Spellsinger and Warchanter - Build Concepts and Goals

[droid327]

So far it seems like more players prefer Warchanter as the primary Healing tree vs. Spellsinger (though that doesn't mean Warchanter needs to be primarily about healing), though that's one of the more contentious points.

Both, as group support roles (as opposed to melee-DPS specialist Swashbucklers), should have some bonus to group healing beyond just the base CCW. Warchanter, as a front-line melee/support role, should really be more about passive damage ablation (ie HOTs) while they attack, while the caster/support role of Spellsinger is more in line for active AOE group healing.

I think both should get access to Heal in T5 or the L18 core (not capstone), as that's really the minimum for effective party healing in upper Heroic and into Epic, but Spellsinger could also get Heal Mass and maybe some cooldown reduction bonuses, while Warchanter could get some AOE Regenerate spell from the Druid spellbook and maybe some "bubble" or bubble/hot skills in the vein of Cocoon. Neither, of course, should be as effective a healer as a comparably-leveled Cleric, but the combination of a Cleric and Bard (who gives caster bonuses, mana regen, cooldown reduction, etc. to the Cleric) should be greater than two Clerics.

There also appears to be a range of opinions as to how much melee support should be included in Warchanter.

Whatever the support is, it needs to be more than what it is right now. Adding an aggregate +5 damage or whatever is really meaningless. The bonuses should be enough that people get really excited about having a Warchanter(/Spellsinger) join the party. There needs to be significant stacking bonuses that really make a palpable difference...enough that, say, accepting a Warchanter to your party will be more useful than just accepting another dedicated DPSer instead.

10/20/30% melee speed, 5/10/15% Dodge (ignoring cap), 30/40/50 stacking elemental resistance, etc. Not adding stuff people will already have enough of anyway (ie Fort), not adding stuff that wont do most players much good (ie AC, at least till its fixed), not adding stuff that really makes very little difference (ie +1 Attack or +1 Saves vs Fear), not adding stuff that's good but too little of it (ie 6% Doublestrike). Melee fighters should be able to feel like they can play much more aggressively with a WC alongside them (if they don't already play like zergs who think they're invincible...)

Same logic for Spellsingers: they should give palpable stacking bonuses to USP, spell cooldowns and animation speed, mana regen, etc...casters should be able to feel like they can play much more aggressively with a SS in the party.

And just case I didn't make the point succinctly enough...Bards should give sizeable speed bonuses to their party: attack speed (WC) and spell cooldown reductions (SS) plus movement speed (both) Adding an appropriately-specced Bard to the party should make any quest, any fight feel noticeably easier, or at least faster.

[HatsuharuZ]

You know what really bugs me about bards? They have Spellcraft as a class skill, but no spells that are enhanced by spellcraft. On the other hand, they have lots of healing spells, but do not have Heal as a class skill. My inner OCD tells me something is wrong about this.

[Vargouille]

The problem I have with this is WC has never been the healer-centric bard PrE - Spellsinger is. WC has always been the melee-DPS-centric PrE, so any changes to SS & WC should build upon what players already expect from them, not trying to redefine their roles, IMHO. Also, every bard is already a "party support" toon, so there's no point in suggesting WCs become more support-centric. The PrEs give you a way to customize how you support the party, whether it's boosting the casters (SS) or the melees (WC).

We're sensitive to the fact that some players may have characters they don't want to change. That doesn't mean that adding new areas of expertise to existing trees should never happen. "It's always been this way!" is a valid argument because we don't like to force change upon existing characters, but it doesn't automatically trump all other concerns. It's also not compelling to us to maintain previous expectations of what all trees or abilities do; if that were true we wouldn't even be considering changes to Gathering Cold, or the Flicker abilities, etc. Part of what this thread is about is asking these high level questions, and we're obviously seeing a variety of answers between different players.

It's also the case that Spellsinger simply has an exceptionally large amount of the Bard's "ability pie" right now. For it to be the primary healing and DC/CC and offensive DPS casting tree asks for it to be somewhat on par with Divine Disciple + Radiant Servant combined. On the other hand, Warchanter's traditional primary focus (melee) partially overlaps with Swashbuckler, and we'd like to find other significant elements to introduce to Warchanter.

Put another way, it's not clear that Spellsingers should be top notch Healers, DC Casters, and DPS casters, all at the same time, yet we feel each of these elements needs stronger options.

No it doesnt, how are you even getting that. On live, anyone who has a raid level healing bard is spellsinger. Anyone who has some patch healing but wants more melee uptime instead of casting/singing a lot, is warchanter. Im sure there are exceptions, but the vast majority are that setup. For a reason. Why are you thinking otherwise? The few posts in this thread which say that?

Yes, we are trying to listen to the feedback in this thread, that's true. At the time of that post quite a few more individuals favored Healing in Warchanter rather than Healing in Spellsinger based on the feedback in this thread. I explicitly mentioned this so other players who haven't spoken up might notice and chime in.

The main reason existing Bard-Healers are Spellsingers is because the support for healing is already in that tree. That's not a great reason for it to remain that way in the future. This is a distinct argument from the idea that someone might need to reset their enhancements to continue as they have been, which is absolutely concerning to us. If you think there's other important reasons why Bard-Healers are Spellsingers that are going unaddressed, we're listening.

Note that this still doesn't mean anything in particular has to be removed from trees (though there are some abilities that are likely to be put on the chopping block or heavily revised). Warchanter can become a stronger healing tree without taking anything away from Spellsinger. This may or may not make sense, but it's one of the options we've explicitly said we're open to.

Warchanter also doesn't need to lose any of it's current important melee abilities, but there's an open question as to how much more they should be getting.

What I really want to see are trees that work with each other, and compliment the abilities of dipping into other trees, rather than trying to fit a little bit of everything into each tree. People should want to focus on one tree depending on how they like to play. I hate generalized trees that become milquetoast in an effort to cover too many bases.

This is part of our motivation and why we are even considering moving abilities around at all. This could be similar to how melee abilities left Exalted Angel and moved into Divine Crusader, which made Exalted Angel more focused and clear in what the tree allowed you to do, and helped strengthen Divine Crusader's focus at the same time, instead of multiple choices giving similar things.

Again, this is not a trumping argument that automatically wins over other concerns; we're absolutely not going to automatically take all Spellsinger abilities that target allies and put them in Warchanter (and possibly none at all).

[mna]

We have the eril flynn, 3 musketeers, typre bard i.e swashbuckler.
Is there a movie or book that can better show the concept of the remaining two bards types?

Sure there is. Plenty if you know where to look, the question is what type do you choose from all those available?

Or then you could go with some historical figures.


I'm pretty sure Bill Millin should be mentioned at the very least. Please add something that adds a huge number of displacement, dodge, threat reduction or some such while actually playing or singing. Possibly also immunity to knockdown effects.
(Buffing melee and casting have been mentioned, pretty sure neither would've applied in his case... doesn't anyone want to have bard buffs to ranged?)

There was also a separate WWII case in Finland where an infantry company was apparently immune to artillery while singing, though that might be more of a divine-type effect given the specific song...

And Tyrtaeus (Tyrtaios, <Greek spelling>, ...?) obivously needs to be mentioned. (I still say that there should be a song to buff tactical feat DCs, you know, trip, sunder, stunning blow ...)


I think those should both be on the (mostly-)Warchanter side.


Now, as for spellsinger... well... harder to find actual well-known historical figures, Hildegard of Bingen maybe? Though she was of the monastic type and... hm... cleric/bard multiclass maybe? Definitely the kind that does healing too, in any case. And definitely somewhat on the arcane side.

I've pictured spellsingers as a bit nerdy bards that dable with the arcane, and war chanters as musical barbarians, sing the song of war while fighting along side.
As mentioned many times, I think spellsingers as cc, party healers, spell buffers should remain so.
Warchanters tree really needs help. Focus on buffing melees, improved songs, improve combat resilience and perhaps more sonic procs in combat

Well, yes, I'll have to mostly agree...

[hit_fido]

This is part of our motivation and why we are even considering moving abilities around at all.

Any motivation or interest in changing the way bard songs work regardless of track? Like letting a bard sing one (just one) time and apply all the different effects they've acquired through enhancements, feats, destinies to everyone in range? In other words make the individual song effects work like metamagic toggles so a bard can set up their song to play whatever effects ("chords"? "melodies"?) they toggle on...

[HatsuharuZ]

Any motivation or interest in changing the way bard songs work regardless of track? Like letting a bard sing one (just one) time and apply all the different effects they've acquired through enhancements, feats, destinies to everyone in range? In other words make the individual song effects work like metamagic toggles so a bard can set up their song to play whatever effects ("chords"? "melodies"?) they toggle on...

Agreed. I feel like I spend more time buffing (on my warchanter bard) than fighting, and no one ever wants to wait around. Not that I blame them.

[bbqzor]

Yes, we are trying to listen to the feedback in this thread, that's true. At the time of that post quite a few more individuals favored Healing in Warchanter rather than Healing in Spellsinger based on the feedback in this thread. I explicitly mentioned this so other players who haven't spoken up might notice and chime in.

You need to distinguish the ability to self heal on a melee centric character from the ability to be a group/raid healer. I assume you understand that on a fundamental level, that something like a Bladeforged melee who can self heal is different from a 20 cleric which can group/raid heal. Recognizing that warchanter and spellsinger can both heal or have healing support, while maintaining completely distinct and viable approaches to healing is critical. Picking only one tree to get any meaningful healing support at all is a land mine. Re-read many of the posts in this thread if you need more insight... there are too many to count which state similar things. Its the majority by far.

The main reason existing Bard-Healers are Spellsingers is because the support for healing is already in that tree.

No. Spellsingers get universal spellpower and positive crit chance. And the heal spell if they take the capstone. But warchanter has the positive spellpower enhancements. This split was complained about in the previous enhancement pass, and it is obviously still a point of contention here. Swashbuckler showed that you (as devs) no longer feel forcibly intertwining all the trees is a good idea, so this is a chance to untangle them. The solution isnt to shove all the spellsinger stuff into warchanter. Were you around back in 2011? 2009? Earlier? Spellsingers have ALWAYS been the healing ones. They arent only healers because of some support in the tree. They are healers because they have been healers FOR YEARS, and every iteration of the game design has supported that idea. Currently, the spell points in that tree have more impact than the positive enhancements, which is why they remain the top healers at a group/raid scale. Youre going to move the mana over to warchanter? I dont think you have logged enough hours on a bard to see and feel exactly how and why this situation sits. Are you going to reitemize all the bard loot to also accomodate warchanter healing? Elyd Edge gonna be a Falchion now? Dont mess with something built upon years of moving in a concerted direction, unless youre going to put that level of work into moving EVERYTHING into the new direction. And be honest, you wont. You dont have the time or staff to do something on that scale and do it correctly. So dont start.

That's not a great reason for it to remain that way in the future.

Its also not a great reason to suddenly do the total opposite and shove healing into warchanter. Whats the reason that choice is so compelling? If any.

This is a distinct argument from the idea that someone might need to reset their enhancements to continue as they have been, which is absolutely concerning to us.

Fair enough. And I want to be clear as well, a simple enhancement reset is not anything to be concerned about. Frankly, if the enhancements get an overhaul, and I DONT have to go reset mine, something failed. But, I shouldnt have to rebuild my character to fit with the reset. Take Swash for example... due to requiring feats and stats many bards dont/wont have already, it basically takes a full respec. New ability scores, new feats, maybe even new skills with perform and balance required in new ways. Shoving spellsinger into warchanter is going to cross the line, it wont be redoing enhancements to maintain status quo, it will be reinventing the wheel because your car got blown up.

If you think there's other important reasons why Bard-Healers are Spellsingers that are going unaddressed, we're listening.

As stated, its far beyond something as simple as "enhancement support". It has to do with uptime vs downtime. Spellsingers can afford to cast a lot while shirking time in melee. Warchanters cant, by definition melee contributions are pertinent to their character. You cant heal while meleeing. Spellsingers can use CC effects to mitigate incoming damage, especially with their fasncinate expanding and having actual DC boosts to their Enchantments. This lowers incoming damage, making healing it from a generally "less healy" platform (relative to a cleric or something) more manageable. In a raid situation, a spellsinger has more mana to heal longer than warchanter. A spellsinger can also give the other healers Spell Song Vigor, extending how much they can heal beyond their norm, helping to pickup some of the bards slack relative to a full healer. This is not just some enhancement shell game as you seem to approach it... its the combined efforts of the prestige's identity working towards a purpose without cross conflict. Warchanter has its own identity to pursue, one which wont destroy spellsingers existing one. I hope this becomes clear.

Note that this still doesn't mean anything in particular has to be removed from trees (though there are some abilities that are likely to be put on the chopping block or heavily revised). Warchanter can become a stronger healing tree without taking anything away from Spellsinger. This may or may not make sense, but it's one of the options we've explicitly said we're open to.

Fine, and as stated I believe some/many abilities should get modifications (ranging from slight, like making victory song toggle persist, to large like making sustaining song heal perform ranks, or what have you). But warchanters healing can focus on self healing, and/or party buffing (like the temp hp ae proc on vorpals), without copping the identity and role of spellsinger as the "cleric stand in" for party healing.

Warchanter also doesn't need to lose any of it's current important melee abilities, but there's an open question as to how much more they should be getting.

They should have enough to be able to compare relatively favorable to swash, only for TWF/THF. I say relatively favorably because obviously their tree should have party buff/support and some self healing, while swash is more or less totally melee focused. So warchanters should come out ahead of general bards, and ahead of spellsingers, but probably behind full swashes. However, it should be enough that the other weapon styles can be meaningfully supported to avoid forcing swash as the only melee option for bards.

Ive already made several long posts, so limiting this one just to those snippets. I dont feel that a single poster repeating the same things will necessarily contribute more than it has at this point. When we get new information I will happily contribute more, but for now, rest assured that you do NOT need to change the years-established and very in-depth way the game works together to provide these trees with their niches. You just need to update them to better fulfill those niches. That doesnt mean uprooting one for the other and planting new trees. It means pruning and watering whats there. Thanks.

[LuKaSu]

You know what really bugs me about bards? They have Spellcraft as a class skill, but no spells that are enhanced by spellcraft. On the other hand, they have lots of healing spells, but do not have Heal as a class skill. My inner OCD tells me something is wrong about this.

Yeah. Any chance we could get heal as a class skill for bards? We tweaked Pallies a while back and gave them inimidate. Why not this one too? Especially since you've already pointed out that you're wanting to improve their healing potential

[maddmatt70]

Put another way, it's not clear that Spellsingers should be top notch Healers, DC Casters, and DPS casters, all at the same time, yet we feel each of these elements needs stronger options.



Yes, we are trying to listen to the feedback in this thread, that's true. At the time of that post quite a few more individuals favored Healing in Warchanter rather than Healing in Spellsinger based on the feedback in this thread. I explicitly mentioned this so other players who haven't spoken up might notice and chime in.

The main reason existing Bard-Healers are Spellsingers is because the support for healing is already in that tree. That's not a great reason for it to remain that way in the future. This is a distinct argument from the idea that someone might need to reset their enhancements to continue as they have been, which is absolutely concerning to us. If you think there's other important reasons why Bard-Healers are Spellsingers that are going unaddressed, we're listening.

I think a lot of people posting here have blinders on. They assume that you, the devs, will not give Spellsingers very good spell like dc spells or nuking spells nor would significantly upgrade the spellsingers capability to cast the spells. I am thinking just the opposite that your intent is to make spellsingers as good at offensive casting whether dc or nuking as a wizard or sorcerer and if that is the case then giving spellsingers the healing capacity of cleric/fvs as well as a wizard or sorcerer offensive casting would be misguided and potentially overpowered.

I think warchanters need a distinctive role thus healing seems appropriate for them when combined with party buffs. Making some of the swashbuckler enhancements less centered around the single weapon fighting style is probably a good concept especially for the lower level enhancements in order to appease those who may want to two handed fight or two weapon fight as a bard. They could be a primary warchanter with deep enhancement splash in swashbuckler for e.g.

Bards are dead in game i.e. bards are the least popular class in DDO and there are just so few bards in game. Bards are so dead that devs I would go with your gut and do what you have to do. I would not put much stock into the posters here that do not want much change because well what is in game right now is not working.

[khremlajn]

//trying to keep this high level
*Warning* semi-biographic story ahead

Back when my adventure with this game started, I had to make a choice. Every party needed cc. I felt like it is my thing, so I investigated subject further. Basicly, cc -> enchantment.

That gave easy and regular sollution -> wizzard.

Although, uppon serious investigation, there was also a bard, spellsinger that is.

What was the difference? Bard had lower ench dc(by 2 on paper, 1 in most cases) and higher spell pen.
Other than that it was about what can you do besides cc.

*my point is actually in here*
wizzard/sorc got spellpower.. dps. Bards are different, they provide heals where other arcanes focus on pure power. Thats the difference and the big choice to make(and only few decided that they want to go bard way).

This is the main reason, people(me) dont really like this change. On high level you take away uniqueness, and just create another sorc/wizzy wannabe. Thats not the way. By design it was difference between cc+heals/cc+dps.

If I were asked about the reason to force this change, Id guess its about the lack of ideas what to do warchanter.

Warchanter used to be about melee dps. WIth another prestige it was taken away. Heavy dps buffs will increase/come back, but what more? THis is the question. I believe that stripping spellsinger from healing is not the way, nor is creating half swashbuckler. //Another thing is there were almost none pure warchanters(not that there were many bards)

I think that this is were feedback is needed. Not tons of I-want-to-have-this-set-of-enhancements.

And as fasr as brainstorming should go, I have this idea:
No bard prestige go far in debuffing multiple/single enemy. Maybe this can be new warchanter niche. Both heavy dps buffs and debuffing enemies? THats what I actually always missed... Abillity to heavilly curse enemies... kinda jester style.

*here i repeat myself*
it is chain reaction. If you move healing to warchanter, you create hole in spellsinger. If you fill this hole with spell dps you create another wizzy/sorc, not new cool bard

Slightly another thought:
artificer is different than sorc/wizzy and got some exclusive spells
Bard is different from both above. And yet bard spell selection is subset of wizzy stuff. Bard exclusive spells are desired(oh yeah... focused chant... yeah...)

[Vargouille]

Making some of the swashbuckler enhancements less centered around the single weapon fighting style is probably a good concept especially for the lower level enhancements in order to appease the those who may want to two handed fight or two weapon fight as a bard. They could be a primary warchanter with deep enhancement splash in swashbuckler for e.g.

We tried to give melee Warchanters some good options in Swashbuckler that function with TWF and THF. Most of the low level abilities don't require Swashbuckling. It's subjective exactly where the line should be drawn, as we do want Swashbuckler to retain some things that make it cool and powerful for the thing that it does.

[mna]

I think a lot of people posting here have blinders on. They assume that you, the devs, will not give Spellsingers very good spell like dc spells or nuking spells nor would significantly upgrade the spellsingers capability to cast the spells. I am thinking just the opposite that your intent is to make spellsingers as good at offensive casting whether dc or nuking as a wizard or sorcerer and if that is the case then giving spellsingers the healing capacity of cleric/fvs as well as a wizard or sorcerer offensive casting would be misguided and potentially overpowered.

I think warchanters need a distinctive role thus healing seems appropriate for them when combined with party buffs. Making some of the swashbuckler enhancements less centered around the single weapon fighting style is probably a good concept especially for the lower level enhancements in order to appease the those who may want to two handed fight or two weapon fight as a bard. They could be a primary warchanter with deep enhancement splash in swashbuckler for e.g.

I'd say, party-wide heal amp would be a good idea to have in the Warchanter tree. But I'd also keep straight-up casting upgrades in the Spellsinger tree, including for healing spells... but low enough for other than primary spellsingers to get at least part of the benefit.

[Rautis]

Put another way, it's not clear that Spellsingers should be top notch Healers, DC Casters, and DPS casters, all at the same time, yet we feel each of these elements needs stronger options.

Compare bard spell list to Bard Spells known per level and you will find out this is only possible if you add alot of bard spells as SLA.(which is also a reason why you should carefully consider if adding bard spells as SLAs is a good idea). Same bard can't possibly have learned all the debuffs and CC spells needed for versatile CC role, cures for effective healing and Shouts to spam.

If you think there's other important reasons why Bard-Healers are Spellsingers that are going unaddressed, we're listening.

Note that this still doesn't mean anything in particular has to be removed from trees (though there are some abilities that are likely to be put on the chopping block or heavily revised). Warchanter can become a stronger healing tree without taking anything away from Spellsinger. This may or may not make sense, but it's one of the options we've explicitly said we're open to.

Problem with moving healing abilities from spellsinger to warchanter is that spellsinger would probably still keep certain general caster benefits(Tier 5 spellsong vigor, magical training and a bunch of spell points) which are an important part for any spell point dependant build like bard healers currently are. This could result in very expensive AP splits needed to perform healing at current level if warchanter healing abilities are only just as strong as current spellsinger abilities.

Keeping spellsinger healing as it is and adding healing abilities to warchanter I can agree with.

This is part of our motivation and why we are even considering moving abilities around at all. This could be similar to how melee abilities left Exalted Angel and moved into Divine Crusader, which made Exalted Angel more focused and clear in what the tree allowed you to do, and helped strengthen Divine Crusader's focus at the same time, instead of multiple choices giving similar things.

The changes to Epic Destinies I liked. The new Exalted Angel gives healing, DC boosts, CC and spell DPS in one Epic Destiny Tree. Alot of similarities with current Spellsinger.

[LeslieWest_GuitarGod]

Finally at LONG LAST. THANK YOU IN ADVANCE! This update has been needed for YEARS.

I'll get into specifics in a future post, but for now Im not excited about just moving things around and blanket boosting a few stats like Im hearing. New spells are where its at for spellsinger. Anything less will be a fail. Crowd Control should be boosted on all bards. Bards should finally get cool looking and effective illusion spells added to the current spell list. And they should own sonic spell line.

[mezzorco]

Warchanter's traditional primary focus (melee) partially overlaps with Swashbuckler, and we'd like to find other significant elements to introduce to Warchanter.


Warchanter also doesn't need to lose any of it's current important melee abilities, but there's an open question as to how much more they should be getting.

You're right about saying that Warchanter and swash partially overlap, you're particularly right about saying "partially". Swash remains SWF focused, so THF and TWF should be addressed by warchanter and supported via aimed enhancements.

I'm glad to read that warchanter doesn't need to lose melee capability. In fact he needs more.
I can't say how much more he should get, though. Given that warchanter is going to be a more all around tree compared to swash, warchanter would be ok doing slightly less damage than his SWF cousin. Nevertheless a THF/TWF warchanter absolutely shouldn't feel gimpy in melee.
Warchanter damage should be substantially higher than current warchanter damage. This can be accomplished heavily revorking current enhancements or replacing them with new ones.

Reworking old enhancements should include making them stack with everything. Also, when handling melee abilities like The Frozen Fury, you should make them scale based on either STR or perform, because warchanter isn't about CHA.

As for new enhancements, some ideas could be:
- sonic damage on crit, sonic aoe damage on vorpal, scales with sp
- aoe heal effect on crit, bigger on vorpal, scales with sp [healing with no need to stop increases dps uptime]
- sonic aoe damage "aura-like" song, low damage, long duration increased by perform skill, scales with sp
- skaldic rage improvements via core enhancements, increasing STR bonus and adding CON, PRR, healing amp, a little bit of melee haste...
- combat style multiple selector, 10% offhand proc or improved glancing blows
- add at least two useful feats in cores, e.g. improved critical and power attack [bard is feat starved and warchanter needs feats to be a capable healer doesn't he?]

About warchanter being more capable at healing, I could be ok with that and I understand why you are making this change (you don't want SS to be uber at everything).
What I hope is that you will take into account that many warchanters will dump CHA, and almost all of them will multiclass with melee classes, thus making bard mana pool even slighter.
This will require either an enhancement to replenish mana, or a smarter implementation of warchanter healing powers (e.g. small aoe heal on crit, like mentioned before).

I hope this helps and I really want to thank you for asking us such an early feedback (feedforth?).

[PermaBanned]

Warchanter has been, and always should be, about a party buffing melee bard with better survival and self sufficiency. Self healing isnt the same as group healing, and warchanter should only support casting insofar as sonic/evocation cc/dps effects.


Dont remove stuff from spellsinger, and dont impact existing characters. You are wanting to turn spellsinger into a sorc-bard, and then make warchanter into what spellsinger is now. Dont. Just Don't. Its a slap in the face to your player base and goes against years of game play and design.


On live, anyone who has a raid level healing bard is spellsinger. Anyone who has some patch healing but wants more melee uptime instead of casting/singing a lot, is warchanter. Im sure there are exceptions, but the vast majority are that setup. For a reason. Why are you thinking otherwise? The few posts in this thread which say that? They probably dont even have epic level bards they play regularly, let alone in EE. Thats how it was in shroud, thats how it is now in EE, dont mess with it.


{Warchanter} should have something roughly similar to what it has now, with some boosts to bring it in line with everything else. As has been pointed out (by numerous posters) the current things are at odds with themselves and the game. Skaldic Rage -4 AC, with Rough and Ready +6 AC is one obvious example. It should keep the support it has for TWF and THF so that bards have all three melee combat styles supported (as swash covers SWF, and bards should maintain enough flexibility to be viable with any setup, that is one of their ddo hallmarks since the dawn of ddo).


While not necessarily bad, let me again iterate: Bards Are Not Sorcs. Bards Are Bards. Spellsingers Are Group-Healing-CC-Support Casters. Warchanters Are Self-Healing-Offensive-Buff Casters. If you are re-writing that just to make sorc-bards, you're doing it wrong.


A tenative you're welcome... if we see spellsinger die to become a wannabe sorc, and warchanter die into a buff/heal bot, you are going to be making a lot of your players unhappy and disappointed. Which, when dealing with bards who are already generally emo at the current state of things, is a feat indeed... but not one Id be proud of. Think carefully, and remember that Low-Impact on existing characters and paradigms is critical. We want to go "omg this is like what I have but better" not "gah need to reroll and the thing I was got deleted". Thanks, hopefully.

Quoted just incase the Devs missed it the first time, with the most important parts in bold.

For the love of all that's holy: Devs, listen to that (wo?)man!

[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