The Official Bard Enhancements Discussion Thread!

[SqueakofDoom]

Bard Enhancements are currently available on Lamannia.

Please share your thoughts on the Bard Enhancement Trees!

[Cacyreia]

Hello!

After seing the new bard prestiges I must confess I was actually very pleased. I play the spellsinger and for me the fusion with virtuoso was an inteligent move, since that is what support bards would go for anyways.
In the warchanter bard it seems to be possible to acquire all the ally buffs. Now after paying a bit more attention I noticed on the warchanter: the inspired bravery and the poetic edda are both described as attack bonus and there is none for damage bonus. Is this intended? or mistake from whoever posted the prestiges in wiki? If it is intended please explain the sense of it... there is no real need to boost attack that much in my view.


Now something of ubber importance--- WHERE IS THE HEALING ABILITY?!?! WHERE?
The spellsinger has now the nice perk of the old virtuoso- the sustaining song- but that all it is, a perk.
it is nice outside of combat, however in combat it is required of a healer to heal his allies FAST, little overtime healing wont do the trick!!!! Is this intended?!? Are you thinking of anyway to cope with this?


You've added the Heal spell to the bard list. Nice move since the bard had some trouble with solo target heals. for each point in the spellsinger tree you gain 1 USP is decent, but for an 80 healing spell power you need to spend ALL the points in this tree, IT IS SIMPLY TOO MUCH SPECIALIZATION in a class that is generalist and has to be in order to be usefull. How is that fair?! It could be worth it if bard damage spells did a good amount of damage, not the case.

Inspired by the way you are trying to add some changes in spell power my proposal is:

make the perform skill count for healing power on bards instead of the points spent in spellsinger. that way even warchanter would have a litle healing. At level 20 a charismatic bard should have arround 60 base its still a loss compared to the 80 it we could get easily.

I know the prestiges are suposed to help in specialize and that to gain something you have to lose something- its fair. However, bard is a generalist class. When I started playing the bard my friends used to say "Metta can do anything!", it was the struggle of playing with a non fucntional class arrangement that made me improve my bardic playing and enjoying the bard so much that it eventualy became my main toon. If i lose the ability to do anything I am not "Metta" anymore.

What I am trying to say is: make sure these changes you dont lose one healing class. A spellsinger should be able to heal in raids as it is live, whithout having to spend ALL of its points in the spellsinger tree. A bard is a generalist and ALL the members of a party are expecting usefull buffs from the bard.


A note on wail of the banshee. The life and death stuff seems cool, made me remind of dirge from fatesinger. But lets be honest you nerfed the enchantment DC bonus possible to get, it is now -1 than in live. And enchantment is the bard main school. Wail is a necromancy spell which means its dc will be at least -2 than enchantment assuming you focus on this school. Bards ahve trouble with enchanment DC and spell pen as it is now, do you really think wail is ever going to kill something other than our patience?!

This appeared on the developments section a while ago:

"Wall of Sound - Creates a wall of sound This spell does 2 to 8 Sonic damage plus 1 additional point of damage per caster level (up to a max of 25 additional points at caster level 25) to enemies. Oozes are particularly susceptible to the pitch of the sound, and take an additional 2 to 8 Sonic damage. In addition, enemies caught in the Wall of Sound may begin dancing on a failed Will save, and become slowed thereafter on a failed Fortitude save."

Aim for something like this- it is usefull and unique, something you say: "that is our bard rocking over there". Not a wizzy copy cat!

Sincerely,

Mettalina Bard from Sarlona. (yes, my toon has bard on the name, thats how much I like it! Keep it that way )

[~Utzpretzels]

Personally, I don't like the mix of virtuoso and spellsinger. The combination of the two wouldn't matter to me if I could simply avoid all the virtuoso pieces of the tree, but what gets me is that several of the "core" abilities are only about making fascinate work against different types of mobs. This does not assist a caster oriented bard at all. I think these abilities should be put into the vertical part of the tree and something more generic that both virtuoso's and spellsingers would appreciate should go into the core abilities.

How about some SLA's? Greater shout, soundburst, and wall of sound. If not as a core ability, these should also be in the tree somewhere.

p.s. Wail does indeed seem silly. This doesn't seem like it would be very effective on a bard given the necro school. This could be a great place to stick wall of sound instead. That spell looks really fun, and it would making going pure bard very tempting if it was part of the capstone.

[Aashrym]

Now something of ubber importance--- WHERE IS THE HEALING ABILITY?!?! WHERE?
The spellsinger has now the nice perk of the old virtuoso- the sustaining song- but that all it is, a perk.
it is nice outside of combat, however in combat it is required of a healer to heal his allies FAST, little overtime healing wont do the trick!!!! Is this intended?!? Are you thinking of anyway to cope with this?


You've added the Heal spell to the bard list. Nice move since the bard had some trouble with solo target heals. for each point in the spellsinger tree you gain 1 USP is decent, but for an 80 healing spell power you need to spend ALL the points in this tree, IT IS SIMPLY TOO MUCH SPECIALIZATION in a class that is generalist and has to be in order to be usefull. How is that fair?! It could be worth it if bard damage spells did a good amount of damage, not the case.

I cross-classed heal and spent 48 AP in the spellsinger tree, and swapped in a +15 heal skill item for healing. This easily brought me over 80 positive spell power but it's annoying. Right now the skills have too much impact and the enhancements not enough.

That's pretty true for a lot of classes and trees in general on the new system.

It's also pretty silly that a class many consider a healer class doesn't have the heal skill on the class skill list.

A note on wail of the banshee. The life and death stuff seems cool, made me remind of dirge from fatesinger. But lets be honest you nerfed the enchantment DC bonus possible to get, it is now -1 than in live. And enchantment is the bard main school. Wail is a necromancy spell which means its dc will be at least -2 than enchantment assuming you focus on this school. Bards ahve trouble with enchanment DC and spell pen as it is now, do you really think wail is ever going to kill something other than our patience?!

DC's have actually gone up too, in general. There are more caster stat enhancements available for all casters because it was added to their capstones and each tree has it. Instead of 3 CHA enhancements and the capstone it's 4 and the capstone now, with marigold crown adding an DC we didn't have before. Drow and elves both have +1 enchantment DC in their trees, humans still have +1 CHA and now also have +3 CHA in action boosts, and drow have CHA as a racial bonus in the tree.

+2 drow base CHA, +2 drow tree CHA, +2 war chanter tree CHA, +2 spell singer tree CHA, +2 capstone CHA; +2 DC prodigy, +1 DC marigold crown, +1 DC drow tree beats the what is on live by 3 DC's or so for a nice little increase.

Most casters ended up with a little increase in DC's.

This appeared on the developments section a while ago:

"Wall of Sound - Creates a wall of sound This spell does 2 to 8 Sonic damage plus 1 additional point of damage per caster level (up to a max of 25 additional points at caster level 25) to enemies. Oozes are particularly susceptible to the pitch of the sound, and take an additional 2 to 8 Sonic damage. In addition, enemies caught in the Wall of Sound may begin dancing on a failed Will save, and become slowed thereafter on a failed Fortitude save."

Aim for something like this- it is usefull and unique, something you say: "that is our bard rocking over there". Not a wizzy copy cat!

Sincerely,

Mettalina Bard from Sarlona. (yes, my toon has bard on the name, thats how much I like it! Keep it that way )

Wounding whispers, majestic word, wall of sound, prismatic ray, phantasmal killer.... There were more too. There was also an enhancement that had a random chance to proc CMW on the bard every time he/she cast a spell, a random chance to regen a song by casting a spell, a defensive option for resist energy that procced SP regen when the bard took elemental damage similar to torc/conopp. There were a lot of changes. I'm pretty sure that's why we were told the trees were not final.

Personally, I would have preferred the songs in the innate row moved into purchased enhancements, possibly replacing some flicker stuff if necessary to make room, have all of the bard unique spells added to the bard spell list, and a choice of a spell to swap in for each innate with a corresponding spell. The capstone could have heal predetermined.

The swapping in spells was a nice idea but the implementation seems to be limited for some reason. I could see it being added to the 3rd tree, however, whenever that is added. Someday.

[~mynameisnotallowed]

One of the core abilities of a spellsinger on live is the ability to have a chance of giving spellpoints to everyone in the party based on your perform skill.

Why is this missing now?

Please dont point to the "10 temporary spellpoints" given to party members for bards who take 3 tiers of prodigy.

I tested on live. Singing my standard buff songs gave everyone around me about 180 spellpoints. Now they get 10 temporary non stacking ones?

If intentional, this is a massive and completely unnecessary nerf, if unintentional it needs to be fixed before this goes live.

If it is intentional, it needs to be reconsidered and changed before this goes live.

Can a dev please comment on this issue?

[~trixi]

Heh we lost 7 pages of feedback and now this threat is kinda dead.

Everyone agreed that loss of 20 sp regen with chance based on perform is nerf... Few people find it bigger, other smaller so plz dont fill another pages bout it ;p

Everyone is expecting mass hold, few suggested other spells like symbol of stun.

Lets find something new. Id love to point out and get your opinions on perform skill. Am I the only one to find it a little useless? Hard not to have working on everything fascinate. We lost the only skill where it mattered - sp regen.
This skill should be applied to more songs. Lets add more healing to sustaining song based on perform. Make enthrallment break on hit chance based on perform. Song of freedom - dc is based on bard lvl. This makes that dc capped at 20, so we are not able to free party from anything on epics. Make it perform based which would make this song great(clearing symbols of pain for example).
Dont stop in here. Since IC dmg bonus is pretty low when compared to deadly, maybe give extra boost based on perform - something like +1 per 20-30 points
Perform will give sonic spell power - which is useless. Maybe give extra illusion/enchantment on huge investment? Like 40-50 points.

Which remind me bout bard past life... Please change it... Maybe enchantment dc or illusion?

Back to skills - listen. Nice we get it, though its useless. Maybe bonus to saves? Its one of the senses.

Isnt it bout time bard get exclusive spell? Everyone is pasting that wall of sound...

About dancing - there exists otto whistler that dance enemy and make it helpless. Bard can dance... but cant make enemies helpless in aoe range. Maybe give ability for bards so enemies they dance become helpless?

I find ss middle core enhancements preety weak. Ooze fascination is useless. From every ooze you can run away + there are no oozes at epics(at least i cant recall any that i dont run away from).
Undead song is useful because of undead giants in gh. Would be better to move them to normal enhancements. Also add that bonus to enthrallment.

About enthrallment - its bout time it works on same enemies as fascinate. Right now set of enemies you can fascinate is narrower

flicker - whole flicker line i find useless. Worth taking only to get +3 spell pen song... I have no idea why are those connected.

frolic - gives bards spell they already have with really short duration + you need to reach tier 5 to get it. I dont find it useful at all.

Thats all i remember now...

Oh I want to give positive feedback too. I love the merge. Casting bards start to look better.

[~Erzmeister]

Overall bards lost damagebuffing power with the general enhancements to raise damage from Inspire Courage just gone, and the Warchanter's old +2 in this reard just spread out and given a measly +1 in the Warchanter Capstone, which incidentally most Warchanters wont get as they are almost all splashed...

In the end this means that +3 damage to the buffsongs of all bards are simpls PUFF! gone.


The healing pwoer of non-pure Spellsingers too another hit with general non-Bard specific gamechanges. Not too long ago i just used a 3-min-devotion clicky and was set. After the enhancemnt pass i need to give up 1 Itemslot to a devotion item, and 1 itemslot to a Healskill item + invest deep into the Spellsinger tree. Just to keep on a level where i already am. Or i simply give up on Healing on any non-pure Spellsinger and free significant build, item and SP resource drain.... *unhappy face*

[~trixi]

The healing pwoer of non-pure Spellsingers too another hit with general non-Bard specific gamechanges. Not too long ago i just used a 3-min-devotion clicky and was set. After the enhancemnt pass i need to give up 1 Itemslot to a devotion item, and 1 itemslot to a Healskill item + invest deep into the Spellsinger tree. Just to keep on a level where i already am. Or i simply give up on Healing on any non-pure Spellsinger and free significant build, item and SP resource drain.... *unhappy face*

I believe that it is intended on every caster class - to lower spell power on enhancements and move those missing ponts to corresponding skill. Right now we get 80 positive spellpower.

If you invest in heal skill... lets say 40 points(including item) you dont need to spend too many points in ss tree to reach that 80.

Also look at fot gloves. They give you 120 positive, major lore and 20 heal... Plus few others.

[Aashrym]

Overall bards lost damagebuffing power with the general enhancements to raise damage from Inspire Courage just gone, and the Warchanter's old +2 in this reard just spread out and given a measly +1 in the Warchanter Capstone, which incidentally most Warchanters wont get as they are almost all splashed...

In the end this means that +3 damage to the buffsongs of all bards are simpls PUFF! gone.

This is inaccurate. The core rows are not exclusive of each other like the current PrE's are. Spell singers can select the war chanter core row innates as they spend in the war chanter tree. +1 damage for spell singers IC is poof gone. +3 damage for war chanters IC is poof gone.

The healing pwoer of non-pure Spellsingers too another hit with general non-Bard specific gamechanges. Not too long ago i just used a 3-min-devotion clicky and was set. After the enhancemnt pass i need to give up 1 Itemslot to a devotion item, and 1 itemslot to a Healskill item + invest deep into the Spellsinger tree. Just to keep on a level where i already am. Or i simply give up on Healing on any non-pure Spellsinger and free significant build, item and SP resource drain.... *unhappy face*

I think not applying spell power to the war chanter tree was a big mistake but you probably should have been using a devotion item over a clickie for a while now. 3 minute clickies were nerfed a while ago.

[Cacyreia]

I cross-classed heal and spent 48 AP in the spellsinger tree, and swapped in a +15 heal skill item for healing. This easily brought me over 80 positive spell power but it's annoying. Right now the skills have too much impact and the enhancements not enough.


+2 drow base CHA, +2 drow tree CHA, +2 war chanter tree CHA, +2 spell singer tree CHA, +2 capstone CHA; +2 DC prodigy, +1 DC marigold crown, +1 DC drow tree beats the what is on live by 3 DC's or so for a nice little increase.

Hmm, i was intending to spend arround 45 in ss tree. You made a good point with the heal skill, it should cope for what was lost in comparison.


Abou the dc's-- I read the enhancements a bit too fast it seems, i didnt catch the +2 fom prodigy. If you count for all of those things dc's will be raised a bit, HOWEVER I think in practice they will ramain about the same since you will hardly have points to spend in the race tree that you wouldnt rather spend on the WC for a propper supporting ability.


I agree with comments on ficker, seems pretty useless and a bit heavy pre requisite for spell pen.

I did like the sugestion of mass hold as spell. For I long time I wondered why didnt the bard have it. However, between that a new spell I would preffer something new, although I agree that the ability to leave enemies helpless in a bard spell would be something attractive.


In another thead i read a few comments of people desapointed on SS not being the "Sonic Savant", I was never looking at that and I love the merge or ss and virtuoso, that was my first thought as soon as I knew there would be tree prestiges. I dont really want to push for a sonic savant, what I love about bards is their supreme ability to strengthen the party, BUT some improvements should be done in the bard spell list. The mass hold suggestion was quite a good one and I did love that wall of sound suggestion too.


The comment on the past life feat is actually a very good one. Bards did never struggle with # of songs, having a couple extra sure is nice, but not worth the passive past life. I find it hard to be changed to enchantment dc,but maybe we could get some positive and sonic power, lets say 5? ( a bit caster speacialized, i know) also occurred to me something like inspire courage giving +1 attack and damage, which would be a bit more generalized, worth for the 2 kinds of bards and actually comparable to the majority of the other classes passive feats in terms of strength.

[Cacyreia]

I cross-classed heal and spent 48 AP in the spellsinger tree, and swapped in a +15 heal skill item for healing. This easily brought me over 80 positive spell power but it's annoying. Right now the skills have too much impact and the enhancements not enough.


+2 drow base CHA, +2 drow tree CHA, +2 war chanter tree CHA, +2 spell singer tree CHA, +2 capstone CHA; +2 DC prodigy, +1 DC marigold crown, +1 DC drow tree beats the what is on live by 3 DC's or so for a nice little increase.

Hmm, i was intending to spend arround 45 in ss tree. You made a good point with the heal skill, it should cope for what was lost in comparison.


About the dc's-- I read the enhancements a bit too fast it seems, i didnt catch the +2 fom prodigy. If you count for all of those things dc's will be raised a bit, HOWEVER I think in practice they will ramain about the same, since you will hardly have points to spend in the race tree that you wouldnt rather spend on the WC for a propper supporting ability.


I agree with comments on ficker, seems pretty useless and a bit heavy pre requisite for spell pen.

I did like the sugestion of mass hold as spell. For a long time I wondered why didnt the bard have it. However, between that and a new spell I would preffer something new, although I agree that the ability to leave enemies helpless in a bard spell would be something attractive.


In another thead i read a few comments of people desapointed on SS not being the "Sonic Savant", I was never looking at that and I love the merge or ss and virtuoso. That was my first thought as soon as I knew there would be prestige trees. I dont really want to push for a sonic savant, what I love about bards is their supreme ability to strengthen the party, BUT some improvements should be done in the bard spell list. The mass hold suggestion was quite a good one and I did love that wall of sound suggestion too.


The comment on the past life feat is actually a very good one. Bards did never struggle with # of songs, having a couple extra sure is nice, but not worth the passive past life. I find it hard to be changed to enchantment dc, but maybe we could get some positive and sonic power, lets say 5? ( a bit caster speacialized, i know) also occurred to me something like inspire courage giving +1 attack and damage, which would be a bit more generalized, worth for the 2 kinds of bards and actually comparable to the majority of the other classes passive feats in terms of strength.

[Aashrym]

Abou the dc's-- I read the enhancements a bit too fast it seems, i didnt catch the +2 fom prodigy. If you count for all of those things dc's will be raised a bit, HOWEVER I think in practice they will ramain about the same since you will hardly have points to spend in the race tree that you wouldnt rather spend on the WC for a propper supporting ability.

There isn't really much in the war chanter tree for support unless a person is trying to all ironskin chant and recklessness. I took enough there to get both CHA bonuses and called it good. A person can get all the spell DC's with 43 AP in SS, 24 AP in WC, and 13 AP in drow; and will still have 2 tiers of fighting spirit for the IC bonus. It's tough to get them all but possible.

A person can completely skip drow and still have +1 enchantment DC for what's live from marigold crown and +1 CHA for a possible 2nd DC. What's nice about it is that bards get that opportunity for bonus DC's at level 2 for marigold, +1 DC's for spell song trance at level 4 even if it doesn't stack with the ship buff, and open up prodigy at level 12. The bonuses are available earlier on top of having more bonuses.

I might not have been clear on my spending in the previous post, however, because I made several bards on Lamma with various races and don't want to confuse anyone. Hopefully that is more clear.

In another thead i read a few comments of people desapointed on SS not being the "Sonic Savant", I was never looking at that and I love the merge or ss and virtuoso, that was my first thought as soon as I knew there would be tree prestiges. I dont really want to push for a sonic savant, what I love about bards is their supreme ability to strengthen the party, BUT some improvements should be done in the bard spell list. The mass hold suggestion was quite a good one and I did love that wall of sound suggestion too.

The sonic comes from the focus on sonic spells available in PnP. The signature bard offensive casting is enchantment, illusion, and sonic so when DDO allow for some enchantment, virtually no illusions, and the sonic spells we do have are missing benefits from the PnP versions it makes sense to look at improving the sonic spells we do have.

Marigold crown offers +1 evocation DC's so I don't know why prodigy would not follow suit and provide some variation on types of caster bards.

[Mryal]

Soo bard enhancements.No protection tree - thats great!

Well sarcasm aside, the new spellsinger tree is awesome.More DC more spell pen and absorbed the cool things from the Virtuoso tree.Heal spell for bards..best thing ever.

Now complaints.Theres always complaints.Wail of the banshee..hmm cool but not the best choice.Where is the wall of sound??
We all want mass hold but lets face it folks : Bards will never get mass holds, if bards get mass hold then wizards will be called 'gimp bards with no songs'.OH wait, sarcasm again.Sorry.Yes mass hold.I do want mass hold.Gimme.

Lets find something new. Id love to point out and get your opinions on perform skill. Am I the only one to find it a little useless? Hard not to have working on everything fascinate. We lost the only skill where it mattered - sp regen.
This skill should be applied to more songs. Lets add more healing to sustaining song based on perform. Make enthrallment break on hit chance based on perform. Song of freedom - dc is based on bard lvl. This makes that dc capped at 20, so we are not able to free party from anything on epics. Make it perform based which would make this song great(clearing symbols of pain for example).

Awesome idea xir.Specialy on enthrallement.But then again, also make enthrallement work on everything that fascinate does then.

[~trixi]

We all want mass hold but lets face it folks : Bards will never get mass holds, if bards get mass hold then wizards will be called 'gimp bards with no songs'.OH wait, sarcasm again.Sorry.Yes mass hold.I do want mass hold.Gimme.

I know its sarcasm, but some people playing wizards dont want bards to be good in casting(in any school they got access), so I wish to point out few things

Wizards are ahead in enchantment casting by design - max spell lvl is 9. All enchantment dc we get from new tree even that difference. Wizards can still choose from their tree(AM) +2 to enchantment and in result be superior in that matter.

Wizards got more sp.

Bards dont have dps spells. Bard that spec fully in enchantment cant dps. Also dont forget that wizard get extra feats... My bard is really starving in that matter... No way to get spell pen... unless give up on toughness.
But back to the point. Wizard can dps. Bards cant(ccers). Bards can heal instead. Its different style of playing.

Why am I writing all that? To show that mass hold wont hurt anyone. Even more - someone who fully specc as enchantment bard(which require to give up all the rest) should get it as reward.

So maybe change that Maestro of Life and Death to multi selector:
heal spec - heal spell and maybe some stronger aoe than mass cure moderate
enchantment spec - mass hold and... sumbol of stunning?
sonic spec - wail and wall of sound... or some other strong evocation spell... maybe some dot?

[~mynameisnotallowed]

I would still like a dev to comment on the SP regen.

[remember1]

I always play bard or multiclass bard but disagree that a bard is a raid healer, bard heals himself and drops some healing from times to times

perform giving healing power is a non sense in dnd's lore

also doesnt make sense warchanter deal cold or electricity damage

Its against dnd a bard cast damage spells but sonic ones

with a good effort I understand heal and wail for spellsinger but they must be expensive cause they are powerful

Frolic also its non sense a bard cast undispellable freedom of movement ?!

2 useful trees, 2 different specializations

[Aashrym]

I always play bard or multiclass bard but disagree that a bard is a raid healer, bard heals himself and drops some healing from times to times

perform giving healing power is a non sense in dnd's lore

also doesnt make sense warchanter deal cold or electricity damage

Its against dnd a bard cast damage spells but sonic ones

with a good effort I understand heal and wail for spellsinger but they must be expensive cause they are powerful

Frolic also its non sense a bard cast undispellable freedom of movement ?!

2 useful trees, 2 different specializations

I raid heal using a bard and know many other who do too. The entire bard concept is to be able to fill several roles, including healing, and I don't agree with changing that general idea. When this game came out it was the alternative choice to cleric because there were no FvS's or Druids. Your choice to consider yourself not a raid healer is your perception and many other players do consider bards healers so keeping up the healer idea allows us to play how we want want you can continue to play how you want. WIN/WIN is always good.

Regarding the electricity and cold, it's thematic for the northern skald concept, and bards actually cast any sorc/wiz spell they want to add in DnD via various PrC's in various splat books. Sublime chord is the basis for many strong caster bards in PnP. Sonic is a signature spell type but there are many ways to build in variations. One alternative to sonic spells is shadow spells and doesn't even need to leave the PHB for that. Another simple solution is hold person/monster and coup because that give bards an instant death ability in PnP.

Non-dispel FoM is consistent with other bard abilities in DDO. Debating that as nonsense seems odd to me.

[remember1]

I raid heal using a bard and know many other who do too...

I never figured a bard's role to be a party's raid healer.

I suspect that most of the community shares my opinion, but I aint a dnd's expert.

[Cacyreia]

I never figured a bard's role to be a party's raid healer.

I suspect that most of the community shares my opinion, but I aint a dnd's expert.

My suggestion on perform giving healing power was based on my concern that bard might be losing some of its healing capability. It seems that with a cross classed heal skill it will work fine. I am satisfied with this, but not pleased. Seems a bit of a nerf to obligate a bard to spend either all his points in SS for a good healing ability or having to cross a skill to mantain it's current healing power. Hence my initial suggestion.

Bards can heal a party quite well, can be a very decent second healer for a raid and with good gear even solo heal raids. It is true that most bards will heal themselves and throw a couple heals once in a while, if you want to do that fine, go ahead. Now, there are people who chose to have a higher healing ability (that comes at the cost of a lower dps in my case) and there is no reason why that should change after the enhancements change.

About most people having your opinion -- Most people will doubt when a bard says he can do the heals only because they dont know the class well, or have bad prior experiences with unskilled players. However, they will apreciate if they find a bard that can do the job. No reason to always have to wait on clerics or favoured souls.

Heal- there is no reason why it should be more expensive than it is for clerics. Please read its description and how healing power works. Healing power only affects heal by 50% and you can not apply maximize spell to heal, unlike other healing spells.

[~trixi]

My suggestion on perform giving healing power was based on my concern that bard might be losing some of its healing capability. It seems that with a cross classed heal skill it will work fine. I am satisfied with this, but not pleased. Seems a bit of a nerf to obligate a bard to spend either all his points in SS for a good healing ability or having to cross a skill to mantain it's current healing power. Hence my initial suggestion.

Perform=heals is not thematic...

anyway lets look at heal skill so you wont be concerned about this:
+12 from lvlups, +5 epic lvls, +5(from wisdom, having 20 is not that hard...), +20 item
=...

42

coincidence? I dont think so...

But back to the point:
If I remember right and each skill point gives 1 spellpower...
We will end up having better heal power. I assume that ss bard invest 40 AP in ss tree...


EDIT:
it also just occurred to me, that skill song become at least interesting during raids... With epic elyd edge u pass aoe +2 spell power...
So uber
And we cannot forget that now caster without gh is a little gimpy(+4 sp? cmon), or good luck item... funny days are coming