Dev Team: Consolidated Dirge suggestions Please Send Feedback!!!

Our AE interrupt (Wail of Woe line) will hit mobs outside the encounter ... Max 8 mobs in total though... effect radius is 15 meters, so could very well the reason for your agro.

It hits them, but it doesn't generate agro.

You bring up some interesting points Silentchord. About tomb's stillness going off every hit though.. I think it would be difficult to properly balance the damage, but even more importantly I think that would cause alot of undo lag. I dunno about the rest of you, but I always get a lag spike when I use CoB. For that matter, can you imagine double procs on *every single melee attack* (cob + tombs)?
I don't pretend to have all the answers, but % damage proc on every hit is a bad idea I think. Maybe have a proc buff go off every so many seconds so that the next melee attack does X amount of damage? It would be alot easier to regulate how much damage the spell does that way and everyone in the group would notice the effects of the spell alot more too.
You're absolute right about daro's not scaling correctly. I have the master 1 version of daro's from T5 and I saw the adept 3 version for T6 and the lower level one actually gave better snare and attack slow. I think the devs are right to err on the side of caution though. One of the major problems with EQ1 was percentage based slows. It made balancing content a nightmare. I think maybe a better solution is to just pick a good version of it and don't have any upgrades like our invis. Percentage based spells don't really need improving with levels since they will be just as effective no matter what. So I dunno, maybe bump the effective power level of the lowest level version up to where the highest one is and do away with the upgrades so we just have one solid encounter slow and be done with it might be best.
As for your point about zanders.. it's like a T4 spell. I don't think it was ever intended to be an always useful type of song. How many other T4 abilities do you think should still be useful at 60? That's why you never saw any upgraded version of it. Same with all the other bloodlines class spells. Wizards and Warlocks eventually outgrow the usefulness of iceflame. Why should bards have it any different?

I dunno about you, but I still use a level 6 combat art...

Man, you should slap me for that! I'm a real wiseacre tonight.

Consider yourself slapped

Updated original page to reflect that they added the prismatic2, which is and upgrade of the prismatic 1. Its under the fixed category.
Added under items that we would still like matching prismatics, being dual weilders, and a 1 hander for when we use sheilds

No, that's mostly what you want... I have no real problem dual wielding while soloing anymore since the dual wield change.

I think you may have taken this a bit over the top... I mean, it doesn't affect a casual dirge.

Actually if dirges want if off there, I'll take it off. You guys want it off? I personally would love to see that change, similar to EQ1.

Message Edited by ZOAR007 on 11-18-2005 03:29 PM

There never was a need for this to be on the list in the first place, so yes take it off. Take off the rest of that junk I said was non-sense too for that matter. And just for arguments sake alone the EQ1 bard epic did not come in a matching duel wield set. Neither was the rogue epic.(rangers, beastlords, warriors did however and the monk one actually fit in the 'hand' slot but would effect both fists if they weren't using weapons so I suppose you could argue it was a duel weild epic too). In either case there is no precedent for bards to have a duel weild epic weapon. And for like the millionth time prismatics and the new uber quest weapon from DoF are not 'epic weapons'... nor would it be accurate to even call the new DoF weapons prismatics 2.0

My take on things:

8, 11, 12, 13 & 15- This should be here.

9 - This should be here. "Instruments being introduced as doing something" that is the item that should be on the list. The way they should be introduced should be left to the discussion in the thread itself or a seperate thread

2 & 10 - This shouldn't be on here.

1, 3 & 7 - I disagree with this point but I've seen several people post on this issue so it should stay

4 & 5 - This shouldn't be here. I'd create a seperate thread discussing the possibilities of epics or legendary quests, but it isn't a dirge issue so it shouldnt' be on the list.
14 - This shouldn't be here. Our standard bow attack is fine I do a ton of damage. Maybe you are using the wrong type of arrow?
6 - Is this really still a problem? I've not managed to get my paws on an adept III or master version of this yet but if it scales up consistantly... it should be acceptable.

8 - from what I understand the adept I version of this is a mistake and no longer exists as a drop. So the adept I is not anissue per say but a perk.

16 - It isn't broken. IT just has been changed to a little intermitent puff of black smoke. Personally I think it could be better. The wording on this ite needs to be changed from broke to improved.

Hyran's - take out the antagonistic language about "slight." Personally I think current version is fine. I always thought the strength was overpowered to begin with. However, several people have voiced a concern over the change.

60+ content - This is your own opinion it shouldn't be there. You've created another good thread that deals with the issue.
Message Edited by Salmastryon on 11-19-2005 12:15 AM

Just to address one point: Marquee spells (such as percussion of stone) *are* intended to have adept I drops. Scaling might need to be addressed, but ALL songs or arts that have percentage rates directly in the description (slows, DPS increases, etc.) seem to have very poor or small scaling in them.

Ahhh my bad. I'll go edit that up in my response. See learn something everyday =)

I've been following this thread since it's coneption and I'm a big fan of all the work and ideas everyone has put into this. I think it's both a help and credit to the Dirge community that a thread this long has stayed mostly constructive.

On that note I would add two small points which may be valid, or people may disagree with. Either way I'm just throwing in my two cp:

1. Instruments. Personally, as someone who prefers to duel wield, I have no real desire to see them in the game, primarily if the effects drive an rebalancing of our class. Not that I'm against them, just that I'm kind of against changing a fundamental aspect of how the class is played at this point. The main reason I bring this up is that there was an earlier thread on a different board (maybe it was back where there was a combat revamp board, can't remember) and there were a lot of people not too into the idea of instruments for this very idea.

Edit: Looking back over the thread a see a few others who don't really like the idea either, so I guess I'm just adding my voice to that.

2. Tombs. For me the main problem with Tombs is that damage really doesn't scale with level. It's really not a bs spell for each level that we first get an upgrade, but each successive level it loses value. I know, this is true of a lot of spells. To me it's kind of a design flaw in combat mechanics, but then again I'm not writing this to try and get SOE to rethink combat again, just help the Dirge. To this end I had a thought, what if Rianna's was changed back into a haste buff instead of straight DPS buff? The effect, I think, would be that Tombs would have the potential to proc more often, giving us a slight DPS increase without throwing the whole buff-scaling issue out of balance.

3. DPS. This is kind of a general Bard issue, not specific to Dirges. Bards are supposed to deal similar damage to Monks/Bruisers and I'm not quite sure we do. When I spend a lot of time debuffing, I absolutely don't, but that's to be expected, the whole point whith that is in how we are raising group DPS while lowering enemy DPS. The issue I have is several times when someone has brought a parser out, and we're just playing around with group and personal DPS, I've noticed that even going all out for persoanl DPS I fall short of Brawlers. Maybe it's just me, but I've had similar conversations with other Bards, who've said the same, hence I'm bringing it up here.

Overall I'm pretty happy with my Dirge. Great for groups and pretty good soloability as well. Plus we've got enough variation to be fun to play.
Message Edited by Tanlaus on 11-19-2005 02:52 PM

About our DPS...

I was rather disappointed tonight when i discovered that our DPS (auto-attack) doesnt even compare to that of Knights.
I am level 56 and was grouped with a 56 Defiler at the time and had 341 STR (plus Riana's buff). I examined my Cobalt Spatha and saw that "Your Damage" was 33-100. Fairly nice I thought, but then got curious. I linked the weapon to a level 53 Shadowknight (who was only self-buffed) with 230 STR. To my disgust the "Your Damage" he saw was 34-104. So, even with +100 STR over a Knight our auto-attack damage is still extremely low. I will check against other scout classes and post my findings.

Edit: Misread above post.
Message Edited by Tanlaus on 11-19-2005 03:31 PM

I each class has it's multiplier to the base damage, with brawlers at the very top. Bards multiplier is the weakest of scouts and fighters I belive. Only priests and mages have a lower multiplier.

Tanlaus,
I don't care one way or the other about instruments, but to be fair, most people posting about the addition of instruments are asking for charm-slot style equipment, not a weapon slot item. I really don't care, instruments (and sadly the singing animations) don't really fit in with my dirge concept anyway. To address balance issues, it could simply be a charm-slot type item, bard only, affects bard stats and skills... just like any other item.
We should run a tomb's parse again. The only public parse information we have was with the T4 version... and THAT one was doing 3% damage over time. With the recent change to chance to proc for DW, this should be retested. Also with the T5/6 version (level 50 if it were any other pre-DoF breakpoint, would be t6...) Also, with regards to Rianna's... +DPS > +haste, since you get more damage without more potential ripostes (after all, we aren't the only ones affected by our songs), and at this time we do not know if the proc percentage is compared to the weapons base speed, or its operating speed... haste may not affect proc percentage anymore than it affects arts/songs/spells. We just don't know.

Good point on the haste/dps comparrison. I thought I'd read that risposte rates were lowered for hasted opponents to counter the negative haste effect, and I also thought I'd read that haste did indeed effect proc rate, but then again I read a lot of things, and usually, on these boards, they're not true. :smileyvery-happy:
I guess the test would to be to run a huge log of auto-attacks with Tombs up, both with and without haste to see, if indeed there is an effective difference.
You did bring up another very valid point too: The new proc rates may have a significant effect on Tombs. Definately worth checking into.
On another note: Is our base damage below fighters because we can always run a DPS buff if we want? Are we balanced because of this... and indeed are we balanced? Inquiring minds want to know.
Message Edited by Tanlaus on 11-19-2005 07:02 PM

Inquiring minds do indeed want to know! =) That said, yes you are right, riposte was recently balanced to happen less both for dual wield AND faster weapons, but the same question comes up: is that percentage based on the weapon's base speed, or its adjusted hasted speed? Definitely need to do some tests. Response tactics aren't the only reason that I was saying +DPS is better than haste though... another reason is that the haste cap is a definite minimum delay limit... but there is no known upper limit to the amount of damage per swing that can be done, and +DPS stacks with haste anyway.
As for the balance question... only SOE's master plan knows! I'd like to be clued in though. We've had two total dev posts ever on the public dirge board (I think; BG a long time ago, and the spell guy (Locke?) more recently), and I'd love some more interactivity. A number of people have compared us with brawler classes and stated that we don't compare to their output when we should be in the same tier as them. Now us being in the same tier may be based on factors more than our *own* personal output, and/or some other factors, and indeed, it's VERY hard to compare one bard to one brawler and cover the range of circumstances and scenarios where we are both supposed to shine, but I'd definitely like to see some *design* documentation, some intent for the classes' characteristics.
Well, one can hope. =)

I would argue that our dps is where it should be and that monks/bruisers dps is probably higher than intended. I'm not calling for a nerf, just stating that often they are doing damage similar to Teir 1 dps classes. We actually fit in well with the overall dps teir system that was stated.