Borias@Venekor wrote: So if you just want to make them charms, why bother making them instruments at all? Why not just have an enchanted drum mallet hanging around your neck to get some insight? We've already been given the fluff, so no thanks on more. The idea is to return some of the uniqueness to the bard classes, and preserve balance in the process. Can you honestly tell me it's balanced if we get to keep two weapons, a bow AND an instrument boosting our spellcasting/song-playing powers equipped at all times? Let's not forget the problem of how to play a lute with a rapier in one hand and a dagger in the other. Twisting was bad, yes. Not everything from that era is as bad as you'd like to remember it being. Remember that our primary function is not dps; it's buffs and utility. If you want to try to be a dps'er, by all means, keep your weapons equipped. I'll take my drums, lute and class identity.
[p]Don't mis understand me, I didn't have a problem twisting songs back then at all. Our primary function might be buffs and utility, but that does not exclude us from DPSing while we are doing it. Healers can do pretty good DPS while maintaining their heals and buffs now. [/p][p]Yes it would be balanced if we can use weapons, a bow, and an instrument. We get no massive timers, we get no big hits. We have 1 heal, which while efficient, is small. We have a lot of little things. Don't worry about the realism of playing a lute with weapons, when you are SINGING 5 SONGS AT THE SAME TIME AS ATTACKING ALREADY. Not to mention how silly it is in realism to be able to sing all those songs even while stifle/stunned? What musician can sit there in pure terror, frozen in place, and sing 5 songs to entertain a crowd?[/p][p]It isn't fluff if it is actually useful. People talk about buff botting bards now, only reaching over to hit CoB. If my job is dumbed down to no attacking, just 5 nukes, debuffs, and CoB, I might quit the game. That would make this game stupid IMO. Can you honestly tell me you would be happy to go from what we do now on raids to just sitting in the back, hitting CoB, ludas, Banshee, Jarols, and Tarvens? Maybe if they increased our nukes damage to 4x or something. Course I would love that in pvp, yeah lets go with that.[/p]
Funny you should say that Borias, I built mine originally to do what you just described. I find him more fun to be "active" on though... how I'm going to manage to get out of being 2nd tank to play a dirge in my guild is going to be a trick.
It wouldn't be unbalanced if they did it right; make charm-slot items for all the classes that do interesting things. We get instruments, clerics get holy relic thingies, mages get amulets, other scouts get tricky ninja-tricks, and fighters get huge slabs of beef, I don't know, they don't pay me to design this stuff. Whysp
I think warriors should have a folding chair, perhaps a stray 2x4, or an old gym sock as part of their arsenal of dirty tricks. I waver on this topic. Of course I think it'd be cool to have instruments that have function and actually display on the model more than just a few seconds while casting your buffs, but I think the role of Bard in this game has it's foundation set too deep to incorporate changes that are too radical. So I don't think the whole weapon/instrument swapping thing would be too popular. But ya never know. Charm slots, sure, but not so exciting. Having an icon on your paper doll is not as cool as having a lute or drum strapped to your back on your model. Maybe it's just better left as a tool for role-players.
[p]Give us instruments that enhance our buffs, at the cost of dps.[/p][p]Give us better dps so we can wield the uber cool weapons we find, and do some damage.[/p][p]Kind of like a stance idea... ?[/p]
Already, I know someone is gonna shoot me down for this, but Does anyone really care if we do better dps. We are never gonna make the parse, we aren't suppose to make the parse, if you are making the parse, something isn't right. We have enough dps to own in pvp, and enough to solo....though not well. I would not mind giving up dps to carry around a badass Drum that....instills fear into my enemies and has a chance to proc that every whatever seconds. A flute that inspires my allys to become fully regenerated and and even fight harder and for longer. Give cool stuff on the instrumentss, and take away my bow, or a dagger, I don't care, and I know someelse has to agree with me at Sony because, they sure as hell don't want us to dps. So give us something else to do.
i'd totally like to see them put instruments in for ranged item slots, it wouldnt be unbalancing us because our ranged dps would be cut down, make instruments that increase certain song line effectiveness etc, and maybe have some rare fabled ones that have clickie effects or summin, in what way would it unbalance the class? we would be losing the stats and the damage from a bow to increase a single song effect, makes our instrument choice more tactical than finding the biggest bow our weedy dirge arms can draw and pointing it at the big scary dragon
