Summary of Issues/Suggested Tweaks for Troubs

At this point I am reasonably certain that someone on the class balance team knows at least of this thread's existence. I can only hope that the effort gone into making it as thoughtful, constructive and reasonable as possible aids our cause. Cross your fingers folks.

Wluil wrote:

What's basically happening is that our class is becoming useless to groups. They'd gladly take a Dirge and say forget about using a Troub. They can buy or win anything they need that we could do. Other than debuffing, it's hard to feel useful sometimes in a group. Luckily my guild members still love my speed bubble and I'm getting into more and more caster main groups with raid, but they need to closely examine our class.

Edited OP to mention Intoxicating Notes procing only on melee.

Bard Tree- STR line worthless except for Turnstrike which gives a whole 10 seconds. Increase duration or reduce recast time. Move Bladedance up to being after Turnstrike reduce recast by half. Have Improved Reflexes be increased duration and reduced recast time for Turnstrike.
Agility line- Poison Concoction is the only good thing. Vanishing Act is absolute junk. Stealthy Ambush is only useful to have timing for Bump and Night Strike at roughly the same recast. Replace the coin stealing on Bump to a percantage proc chance for debuffing mitigation. For example, a 5 percent chance to decrease target's mitigation vs. physical or magic attacks by 5%. Have the Stealthy Ambush points increase this chance by 1 percent per point to both chance proc and mitigation decrease so you have a 13 percent top end for both with 8 points in Stealthy Ambush.
Stamina line- Fortissimo having a strikethrough or accuracy attached to it would be awesome because 10 percent DA is pretty much worthless. Song of Shielding is absolute junk. Have Song of Shielding points be a percentange increase to strikethrough/accuracy on Fortissimo.
Wisdom line- DKTM would be improved by having the Harbinger's Chorus add Potency or Crit Bonus instead of added critical chance. Basically, make DKTM 7.5% crit chance then we can add 5 points to Potency or Crit Bonus with Harbinger's Chorus.
Int line- Rhythm Blade and Precise Blades are only 2 good abilities in line. Heroic Storytelling is absolute junk. Replace it with something Intelligence related since we are supposed to be magic buff bots. Make it so it removes the concentration cost for Raxxy's Rousing Tune.

That's it for now. I'll try to get to the other trees. Please, feel free to comment. Right now, in my opinion, there are only 3 reasons troubadours are desired. PoTM, Jester's Cap and Upbeat Tempo. Those are all fine abilities. I'm just looking for a little more omg omg it's a troubadour, look at how great they are to play.

Str line isn't really useless. Can increase the values of Raxxyl's which doesn't help OUR dps but w/e Bladedance is useful to have in the tool belt. Not super awesome since every mob has like five billion aoes but if your healer goes down it will maybe keep the rest of your group alive while they are getting rezzed. Fortissimo works in a melee group so the other melee classes can gear up in crit bonus and potency without having to worry about 10 double attack. It's meh but it's something. If you are exclusively buffing casters you don't need it though. Being the only class that buffs crit percentage makes the enhanced version of DKTM not completely lame but with gear coming with 10 crit a single piece on it some potency or crit bonus added to it would be nice. Agreed on int line. Rhythm Blade and Precise Blades are awesome, Heroic Storytelling is ng. Troubs are wanted for 5 things Dehate UT Aria (10% base dmg for spells group wide and proc) PoM Jcap Of those 5 things 3 of them can be done AFK. Thats why the class needs help more than anything else IMO.

Is it much to ask that they fix things that are supposed to work properly just how they are?
-It may be just me, but Turnstrike and Bladedance don't even work when I use them (yes i know what IAoE is)
-Mental Chaos does not increase the ticks on Chaos Anthem, otherwise it would be ticking every second at rank 5 and actually do considerable damage.
-Resonating Concerto is unclear what it even does because of the 2 descriptions.

-As for Countersong, it isn't broken but I have yet to find a use for it because of the small damage reduction and crazy limitations.

Countersong is worthless more than broken because most mobs will cast CAs far far far before they ever cast a spell, and even if they do cast a spell, the odds of timing that long of a casting time and not getting a CA from the mob between your cast and their spell is effectively not going to happen unless it's a spell on a fixed timer, and tbh, for how long of a recast it is and how much power it takes, it should be an outright reduction to ALL spell damage the mob casts for at least 1 minute. That would make it worth casting.
The 6th thing troubs are brought for is a second VC buff and honestly probably the main reason a troub is even considered is because a dirge can't be found or there already is one in group and they just want a second VC buff.
Our dehate is getting to be a lot less usefull with how OP the tanks these days are (how many groups have hate issues with just a chanter in group?), our Jcap is getting to the point where it's giving diminishing returns with how much there is that increases casting speed/reuse speed on squishies spells, we can't rez which is just another reason to bring a dirge instead of a troub incase the healer dies, our hp regen buff is a joke where as a dirge heal can situationally help, dirge gravitas makes the priests very happy pandas where as we offer pretty much nothing at all to help them, and our dps and personal contribution to the group or effective comparative lack there of anymore is alarmingly low a full expansion ago let alone now.
I honestly don't think a single developer reads our class board, but incase they do, I'd LOVE to see one post here and prove me wrong. At least then we would know that someone has looked at our section of the forum which would be honestly a dramatic improvement. Getting our power draining abilities removed like they were supposed to be almost 3 years ago would probably give me a heart attack with how neglected we are.

ReverendPaqo wrote:

I pretty much agree with everything you said. We DID have the class balance guy checking another thread in this forum, but after his 3rd post the devstalking began and people started coming in with non-troub stuff.
One of the biggest reasons we have problems getting Developer attention is the same reason ANY class forum does. People are rude and complain and engage in name calling etc. I don't blame the devs for not reading these boards.
People throw out things like "this is broken" and never back up their statement with facts. Then it usually turns out that they didn't check their findings and its actually NOT broken. Get enough of those false alarms and the Chicken Little Syndrome keeps Devs from even bothering to read what most people post here. If a dev chased down everything listed as 'broken' they'd never get any development done.
Then when something IS broken it takes a year to get it fixed.
We need class advocates. Badly.
That's what I TRIED to do here. I tried to gather up each of our abilities that could use looking at and put them together in one spot and politely explain where the issues (as we see them) are. One stop shopping without namecalling or disrespect, where suggestions are offered in a reasonable fashion.
I have no idea if I succeeded or not.

Kiki, thanks for what you've done in summarizing the issues. I've never been vocal as a troub on these boards, but I have played the class since launch through good times and bad. I did miss most of TSO however due to personal reasons. I'd like to comment some on the OP as it seems you are editing the issues as they change or new facts come up. It's nice to see that guardians, a class much in need of rebalance like the troubador, is getting an overhaul. I can only hope that we are next in line and this thread will help.
Let me say I have 2 characters, my raid main troub an a 90 zerker. So, I know what a bard, and specifically a troubador, brings to a group from both sides of the table. The comments in regard to seeing the big picture are so true. We may not DPS like any other scout, but they couldn't shine without us. So with that, on to the particulars.
The flavor of bard that I love is an active buffer or debuffer. One who has utility to make fights easier through either offensive or defence. While some skills embrace the spirit of this, others are a far cry from it. So, all in all the best way to make troubs more balanced is to give them that spot in a group / raid with some turely powerful and encounter altering skills.
Suggestion for General Utility (Passive Buffs)
One thing we need are more buff line up choices! There's hardly any variance in my 5 concentrations buffs; it just depends on if I'm solo, grouped or in a raid. I would love to see more interplay with our songs to create buff combos. This would open up a lot of choices for bards so we can actively alter songs for maximum effect. For example, if we're running Joyous Celebration, why couldn't our defensive song get the ability to add to max HP? Or, Aria gains the ability to proc a heal on benefical spells? Having some sort of interplay for our buffs (songs) - call is resonance or amplification for you lore geeks - could make for some great buff combos that can be tailored to a situation or group makeup and might even allow something like Requium of Reflection to be cast outside of PvP.
My Main Beef
The main issue is we are still in this luke warm state of hybrid with scout stats. Pre-SF this worked as we could focus on our spell based attacks and INT so our buffs complemented what we did. However, now we are in this weird spot of being mostly melee, AGI based and utility for mages. Constract this to dirges and we definately have the short stick. I think this is the source of the dirge / troub disparity. They help themselves while helping others, we just help others.
Add to that the general archetype itemization. Where is bard specific loot so we can get some neat utility or ways to help the group / hinder the mob? Instead we just get more DA, crit bonus, potencey like ever other scout so we can climb higher on the holy DPS parse. Bring back the 12 tone earring, Drum of the Ethernauts etc. in some creative T9 loot I'd want to give up that 2% crit bonus for.
Spells

• No out of encounter aoes. I completely agree here. Why do we not have 1 blue backgroud skill? With the lack of crowd control, and the increase of room pulls I hate not having a blue AoE.

• Troubs don't buff themselves much: Our self buff is a ton of AGI and it's no concentration. I really don't think stats are the issue here. What bothers me is we have no useful defensive skill or buff compared to a dirge. Percussion of Stone versus Requium of Reflection is a joke. I think RoR should be kept in it's current form for PvP but for the love of Norrath make it viable in PvE (let is have 2 effects like our charm). The majority of a mobs DPS is melee, and dirges have that covered, so give us group (or even raid) a flat chance to block a spell or something. This spell has needed attention for years...

• Allegretto: This spell really really needs an alternate effect for SF. Heck, my zerker buffs more attack speed then my troub. Illusionists got DA added to their haste, why did we get nothing? Spell Double Attack needs to be on this spell. Enough said.

• Song of Magic: I find I run this buff almost all the time... if the Dev post on what skills do in factoring a hit or not, this should reduce taunt and spell resists by a lot.

• Alin's Serene Serenade: The dehate proc on this needs looked at. A positional decrease would be much better. 50% chance on hit for -1 position (non-fighter) sounds about right.

• Bria’s Entrancing Sonnet: This spell was great for soloing when leveling... about it. I'm not sure what it needs.

• Countersong: This spells works, but it is so hard to time and the recast is ridiculous. I love the concept, it's an active defensive song but it falls so flat. It's also pointless for heroic content. A short term flat reduction on CAs / spells on 3-5 min recast without immunity would make this spell more viable.

• PotM: Why doesn't this buff carry a casting speed increase on it? Give us something to compete with dirge raid wide haste...

Bard Tree:

• Wayfarer Line: I really don't think bards should be able to use poisons. It's a way for non scouts to add utility. Instead, make Bard Poison a toggable buff, make the proc % be effected by poison item mods, and let the damage scale with AA points invested, not just proc %.
• Fortissimo: I agree this ability is becoming marginalilzed in SF and it really needs an alternate effect. Take that stupid HP AA from the troubador TSO tree and let it modify Fortissimo to assist mages and/or priests. Spell double attack is a good choice here.
• Messenger’s Letter: I've been confused on the hate portion of this since KoS. Put something else on this, like self position decrease or make it 100% chance to hit. Anything useful.
• Don't Kill the Messenger: Same problem as Fortissimo here. The ability to add potency would be nice (so it doesn't overlap with Sonata) as a SF AA. Agree on replacing the mez stun AA with a DKtM AA.
• Rhythmic Overture/Victorious Concerto: RO gives you an Intermission buff. It's 2 minutes in duration. Perhaps this was just old info? Note: this is another great example of what bards should be about as it's an active offensive buff.

Thanks for the feedback, I'm gonna edit the quote to include my feelings on some of the things you offered.

Troubador Vina wrote:

I like the idea of RO/VC, except that with the rest of the troub taken into context, it pretty much reinforces my personal sentiment that troubs are being molded into becoming a rogue wielding a lute and wearing a funny hat instead of a hood (nevermind the dps output difference). They've made it quite obvious and clear that the accepted idea of "more fun"/"more balanced" = more dps in most cases. This whole changing guardian's utility to suck less is a radical step for them, and I hope that it's to test the waters for the bard revamp that was promised.
What does a troub really do that requires someone be sitting behind the monitor and at the keyboard other than their 4 maintained debuffs and their snare/backstab debuff? Dpsing poorly, jcapping peeps that are already pretty darn close to casting/reuse reduction cap, and dpsing a short durration hard spike to **** mode up RO/VC.
I do like kiki's suggestion about songs playing with each other to give synergetic bonuses, and perhaps thats where bards should go to make the classes alot more than just running 3 or 4 songs all the time with 2 or 1 respectively changing once in a while.
I know I'd spend a lot more time on my bard if there was actually decent choices with running different songs and if my job became more than just jcapping/potming, repeatedly hitting the same 6 buttons every mob, and once in a while pumping up RO/VC.
My personal peeve was and still is that the devs outright SAID there was going to be a bard overhaul in the near future, and it was said durring the beta when they discovered the epic monstrosity of fubarness they called the changes the bard maintained buff system. I understand that it takes some time before such a task starts, but seriously they go and start on the guardians whose issues started in TSO while we've still got power draining spells from early RoK, and not so much as literally a single word to indicate they even remembered promising a bard revamp. Guards needed some serious help, but ffs, we have POWER DRAINING abilities still! Thats a pretty freaking low blow, even more so when they even said there would be attention given and there is another big project that includes class balancing and even mechanic changes being started instead.
Even just getting our power draining spells addressed like they were supposed to have been 3 years ago would make me happy enough for a durration. Why is that still so beyond reasonable to ask for? It's a far simpler task than balancing and retooling raidwide buffs, adjusting a number of buffs, and creating a replacement aa line. I just want the cookie that was promised that every other utility class got to enjoy and that is 3 years past deadline even if it's stale beyond recognition.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone have a link to the dev post (or article or interview) where it was stated that Bards would be getting a look at / overhaul?
We all keep referencing it, but to be honest I don't recall ever seeing it. And for all we know, the devs may have changed their mind, or the dev responsible may no longer be with SoE, so it could very well be dead in the water. Given the lack of dev posts / feedback on these boards as of late, I'm not sure if we're beating a dead horse or not.

That said, good post Kiki and good summation of the majority of Troub problems.
While my Troub still works just fine in solo/group/raid settings, I'd certainly love to see some "tweaking" of the class and fixing of the various broken abilities (some of which date back to pre-RoK, as mentioned above).

With regards to the bard revamp I think it was from the SF Beta.

They attempted to make Bard Buffs castable on GROUPS instead of just being automatically maintained on the bards current group but there was a lot of craziness involved and they ended up putting it on the back burner and said they'd revisit it.
At least I think so.

Correct. It was in the thread about bard buffs being "made raid wide" when the change was in actuallity nothing of the sort and probably one of the most poorly concieved things in a long time. It basically cast an aoe effect on one person (much like druid SoW does) that affects those nearby, and the instance of it that is being put onto that person is where the concentration slot went.
For example, say there is yourself (person a), person b standing by not in group, and person c in raid with you, you would cast your aria of magic buff onto person c, and it would cost you one concentration slot to do so. Aria of magic then would be "thier buff" that they would carry around on them until they cancelled it or died. One of the biggest problems that they ran into was that if you dropped group, they recipient would still keep your buff in addition to that concentration slot and there really wasn't much you could do about it. This meant for a much more difficult time buffing including recasting all buffs on individuals when either you died or they died, not to mention players being able to just bring in a troub, buff the intended target, drop group and leave the troub in the guild hall still logged in and not able to die so that the recipient (person c) could keep the buff and the raid bring someone else in the troubs place (person b) since the buff followed the person that the buff was cast on; not the player that cast the buff.
After this proposed change was trashed until the time that someone could go back and redo the entire concept from scratch, they said they would be revisiting the concept down the road and that they'd discovered a large number of existing issues in the process of this buff change. Of course, it didn't change the fact that many of us were sceptical that any such revisit or fixing would ever happen so we took upon the short lived dev attention to ask if they were going to address the still existing power drains on troubs, the suck endowed countersong, sonic interference's lack of functionallity, and the fact that harmonization contributed towards killing friendlys by making dot's tick faster. The answer to which was that these were part of what was planned to be addressed durring a bard overhaul to address the previously mentioned issues they discovered and impliment some type of system to make bard buffing more universal or w/e the phrasing was, and that such a rehaul was slated for the near future but not within the SF release. They also said that it would probably occur within a couple of game updates following release, possibly some pieces sooner and or the entire summary of changes in piece meal.

Interesting about those proposed changes from beta. It sounds as though they were trying for something akin to the EQ1 Bard buffs - have them in a specific radius around the bard. You could then introduce AAs and such to either strengthen the buffs, or even extend the radius.
As for allowing them to be cast on other groups - I don't see the point in EQ2 to be honest. Either just flag them as "group only" or "raid only" (the latter being fully functional already, given the epic weapon PoTM ability and our arcane/elemental defense buffs). I can't imagine being in a melee group and wanting to Raxxyl's the caster group specifically..... just let it be raid-wide and be done with it. We're paying the concentration cost for it anyways, so what's the difference, right?
'Course, if everything were raid buffs, that would eliminate the need for multiple Bards in raids (moreso than they do already, haha), so that would be disastrous.
Personally, I'd just like to see the majority of our buffs revisited. We have what, 11 group buffs? And of those, I (and probably 99% of Troubs) only run the same 4 or 5, because the others are either broken (such as reflection) or redundant (due to people capping stats/abilities). It's also somewhat problematic to me that the majority of people want me for my AA abilities, and not my regular abilities. Aside from PoM and JC, we're pretty much defined by our AAs (fortissimo, DKTM, RO, UT, Sonata, etc.), which shows the sheer number of holes in the class itself. AAs should improve a class, not define them.
IMO, SoE needs to fix our broken abilities as well as tweak them such as removing hard-caps for Bard buffs, similar to what EQ1 Bards had. Anyone could reach 100% haste, but only a Bard could add that 30% overhaste to it. Don't see why we can't have that unique ability in EQ2 for certain stats, specifically for Fortissimo, DKTM. Improve the bonuses from Allegro and Swift Voices (which currently sucks) and allow them to let casters go over casting caps, or simply change them outright to new abilities we haven't yet seen (such as a % chance to Twincast).
Ahh well. Here's hoping they at least continue with the Bard review sometime before this game dies.

So maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel...
http://stationblog.wordpress.com/20...date-july-2010/
Quote: "And last, (but certainly not least), we intend to release a design overview for what the classes should be, how they should work together…and then execute on that plan."
All classes (included Troubadors I assume) will be looked at for their overall fit into the mechanics. I think SF's itemization and probally the new XPAC itemization is making this necessary, plus the sheer number of broken or underwhealming mechanics. I've got my fingers crossed...

Updated original post. We got a couple things fixed.

I know this is 8 months old now, but it's still stickied soooo... if we could update these issues I would like to take them to FanFaire this year. I don't know how helpful it will be but I can be pretty persistent... tho I admit I gave up on the forums a while ago. It is unbelievable to me that we so rarely have a dev address any of the issues with Troubs.

Well I think there are very few people who actually play troubs as their mains.
So as a developer are you going to address issues that effect a tiny percentage of the playerbase or larger percentages?
Unfortunately this becomes a self-perpetuating cycle because more and more troubs become dissallusioned by the lack of attention to issues and simply quit to play other more interesting, less passive classes.
I just took a look at the list and it appears to be up to date, if you have someting to add or that I missed, feel free to point it out.

I would love to play my Troub as a main again... but you're right. People only want the Dirge it seems. I honestly think the devs *should* look at our issues because imo they are a little microcosm of everything that's screwed up in the bigger picture - stat issues and scaling and whatnot. But aside from that, fixing a bard spell is going to impact a whole lot more than just one class. Besides, I'm a little tired of the same whiny questions at Fanfaire. I'd like to ask a few real ones this year, just for kicks.