Fatesinger Harmonic Resonance Change

[orakio]

Just noticed yesterday while playing after U14.1 that the Harmonic Resonance tier2 passive has changed.

Harmonic Resonance Passive from Fatesinger no longer applies to missile attacks. New U14.1 description only states "your melee attacks" while pre patch 1 it said "Your melee and missile attacks have a 10% chance per hit of building a stacking resonance in your enemies."

Is this working as intended, as it isn't listed in release notes

[Breca]

As intended. Reign and Harmonic Resonance switched their trigger. Reign now gets activated on missile and unarmed (and melee, as always). Harmonic Resonance on melee only.
Breca

[Cyr]

As intended. Reign and Harmonic Resonance switched their trigger. Reign now gets activated on missile and unarmed (and melee, as always). Harmonic Resonance on melee only.
Breca

Why?

Is there some belief among the developers that ranged bards are too powerful?

[Havok.cry]

Why?

Is there some belief among the developers that ranged bards are too powerful?

Didnt ya know, ranged is OP. (And yes that is sarcasm).

[Breca]

Didnt ya know, ranged is OP. (And yes that is sarcasm).

It was just a balancing decision. Harmonic Resonance triggers on any melee attack, whether unarmed or with weapon. Reign now triggers on any attack, whereas before, it was melee-only. Tailwind triggers on missile only. Taken together, no attack type will trigger on all of these at once.

Breca

[orakio]

It was just a balancing decision. Harmonic Resonance triggers on any melee attack, whether unarmed or with weapon. Reign now triggers on any attack, whereas before, it was melee-only. Tailwind triggers on missile only. Taken together, no attack type will trigger on all of these at once.

Breca

Hmm, fair enough I guess. The wording on Reign didn't indicate that it was melee only so I never knew there was a design intent for ranged to not stack the damage abilities. It makes more sense now, just a bit dissapointing.

[Havok.cry]

It was just a balancing decision. Harmonic Resonance triggers on any melee attack, whether unarmed or with weapon. Reign now triggers on any attack, whereas before, it was melee-only. Tailwind triggers on missile only. Taken together, no attack type will trigger on all of these at once.

Breca

Cool, thanks for explaining. I was going to assume it was yet another thing that had problems proccing on ranged attacks so you switched it. Nice to be wrong about that.

[Missing_Minds]

It was just a balancing decision. Harmonic Resonance triggers on any melee attack, whether unarmed or with weapon. Reign now triggers on any attack, whereas before, it was melee-only. Tailwind triggers on missile only. Taken together, no attack type will trigger on all of these at once.

Breca

You also have to pay for Tailwind and Reign, where Harmonic Resonance is a freebie.

Personally I would say, that Reign works with melee (including unarmed) and missile. How allowing Reign to work on missiles going to be over powered? Can you answer that?

But HR has only a 10% chance with melee/unarmed and 25% chance with missile. Why? Look at the rate of attack between the two.

[Kakow]

It was just a balancing decision. Harmonic Resonance triggers on any melee attack, whether unarmed or with weapon. Reign now triggers on any attack, whereas before, it was melee-only. Tailwind triggers on missile only. Taken together, no attack type will trigger on all of these at once.
Breca

I don't like Option 1 or 2. I'd like to have all 3 work together and I don't think it'd be unbalancing. There are no sonic bolt/arrow imbue/infusions, there are no sonic rune arms, and as has been mentioned, cooldowns on the "DPS" songs make any accusations of all 3 working together being overpowered is, in my eyes, crazy.

In a perfect world, my artie would be able to build up a harmonic resonance stack in a target, assuming the X% chance proc'd on every single bolt every single time. After that very short duration debuff was stacked to full, he'd be able to sing a song (while the debuff's ticking down), switch to his cacophony repeater (while the debuff's ticking down), hit endless fusillade (watch the time-wasting spin the crossbow animation while the debuff's ticking down...), and wreak havoc for a few seconds on that target, and maybe I get lucky and roll 20s on every bolt and do a bit more sonic damage, probably enough to kill that target. If I'm REALLY lucky, I may get another target if I've left IPS on (and wanted to sacrifice the damage boost from Archer's Focus).

Also in this perfect world, my artie wouldn't have been beaten to the punch by the superpowered melee EDs doing AoE-style cleaving carnage, or the divine EDs chain exploding mobs with holy powah, or the insta-killing assassins with their DC 50 assassinates, or the Everything is Nothing special monk move, or the plain old palemaster Wailing everything in sight with the press of a single button.

But perhaps you're right, limiting ranged sonic attacks is keeping in the best interests of all concerned. We certainly wouldn't want to see any ranged players having delusions of adequacy.

[Forgeborn]

Why?

Is there some belief among the developers that ranged bards are too powerful?

as reign didn't work on ranged before, and adds 22D20 on a vorpal shot, I'd actually say they 'buffed' ranged bards with that change instead of nerfing them, sure, you don't get the resonance anymore, but that didn't do much anyways as there's no decent sonic dot (the song hit what, 70 points of damage every few seconds, on one target?).

[Cyr]

as reign didn't work on ranged before, and adds 22D20 on a vorpal shot, I'd actually say they 'buffed' ranged bards with that change instead of nerfing them, sure, you don't get the resonance anymore, but that didn't do much anyways as there's no decent sonic dot (the song hit what, 70 points of damage every few seconds, on one target?).

Yes, reign is better then harmonic resonance.

Yet, it was still a decison to not apply harmonic resonance to ranged.

You might have a point if reign only applied to range, but it does not.

[Forgeborn]

You might have a point if reign only applied to range, but it does not.

comparable to how it was (reign only working on melee, harmonic on both), to how it is now (reign on both, harmonic only on melee), ranged comes out on top, even though they removed the resonance stacks from ranged. It is still a buff if you compare it to how it was.

as it stands the ranged damage is up (due to the +22D20 damage every vorpal), and melee damage remains the same (as they already had reign + resonance).

granted, I am of the opinion resonance, and reign, should apply equally to melee, unarmed, and ranged.

[junta74]

My plans for my Bardcher have changed dramatically with this change. I thought after manyshot, a group would be very susceptible to a greater shout and dirge. Time to look at the tree and start planning all over again.

[BananaHat]

I'm a little saddened as the reply you sent me earlier implied harmonic resonance would work with ranged. It is unfortunate that the passive ability does not apply to all combat types, ranged characters will have to divert some points in the tree for Tailwind.

Melee build means everyone can do more sonic damage (yay for Shiradi Champion passives)
Ranged build means other ranged characters can do more base damage (yay for Shiradi Champion again!)

You should just make Reign passive since it applies to everyone and then you can choose in the tree whether to get the ranged or melee boost. Probably cheese off everyone who wants to twist it though.

[Breca]

I can understand some of these grievances and disappointments on Harmonic Resonance losing its missile proc. And at the risk of starting a @!%#storm, I could go so far as to say that Harmonic Resonance and Reign had better synergies the way they were before. If you could proc Harmonic Resonance as a ranged bard, you'd be able to stand off, proc some sonic vulnerability, and then Shout, Dirge, etc. The freedom to stand off while doing so is *nice*, thematic, practical, and happens to be the way things used to be on Lamannia.

It also used to be that Reign only procced on melee. The change to that originally went in to give ranged Fatesingers something more viscerally exciting (a thunderclap vs a dusting of sonic vulnerability), and then Harmonic Resonance got sacrificed on the Altar of Game Balance.

All in all, and after having had some time to let these ability combos digest, I tend to think that the Harmonic/Reign relationship seems to have shared better synergies before (except for the neglect of Unarmed attacks). Now that we're out of beta, it's more grating on nerves to change things mid-stream, even if it would be better for the game.

So we can put this before you all and solicit some opinions.

Option 1: Leave things as they are now.

Option 2:
Harmonic Resonance procs on melee, missile, and Unarmed (don't forget!)
Reign procs on Unarmed and melee only.


Breca

[junta74]

I can understand some of these grievances and disappointments on Harmonic Resonance losing its missile proc. And at the risk of starting a @!%#storm, I could go so far as to say that Harmonic Resonance and Reign had better synergies the way they were before. If you could proc Harmonic Resonance as a ranged bard, you'd be able to stand off, proc some sonic vulnerability, and then Shout, Dirge, etc. The freedom to stand off while doing so is *nice*, thematic, practical, and happens to be the way things used to be on Lamannia.

It also used to be that Reign only procced on melee. The change to that originally went in to give ranged Fatesingers something more viscerally exciting (a thunderclap vs a dusting of sonic vulnerability), and then Harmonic Resonance got sacrificed on the Altar of Game Balance.

All in all, and after having had some time to let these ability combos digest, I tend to think that the Harmonic/Reign relationship seems to have shared better synergies before (except for the neglect of Unarmed attacks). Now that we're out of beta, it's more grating on nerves to change things mid-stream, even if it would be better for the game.

So we can put this before you all and solicit some opinions.

Option 1: Leave things as they are now.

Option 2:
Harmonic Resonance procs on melee, missile, and Unarmed (don't forget!)
Reign procs on Unarmed and melee only.


Breca

Thanks for the reply!

If I had my way I would choose option 2. As harmonic resonance is an auto grant ability and Reign is not, those people with ranged toons can choose the Tailwind rout and those on melee could forgo Tailwind for Reign and they would both get the most use out of the auto grant ability.

It also would make the new bow from the raid much more interesting.

And thank you again for listening to the forum, tweaking for balance and for playability, and making this a great ED.

[legendlore]

Game Balance. /../ better for the game.

I agree, balance would be good for the game. This game is however very far from balanced and starting with balancing the destiny for what is arguably the weakest class currently in the game (bard) and what is arguably the weakest dps option currently in the game (ranged) isn't the way to go. There are far bigger fish to fry.

It seems that when you (as in the development team) speak of game balance it is in relation to how the class was before, not in relation to other classes. This game will never be balanced with that viewpoint.

I had a glimpse of hope for some steps towards class balance when the instant kill debate was active, sadly it was quickly shot down by a community that has grown a costumed to casters as easy farming characters, unwilling to let go of the power and ease of play.

As a related topic (since you're the bard developer as I understand it) how could epic wards be left in the game, bard almost exclusively have charming spells (and all of their mass spells are charms) as offensive spells, now they can't use them in content above level 20. How can charming be deemed worse than the ability to instantly kill enemies?)

[DeafeningWhisper]

I can understand some of these grievances and disappointments on Harmonic Resonance losing its missile proc. And at the risk of starting a @!%#storm, I could go so far as to say that Harmonic Resonance and Reign had better synergies the way they were before. If you could proc Harmonic Resonance as a ranged bard, you'd be able to stand off, proc some sonic vulnerability, and then Shout, Dirge, etc. The freedom to stand off while doing so is *nice*, thematic, practical, and happens to be the way things used to be on Lamannia.

It also used to be that Reign only procced on melee. The change to that originally went in to give ranged Fatesingers something more viscerally exciting (a thunderclap vs a dusting of sonic vulnerability), and then Harmonic Resonance got sacrificed on the Altar of Game Balance.

All in all, and after having had some time to let these ability combos digest, I tend to think that the Harmonic/Reign relationship seems to have shared better synergies before (except for the neglect of Unarmed attacks). Now that we're out of beta, it's more grating on nerves to change things mid-stream, even if it would be better for the game.

So we can put this before you all and solicit some opinions.

Option 1: Leave things as they are now.

Option 2:
Harmonic Resonance procs on melee, missile, and Unarmed (don't forget!)
Reign procs on Unarmed and melee only.


Breca

Option 2.

I have yet to see a bardcher/bardificer that is considered anywhere close to "OP".

[Cyr]

Option 1: Leave things as they are now.

Option 2:
Harmonic Resonance procs on melee, missile, and Unarmed (don't forget!)
Reign procs on Unarmed and melee only.


Breca

I think both options ignore the basic question..

Do you think ranged bards are OP now? Heck, do you think bards in general are near the top of the power curve?

As I think that is a laughable concept I find both options to be undesirable for balance purposes.

[Missing_Minds]

I think both options ignore the basic question..
Do you think ranged bards are OP now? Heck, do you think bards in general are near the top of the power curve?
As I think that is a laughable concept I find both options to be undesirable for balance purposes.

Wow... rarity struck again. We agree on that one.

Option 3: Missile weapons (re)gain Harmonic Resonance. Everything else stays the same.

Yes please, I'll go with Option 3.