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.

[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.

[Mryal]

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

Drastic changes would have to happen for this to work.DPS casting, the current damage spells bard has are all mediocre, they dont even scale with bard level.Even if you fix em so that they do and buff their damage, there is no ED available to make that work, nothing boosts Sonic damage except fatesinger and even so its little.Theres no ED SLA's to complement this.I'd say this would only work by adapting some elemental spells from arcanes in general to bard, not by focusing in Sonic and the spells they current have.They do get spellcraft as class skill afterall.Regarding DC casting, would be interesting to see a working enchantment based spell that isnt a WILL save, or at least one that has no spell pen check.

Warchanter would move towards greater party buffing and support.

• Party Buffing
• Healing
• Some Melee and Defense

This is actualy quite interesting.Get rid of the fort debuff from reckleness, makes no sense anymore.Some melee, some defense.Maybe but theres plenty of melee power on swash.Make this a buff tree, more precisely a melee buff tree, make it so that bringing a warchanter in your party makes your overall party of melees more worthy.Melees need a buff.Also this is a good place to put something that bards need : some way to get free feats.Choosable melee or throw feat, complements swashbuckler, allows spellsinger to get a free melee feat.Perfect.

[Seikojin]

It would be nice if warchanter could sing some healing amp. Also have faster song regen in tier 1 (similar to current regen things; 10% faster or gives regen at 1 per 5 minutes). Maybe a song to regen other players boost uses (so a song to restore some peoples lay on hands, smites, etc). Make that a tier 4 or 5. Maybe song sla's for greater vigor.

For spellsinger, I definitely think they need a lot of love. Definitely their spells need to scale with bard level, maybe something to add sonic burst procs to crits (a spellsong that consumes a song use and 15 or 20 sp to imbue the weapon with the ability to sonic burst on crit; just like the spell, but as a buff).

Spellsinger should have a wider range of spell boosts through songs.

Warchanters dr boost should be bigger too.

[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).

[bbqzor]

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

Sure thing.

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)

Fair list, but its missing Healing. Currently, if you want to be a "healing bard", you're more than likely to wind up in spellsinger. It has been that way since way back in the day, all the way back to shroud and beyond, as far back as I can recall. Healing should remain here. There is no reason to upset the status quo on this, as players have spent years under this paradigm and it works well on many levels. From the current capstones (providing heal), to spell song vigor really aiding bards in closing the mana pool gap when raid healing, and so on... this is a staple you really should not mess with. It needs healing support in the form of some devotion spell power assistance, and maintaining the other benefits it currently provides.... some of which, like Sustaining Song, could really use a pass to make the values relevant (ie, make it actually work on the whole group, maybe it heals your perform ranks [ranks, not total bonus, so 23 cap] per tick instead of like 6, or maybe it can be affected by spellpower, or something).

Also, while I would like to see bards get offensive casting... after consideration I think some of that might be better served in Warchanter (discussed below). Obviously the high DC portions belong here, for cc effects and such, but the "dps" casting portion gives me pause.

Warchanter would move towards greater party buffing and support.

• Party Buffing
• Healing
• Some Melee and Defense

Good list but a couple of things. One, a specific note about reworking its abilities to frankly play nice with the rest of the game would be welcome. Right now, thematic or not, they just dont. Song of Heroism doesnt provide Fear Immunity as its supposed to. Victory Song needs to be re-toggled all the time, and it shouldnt, it should just be toggle on and gtg. Warmaster's ability is so short relative to the long sing time of the song which triggers it, its essentially not useable. Boast is almost impossible to use even beyond level 10 because the temp hp go in a single hit. Gathering Cold is so minor in benefit, and short in duration, that its rarely (if ever) provides anything meaningful. Iced edges amounts to less than +1 dmg per hit... if it was just +1 cold per hit it would be better, its just not worth AP. Frozen Fury needs a real DC, maybe based on perform, maybe based on bard levels, but something.... capping out at maybe 39 if youre some insane Cha build still isnt useful. Howl of the North, again, needs to be toggled on and off a ton, and needs to persist normally. Additionally, it should apply to non-weapon-group-training weapons. I understand its supposed to help warchanters be more martial, but there are plenty of "bard" itemized weapons which are still useful. Losing the PREs benefits when using those is backwards, as there is nothing we can do to "magically re-itemize elyd edge to a falchion" or something. Basically, since this is getting long, everything needs to be looked at from a practical and useability stand point. Right now, a ton of it is either not practical (ie, essentially does nothing when used like gathering cold), or not useable (ie, takes unnecessary micro management like victory song). These dont need severe changes or whole rewrites... but they need some attention to actually work as intended, and in some cases a small adjustment to make them a valid choice.

Second, a note on healing. Yes, this tree already provides some devotion boosts, which is nice but some of that should go to spellsinger. It should see some "faux healing" for itself. Warchanter isnt about healing the party (thats spellsinger), but it should have some ability to keep itself in the action (its there to pump, you up!). Eg, add something like bodyfeeder as a proc for any equipped weapon. Similar to how boast gives you temp hp, something else that is dynamic and keeps you in the thick of things, without turning into just healing. Maybe something else like a mini primal scream, that pumps up everyone with some temp hp. Or, better yet, something that gives you temp hp (say, equal to your perform total) on a crit, and does a small shout giving the party temp hp on a vorpal (kinda like how cloudburst procs have a targeted and radius effect both). That would be awesome and fun and thematic.. the trifecta of design =p

Third.. defense. Yes, that is needed, a lot. As a d6 die class, at best in medium armor via the PRE, with little ability or desire to use a shield, it sorely needs defense. Right now its basically relying on Displacement in heroic, and then adding Epic Destiny tricks for epic content. Something which provides some meaningful way to survive staying in a pack of mobs is definitely lacking. I think two good approaches would be with offensive shouts or procs (like, you can shout and it does soundburst centered on you, but with a high dc; or you can proc a stun on any attack like the stunning mutation), or with specific boosts to sonic spells which do that (like an enhancement which adds DC to sonic blast, sound burst, shout, and greater shout only... but adds a lot).

Which leads me to fourth, offensive casting. Im a bit torn here. Spellsinger should have some good offensive ability with magic. But Ive always felt, and seen it played out, as being "effects" based offense. Like Holds, Stuns, Charms, Mind Fog, Glitterdust, etc. Clearly spellsinger should keep support for those. But Warchanter is all about, well, war chanting. That means most of the sonic effects. It really ought to get some sonic spellpower boosts, and perhaps evocation boosts, or boosts to specific spells. That splits the casting between both trees... but I think that may be okay. Ive not seen many (any?) bards which really focused on both high cc, and attempted high sonic dps. Spellsinger for enchant, Warchanter for evocation. Thatd be where I would start.

...........

Bit long, but hopefully it helps. I DO NOT want to see the "tree focuses" flip flop. Spellsinger has always been cc/healing and caster songs, and thats what people expect and desire from the tree. Warchanter was always supposed to be about buffing the group, doing melee dps, having better combat songs, and (supposedly) having better survival. Warchanter should get evocation/sonic offense. Spellsinger should get better healing support and some enchantment or illusion SLAs. And of course, Warchanter needs some fixing up as the abilities just dont work well. Good luck, looking forward to a thoughtful treatment of these which brings them into better representing a playable and meaningful option for everyone. Cheers.

[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.

[Grosbeak07]

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!

I concur with your general assessment.

For Spellsinger:

Some new Bard only spells is suggested.

For Warchanter:

Make sure that all fighting styles are supported via toggles in the tree (SWF, TWF and THF)
Update or create songs that do AOE damage in addition to party buffing.

[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.

[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!

[PsychoBlonde]

Existing Spellsinger

• Heal as a spell is nice on the capstone, but Wail of the Banshee is a waste of space. NO BARD is going to have ANY KIND of decent necromancy spell saving throw. It's just so random and bad. Now, if you wanted to give them a wail-like effect on, say, a 2-minute cooldown that used their PERFORM DC (like, you know, EVERYTHING ELSE THAT BARDS DO), NOW you have something that might be worthwhile. The 10 universal spellpower is also kind of like, "okay". Make it 30 positive and 30 sonic and maybe you've got something.
• Haunting Melody is really kind of bad. If it was -2/4/6 it might be okay-ish.
• Flicker is really awful and kind of pointless since, you know, bards get Displacement as a spell and it only lasts SIX SECONDS.
• Marigold Crown serves little purpose.
• Enthrallment doesn't do much that Fascinate doesn't already do.
• Reviving Verse and Raucous Refrain are TERRIBAD. They give you a bonus to saves against 4 things and TWO of them DO NOT HAVE A SAVING THROW.
• Spell Song Trance is okay, but I'd say roll that in under Inspire Courage.
• Sustaining Song needs to be affected by spellpower or something. It's WEAK.
• Instead of Spell Penetration and Arcane Aid how about making an instant-cast song called something like "Note of Shattermantle" that gives all enemies like -20 SR? THAT would be useful, valuable, and unique to Spellsinger.
• Spell Song Vigor needs to be AOE again.
• Reduce the Cooldown on Song of Capering

What to Add to Spellsinger

I'd say, add some sonic damage spells . . . except they're aren't any that make up for the primary deficiency of spellsinger, which is lack of offensive capability. You can fascinate and dance stuff all day but sooner or later you're going to have to kill something to progress, and Sonic Blast ain't gonna cut it. What WOULD be cool (and have some interesting potential synergies) would be to put in an ability where when you deal sonic damage it gives enemies a stacking sonic damage-over-time effect (affected by spellpower). Make THAT your big T5 ability and move some of that other mediocre stuff down to replace Flicker and Raucous Refrain.

It would also be really neat if you put something in to make wands much cooler in the hands of a Spellsinger. Maybe boost the Wand and Scroll Mastery from 25/50/75 to 50/100/150. Or give them that artificer ability where wands act like staves.

[mna]

Um.

Would buffing the entire party's spell DCs be a "casting support" or "party buff" thing?

Because, I seem to have gotten the impression that DC casting as a whole isn't thought as all that viable in epics currently... hm... a song or something that'd add, say, 1/3 of your bard level to everyone's spell DCs, stacking with everything? (Or "effective" bard level, modified by EDs?)


Would sort of feel natural to have a spell DCs song in Spellsinger and a melee tactics DCs song in Warchanter. Would it be appropriate for the melee song to also work on Assassinate and such? (Hm. Boost Assassinate with the melee song, but the assassin poison attacks and mechanic Thunderstone and such with the spell DC song? What about, say, Arcane Archer imbue-effect DCs?)


And I do agree that the Ironskin Chant as it is now, doesn't seem to be very useful. If it did more, maybe... and/or if it added to existing DR...


Making Skaldic Rage scale somehow could be a good idea. And make it also buff Con, maybe? (Heh. A separate multiselector, extra stat boost there, either Con, Dex or ...?)

[PsychoBlonde]

Existing Warchanter

• Boast is awful. No bard--even a Warchanter, WANTS more threat.
• Words of Encouragement positive spellpower doesn't really make any sense and a miniscule amount of temp HP is hardly worth 3 AP. Now, if it did a burst heal that might be cool.
• The entire ice-related chain is godawful and needs to be taken out and replaced with something that makes some kind of sense. That ALONE would MASSIVELY improve this tree.

What to Add to Warchanter

How about some +tactics, particularly Trip.

The Ice abilities should be replaced with a bunch of Shouts that do things like Despair or Fear enemies.

[PsychoBlonde]

It would also be nice if one of the trees got something to improve bard Suggestion, which is rather underutilized. Some "buff your charmed critters" abilities would also not go amiss.

[khremlajn]

FIrst of all, songs.

Lvl cap is higher, songs power is lower? Inspire courage needs to grand higher bonuses.
spellsong vigor is not as good as it used to. Mana pool is higher, sp regen is on same rate.

Spellsinger:
- I have no idea how to add spell dps... you will need to introduce new spells. For raids purpose, sonic dot would be best
- bard can and should be enchantment dc caster. Only way to make enemies(aoe) helpless is by makng them sleep... which last only for 1 hit. Mass hold wouldnt hurt...

songs again...
spellsingers were giving +1 spell dc when items were providing at most +2. Now items give way more and +1 bard dc doesnt stack with enchantment house p ship buff...

If you want to get bards back to the game, scale party buffs numbers

[IronClan]

Ah so now some of the stuff that addresses long time oft asked for improvements is starting to get out Bards are getting love.... Yep at long last.

[maddmatt70]

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!

I actually like your concept more then most of the posters. Warchanters are going to die out with swashbuckler coming in the game. If you can make a warchanter the ultimate support type bard that would make them viable. Healing should be a warchanter spell ability and make sure warchanters get really solid buffs that stack.

The main thing lacking for spellsingers is viable spells. They really need viable offensive spells. Make the spellsinger higher level slas extremely powerful. A really good cc sla like earthquake or mass hold caliber and a great nuking sla and improve the EDs like make a sonic a choice in draconic, etc..

[DagazUlf]

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)

Great. Seems like a good set of goals/focus.

Warchanter would move towards greater party buffing and support.

• Party Buffing
• Healing
• Some Melee and Defense

This here.... this is just not right. Party Buffing could simply be quicker or longer enduring songs, it doesn't have to be anything major. The healing should way more of a minor/medium goal. Melee should be a much higher goal with a focus on THF or TWF and the replacement of several of those current abilities which are just horrible (e.g., the ice stuff). Perhaps more abilities that utilize sonic to increase melee damage, or speed, or doublestrike, or something.

Some kind of an aura/AoE solution similar to Warpriest would be great for the Warchanter. Think of a low continuous chant that is continuously ongoing from the Warchanter which benefits allies/hurts enemies within range.

There ya go.