Bards. Please buff them.

[phalaeo]

First, let me say that I love my Bard- she's one of my two mains.

But... it is really frustrating sometimes. Nobody waits for bard buffs anymore... just about the only time I can squeeze out more than one song is standing at the entrance to a raid. I ask if people want Haste... no, they took Blinding Speed. GH? They've already Planar Gird'ed themselves. Fascinate? Everyone has Celestias with AoEs breaking the fascinate, or the Druid has an Earthquake down. Can't Displace people anymore. And the shared cooldowns on some of the songs make trying to group buff even more of a pain.

I know I have a lot of complaints here, and I just don't know what to suggest to fix it. I hate to just make a whiny thread, but I think it needs to be brought to attention. Maybe I'll be more coherent on the subject in the morning, I'm just very frustrated right now.

[Icywave]

First, let me say that I love my Bard- she's one of my two mains.

But... it is really frustrating sometimes. Nobody waits for bard buffs anymore... just about the only time I can squeeze out more than one song is standing at the entrance to a raid. I ask if people want Haste... no, they took Blinding Speed. GH? They've already Planar Gird'ed themselves. Fascinate? Everyone has Celestias with AoEs breaking the fascinate, or the Druid has an Earthquake down. Can't Displace people anymore. And the shared cooldowns on some of the songs make trying to group buff even more of a pain.

I know I have a lot of complaints here, and I just don't know what to suggest to fix it. I hate to just make a whiny thread, but I think it needs to be brought to attention. Maybe I'll be more coherent on the subject in the morning, I'm just very frustrated right now.

Agreed! I HATE BARDS WITH A PASSION........ not cuz they are bards, but cuz when I played them, I felt utterly useless, unless multi-classing the hell out of it.

And indeed, I never wait for buffs from others. The game has pushed on us so hard the BYOH and be self-sufficient, that between Gear/Clickies/Spells and Scrolls/Potions.. all the key stuff is covered.

I don't know how they could/should " fix it ", but yes, something needs to be done.

[HatsuharuZ]

I can think of a few ways to fix bards... even made a post about their enhancements, and possible ways to fix them.

Also, it would be nice if most of the buffing bard songs could be combined into one song.

[Daine]

My casters have always appreciated a spell song vigor, keep up the good work!

[Icywave]

My casters have always appreciated a spell song vigor, keep up the good work!

I used to.... but at lvl 25-28... it needs a little bit more " effectiveness " to it :)

[Lonnbeimnech]

Nobody waits for bard buffs anymore...

Meh, those songs are to buff you, and anyone that happens to be in range.

Actually, I found it worse on an arti because they actually would wait for buffs. Everyone wants deadly, and 'oh I had the wrong weapon equipped, can you do it again?' And 'oh I might want to switch to my bow so can I get another one?' and everyone starts to get impatient because they can't see your cooldown timer, and half of them don't notice that you already gave it to them, twice.

On a bard you can sing with no penalty to movement rate. Cast haste and start running, then do songs.

[pHo3nix]

First, let me say that I love my Bard- she's one of my two mains.

But... it is really frustrating sometimes. Nobody waits for bard buffs anymore... just about the only time I can squeeze out more than one song is standing at the entrance to a raid. I ask if people want Haste... no, they took Blinding Speed. GH? They've already Planar Gird'ed themselves. Fascinate? Everyone has Celestias with AoEs breaking the fascinate, or the Druid has an Earthquake down. Can't Displace people anymore. And the shared cooldowns on some of the songs make trying to group buff even more of a pain.

I know I have a lot of complaints here, and I just don't know what to suggest to fix it. I hate to just make a whiny thread, but I think it needs to be brought to attention. Maybe I'll be more coherent on the subject in the morning, I'm just very frustrated right now.

Fixing the broken abilities in the bard trees would be nice as well: the trees would suck anyway, but at least they would suck while working as intended ;)

[Ailaesaedol]

I hate to just make a whiny thread, but I think it needs to be brought to attention. Maybe I'll be more coherent on the subject in the morning, I'm just very frustrated right now.

They know. They've known for years.

They just don't care.

[katz]

actually...

Steelstar knows we need some love... (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/432322-Bard-Spellsong-Vigor-now-single-target?p=5193239&viewfull=1#post5193239)AND IS WORKING ON THE ISSUE (yay!) we just need to guide them in a direction to give us USEFUL help


sustaining song hitting one target is fixed internally (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/432322-Bard-Spellsong-Vigor-now-single-target?p=5193359&viewfull=1#post5193359) and waiting for roll-out.

and in U21... (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/432322-Bard-Spellsong-Vigor-now-single-target?p=5223139&viewfull=1#post5223139) almost every single bard song will have its own separate cooldown timer, instead of the annoying shared one we have now... AND all single target songs will have shorter cooldowns.

don't give up hope yet.. at least they are looking at us and doing something.. not ignoring us anymore

[Ailaesaedol]

don't give up hope yet.. at least they are looking at us and doing something.. not ignoring us anymore

They're throwing us a very small bone hoping it'll placate the bard community. Lucky for them most bards had already given up on turbine giving us some god **** balance and have TR'd into monkchers, shiradi casters or juggernauts who probably wouldn't even notice some minor changes to the bard class any more.

Make parties WANT bards again. We dont care if we're top of the tree, we just want some love.

But like all other posts and threads over the years, this one too will fall on deaf ears.

[marinerfan]

Lucky for them most bards had already given up on turbine giving us some god **** balance and have TR'd into monkchers,

Well...you're at least speaking for one. I used to run solely bards, and now none of my characters have a single bard level :(

However, no way am I becoming a monkcher - they are cheesy overpowered. Now that everyone and their mom has purchased the monk class, why not balance things out a bit? I'm sick of grouping with 3+ monk icons every single time i group.

[katz]

obviously it's too late for you.

me and my 4* bards are gonna keep doing our thing.


*yeah. 4 bards. of 12 characters i have, a full 1/3 of them are bardic. 3 of them are 20+. 1 of them is my capped main character.

[Noctus]

A STR-based melee Bard has been my main for over 5 years, long before Warchanter was a thing. But all the changes over the years, mostly the spread powercreep, except to bardbuffs, has made the buffs he could provide trivial, as well as too often simply being already there.

Not only did the bardbuffs not get effected by the overall powercreep, no! They even nerfed them! No Displacements for groupmates and more, Inspire Courage was nerfed by 2 points with the new enhancement system.

When cap was 16 and everyone was swinging for 40 a hit i could give them +7 damage. Now everyone is swinging for 140 and i can give them +5....

DR 5/- when endgame mobs hit for 50? - Nice! I could always tell by the amount of healing i had to throw on my Healer if we had a Warchanter or a Spellsinger in Shroud.
DR 6/- when endgame mobs hit for 250? - Why even sing it?



Also, why is Deadly Weapons so popular? Because you only get it from Artificers, so everyone you hit with it profits from it.
Why do so few people even wait for bardbuffs any more in the higher levels? Because they are trivially in their effect, if they even stack with the stuff you wear anyway.

Bards need some raise in the absolute power of their buffs, and some exclusive buffs, that only a bard gives, and that will NEVER get ghostbaned onto some randomloot.

Also in addition to that, the power of a bard's buffs needs to still raise after level 20, and NOT be based on the active ED, because people spend so much time in different spheres and destinies that you cant balance its buffpower on the assumption that only bards will ever be in only the Fatesinger. Otherwise its relative usefullness will still become trivial again once you reach midepics.



P.S.
For me it is too late, TR'ed my TWF Warchanter into a Warpriest last week after 2 years of waiting for some direly needed bard reworking. Now i can at least see that i am contributing to a group's success again.

http://drawception.com/pub/panels/2012/5-5/rq3bsf7NF5-2.png

[maddmatt70]

Yeah I agree OP they have steadily nerfed bard abilities and have not provided much in the way of buffs like they did to so many other classes. Obviously the bard class is in desparate need of a third enhancement tree, new spells, and a refinement of their core abilities not to mention new feats. The displacement spell becoming self casting only was the first of a long line of nerfs to bards. I use to be able to cast displacement on everyone else, provide a very powerful song buff and only had to play 3 or 4 songs really and haste and could provide greater heroism to everyone. Now nearly every single bard buff spell has been nerfed or someone can trivially cast ithe same buff on themselves, bard songs provide less of a buff then they used to due to everyone gaining more in buffs, dcs, etc. and bard songs not gaining in power at the same rate and requiring more songs to be played really. Bards have no dps option unlike other classes, everyone is BYOH so bard healing is not that useful anymore, and bard cc is inefficient and basically terrible now when compared to Mass Hold, flesh to stone, nerve venom, earthquake, ice storm, etc..

Bards can not even splash monk or paladin levels lol so they can not even add the best splash levels. Time to throw in the white towel because every other class is better then bards right now even paladins.

[AzB]

My casters have always appreciated a spell song vigor, keep up the good work!

Sadly, this is the only thing that bards can bring that's appreciated. And for the most part, it's unneeded. I saw a wiz yesterday with almost 5000sp. With the abundance of shrines in most quests, various methods of replenishing sp, and the ridiculous sp pool available, that little 2sp per tick means almost nothing.

And even if ss vigor were buffed up, it wouldn't be nearly enough. I would like my bard to be a bit more than a wizard's squire, following him around singing him his favorite song when he wants it and totally useless the rest of the quest.

There have been many threads in this category about how to fix bards. There have been hundreds of good ideas. All it takes is someone in development to care enough to look at those ideas, choose some, and implement them.

Yes, bug fixes would be nice as the bard enhancement tree has more than it's fair share, but the bard needs more. Many of the enhancements are pointless, nearly pointless, redundant, and otherwise really not worth taking. Nothing scales to Epic levels, and the Fatesinger ED is "meh".

[harry-pancreas]

First, let me say that I love my Bard- she's one of my two mains.

But... it is really frustrating sometimes. Nobody waits for bard buffs anymore... just about the only time I can squeeze out more than one song is standing at the entrance to a raid. I ask if people want Haste... no, they took Blinding Speed. GH? They've already Planar Gird'ed themselves. Fascinate? Everyone has Celestias with AoEs breaking the fascinate, or the Druid has an Earthquake down. Can't Displace people anymore. And the shared cooldowns on some of the songs make trying to group buff even more of a pain.

I know I have a lot of complaints here, and I just don't know what to suggest to fix it. I hate to just make a whiny thread, but I think it needs to be brought to attention. Maybe I'll be more coherent on the subject in the morning, I'm just very frustrated right now.

take it easy, some of us wait for bard's buffs. I'd always take one with me
they still need to get love thoughso

/signed

[marinerfan]

Bards can not even splash monk or paladin levels lol so they can not even add the best splash levels. Time to throw in the white towel because every other class is better then bards right now even paladins.

I TR'd one of my bards into a paladin...and I'm noticeably stronger :(

[Ailaesaedol]

All it takes is someone in development to care enough to look at those ideas, choose some, and implement them.


We need Breca back on staff :(