad of an addition. I'd consider them useful. Taking up more debuff slots might not have been ideal, but it was an interesting implementation. Alliance is nice too; although, I'd much rather have seen it as a discipline than a song.

    There are actually developers on the team that play bards, but the changes to songs/discs and AAs are going to come down to Aristo and Dzarn respectively. I don't know the weight of the input from bard devs in those design decisions, but my assumption is that it is negligible. So, bards will continue to get useless/underdeveloped songs like the Burning Call (+AA), Requiem for the Lost/Dead, Pests/Plague of the Piper, Psalm of Veeshan, and Denon's Dirge (+AA) lines, two charm songs that are practically the same for whatever reason, spell damage bonus songs that are both weak and split up by damage type for whatever reason, and plenty more.
    Funky likes this.
  20. Starkxx Journeyman


    We currently have the invis effect already with fade. Yes, 2% is not a huge issue. I did not get a chance to reread the updated notes on fade. But I did catch that there was also a 2.5m refresh timer? Honestly any class can pull. But what separates a bard puller from any puller is the ability to fade at will. Now there is no separation between pullers besides monks.