Noticed the new MMO Lost Ark had a bard class and it reminded me of one of the things I wish EQ bards had: Protective support. I think there could be a lot of cool gameplay for bards if we were given songs that were long recast short duration "shielding songs". You could have one that increases change to dodge by 70% which could allow you to save people from AoE ramp, a magic rune to absorb a large set amount of magic damage to block a big AoE, or even one that gives you a buff that blocks the next detrimental spell to keep potent debuffs from afflicting your group. Supporting in EQ has often felt a little underwhelming in terms of complexity and it would be cool to have some more high impact support abilities in play.
We do have defensive boosts from long ago that no one really ever used. Like another post about ervaj's defensive refrain, which puts damage into the mana pool instead of HP...also minor runes that work like rune weapon procs against melee AND spell damage in addition to spell reflection. Honestly, these things would work way better as a instant-cast AA type of thing rather than a song, which is why they were never used much.
The biggest problem with long re-use songs is spell gem availability. As Chorus said, long re-use AAs would make more sense for things like this. Many are situational, you'd have to sacrifice other utility just to have these available *just in case* you needed them, it's not worth the tradeoff. I like the idea of more variety/versatility, but this is a tough nut to balance. (I'm currently playing on Aradune, and going on memory from long ago about later game songs, so I apologize if I misstate). There are actually a handful of long re-use "protective" support songs that rarely ever get used. * Dark Echo - 50% chance to reflect spells (though I believe many spells bypass this, which is a travesty) * Kazumi's - Group DA - the ultimate protection spell * Crescendo Line - heal/mana boost recourse effect I occasionally do use Kazumi's, but I don't think I've ever even memorized Dark Echo. The boost would have to be major (you postulated 70% dodge rate, I think that fits) to even make it worth considering slotting a long re-use song like that. But at that point, you risk providing a get out of jail free card. E.g., have a bard use that song when a "mask click" emote goes off on OMM... even if the click is missed, the tank can take it with that dodge rate. We've now trivialized the mechanic an entire encounter was built around. Re-use would have to be, I dunno, more than 5 minutes or so to help mitigate that. And at that point, you probably wouldn't take the time to memorize it. Difficult balance.
This is a fair criticism. As for the spells you listed above while they all sound good on paper they all seems to have 1 big catch that makes them unsatisfying. Dark Echo just doesn't work on anything that matters. I don't know why they made most of the spells in the game unreflectable but it is certainly a travesty as it could be a very satisfying and skill intensive song to use. Kazumi's just ends up being clunky as there is only about a 5% chance that everyone in your group wants to be DAed and surprise DAs are quite disruptive. Crescendo is basically just group mana regen as the heal is too random to be useful.
