Warchanter Changes

[HatsuharuZ]

The new tree looks much improved. However I was really hoping to see something that incentivizes combat styles other than SWF. As it stands Warchanter is going to make SWF Bards even better, but does not provide any unique benefits to THF, TWF, or ranged Bards. So perhaps I am being utterly crazy here, but how about something like this for Warchanter:

Tier 5:
NEW: Multiple Choice: (2 AP, 1 rank)
Dirge of Furor: You gain access to the Frenzied Berserker enhancement tree.
Sword Dancer: You gain access to the Tempest enhancement tree.
Singing on the Wind: You gain access to the Arcane Archer enhancement tree.
Circus Performer: You gain access to the Thief Acrobat enhancement tree.

There's a precedent in Elf Arcane Archer, and this would give access to improved THF, TWF, and Ranged combat options for Warchanters. In this case the Bard has already taken tier 5 in Warchanter so (s)he would be locked out of tier 5 in the selected tree, which keeps these from being too good. AP are a scarce resource so forcing the Bard to delve into another tree to improve their combat style requires sacrifices in the other Bard trees, which provides some balance. I would think that requiring higher minimum levels like Elf Arcane Archer would make sense too, although the tier 5 lockout is more important and as a tier 5 ability the Bard has to be level 12 already before taking this so that may not matter as much.

I thought about adding one of the Fighter trees in too but discarded that idea. The Kensei concept doesn't seem to fit the Bard archetype very well, and Stalwart Defender may be too good alongside Swashbuckler.

I like this idea. It fits in with bards being a "jack-of-all-trades".

Also, I am not a fan of Kingly Recovery. I realize that you want to do things that are easy to code so as to get as much done as possible in as short a time as possible, and reusing the Unyielding Sovereignty code is easier than doing something new, but Warchanters could use something a bit more unique for their tier 5s. KR and US are slightly different since Bards would get charges rather than US's long cooldown, but this is essentially a copy of a free feat for many Clerics and Paladins, and of a tier 3 Radiant Servant enhancement.

Agreed. I would suggest healing amplification, or increased incoming positive energy healing such as paladins and monks get. 15% (at least) of either would be worthwhile.

[Scrabbler]

So perhaps I am being utterly crazy here, but how about something like this for Warchanter:

Tier 5:
NEW: Multiple Choice: (2 AP, 1 rank)
Dirge of Furor: You gain access to the Frenzied Berserker enhancement tree.
Sword Dancer: You gain access to the Tempest enhancement tree.
Singing on the Wind: You gain access to the Arcane Archer enhancement tree.
Circus Performer: You gain access to the Thief Acrobat enhancement tree.

Yeah, a bit "crazy". It would be going too far to make Warchanter t5 unlock another whole tree. And to let it unlock five different trees would be even less reasonable. For one thing, by the time you reach t5 Warchanter you're running out of points to spend in it anyhow.

What they could do instead is give Warchanter t5 a multiselector providing large bonuses to one of 4-5 different attack styles (THF, TWF, bow, shield, and maybe even staff). The benefits from that enhancement would probably be similar to 2-4 combined enhancements from trees like Tempest, Berserker, etc.

[Caprice]

Yeah, a bit "crazy". It would be going too far to make Warchanter t5 unlock another whole tree. And to let it unlock five different trees would be even less reasonable. For one thing, by the time you reach t5 Warchanter you're running out of points to spend in it anyhow.

What they could do instead is give Warchanter t5 a multiselector providing large bonuses to one of 4-5 different attack styles (THF, TWF, bow, shield, and maybe even staff). The benefits from that enhancement would probably be similar to 2-4 combined enhancements from trees like Tempest, Berserker, etc.

It would be stretching the one existing precedent, but there is that precedent. Elven AA is a lot cheaper AP-wise than going to T5 Warchanter after all (14 AP vs 30+) and does not lock the Elf out of T5 AA, so that's actually quite a bit more powerful than this idea. You could similarly say that Elven AA was going too far and should be removed - and perhaps you do say that, I don't know - but I do not.

The bit about "by the time you reach t5 Warchanter you're running out of points to spend in it anyhow" is a lot of the point. You can still invest somewhat heavily into the opened tree, but at the cost of not being able to take a lot of really good enhancements elsewhere in the Bard PrEs. Or you take the good Bard enhancements and can't spend much elsewhere. You give something up to gain something elsewhere. This is actually how character building should work IMO, and it does in a lot of places in DDO (Monk & Paladin splashes notwithstanding ).

FWIW you can actually achieve the same already by splashing 1-4 levels of whichever other class matches the multiselector choice you make, and in most cases you gain something else from doing so (e.g. Evasion for Rogue 2, runspeed and Rages for Barbarian, TWF & ranged feats for Ranger) in exchange for losing some Bard spellcasting ability. Again, those are tradeoffs of loss for gain, and for me those are a lot of what makes DDO unique and exciting to think about.

[Scrabbler]

Again, those are tradeoffs of loss for gain, and for me those are a lot of what makes DDO unique and exciting to think about.

The existence of some tradeoffs/costs does not prove that those tradeoffs/costs are well-designed.

Much more important than that, however, is the amount of developer effort required. Getting Warchanter to unlock any of 4 possible alternate trees would be easily 20 times as much work as putting in a 4-way multiselector granting large bonuses to chosen weapon styles. One class tree unlocking another class tree is something they've never done before. With the low amount of developer manhours available, that's really the dominant point.

[Silken-Akira]

The existence of some tradeoffs/costs does not prove that those tradeoffs/costs are well-designed.

Much more important than that, however, is the amount of developer effort required. Getting Warchanter to unlock any of 4 possible alternate trees would be easily 20 times as much work as putting in a 4-way multiselector granting large bonuses to chosen weapon styles. One class tree unlocking another class tree is something they've never done before. With the low amount of developer manhours available, that's really the dominant point.

Possibly true but still a great idea, that builds on what makes DDO unique...So worth to give it a look I would say

[Kalevor]

The new tree looks much improved. However I was really hoping to see something that incentivizes combat styles other than SWF. As it stands Warchanter is going to make SWF Bards even better, but does not provide any unique benefits to THF, TWF, or ranged Bards. So perhaps I am being utterly crazy here, but how about something like this for Warchanter:

Tier 5:
NEW: Multiple Choice: (2 AP, 1 rank)
Dirge of Furor: You gain access to the Frenzied Berserker enhancement tree.
Sword Dancer: You gain access to the Tempest enhancement tree.
Singing on the Wind: You gain access to the Arcane Archer enhancement tree.
Circus Performer: You gain access to the Thief Acrobat enhancement tree.

There's a precedent in Elf Arcane Archer, and this would give access to improved THF, TWF, and Ranged combat options for Warchanters. In this case the Bard has already taken tier 5 in Warchanter so (s)he would be locked out of tier 5 in the selected tree, which keeps these from being too good. AP are a scarce resource so forcing the Bard to delve into another tree to improve their combat style requires sacrifices in the other Bard trees, which provides some balance. I would think that requiring higher minimum levels like Elf Arcane Archer would make sense too, although the tier 5 lockout is more important and as a tier 5 ability the Bard has to be level 12 already before taking this so that may not matter as much.

I thought about adding one of the Fighter trees in too but discarded that idea. The Kensei concept doesn't seem to fit the Bard archetype very well, and Stalwart Defender may be too good alongside Swashbuckler.

Also, I am not a fan of Kingly Recovery. I realize that you want to do things that are easy to code so as to get as much done as possible in as short a time as possible, and reusing the Unyielding Sovereignty code is easier than doing something new, but Warchanters could use something a bit more unique for their tier 5s. KR and US are slightly different since Bards would get charges rather than US's long cooldown, but this is essentially a copy of a free feat for many Clerics and Paladins, and of a tier 3 Radiant Servant enhancement.

It's a pretty good suggestion, adds a lot of customisation and flavor to warchanter. Like it

[Typographer]

Granted, I get that... but I'm also not liable to spec my bard at, say, a 23 CON just because I'll use Skaldic Rage for every mob. Then again, it *could* save an action point boost (usually 2 pts) someplace else. I'll stop whining.

Meanwhile: I finished reviewing the tree... that's pretty stout. I was previously advocating to dump it all together, given Swashbuckler, but this is solid stuff.

So a Swashbuckler can wear medium armour, *and* reduce it’s dex cap? Medium armour was pretty much the last thing a Warchanter had to distinguish itself. The “tanky” Bard.

If I had to take a guess, I’d say whoever designed this tree just did it in a way to splash it into Swashbuckler.

And a Warchanter can raise dead and do some massive heals? There goes a Spellsinger role.

Don’t get me started on the silly sound-blasts you’ve got going on over there in Spellsinger-land.

NO ONE who wants to do magic DPS, AOE, or CC is ever going to go Bard. Even for a splash.

And why on earth do you have a capstone of Heal on Spellsinger, and a T5 Warchanter SLA that does a 10,000 HP &c heal? Redundancy much?

Put the new buffs into Spellsinger, the new damage into Swashbuckler, and put this poorly thought out PrE out of its misery already.

Spellsingers are soon to follow at this rate.

*content removed for Community Guidelines*

(Remind me again, a Warchanter can heal and raise, what—other then regenerate mana—is a Spellsinger good for now?)

[mezzorco]

Remind me again, a Warchanter can heal and raise, what—other then regenerate mana—is a Spellsinger good for now?

Any bard can return deads to life through Resurrection scrolls and heal through Heal scrolls.

Given this, a more to the point question would be: what a Raise Dead SLA and a Unyielding Sovereignty SLA are good for?

[Vargouille]

Some clarifications:

Our current plan for Warchanter 'Chants' is such that they trigger on nearby allies approximately every 10 seconds and last for 60 seconds (or refresh to 60 seconds if you stay nearby). You don't need to be glued to the Warchanter for this, but you can't keep the buffs forever if you are splitting the party in a long term manner.

We're not likely to grant access to trees from other classes in the near future with these changes to Warchanter and Spellsinger. There's still places we may do that in the future.

You can't Swashbuckle (Level 3 Core) in medium armor, so many of the enhancements in Swashbuckler won't function if you take medium armor from Warchanter. Many enhancements in Swashbuckler do work without Swashbuckling, of course, just as Swashbucklers can benefit from many Warchanter or Spellsinger enhancements, or other classes.

So far the overall feedback has been pretty solid that Spellsinger's SLAs are as good or better than those in other caster trees. We're still happy to hear feedback on why they are good or not, in the appropriate thread. We didn't want to change existing Spellsinger builds by taking Heal away from them, but we wanted Warchanter to be the clear "party buff" tree for players who want to play that kind of Bard, which is why they've received some support abilities.

If anyone feels they can't continue to play a current-day Bard with the changes proposed, what are you losing that you feel you still need? The bard that you are playing today: What's going away that will break your build? We've already reversed some tentative cuts due to players asking us to keep those abilities.

[Caprice]

The existence of some tradeoffs/costs does not prove that those tradeoffs/costs are well-designed.

Much more important than that, however, is the amount of developer effort required. Getting Warchanter to unlock any of 4 possible alternate trees would be easily 20 times as much work as putting in a 4-way multiselector granting large bonuses to chosen weapon styles. One class tree unlocking another class tree is something they've never done before. With the low amount of developer manhours available, that's really the dominant point.

True. I'll accept that the tradeoffs may not be balanced and that needs to be looked at. However in this case I did consider them and decided that they are reasonable already, but left them out since that becomes a wall of text. Since you "asked", here are my thoughts in more depth:

Frenzied Berzerker: I have not played a Barbarian seriously so my opinion is academic. However there are not a lot of people arguing that anything about Barbarian is overpowered right now, including the base class abilities and the enhancements. Based on reading the tree it seems to have some good abilities, but nothing stands out as extremely powerful, and it is not the basis for any of the min-maxed EE soloing builds I am aware of which in my experience tends to mean that it cannot be easily abused. The closest I've seen is the Battlerager and it leverages TWF and Ameliorating Strike from the Cleric/FvS Warpriest tree rather than THF & Glancing Blow procs.

Thief-Acrobat: This is a strong enhancement tree, but almost all of the power comes from 2 enhancements: the 15% attack speed bonus given by "Thief Acrobatics" (tier 1) and the bonus to crit threat and crit multiplier given by "Staff Specialization" (tier 5). The former is accessible under this suggestion but the latter is not. If you peruse the staff build threads, a number recommend that you do not use staves at all until get to character level 12 & rogue level 5 (the latter being mainly relevant to splashes) since any other 2h weapon will give better DPS until then. Since Staff Specialization is locked out under this idea, this option is unlikely to be truly competitive DPS, which seems like a good spot to me. You can be okay at using staves without splashing, or you splash Rogue 5 to take Staff Specialization and lose some spellcasting ability. The other key thing that Thief-Acrobat offers is that the cores allow you to use your DEX modifier for attack and damage instead of STR while using a quarterstaff. Considering that there are far fewer sources of bonuses to DEX than there are to STR, and indeed many people refer to melee DEX based builds as "a trap", I think that again this is not an unbalanced option to allow here.

Arcane Archer: This is a strong enhancement tree and I might agree that it is too strong even without access to the T5 abilities. The T5 abilities are quite strong but sticking to T4 still gives you primary imbue options including various elements, Force Burst, Paralyzing, Banishing, and Smiting, and secondary imbue options for Morphic, Metalline, and Aligned. The major argument in favor of allowing this anyway is that you can already get access to all of the above plus the strong T5s (e.g. arrow of slaying, elemental burst imbues, temp SP) by going Elf and investing in the racial tree which is rather favorable to bow use and costs less AP than T5 Warchanter. Getting less out of AA for a higher startup investment seems to me like a reasonable tradeoff for being able to choose another race with different advantages.

Tempest: This is also a fairly strong tree, but I do not see any enhancements that give me pause, I haven't seen it described as overpowered, and again I am not aware of it forming the basis for any of the stronger FotM EE builds. As with Thief-Acrobat, Tempest needs to be considered in the light that it allows access to DEX for attack and damage while dual-wielding but the same issue stands as for TA and quarterstaves, and this ability is specifically excluded from the Swashbuckling stance so it does not allow you to bypass the Finesse feat for a Swashbuckler so it can't be abused there. The other consideration is that Tempest allows you to treat scimitars as light weapons, which AFAICT means that you can then use scimitars in Swashbuckling stance and get DEX to damage while SWF from the Weapon Finesse feat and DEX to damage from the Different Tack: Swift Strikes enhancement. However I feel that this is acceptable too. The main reason is that scimitars do not get crit threat or multiplier bonuses out of the Swashbuckling stance and thus remain as 15% x2 even with this combination, which means that choosing to use them is actually a DPS loss over using rapiers or indeed almost anything else on the "official" swashbuckling list even before you consider that you are locked out of the T5 Swashbuckler enhancements. It would be entirely a flavor choice, which is fine with me.

So really, I do not see anything in the list of enhancement trees I suggested that would be unbalanced. Arcane Archer is borderline, but in my opinion the other 3 are solid but not overpowered trees and giving access to them would not make T5 Warchanter as powerful as T5 Swashbuckler is right now already. However I am quite willing to see that refuted! So please do so if I am overlooking something important.

Even so it is probably moot since I think that you are probably correct in your end statement - the idea is probably DOA because it could take too much developer effort. However it is possible that the code that was used to unlock the AA tree for Elves could be reused, in which case it might actually be less work than coding & tested an equivalent 3-4 brand new abilities that are style-specific. I suspect that the Elven AA code is not in shape to be reused or else we would have seen some movement towards the other racial PrE unlocks over the last 2-3 years. I'd complain more but I am in charge of a lot of legacy code myself and it is not much fun to deal with so I sympathize.

[Seikojin]

Some clarifications:

Our current plan for Warchanter 'Chants' is such that they trigger on nearby allies approximately every 10 seconds and last for 60 seconds (or refresh to 60 seconds if you stay nearby). You don't need to be glued to the Warchanter for this, but you can't keep the buffs forever if you are splitting the party in a long term manner.

We're not likely to grant access to trees from other classes in the near future with these changes to Warchanter and Spellsinger. There's still places we may do that in the future.

You can't Swashbuckle (Level 3 Core) in medium armor, so many of the enhancements in Swashbuckler won't function if you take medium armor from Warchanter. Many enhancements in Swashbuckler do work without Swashbuckling, of course, just as Swashbucklers can benefit from many Warchanter or Spellsinger enhancements, or other classes.

So far the overall feedback has been pretty solid that Spellsinger's SLAs are as good or better than those in other caster trees. We're still happy to hear feedback on why they are good or not, in the appropriate thread. We didn't want to change existing Spellsinger builds by taking Heal away from them, but we wanted Warchanter to be the clear "party buff" tree for players who want to play that kind of Bard, which is why they've received some support abilities.

If anyone feels they can't continue to play a current-day Bard with the changes proposed, what are you losing that you feel you still need? The bard that you are playing today: What's going away that will break your build? We've already reversed some tentative cuts due to players asking us to keep those abilities.

I really agree with this plan and also agree that chanters should be more party buff than not.

A lot of these enhancement changes have really made going pure attractive. So kudos to that!

[Caprice]

Some clarifications:
[....]We're not likely to grant access to trees from other classes in the near future with these changes to Warchanter and Spellsinger. There's still places we may do that in the future.[...]

I write too slow, and I guess that I should refresh the thread before replying more often. Oh well. At the moment I cannot see personally picking T5 Warchanter over the other options, and in particular I think SWF is so much better for Bards in this arrangement that there is no serious competition from the other melee styles. I will definitely LR mine to SWF now. However I look forward to someone coming up with a clever build that proves me wrong!

[LeslieWest_GuitarGod]

We're explicitly not looking to strengthen the Barbarian-Warchanter connection. We're not looking to remove what Warchanters currently get, but we're not trying to force Warchanters to take Barbarian levels to feel optimal (nor vice-versa).

As someone who's played a bard/barbarian/fighter build for quite some time, I've always thought the bard/barbarian connection should offer more. Warchanters are more akin to battlefield commanders who are part of the martial tradition. Going Bard/Barbarian combo should offer juicier DPS than going pure, plain and simple.

I'd like to see bard/barb offer a noticeably stronger dps boost than is currently being suggested, perhaps realized in their song (strength/rage boost). The capstone also needs to be boosted, however offer something the bard/barb split cant get, such as extra defensive ac/prr/dodge boost for greater survival and a DPS boost (though not as great as with the bard barb synergy).

These DPS and defensive boosts should be very welcome to many bards, and may be the difference between this bard update going nuclear, instead of Mikey Pop Rocks!

[N-0cturn]

Some clarifications:
Our current plan for Warchanter 'Chants' is such that they trigger on nearby allies approximately every 10 seconds and last for 60 seconds (or refresh to 60 seconds if you stay nearby). You don't need to be glued to the Warchanter for this, but you can't keep the buffs forever if you are splitting the party in a long term manner.

Seem like a good solution. Thanks.

If anyone feels they can't continue to play a current-day Bard with the changes proposed, what are you losing that you feel you still need? The bard that you are playing today: What's going away that will break your build? We've already reversed some tentative cuts due to players asking us to keep those abilities.

The tree is better than the current version, but that does not mean that it's good. Why this is the case has been mentioned several times in this thread (weak Frozen Fury DC, no incentive to go T5 / core 20, etc...).


Regarding the idea to give access to other trees:

I really like the idea, but I think it's too complicated just to support other combat styles than SWF. You could just add a similar choice that only gives one iconic bonus of that tree instead. For example instead of access to the tempest tree you get + 3/6/10 % chance to hit with the off-hand and similar choices for archery/TWF. It is not a innovative, but is would get the job done.

[Vargouille]

Regarding the idea to give access to other trees:

I really like the idea, but I think it's too complicated just to support other combat styles than SWF. You could just add a similar choice that only gives one iconic bonus of that tree instead. For example instead of access to the tempest tree you get + 3/6/10 % chance to hit with the off-hand and similar choices for archery/TWF. It is not a innovative, but is would get the job done.

From our current perspective, we don't really see the need for explicit support of fighting styles in this manner. Dealing extra cold damage or increasing critical damage multipliers are useful to TWF and THF, for instance. General balance concerns or possibly Warchanter should be more melee-focused (for instance) are great topics, but it's not clear to us that there's a reason for this tree to explicitly mention any fighting style (compared to Swashbuckler, Tempest, or Frenzied Berserker, for instance), any more than Kensei, Occult Slayer, etc. Some trees are very focused on a fighting style and some aren't, and we like having both kinds. Having "a little bit of focus" by having a single ability for each fighting style could be done, but if the goal is to promote any or all kinds of fighting its simpler to just increase damage numbers or add general abilities.

[droid327]

General balance concerns or possibly Warchanter should be more melee-focused (for instance) are great topics...

General concerns: melee, I think its fine, considering its a "melee support" tree by design.

However, I wonder if the "support" aspect is as well-balanced...in terms of long-term (more than 1 min) buffs Warchanter (vs other Bards) will give party members, at best:

-GH, undispellable for 3 min (Bard has UMD, so can scroll GH at 15 min easily, keep in mind)
-+4 damage
-+3 attack and saves vs Fear
-+5 Elemental resists
-DR 6/- and 6 PRR
-6 Doublestrike/USP
-20% runspeed

Of those, only the last two, maybe three offer anything of palpable value to a group, enough to make them excited when a WC asks to join...otherwise you're talking about letting in a sub-optimal melee fighter with a suite of unimpressive party buffs, over a Monk or Fighter or something that would provide more DPS than the Warchanter and his buffs would add.

The main saving grace for WC would be that they can Freeze enemies, and heal party members...but in top-flight endgame content, that Freeze DC wont scale enough, and their heals wont be as good as a Spellsinger's, so the tree gets effectively minimized without stronger, worthwhile party buffs. I'd expect to see something *really* useful for a fully-invested WC like:

Song bonus of
+1 Crit Mult/Range
+5% universal spell crit
+10% to melee attack speed
+10% to elemental absorbs
More PRR than 6, instead of PRR + DR, since DR does not scale well *at all* from Heroic to Epic
Added special affixes to attack (ie all party members in range get Incinerate on their attacks)
Life-on-hit to all party members in range (more than Vampirism...maybe 1-2% max HP on hit)
Etc. etc...

There's lots of ways to make the song buffs for Bard really unique and desired without making them OP. Having a WC in your party *should* give you a palpable boost in your party efficacy, though, and I'm just not convinced a plethora of tiny buffs will do that.

[LeslieWest_GuitarGod]

but it's not clear to us that there's a reason for this tree to explicitly mention any fighting style

Across the board DPS boosts to strength and rage granted in the warchanter tree should benefit ALL weapons. There's no need to boost any particular fighting style. Let the player build what they want.

Here's what I'd do: Rename the second Fighting Spirit core to Barbarian Spirit (Bard 12th level), drop warmaster core benefits to Barbarian Spirit. Barbarian Spirit comes alive however if bard multi-classes with Barbarian levels. Barbarian Spirit will grant cross class bards with at least 2 levels of Barbarian (+4 or whatever) additional strength, and adds an additional +2 Strength and +2 dex when raging.

For Warmaster core, I'd grant evasion (which will grant bards a ticket to EE content and end the end game drought for bards) and an AC/PRR/Dodge bonus.

[Dawnsblood]

So far the overall feedback has been pretty solid that Spellsinger's SLAs are as good or better than those in other caster trees. We're still happy to hear feedback on why they are good or not, in the appropriate thread. We didn't want to change existing Spellsinger builds by taking Heal away from them, but we wanted Warchanter to be the clear "party buff" tree for players who want to play that kind of Bard, which is why they've received some support abilities.

I am glad SSs will retain Heal. With their higher sp pool (through likely heavy investment in Cha) and their mana recovery abilities, SS was always the natural home for healing in the bard trees.

[N-0cturn]

From our current perspective, we don't really see the need for explicit support of fighting styles in this manner. Dealing extra cold damage or increasing critical damage multipliers are useful to TWF and THF, for instance. General balance concerns or possibly Warchanter should be more melee-focused (for instance) are great topics, but it's not clear to us that there's a reason for this tree to explicitly mention any fighting style (compared to Swashbuckler, Tempest, or Frenzied Berserker, for instance), any more than Kensei, Occult Slayer, etc. Some trees are very focused on a fighting style and some aren't, and we like having both kinds. Having "a little bit of focus" by having a single ability for each fighting style could be done, but if the goal is to promote any or all kinds of fighting its simpler to just increase damage numbers or add general abilities.

That's perfectly fine. It is just my feeling (and I think I am not the only one) that Warchanter should offer something for those that want to melee but not SWF. This might be the case because they already geared they bard for a different style or because they just feel like it is not the flavour of the build. Swashbuckler offers some points of dodge and special attacks but the really nice stuff is "While Swashbuckling ...".

To buff fighting styles directly was more because the benefits should not stack with swashbuckler, which is fine as it is, and it kinda fits the flavor if you picture someone who spends a lot of the time of the battlefield and might specialize.

Anyway I would like to see something else then +1 crit on 19-20 in the tree that enhances the ability to melee and will not be available while swashbuckling. Currently there is no reason at all not to invest 12 AP in the swashbuckler tree to pick up the first 3 cores and Swashbuckling Style I. This would way better than going TWF or THF.

Although it seems clear that even if you add something swashbuckling would always be better (18-20 x3 crit profile + 10% doublestrike is kind of hard to beat), at least some incentive to do something else would be nice.

EDIT:
That said it is far more important that there is a real reason to take T5 in Warchanter compared to Spellsinger and Swashbuckler. Currently I can grab the double strike and movement speed buff from T4 and there is not really any reason to go any further. There is nothing in T5 that gets me exited. The same goes for Core 5 + 6.

[Rull]

I like all the changes. Good job.

The only thing missing, and this is going to sound weird since you just added 2, is more damage to inspire courage. Cmon, make him warchantery.
Add +1/+2/+3 damage to the -very lacking- Inspire Bravery.

The rest of the tree looks much much better this way. But the raise dead and especially the Kingly Recovery don't feel very bardly and especially not warchanter-like.
1000 temporary HP (level * 50) would be much more flavorfull already.

The raise I'd replace with something entirely different. Another action boost. My personal favorite would be "make all action boosts you use an AOE" but that would maybe stimulate multiclassing more than you prefer.