Please rethink bard mez caps

At level 28 bards get Crission's pixie strike: Mez target to level 45

The next song we get is at 53, song of twilight, which only mezzes targets up to 54.........

This makes bard absolutely fall of a cliff post lower guk. All of the places you are going to be trying to group, seb, hole, chardak, the class is gutted. Being able to mez as a bard, is a vital part of the toolkit. I can't even count how many times I've been asked "What level can you mezz" in a tell when LFG. The answer is almost always, we'll have to look for an enchanter.

There are no camps you can do and fill the role of CC post 45, in any of the places you are going to be leveling. It's a situation that has existed for years, and it really needs to be changed. If song of twilight is going to have a lever 54 cap, you should get it at a level where you actually need to CC those mobs. There are no level 53 groups pulling level 54 mobs.

Bard CC is already more challenging, as it's on such a short duration. As someone who has also mained a chanter plenty of times, I can tell you it's significantly easier to keep mobs locked down.

I get that bards are more or less crappy chanters that run fast, but this really needs to be changed. Move song of twilight to 45, and introduce a new song at 53 that lets bards mezz up to a reasonably expected level of mob you're actually fighting in groups.

Your player skills will take care of it.

Every single one of those groups still wants a bard in it. I think bards are fine.

There is an even easier solution than the one you proposed, and i know this because it is the one I proposed.

The level 40 bard song Sionachie's Dreams is a Luclin song that caps out at 53. This would still give a gap between enchanters and bards, but a less extreme one, keeping more in line with the kunark, velious, luclin tables before the gap disappears entirely in PoP (chart below)



Solution: Enable Sionachie's Dreams in classic era. It was clearly designed as a quality of life improvement song, its just trapped in Katta Castellum. Or is it?

Serilia Whistlewind, a bard merchant in Greater Faydark, already carries this song once Luclin drops. Unlock the spell in classic, and suddenly bards can buy the spell, and dont have to deal with the extreme mez gap

There's also this very early dead range for bard charm as well. If bards are supposed to help replace enchanters in a group for crowd control purposes, then there's a huge lack of actual toolkit there.

Bard Mez goes to 55 not 54. In Kunark this means bards can Mez mobs at all but 4 camps Kennels, Koro, Under/Over and Juggs. Of those camps 4 camps Bards can CC easily by single pulling in all of them but Kennels.

Bards are one of the most desired classes for groups even when the group wants to bring an Enchanter.

Skill issue.

This could be a really nice change.

Anyone that calls over/under -- "under/over" -- I can't trust at all. Also, you have another bad take.

Lol.

I love these ad hominem attacks, directed at someone you have no idea what their skill level is. I have about 30 different bards, I pulled most of the server firsts on Mischief. I assure you my player skill, or lack thereof, has nothing to do with the issue.

At one point in history, bard songs had no caps. This was abused, so they changed it, and when they did, they did it wrong, and left these huge gaps. Being level 60, and only having access to CC to 54 is just idiotic, and it's an oversight.

The thing is, you have one of the top 3 most op classes in the game, and your asking for more abilties/buffs for it.

I argued before launch that they need to give bard's their luclin mez songs in classic/kunark. There's not a single reason not to, bard's are underpowered in the group game pre-PoP.

I would add King in seb, that aside. Bard's can easily single pull kennels as well assuming you never get a critical lull fail, which you seem to be overlooking. If our lull was irresistible like harmony, or we had a way to drop aggro pre-fade, I wouldn't care what you did with mez cause it wouldn't matter

Bard's are inferior already at CC (as they should be because of other talents) there's no need to remove that ability all together.

I've never seen a single person argue in planes of power that bards mez cap needs reduced below enchanters. it stays the same forever after that. Its evident that its an arbitrary cap.

Ench lvl 2 mez goes up to level 55.....

Ancient: Lullaby of Shadows is attainable in Velious

that is indeed the case. I mention it in the chart that it drops from Vulak. However, in terms of Era, it is a Luclin spell that got backfilled to Vulak's loot table.

Your asking for unnecessary buffs on a class that's already one of the best raiding and grouping classes in the game.

Other forms of CC exist or just tanking multiple mobs with slow ect. Like not every add has to be CCed. Lull keeping the majority of pulls small is already enough.

FFS people, quit making me agree with Magician9001. Bard is an amazing class that is wanted in pretty much every group at any level or stage of the game.

You know who really needs some Luclin spell love? Paladins. Cease and Desist would be great for them prior to Luclin.

I mean yeah bards are great and whatabout Paladins and rogues and all, but a lvl 52 bard should be able to mez mobs in their seb and chardok groups.

Or they could use charm which works on mobs up to level 51 mobs. That CCs one mob and possibly two depending on how you use it. CC is only really needed to break a camp and afterwards for the occasional single add you get. For this to truly be an issue, you would need to have an idiot puller, and you are better off not being in that group to begin with. If nobody else has lull, the bard themselves do.

A single class having less access to one ability for a five level range or so, which in no way affects them getting groups, isn't a real issue.

I've never come across an official statement suggesting that "Bards are supposed to help replace or outright replace Enchanters for crowd control." Bards have always been the "jack of all trades" class, capable of filling in for various roles, but only to a limited extent. It's unrealistic and potentially misleading to expect a Bard to match an Enchanter's crowd control abilities. The purpose of the Bard's control songs is to provide supplementary support, not to serve as a primary replacement.

I'm fairly certain the disparity between song mez and spell mez is intentional in the early expansions. However, as more expansions are released, this gap narrows, though Enchanters continue to be the best at crowd control.

bards already have to much. They shouldn't fully fill a enchanter slot but also a melee slot and have the best adps to boot, all at the same time. Bards are more than fine. The fact that there is an edge case where their ability set is not BIS is not a bad thing. A truely balanced bard would be incapable of handling alot of situations, because most classes cannot handle every situation on their own

The thing is, the original devs didnt comprehend the idea of a progression server, so "restricting by expansion" wasn't really a concept to them, outside of level cap increases. So when they would add new spells in expansions at lower levels, they were meant for some purpose. In the case of the level 40 Sionachie's Dreams, it was clearly to raise the gap of lower level bard mez from 45 (10 levels below enchanter and necro) to 53 (only 2 levels behind those 2 classes). And then as we got the ancients, the gap reduced to only 2 levels, then PoP added parity between ENC and BRD mez.

I agree. They also have some REAL stinkers of spells in Kunark and Velious that could really use a tune-up, but we can have 2 improvements at the same time. Just turn the song on, then we can focus on paladin issues. or rogue issues. Or the fact that non-raiding wizards have to wait until December of next year to get a replacement for Concussion on Teek and Tormax

I want to believe they designed the songs and spells around expansion encounters and difficulty.

Sionachie's Dream was introduced in the Luclin expansion, and while there hasn't been a level cap increase since Kunark, the difficulty of encounters has risen over this period. Considering the escalating challenge of expansions, it's reasonable that a level 40 bard would need something to remain competitive, especially since they could potentially group with players up to level 60. Looking forward to the Planes of Power expansion, a level 46 bard would be able to group in the entry-level planar zones, effectively covering their needs as well.

Regarding the 'ancient' songs/spells, they aren't a valid point of contention. Even on a TLP a player might never obtain their Ancient because they are all extremely rare.

Personally, I think Bard songs have it on the easier side in the grand scheme of things.