Spellsinger and Warchanter - Build Concepts and Goals

[Vargouille]

We're currently planning some improvements to the Bard Warchanter and Bard Spellsinger enhancement trees. We've got some ideas to make these more powerful and well defined, and to work better to support Bard as a whole (along with Swashbuckler). These changes wouldn’t come out with Update 22, but would be one of the items we progress towards next.

Spellsinger remains the caster-oriented tree for Bards. At a high level, we're looking at improving spellcasting by adding some enhancements to support:

• DC based Casting
• Offensive DPS Casting
• Adding in SLAs (Spell-Like Abilities)

Warchanter would move towards greater party buffing and support.

• Party Buffing
• Healing
• Some Melee and Defense

We're interested in your feedback on these larger goals and concepts.

Thanks!

[Shindoku]

Why is the melee warchanter being mixed with the healing of spellsinger currently. It would make sense to keep the spells consolidated into one focus (spellcasting, whether it be healing or damage) than splitting up the melee tree and having bards really stretch their action points to be able to keep their spells or gain some new ones to help the party as there is downtime in incoming damage.

[thunir]

Why is the melee warchanter being mixed with the healing of spellsinger currently. It would make sense to keep the spells consolidated into one focus (spellcasting, whether it be healing or damage) than splitting up the melee tree and having bards really stretch their action points to be able to keep their spells or gain some new ones to help the party as there is downtime in incoming damage.

Pure Bard Warchanter is never going to keep up with pure melee, and shouldn't. I think it should be a melee compliment with Decent heals.

Why should spell singer get all DC and spell focuses, and heals also? Arcane casters don't traditionally get any heals (generally speaking), I think that a Bard on the battle field, not a Spell singer would focus on healing in a natural progression. My two cents.

Ive been begging for this change, please implement this.

Spellsinger remains the caster-oriented tree for Bards. At a high level, we're looking at improving spellcasting by adding some enhancements to support:

DC based Casting
Offensive DPS Casting
Adding in SLAs (Spell-Like Abilities)



Warchanter would move towards greater party buffing and support.

Party Buffing
Healing
Some Melee and Defense

[Dawnsblood]

Why should spell singer get all DC and spell focuses, and heals also?

Two reasons really: The first is because SS is the Pre that does now and will in the future invest in metas and spell points. The second is because Turbine recognised that SS was the healing Pre when they gave them Heal as a capstone along with the Sustaining song.

This was a Turbine screw up from top to bottom. They gave all the spell points and special healing abilities to SS, kinda telling folks that SS is for healing. Warchanter was always melee and melee related buffs. Then Turbine came up with the great idea to make the melee bard Swashbuckler (I like SB so far). I can only assume they forgot (like most of us) that Warchanter even existed. Now they are trapped in the position that SS has all the spell related feats, abilities and a lot more spell points (including two healing abilities in their tree) and SB was given all the cool combat abilities. So they are stuck trying to re-engineer WC. Now I suspect the few remaining WCs have stuck to the Pre to run a Gish type character, not a healer.

All I can say is I am glad I TRed my Warchanter Bard into a melee ranger because it sounds like WC is becoming something it has never been in the past. I just hope Turbine is kind enough to give those still playing one a free heart to fix the mess it sounds like WC is about to become.

[katz]

All I can say is I am glad I TRed my Warchanter Bard into a melee ranger because it sounds like WC is becoming something it has never been in the past. I just hope Turbine is kind enough to give those still playing one a free heart to fix the mess it sounds like WC is about to become.

on the other hand, i may need another +20 heart (or at least a +2. lol) because i finally, after over 3 years with the same build, swapped my 2 barb out for 2 ranger. depending how things play out, i may need to put it back in! XD

[thunir]

Two reasons really:

This was a Turbine screw up from top to bottom. They gave all the spell points and special healing abilities to SS, .

Not entirely true, The warchanter pre contains the boosts to healing spell power with Words of Encouragement, Obstinance, and High Spirits. There is no boost to healing spell power in the SS pre. Only universal spell power in the core enhancements.

[Kadriel]

I agree it will be unlikely to fit healing and meele in a bard as is. The only way to make it viable is to make the WC tree give the needed basis for one of the other.

IMO the best way to do that is giving the WC core free feats (TWF/THF, ITWF/ITHF, GTWF/GTHF) as a toogle so you can pick your fighting stile and have spare feats for healing (while still needing to invest some feats into meele).

There is still the issue of the abilities split. a meele will need str, con and possible dex, while still needing cha for spells to be able to heal. Solution: let one of the cores add cha to damage.

With that it might work.

But what I really would love to see even though that would kinda be a new add, is WC with debuffs that would work on bosses. That was something that was common back then and is a flavor game was missing. I enjoyed the days when wizards would ray of enfeeble/exaustion and waves of fatigue/exaustion harry and actually make a difference

[Desonde]

Spellsinger remains the caster-oriented tree for Bards. At a high level, we're looking at improving spellcasting by adding some enhancements to support:

Warchanter would move towards greater party buffing and support.

I think the descriptions are on the right track but suggest the focus look a little more like this:

Spellsinger

• DC based Casting
• Offensive DPS Casting
• Healing
• Adding in SLAs (Spell-Like Abilities)

Warchanter

• Party Buffing
• Enemy Debuffing
• Some Melee and Defense
• Adding some Attack Skills

[SirShen]

I think the descriptions are on the right track but suggest the focus look a little more like this:

Spellsinger

• DC based Casting
• Offensive DPS Casting
• Healing
• Adding in SLAs (Spell-Like Abilities)

Warchanter

• Party Buffing
• Enemy Debuffing
• Some Melee and Defense
• Adding some Attack Skills

Yes please more of this. I would use warchanter for 2WF and 2HF not all bards will want to be 1WFs.

[mezzorco]

I would use warchanter for 2WF and 2HF not all bards will want to be 1WFs.

I agree. Swashbuckler focuses on SWF and requires it to work properly, so Warchanter could focus more on the other two styles (e.g. "pick one" between ambidexterity and great weapon aptitude).

Warchanters surely need to be a support class, buffing offense and defense of the party, but a warchanter should also feel to be worth to go in melee himself, so some dps improvement is required. For example, skaldic rage could scale with bard levels, giving progressive benefits.

Thinking about kensai/monk synergy, I was hoping something similar for warchanters, but with barbarians instead. After all, barbarians and bards are both underrepresented classes.
So there could be more synergy between skaldic rage and barbarian rage, with bards allowed to cast spells while under barbarian rage, or counting both classes for skaldic rage progression (if a progression is implemented).

[LrdSlvrhnd]

Some thoughts on Spellsinger:

1) Fix Sustaining Song so it's AoE as described in the tooltip.
2) Change Spell Song Vigor's tooltip to be AoE.
2a) Make it actually AoE.

Alternatively: Roll back the "fix" that turned them both from AoE to single-target. And then change Vigor's tooltip so it agrees.

Beyond that, I agree - healing should be in the "caster" tree, unless you guys add a LOT of caster-oriented stuff. And for the love of Lolth, can we PLEASE have a multi-song? Preferably T2 or T3.

As for Warchanter... meh. My current bard doesn't have much invested in there, and will likely have even less once U22 drops and she switches to SWF Swashbuckler. Just the entire tree as it currently stands is very unattractive to me.

[ThomasHunter]

I agree. Swashbuckler focuses on SWF and requires it to work properly, so Warchanter could focus more on the other two styles (e.g. "pick one" between ambidexterity and great weapon aptitude).

Warchanters surely need to be a support class, buffing offense and defense of the party, but a warchanter should also feel to be worth to go in melee himself, so some dps improvement is required. For example, skaldic rage could scale with bard levels, giving progressive benefits.

I really like that idea of picking between the two type of fighting. I have really loved my warchanters throughout the years, but at this time, they are sitting (sadly enough). I think it is mostly a higher level defense thing. I love swinging my greatsword and would hope for much more support in that realm.

Looking forward to seeing what will happen!

[memloch]

I agree. Swashbuckler focuses on SWF and requires it to work properly, so Warchanter could focus more on the other two styles (e.g. "pick one" between ambidexterity and great weapon aptitude).

Warchanters surely need to be a support class, buffing offense and defense of the party, but a warchanter should also feel to be worth to go in melee himself, so some dps improvement is required. For example, skaldic rage could scale with bard levels, giving progressive benefits.

Thinking about kensai/monk synergy, I was hoping something similar for warchanters, but with barbarians instead. After all, barbarians and bards are both underrepresented classes.
So there could be more synergy between skaldic rage and barbarian rage, with bards allowed to cast spells while under barbarian rage, or counting both classes for skaldic rage progression (if a progression is implemented).

I like this idea

[FlaviusMaximus]

• DC based Casting
• Offensive DPS Casting
• Adding in SLAs (Spell-Like Abilities)

Warchanter would move towards greater party buffing and support.

• Party Buffing
• Healing
• Some Melee and Defense

I like the way this is looking so far. I like the idea of getting Bards back up to speed with their party buffs so that they can feel a bit more like the Bards of old. Their buffs have seemed so much less impactful overall since epic destinies and the enhancement overhaul, so it's great news to me to see party buffing at the top of the list for Warchanters.

[*]Enemy Debuffing
]

I really like this idea too.

[Visual_Nobu]

I think the descriptions are on the right track but suggest the focus look a little more like this:

Spellsinger

• DC based Casting
• Offensive DPS Casting
• Healing
• Adding in SLAs (Spell-Like Abilities)

Warchanter

• Party Buffing
• Enemy Debuffing
• Some Melee and Defense
• Adding some Attack Skills

Great idea!!! u get the point!

[Munkenmo]

Spellsingers are actually in a fairly good place atm, adding a sonic DOT spell, and adding +3 dc's when heighten is activated is all spell singer really needs.

Warchanter needs it's buffs to be unique and therefore stack with items / ED abilities / Ship buffs again. It needs synergy in the tree, ie lets not add +attack here, but -attack there. No more +fortification - fortification, no more +ac - ac. SYNERGIZE, SYNERGIZE, SYNERGIZE

IMO a Warchanter shouldn't be about healing, it should be about having buffs to make a whole party need less healing, so give warchanters the chance to be the only class to hand out an aoe displace.

Warchanters don't need more spell points, they need to reduce downtime. Consider giving warchanter:

All songs are instantaneous:
Add healing amp to High Spirits
Change Boast to Aura: your ego is infalted and your party is inspired, Everyone has gained +5 elemental resists, +5% elemental absorption, +5prr and +2 saves for 30seconds (this is boosted by enhancments that add to songs duration)
Replace the stupid cold line with a sonic line. (ie you do sonic damage instead of cold, instead of frozen they are dazed/stunned)
Replace cha DC's on frozen fury with perform dc's. (simply save dc is perform +d20)
Everywhere where warchanter currently adds +1 damage replace it with +[.5w]
Ironskin chant is useless in this day and age, make it a PRR bonus, and give it a defensive stoneskin proc aswell
Inspire Recklessness needs to give a much better offensive bonus to make up for -10% fortification

If you want to give Warchanters healing, tier 4 is really empty, add something similar to Ameliorating strike, when Skaldic rage is active and you score a vorpal hit you cast mass clw (effected by spell power) and leave a healing curse on that target (same as monks healing curse)

[sherbertmachine]

I think Spellsingers should get less of a focus in healing and spell dps, and more of a focus in DC casting/SLA's. This is coming from a guy who used to play a raid level Spellsinger bard for years, often using him as a healer in said raids and a main healer/CC in pre-u14 epics. While playing my bard my biggest gripe as a Spellsinger was being unable to hit the enchantment DC's of wizards (semi-understandable), weak mass CC options, and lack of red named DPS.

I feel just a low-mid level sonic dot added would help a ton with caster oriented bards who want to contribute with red named/purple named DPS, no need to be epic destiny worthy like damage, but something. Maybe a future re-working of the Fatesinger tree could bring in one more caster DPS option for red/purple named?

Healing is almost ok as is, but maybe making the bard capstone a choice between the current Heal spell (Maybe turned into an SLA?)and maybe a MCLW SLA? I don't feel that it would be terribly overpowered since there needs to be more incentive to stay a pure 20 bard. I know some folks wont like that idea since the favored soul capstone is just the CLW SLA, but that SLA is garbage these days and needs to go away anyways :P

As for DC casting, I will leave that up to the devs. But I think just adding a mass healing SLA and sonic DOT will go a long way towards allowing Spellsinger bards to do what I feel they should be best at, crowd control with occasional heals.

[BoBoDaClown]

I have been playing a CC/Healing Bard as my main for the entire time I have been playing this game (a long time); if I lost a chunk of the Healing functionality, in exchange for nuking, that would kill my character.

Refer to my previous post for specifics, but:

Spellsingers: Improve CC. Healing is fine. Add some dps (SLAs/DOTs whatever - enough to contribute some decent dps - keep below the other PREs)

Warchanters: Improve personal dps (keep below swashbucker). Massively improve buffing. Add healing perks; i.e. small heals on hit/healing amp songs etc

[katz]

i am very glad to see this topic finally. it's been a long time in coming. i only read the first few responses, and skipped to the end to reply, because i want to relay my own personal thoughts as a player who favors bards (heck, i've got four of em!) without my impressions, expectations, and opinions being colored by other posts, so i apologize in advance if i rehash anything that's been said numerous times.

first thought: spellsinger. i'm liking the preliminary thinking for these... add DC casting utility, SLAs, etc. i terms of sheer outright power, spellsingers are the weakest right now, and even the things that make them "strong" is, at end game, mediocre at best. mana regen song is great... at low levels, but when the caster in your group who might benefit from it has 3000, 4000, 5000 SP... it's a drop in the bucket. beefing up their spell augmenting songs in some way might be nice. damage spells for bards are... pretty much non-existent. i'm not expecting the firepower of a wizard, sorcerer, or druid, but something better than greater shout might be nice. adding helpless damage to soundburst was a step in the right direction, as it gives a casting focused bard a "poor man's mass hold" we need more concessions like that. another issue, which i'm sure has already been mentioned, is that bards only get up to level 6 spells, which severely hurts their DC casting abilities in the higher level game. perhaps an improved heighten for spellsingers only... if you have the heighten feat and can cast level 6 spells, spells are heightened to spell level 9 instead of 6. even something that simple would be a huge help.

second thought: warchanters. my first impression when i saw you had healing and "some melee" under warchanter, was to want to object... its the way things are... or were... spellsingers are casters, warchanters are melee... however, then i took some time and thought about it, and with the addition of swashbuckler things are no longer so cut and dry, and thinking about it... it makes sense. swashbuckler is the dashing swordsman (or woman ^_^ ) not relying on brute strength, but still melee focused. warCHANTER, while still a combatant, sings songs to better augment their own and their party-mates combat abilities. warchanters USED to have the best boost to damage/to-hit song with the extra boosts they got to inspire courage above and beyond what spellsingers got. they don't have that edge anymore, AND with the changes to to-hit and AC, even the bonus we get, while decent, is nowhere near as good and valuable as it once was. make warchanters the king of buffing again. make groups happy to see a warchanter again, instead of asking 'why didn't you go spellsinger? we could use the mana regen and arcane might." warchanters had a nice synergy going with barbarian before the enhancement pass.. it's still there a little bit, but much less so. something that disappointed me was to find out that the AP abilities that buffed barbarian rage did not also buff skaldic rage. that would have been a nice touch, and really preserved the original synergy.

as for healing... that one i'm not too sure about. spellsingers have always been the traditional healers, as warchanters tended to focus on str at the expense of cha. for example, my main bard, Pointless, depending on destiny, has roughly equal HP and SP most of the time. altho i know some warchanters have much more SP, this is still not conducive to good blue bar healing. the times i've been called upon to be a backup healer, i've always broken out my trusty stack of 100 heal scrolls and used that, not my blue bar.

songs: they take forever. i know, i know, they've been sped up and no longer share cooldowns. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. this is a great thing, but bards still have a lot of songs to sing... and people tend to not be patient. consolidation of songs would be a very nice thing, and greatly appreciated by all. instead of giving warchanters and spellsingers a half a dozen extra songs to sing, give them one each.. that tiers up in power. spellsingers start with the +1 to DCs, then add +1 to caster level, then HP regen, then mana regen (along with anything else that might get added in) so by the time a spellsinger has reached the top of their tree, a single song covers all the effects (and have the time of them scale CORRECTLY, unlike the add-ons to inspire courage in fatesinger that only last 3 minutes when the rest of my songs last 8. that's a royal pain in the ass ). warchanters song would combine song of heroism, song of recklessness (without the -fortification would be nice, but meh if it needs to stay), and potentially songs that do interesting things... like heal amp, or increase crit range/multiplier for everyone in group. trust me, you add that, EVERYONE will want a 'chanter along for the party XD. that way, it's 2-3 songs and go (courage, excellence (if epic), and WC/SS special), instead of waiting, and especially with a spellsinger with targeted not AoE songs, the non-bards in the group have no idea how long they're going to have to wait for all songs to be completed. no one, not even other bards, like to stand around saying 'is he done singing yet? i think so, no wait, he started again... he paused - maybe now? no wait... now he's singing something different... and another... and another...didn't he sing that one twice already?.. argh!.."

i'm sure there's more i'll think of, but its late for me, i'm a tiny bit tired from work, and this is a pretty sizable wall-o-text for me. i don't normally go that crazy on a topic. but hey. bard. one of my favorite topics! XD

[BananaHat]

My 2 gp, for what it's worth:

Spellsinger - More of a casting type bard. Offense, crowd control, 'traditional' healing, DC's, all things from that little blue bar. What do I mean by traditional healing? Standing back and using the Cure spells or Heal from the capstone. Sustaining song is good too for a maintenance heal. Add some more offensive SLA's here, such as sound burst, shout, greater shout, or even sound lance from pnp or that wall of sound spell that we briefly heard was being bounced around. A wall of fire type AoE with a built in dance, that would be awesome, just lower the damage of the wall to bard and sonic damage appropriate levels. Or, add a stacking sonic DoT (call it like... Reverberate or Natural Frequency) and just let it work alongside the sorc/wiz cold and elec ones (and NOT overwrite them like the druids' creeping cold line).

Warchanter - Melee damage, buffing a warparty, 'non-traditional' healing, damage mitigation. So, in this case, for non-traditional healing, I would look towards a new trick of the warpriest, healing with a smite. Give the WC a cleave attack that puts a healing over time effect on those around you. You get a stack for every guy hit, have it stack up to that characters level times, last 12 seconds, and heal 1d3 per stack (not affected by spellpower, but yes to healing amp) every 3 seconds. This gives an alternate maintenance heal to sustaining song and could get decent at full stacks, healing you for twice your level on average times your healing amp. Then, have a song that grants the ability to gain those HoT stacks in an AoE on vorpal hits so that your allies can get them spreading to the party too. Bonus credit if they also repair or apply negative energy appropriately (only 1 of course) similar to some other ability I can't remember. Other ideas for Warchanter would be a song that provides PRR, temporary HP at regular intervals, better double strike and doubleshot, stacking attack speed, sonic damage on vorpals, or perhaps providing weapon based crowd control like felling the oak or giving everyone's attacks a 1 second stun on vorpal.

Swashbuckler - Single target damage, defensive through dodging, being jaunty, fancy hats, wobbly swords, buckling swashes, taunting your foes, springing around the battlefield, riding ropes attached to chandeliers. I generally think of the Princess Bride here for some reason... This is a new enhancement line, so it can really be whatever the devs wish.