Update 22 - Swashbuckler Tree Preview Discussion

[Delacroix21]

The change of the tier 5 Reflex save ability from 3/6/12 to 2/4/6 is kind of lame for people who want to have useful evasion on characters with 18 or 20 bard levels.

If the worry is OP splashing, at least put +6 reflex in the 18 bard or 20 bard cores.

Not sure why that change came through, but then again I'm not surprised.


I have seen several "nerf this" posts in this thread from players who obviously don't make/play EE toons. Nothing in this tree is OP in its current form, and has actually become one of the most balanced trees in ddo. The problem is a lot of people posting don't have a good understanding of game mechanics, or EE game mechanics.


For example: some have posted about the no save knockdown on monster miss.
1. Monsters have slow attack speeds
2. Players obviously don't seem to know about twisting balanced attacks from primal avatar.
3. Balanced attacks knockdown on 20, no save, no cooldown, WAY more chances to proc on a mob per second/minute. Useble to any class, pre, or ed.

[poltt48]

Not sure why that change came through, but then again I'm not surprised.


I have seen several "nerf this" posts in this thread from players who obviously don't make/play EE toons. Nothing in this tree is OP in its current form, and has actually become one of the most balanced trees in ddo. The problem is a lot of people posting don't have a good understanding of game mechanics, or EE game mechanics.


For example: some have posted about the no save knockdown on monster miss.
1. Monsters have slow attack speeds
2. Players obviously don't seem to know about twisting balanced attacks from primal avatar.
3. Balanced attacks knockdown on 20, no save, no cooldown, WAY more chances to proc on a mob per second/minute. Useble to any class, pre, or ed.

I have 3 completionist toons a rogue, a cleric, and a sorc and tell you now having 12 base reflex save then giving them 15 on tier 5 was OP. All other toons have to work to get there saves why hell should bards be given 27 with level and 1 enhancement. My rogue had to get tons of gear to get his 74 so should bards.

[bbqzor]

Not sure why that change came through, but then again I'm not surprised.

I have seen several "nerf this" posts in this thread from players who obviously don't make/play EE toons. Nothing in this tree is OP in its current form, and has actually become one of the most balanced trees in ddo. The problem is a lot of people posting don't have a good understanding of game mechanics, or EE game mechanics.

This. There are people complaining about things which are either not correct because they didnt read closely (like swf working with a shield, it doesnt except for swashs, thats not a pure fighter issue with tower shields or something), or complaining about things which are "op" because they arent aware of all the alternatives or how those alternatives actually work. Its eroding the tree into a toned done, over priced package with no appeal.

I was going to write a lot more but at this point Im not feeling like it will help much. So I will simply say this: characters cannot afford to spend much over 41-45 ap in a tree. Spending 50 in one tree is almost certainly too many points. This is because the trees were DESIGNED to REQUIRE spending in MULTIPLE trees. You guys did that, intentionally, on purpose, and its an arrangement we all live with. So when you put out trees like Kotc which are 60+, or even worse SD which is nearly 80 iirc, they fail. Its a fact of life we NEED to be able to afford the capstone in one tree (41-42), and at least be able to plausibly reach tier 4 in a second tree (21-26 generally), which doesnt leave a lot of room (thats 62-66 spent) for something like points in a race tree, or a third class tree, or spending some extra in your main tree, etc.

Try to keep the costs down, and the abilities balanced so that they maintain use in the epic game. If the tree takes much over 50-55 points to buy out, its overpriced. And if you cannot reasonably get the "signature" stuff from the tree for close to 40 (as in, you cant get the "style specific" stuff like stances, special moves, etc... not the plain +stat stuff which is non-unique), its overpriced. And if the abilities (T5 and higher core) are such that they are not worth it relative to the entry level epic abilities (T1-2 twists), they are too low.

Try to keep that in mind please, as someone who has recently been through their paladin again and facepalmed over that pile of underpowered, overcosted travesty. Swash was good, and still is mostly okay.. but its slipping. Dont let lamma kill it. Be conscious of the quality of life for player experience here. Costs too high, or values too low, and its a fail. No matter how cool the original writeup was. Thanks.

[poltt48]

This. There are people complaining about things which are either not correct because they didnt read closely (like swf working with a shield, it doesnt except for swashs, thats not a pure fighter issue with tower shields or something), or complaining about things which are "op" because they arent aware of all the alternatives or how those alternatives actually work. Its eroding the tree into a toned done, over priced package with no appeal.

I was going to write a lot more but at this point Im not feeling like it will help much. So I will simply say this: characters cannot afford to spend much over 41-45 ap in a tree. Spending 50 in one tree is almost certainly too many points. This is because the trees were DESIGNED to REQUIRE spending in MULTIPLE trees. You guys did that, intentionally, on purpose, and its an arrangement we all live with. So when you put out trees like Kotc which are 60+, or even worse SD which is nearly 80 iirc, they fail. Its a fact of life we NEED to be able to afford the capstone in one tree (41-42), and at least be able to plausibly reach tier 4 in a second tree (21-26 generally), which doesnt leave a lot of room (thats 62-66 spent) for something like points in a race tree, or a third class tree, or spending some extra in your main tree, etc.

Try to keep the costs down, and the abilities balanced so that they maintain use in the epic game. If the tree takes much over 50-55 points to buy out, its overpriced. And if you cannot reasonably get the "signature" stuff from the tree for close to 40 (as in, you cant get the "style specific" stuff like stances, special moves, etc... not the plain +stat stuff which is non-unique), its overpriced. And if the abilities (T5 and higher core) are such that they are not worth it relative to the entry level epic abilities (T1-2 twists), they are too low.

Try to keep that in mind please, as someone who has recently been through their paladin again and facepalmed over that pile of underpowered, overcosted travesty. Swash was good, and still is mostly okay.. but its slipping. Dont let lamma kill it. Be conscious of the quality of life for player experience here. Costs too high, or values too low, and its a fail. No matter how cool the original writeup was. Thanks.

That also big issue with balance though too. My cleric trees 84% of abilities cost 2 points each. While on my rogue only 42% cost 2 point. So my rogue is getting a whole lot more out of his 80 enhancement points then my cleric. If they lower lot of the costs on this will be same way. Personally think it is something they should really look at when they looking at balance that they talking about.

[tiamat1985]

Any chance to have a "Perfect SWF" epic destiny feat?

[mezzorco]

I have seen several "nerf this" posts in this thread from players who obviously don't make/play EE toons.

Ok, maybe. But the game should be balanced from 1 to cap. A 5 splash bard with +12 ref is too much before lvl 20.

Think about rogue 15 bard 5 vs rogue 20:
13 base +12 = 25 ref vs 12 base, both with improved evasion.

It was clearly unbalanced, at least before EE.

[Ayseifn]

I have 3 completionist toons a rogue, a cleric, and a sorc and tell you now having 12 base reflex save then giving them 15 on tier 5 was OP. All other toons have to work to get there saves why hell should bards be given 27 with level and 1 enhancement. My rogue had to get tons of gear to get his 74 so should bards.

Having to take 5+ bard levels, burning your tier 5 prestige choice on Swashbuckler at a cost of 33+ AP and being locked out of taking paladin/monk levels are all pretty harsh requirements just for that +12 reflex save enhancement though. Unless you also think /2 paladin is also OP I really don't see where you're coming from.

[Forul]

Any chance someone to film a few minutes of swashbuckler dps and compare it to other fighting styles. This way we could have a direct video to look back upon when supporting our statements.

[Vargouille]

Any chance to have a "Perfect SWF" epic destiny feat?

There's a chance.

That also big issue with balance though too. My cleric trees 84% of abilities cost 2 points each. While on my rogue only 42% cost 2 point.

This is not an inherently bad thing, and definitely not something we try to balance.

We'd actually prefer for every tree to have a ton of options and make you feel like it's hard to spend all the points in that one tree.

So my rogue is getting a whole lot more out of his 80 enhancement points then my cleric.

This is not automatically true based on the argument made here.

It still might be true, but that's a different, unrelated issue from "how many abilities cost 2 points?" Spending 40 points here or there should ideally be somewhat similar (with some acknowledgement that buying up to higher tiers or cores should be more rewarding).

Or to put it another way: Spending 60 points in Swashbuckler (for instance) should get you more return than 40 points in Rogue.

But that doesn't mean there should only be 40 points to spend on in each tree. That would just reduce the choices within the tree.


If someone wants to make a case that one tree or another has specific abilities that should be higher or lower (and some of you have), that's reasonable. But there's nothing inherently wrong with a tree where every ability costs 5 AP (for example), as long as those abilities are worth 5 AP in that tree.

[Loriac]

Ok, maybe. But the game should be balanced from 1 to cap. A 5 splash bard with +12 ref is too much before lvl 20.

Think about rogue 15 bard 5 vs rogue 20:
13 base +12 = 25 ref vs 12 base, both with improved evasion.

It was clearly unbalanced, at least before EE.

This is missing the point that a bard cannot multiclass with paladin, whereas rogues can (and most EE evasion builds these days do have to splash paladin because otherwise the saves are unlikely to be high enough to matter). The rogue can get a simple 2 level splash into paladin, which unlocks +12-15 across all saves with minimal investment in charisma.

A bard evasionist cannot splash paladin and cannot splash monk. Whether you like it or not, its a fact of life in DDO with the way the build mechanics are set up that the inability to splash those classes makes bard as a class much weaker than others. I've been following the changes to the swashbuckler tree over time, and I have to say that its gone from a very interesting tree that opened up a few novel builds to one that looks like its increasingly going to be restricted to bard heavy builds (due to the extremely high ap costs) suitable for EH content or lower only.

The only interesting thing about u22 from a build perspective now seems to be the SWF feats (provided they're also not nerfed into oblivion by feedback from players who are seemingly unaware what the power levels are that other builds can reach in the current game), because quite frankly the various bard restrictions make swashbuckler a no-go for optimised building.

The only way to salvage this now I suspect is to duplicate the swashbuckler tree to either the rogue or the fighter classes (where, quite frankly, it should have been in the first place) - because the bardic class restrictions, along with nerfing of this tree so that its 'balanced' without reference to the wider game's build possibilities, have put it back into the pure 'flavor' category that it started off in when the original version of the SWF feats were mooted.

[B0ltdrag0n]

There's a chance.




If someone wants to make a case that one tree or another has specific abilities that should be higher or lower (and some of you have), that's reasonable. But there's nothing inherently wrong with a tree where every ability costs 5 AP (for example), as long as those abilities are worth 5 AP in that tree.

OK I'll bite. When the original trees were laid out some Action boosts were listed as 1 AP and some as two. It was acknowledged at that point that they should cost the same. (e.g. Barbarian Damage boost vs Fighter) and that design was leaning toward the lower cost.

While I am generally ok for different trees to have different costs on various abilities. The same ability should cost the same regardless of what tree you put it in. That is to say you should balance costs on the ability and what it brings to any character....not balance based on just a 'tree' Because playing single class, single tree is not an "option" for character growth in any currently existing tree.

[Khatzhas]

The same ability may be more powerful in the hands of one class than it is in the hands of another I'd guess. It brings more to the character than it would for the other class.

Which particular abilities are you referring to though?

[bbqzor]

Having to take 5+ bard levels, burning your tier 5 prestige choice on Swashbuckler at a cost of 33+ AP and being locked out of taking paladin/monk levels are all pretty harsh requirements just for that +12 reflex save enhancement though. Unless you also think /2 paladin is also OP I really don't see where you're coming from.

Again, this. People are not realizing that bard prevents virtually all other save increasing combinations, and that getting the ref save prevents all other T5 combinations. Why is rog15/brd5 OP, because a huge ref save? It has no T5 rog class, no assassinate, cannot use qstaves with swash stance, cannot twf for applying sneak dice, cannot use repeater with throwing options, etc. That build, while it might have a large ref save, cant really do anything. It can swf with some sneak dice included, and in return gets basically no bard abilities. Its a bad idea. Its like saying a PDK based pal2/mnk2/fvs16 with cha based swords is op because of huge saves. Ok, maybe, but the rest of the build is not good. At all. So who cares.

I can see where +12 might be too high, simply because relative to epic twists its double. But no ones saying "its too high because other save boosts are less". People are saying "zomg op, its more than a rog". And while that statement is true on its own in a vacuum, the ability doesnt exist in a vacuum, and so evaluating it there isnt all that accurate. Im fine with that going to +6 for several other reasons (relative to epic twists and action boosts, relative to total tree cost, relative to having more options at T5 than previously, etc). But not because "its op vs rogs". Just wanted to clarify Im not speaking just about this one case, but about many cases where perspective could be a bit longer because the evaluation isnt very "fair" to all options.

We'd actually prefer for every tree to have a ton of options and make you feel like it's hard to spend all the points in that one tree.

You mean "feel like its hard not to spend all the points in one tree", with "not" missing? Because otherwise it means lots of options cost lots of points which makes it easy to spend all your points on one tree. Which is inherently bad design, due to the paradigm where necessary things are split into multiple trees.

But there's nothing inherently wrong with a tree where every ability costs 5 AP (for example), as long as those abilities are worth 5 AP in that tree.

The thing wrong with that situation isnt the balance of those individual abilities, or even the whole tree (if its 10 abilities at 5 pts each, its a 50 pt tree ok fine). But if it gets more costly than that, it affects your ability to buy stuff in other trees, which you guys designed as inherently required by splitting everything up into different trees.

You need to stop and consider: swash may work well with just the one tree purchased. Its been better designed than a lot of the other ones (which is why its sad to see it getting eroded/bloated). But most of the others were NOT designed that way. You cannot make a monk or a barbarian or a paladin or a sorc etc etc without buying in 2-3 class trees. If each tree "encouraged" you to spend 50-60+ in the one tree, the opportunity cost of not buying the other trees would very much hurt your character.

You guys divided most/all of the "necessary" class stuff among 2-3 trees to support/require a divisive spending of points across the board. This new tree is a bit more self contained, perhaps, but with revamps of the other two bard trees coming thats a risky stand to make. The total tree needs to be around 45-50, 55 tops as a buyout... people need 20-25 pts for a secondary tree to T4 with a few for racial, or 10-20 for three trees, etc. If you wind up with 55, 60, or more in a single tree you simply cannot get enough other low hanging fruit to make your character go round. Consider: when spellsinger and warchanter get retouched, if their costs go up to also be 60+ trees, how is a bard going to be able to afford enough things to make a good composite character? How will a multi-class bard be able to combine any T4 stuff if all the "good" abilities become expensive?

Its has little to do with the balance of a single ability in this tree, or even the relative costs of the abilities in the tree. It has to do with character balance between multiple trees and the division of "necessary" abilities among them forcing us to diversify. If a single tree costs too much, it undermines that ability, and hence undermines your character. Unless youre going to re-design all trees in the game to be somewhat supportive of a "one tree" mentality, raising the total tree cost too high is a serious detriment. If you do not think so, or want examples, I will gladly provide them. Total tree cost (for the "signature" abilities) is a very relevant thing, and very much needs to be balanced as its own number. I understand your comments about relative cost, that is a separate topic... the trees total cost itself is a variable which needs consideration. Thank you.

TL;DR version: Modern tree design is smarter and more self contained, but does not play nice with older tree design which is basically ability shotgun scatter through all trees. Because of this, swash can push the boundaries a bit, but ultimately it still needs to play nice with a multiple tree scenario. The total costs must meet that burden, otherwise they are too high. Cautionary design theory reminder about how you did the other 25+ trees over. Cheers.

[dunklezhan]

There's a chance.



This is not an inherently bad thing, and definitely not something we try to balance.

We'd actually prefer for every tree to have a ton of options and make you feel like it's hard to spend all the points in that one tree.



This is not automatically true based on the argument made here.

It still might be true, but that's a different, unrelated issue from "how many abilities cost 2 points?" Spending 40 points here or there should ideally be somewhat similar (with some acknowledgement that buying up to higher tiers or cores should be more rewarding).

Or to put it another way: Spending 60 points in Swashbuckler (for instance) should get you more return than 40 points in Rogue.

But that doesn't mean there should only be 40 points to spend on in each tree. That would just reduce the choices within the tree.


If someone wants to make a case that one tree or another has specific abilities that should be higher or lower (and some of you have), that's reasonable. But there's nothing inherently wrong with a tree where every ability costs 5 AP (for example), as long as those abilities are worth 5 AP in that tree.

All the above is true. As is this: 2pt abilities make gaining heroic experience less fun as a mechanic than 1 pt abilities.

I don't mind saving up for the odd signature move, but when a tree is littered with them its a frustrating experience gaining a new rank, not an exciting one. I'd MUCH rather something with 3 levels of 2AP ablities was 6 levels of 1AP abilities. 2AP passives are even worse

I always find I'm paying Plat to respec on those classes which have a lot of 2 pt abilities (archmage is another one) because I want to spend my AP right away instead of saving up for **** near everything. .

[AzB]

I believe I suggested this in the original post in the general forum. I'm so glad you've added it.

I'm not wild about the need to stun/fascinate/etc before using it. I'd prefer a longer cooldown and the ability to use it at will without needing to "prep" an enemy first. Fascinate is awesome, but takes far too long to activate. Monk can already use stunning fist and quivering palm with terrific DCs and short cooldowns. Rogue assassinate is far too conditional for my play style, with too long of a cooldown considering you need to be sneaking and enemies have minimal trouble detecting me even with sneaking gear and maxed out skills.

Needing to CC the enemies first basically guarantees that a sorc or horc with a greataxe will nuke the mob before my swashbuckler has a chance to use any abilities.

This. Disco ball already takes 5 seconds *quickened* and in most cases the mobs are all dead by the bladeforged sorcs.

Fascinate is much, much slower. While the ability is very powerful, it's useless if everyone else can kill everything before we're even halfway done "prepping" the mobs.

It just encourages me to solo even more, and that seems so wrong on a bard. But the problem with bard is being able to contribute something meaningful, and how much it's not fun to stand around watching everyone else do everything faster, more efficiently, and with far more dps. If you're going to give us some real power, it needs to compete with insta kills. Period.

[Systern]

To add to the total tree cost debate:
Spellsinger spending every point in the tree: 67 AP (Realistically, 61 AP since no one should ever spend 6 AP on Flicker/Inspired Flicker as it has no impact on game play)
Warchanter can spend 70 AP, including all its under-performing abilities.
Swashbuckler's tree costs 72 AP... 72 of 80 AP.


I'd like to point out that the ONLY ability in swashbuckler that has anything to do with Songs, the bard's signature ability, is "Tavern Shanties" +1/2/3 songs. If that's the only thing that's going to interact with songs in the tree, I'd much prefer it to be +10/20/30% song duration. Hell, I'd prefer it to be +100/200/300% song duration.

The "obvious" synergy between the SB + WC doesn't work... Inspire Recklessness seems to be what a swashbuckler would want, except that Swashbuckling is a defensive stance that cancels IR.

The multi-selector that includes "Skirmisher" is half-way up the tree. Shouldn't this be a Tier 1 ability? I need 10 points in tree before my swashBUCKLER can use its namesake? Or at least Tier 2 since 5 AP spent and Core 3 don't mandate that every point you've gotten through Level 3 need to be in this tree, you may buy a racial enhancement or something else. I kinda get that T3 requires 3 bard levels, and so does the core 3 ability, but the points-spent requirement doesn't allow for flexibility of progression. We're bards after all, our points have to be all over the place because we're hybrid characters.

Do Elegant Footwork and Deflect Arrows interact? It'd be funny to see an archer fall on its butt because it missed a shot. Deflect Arrows in general under-performs in actual game play. I'd prefer to see it replaced with something Bard-y or even Item Defense since we're going to beat our poor, flimsy, finesse-able weapons to hell with the volume of attacks we'll be throwing out. (Does item defense do that, or just protect our inventory when we get hit?)

Battering Barrage would be better as a Tier 1 than Tier 4. The tree lacks dex-to-hit, and a newbie bard will need the help hitting at lower levels more so than at level 7+ when they could conceivably start buying Tier 4s, have some BAB built up, and have more than a +1 strength item. I'd swap with the location of the Dodge bonus.

On The Mark has a weird cost. Critical Accuracy in Kensai only costs 1 AP (but that's just To Hit). All of the Weapon Training enhancements (full +1) cost 2 AP. Seeker being a conditional +1 To Hit and Damage is worth less than Weapon Training.

Sword Dance, Battering Barrage, Resonant Arms, On The Mark, Second Skin, Action Boost: Doubles: 6 multi-rank abilities that cost 2 AP each. Too many of them. This isn't "Wow! There are so many awesome abilities that I want!" this is "****, all this stuff is just expensive." These comprise 1/4 of the tree total.


However, I copied my bard over to Lammania and LR'd her. She was a lot of fun to play with in the new tree. The tree encouraged actually using some of the songs that I never bothered with before, Inspire Heroics for the extra dodge. Inspire Greatness for the attack bonus... It did however emphasize that juggling 5 songs with 8 minute duration gets tedious. Extended Haste/Displacement casts 5 times as fast as a song and lasts half as long. Extended FoM casts 5 times as fast and lasts 5 times as long... Please, more song duration!




Changes I'd make to the tree structure:
Insults multi-selector -> T4
Blow by Blow multi-selector -> T4
Battering Barrage -> T1
Deflect Arrows -> Item Defense / weapon hardening at T1
Swashbuckling Style -> T2
Swashbuckling Style II -> T3

[Systern]

What I (and I believe many others) would really like to see is play-all Songs clickie. Very similar to the All-Buffs button on the new guild ships, but with "meta-magics" right-click ability to select what songs you want performed (Since songs like Inspire Recklessness have a drawback to them).

Please.
Pretty please.
We're begging you.

Most of the tech involved you've already coded....

[CeltEireson]

Having to take 5+ bard levels, burning your tier 5 prestige choice on Swashbuckler at a cost of 33+ AP and being locked out of taking paladin/monk levels are all pretty harsh requirements just for that +12 reflex save enhancement though. Unless you also think /2 paladin is also OP I really don't see where you're coming from.

Which I think is the problem - 2 levels of paladin giving hmmm between +8 + 15 to saves is over the top in a D20 system, it basically means that there is absolutely no way to compete save wise with a paladin splash. You can end up with a situation where either paladin splashes only fail on a 1 and everyone has some chance to save, or you have DCs that actually challenge a paladin splash and where everyone else fails their save. Its not quite that bad at the moment, but it isn't that far off, basically we're getting to the same point that we were in for AC - you either go all in to try and improve your saves (including splash paladin/monk) or you needn't bother.

I really don't want to see a situation where if you want a decent save, even on your best save stat, you're forced to take paladin levels. Personally I think the bonus to saves from charisma should be limited to the number of levels of paladin taken.

[MeliCat]

You mean "feel like its hard not to spend all the points in one tree", with "not" missing? Because otherwise it means lots of options cost lots of points which makes it easy to spend all your points on one tree. Which is inherently bad design, due to the paradigm where necessary things are split into multiple trees.



The thing wrong with that situation isnt the balance of those individual abilities, or even the whole tree (if its 10 abilities at 5 pts each, its a 50 pt tree ok fine). But if it gets more costly than that, it affects your ability to buy stuff in other trees, which you guys designed as inherently required by splitting everything up into different trees.

You need to stop and consider: swash may work well with just the one tree purchased. Its been better designed than a lot of the other ones (which is why its sad to see it getting eroded/bloated). But most of the others were NOT designed that way. You cannot make a monk or a barbarian or a paladin or a sorc etc etc without buying in 2-3 class trees. If each tree "encouraged" you to spend 50-60+ in the one tree, the opportunity cost of not buying the other trees would very much hurt your character.

You guys divided most/all of the "necessary" class stuff among 2-3 trees to support/require a divisive spending of points across the board. This new tree is a bit more self contained, perhaps, but with revamps of the other two bard trees coming thats a risky stand to make. The total tree needs to be around 45-50, 55 tops as a buyout... people need 20-25 pts for a secondary tree to T4 with a few for racial, or 10-20 for three trees, etc. If you wind up with 55, 60, or more in a single tree you simply cannot get enough other low hanging fruit to make your character go round. Consider: when spellsinger and warchanter get retouched, if their costs go up to also be 60+ trees, how is a bard going to be able to afford enough things to make a good composite character? How will a multi-class bard be able to combine any T4 stuff if all the "good" abilities become expensive?

Its has little to do with the balance of a single ability in this tree, or even the relative costs of the abilities in the tree. It has to do with character balance between multiple trees and the division of "necessary" abilities among them forcing us to diversify. If a single tree costs too much, it undermines that ability, and hence undermines your character. Unless youre going to re-design all trees in the game to be somewhat supportive of a "one tree" mentality, raising the total tree cost too high is a serious detriment. If you do not think so, or want examples, I will gladly provide them. Total tree cost (for the "signature" abilities) is a very relevant thing, and very much needs to be balanced as its own number. I understand your comments about relative cost, that is a separate topic... the trees total cost itself is a variable which needs consideration. Thank you.

TL;DR version: Modern tree design is smarter and more self contained, but does not play nice with older tree design which is basically ability shotgun scatter through all trees. Because of this, swash can push the boundaries a bit, but ultimately it still needs to play nice with a multiple tree scenario. The total costs must meet that burden, otherwise they are too high. Cautionary design theory reminder about how you did the other 25+ trees over. Cheers.

I like this post. Thanks.

Says something about the original two bard trees that this tree is so self contained. And yeah multiclassing into other trees how much can you get before you're out of synergy and out of points anyway?

[FlaviusMaximus]

If Second Skin is being reduced to 2/4/6, it should definitely only cost 1 AP per tier.

En Pointe currently isn't triggering two attacks.