Warchanter Changes

[fangblackhawk]

this all looks nice... but i always wondered why bards get a tree that is ice speced but no other elements or dps type spells.... ice 9 (satriani) was a great song but so was light my fire (the doors) and Fire (jimi hendrix) and the ramones had acid eaters as a album title ozzy had a song called lighting strikes... ok i digress but still bards are the rock stars of D&D and if you have ever been to a rock show you know what a guitar solo is and it "shredds" or "thrashes" all.... and i mean the entire vale of twilight is a Hard rock/metal easter egg.... and well lutes are guitars in their early form..... we can get mohawks.... Please make bards more like the guy in the old cartoon "the silver hawks" and get some shredding riffs in there... you could even go all punny and call it "riffer madness" (ala reefer madness) cuz i mean after all metal music and weed got the same bad wrap as it doesnt really turn people into satan worshiping brazen hussys...

[maddmatt70]

I have a much different take then most of the posters here in that I do not think this is nearly enough. I do not like playing inspire heroics every 60 seconds with its long singing time. That is too frequent - the buff should be at least 120 seconds. I think warchanters should get +2 to inspire courage at each core. No emphasis on healing at all in the tree? Seriously I want to play a buffing/healing bard with limited melee capabilities and the buffs here are not strong enough and there is no healing. How about the Heal spell in the warchanter tree as well? More positive spell power enhancements in warchanter as well. How about combining some of these songs? Do you know how many songs bards have to play? It is silly - they need to combine songs. Combine Inspire Courage, Inspire Recklessness, Inspire Excellence, Inspire Greatness, Ironskin Chant, and Inspire Heroics and make them one song please.

My prediction is nobody plays this tree because swashbuckler is the same melee oriented concept, but better in the other tree.

[maddmatt70]

Death pact or teleport = terrible.
Raise Dead = terrible - I have guildy that refuses to accept raise deads unless there is only one other person standing because that is the quickest way to die again. This cost a song as well which is steep - at a song cost per use true resurrection or is more reasonable.
The end ability only has 3 uses per rest.
---
Let's say instead
-Heal
-True Resurrection which costs a song
-The end ability 5 times per rest.

[Synthetic]

Reckless Chant should grant +6 off hand double strike also.

Did you remove the +2 str and +2 con from the capstone? Even with the improvement so it stacks it could use those always on bonuses.

Death Pact is an interesting SLA not really sure the others would ever be taken since bards have UMD.

Does the change to howl of the north mean it's x2 crit multiplier total now?

Frozen fury being charisma based doesn't seem to match warchanter. How about make it a 10/20/30% chance to freeze the target and northwind could apply that chance on 20/19-20/18-20.

[Fnordian]

So...Kingly Recovery cures just about everything, except... curses and petrification?

[whereispowderedsilve]

I have a much different take then most of the posters here in that I do not think this is nearly enough. I do not like playing inspire heroics every 60 seconds with its long singing time. That is too frequent - the buff should be at least 120 seconds. I think warchanters should get +2 to inspire courage at each core. No emphasis on healing at all in the tree? Seriously I want to play a buffing/healing bard with limited melee capabilities and the buffs here are not strong enough and there is no healing. How about the Heal spell in the warchanter tree as well? More positive spell power enhancements in warchanter as well. How about combining some of these songs? Do you know how many songs bards have to play? It is silly - they need to combine songs. Combine Inspire Courage, Inspire Recklessness, Inspire Excellence, Inspire Greatness, Ironskin Chant, and Inspire Heroics and make them one song please.

My prediction is nobody plays this tree because swashbuckler is the same melee oriented concept, but better in the other tree.

Death pact or teleport = terrible.
Raise Dead = terrible - I have guildy that refuses to accept raise deads unless there is only one other person standing because that is the quickest way to die again. This cost a song as well which is steep - at a song cost per use true resurrection or is more reasonable.
The end ability only has 3 uses per rest.
---
Let's say instead
-Heal
-True Resurrection which costs a song
-The end ability 5 times per rest.

Wow hell has frozen over, I agree with Norg/Maddmatt.

Please add like 10 to 20 more devotion/positive/healing spell power into the WC tree.

Or please explain the reasoning/rationale/design choice/decision not to implement more devotion/positive/healing spell power into the WC tree.

Add a bit more DPS as well. Asking nicely/sincerely/politely it would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance Varg! :P! ! !

You can get up to 45 positive/healing spell power but it costs a lot of AP & forces you into taking specific tier 2/3/4 abilities/enhancements.

Perhaps a multiselector or some greater diversity?

P.S. I am specifically thinking of the old Bard enhancements & the Bard Song Magic ones: http://ddowiki.com/page/Bard_enhancements up to 80 positive spell power for *all* bards!

[Synthetic]

It is silly - they need to combine songs. Combine Inspire Courage, Inspire Recklessness, Inspire Excellence, Inspire Greatness, Ironskin Chant, and Inspire Heroics and make them one song please.

This is a very good point. When I play my songs at the start of a quest and people wait I start to get bored. If they run ahead I usually end up singing more then I need too to make sure people have all the buffs.

If you could make the additional songs a toggle so when you sing inspire courage it sings the songs that are toggled at the same time - with a reduction in total songs for each toggle - that would be really great.

I'd also suggest moving sustainining song from spellsinger to warchanter, and fix it so it's AOE again. Warchanter needs it more.

[maddong]

I really like it. I also agree with the raise dead and devotion comments.

Also, how about having each chant come with an optional vocal toggle. Each of the chants has a distinct mumbled indistinct chant that plays as a sound loop to the people within the radius. If you want you can pick one of them to be active so people hear it when you are near. Too annoying? Maybe.

[FlaviusMaximus]

What I like:

Skaldic Constitution. Skaldic rage has been needing a constitution element to make it like the other rages. +2 or +4 would be preferable, but +1 is still an improvement.

The addition of +1 damage per core ability is great. This helps get the Bard group weapon buffs closer to being relevant.

Making the doublestrike song stack with other forms of doublestrike/shot is a strong move.

The additional ability adding to group movement speed is good.

Removing the cold spell prerequisites is a very good move.

Frozen Cleave can be a good ability if it doesn't require a save unlike Frozen Fury.


Suggestions:

Many of the abilities center around Frozen Fury. As it stands, even on a very high charisma Bard the ability will not work on enemies that are worth their salt, meaning that Frozen Fury and a couple other abilities might end up losing their usefulness in higher level, higher difficulty content. I would suggest finding ways to up the DC for Frozen Fury significantly and increase the cooldown. Adding in stun bonuses from gear/enhancements could be a start.

It would be great to see an enhancement option for +1,2,3 damage for Inspire Courage in the tree itself. It would make sense sitting over Inspire Bravery with Inspire Bravery as a prereq, though putting it a little higher up in the tree to reward deeper investment (at least tier 3) might make sense.

For the Raise Dead and Teleport options, Bards can rely on scrolls for spells like those so I don't think those abilities would be useful past the early levels.

Instead of Warchanters getting their own crit multipliers increased by +1 on 19s and 20s, why not make it a song that affects the whole party? Warchanters are going to need something (or a couple somethings) very strong to justify going tier 5 in them. This would be a strong incentive.

[moo_cow]

The capstone IMO doesn't make any sense. Why is +6 damage comparable to the easy 15+ strength you can get from a cleric splash and the feats or extra dps you can get from splashing fighter or barb. The prr isn't enticing enough compared to the damage you get.

[nayozz]

I bet you guys can figure out how to make your CON even, even with this (and other Enhancement sources of CON in general). +1 CON, passively, is one of the strongest first core ability, so we're not likely to up this.

i have a suggestion: why dont you put another multislector choice, between song of heroism and another +1 passive con:

10 AP, class level 6: Inspire Courage grants an additional +1 damage.

MULTISELECTOR:
A) Song of Heroism: Expend a use of Bardic Music to give the effects of the Greater Heroism spell to all nearby allies for 1 minute plus 6 seconds per Caster level. As a non-magical effect, this song cannot be removed by dispel magic or antimagic.

B) +1 passive CON

---------------------------------------------------
this way a warchanter can get 2 songs, and +0con
can get 1 song and +1 con
can get 0 song and +2 con


what do you think about this ? (it seems a very cool change in my opinion :P)

[DrakeFury]

I thought Devs said Warchanter will be more healing and buffing oriented, and Spellsinger more CC, so with changes to SS tree i can see that direction (better CC, better SLA for damage and CC), but i fail to see healing part of proposed WC changes. As someone mentioned few posts before, Swashbuckler looks better as far as combat goes.

Wouldn't it be better if WC got the Heal spell and not SS?

[FlaviusMaximus]

[*]When you Inspire Heroics, for 60 seconds both you and the targeted ally gain +5 Music bonus to Attack, +5 Music bonus to Damage, +20 Music bonus to Physical Resistance and +20 Music bonus to resist Acid, Cold, Electric, and Fire damage

Would an Epic Elyd Edge allow the whole party to get the extra damage, PRR, and resistances?

[Ausdoerrt]

I like the idea of buff auras (please make sure they affect the bard as well) and changing toggles to always-on ability (why is Victory Song a toggle in the first place??). For the auras, I hope they have better range than "hug my butt" paladin auras.

Please consider changing things like Frozen Fury and Frozen cleave to multi-selectors with a ranged attack alternative. Ranged attack may be weaker than melee, if that's a concern.

Otherwise, looks pretty good. I'm holding off on my bard(cher) life until these hit live

[CoasterHops]

Agree with many of the others, the T5s from this tree don't look enticing enough to compete with Swash or those proposed in the new SS tree.

The capstone also feels weak to me in comparison to the Swash and SS.

Some suggestions for possible additives to the Capstone: (note I don't mean all of this stuff just some suggestions)

-Autogrant of the Toughness feat, opens up Epic Toughness without having to waste a feat remembering that splashing 2 fighter needs to be challenged from a melee perspective. Note I also believe pure barbs should get this autogranted.
-Some type of Ameliorating Strike similar to the warpriest tree, cause attacking and healing at the same time just seems to fit the warchanter build to me.
-Autogarnt of the Stunning Blow feat with the additive of 1/3 of your Cha bonus to Tactical DC, similar to PDK, but doesn't require Cha to be higher than Str. Stacks with PDK bonus! Would require a lesser but that's one of those costs....
-Melody guard similar to Dragontouched armor, this could even be put into the tree say at Tier 4 or 5.
-Devoted attacks, everytime you damage an enemy with melee gain 10 pos. spell power this can stack up to six times, when u take damage the stack has a duration of 10 seconds then resets to zero, note this could be put in with the ameliorating strike type of ability.

Just some suggestions.

At the end of the day we want capstones to entice staying pure or at least make players make choices, it's a no brainer at present that not being pure is the way to go on a melee bard, fighter + rogue just offers so much. I am an advocate of multiclassing and designing cool builds, but the devs should at least make the choices difficult.

[Eth]

I have a much different take then most of the posters here in that I do not think this is nearly enough. I do not like playing inspire heroics every 60 seconds with its long singing time. That is too frequent - the buff should be at least 120 seconds. I think warchanters should get +2 to inspire courage at each core. No emphasis on healing at all in the tree? Seriously I want to play a buffing/healing bard with limited melee capabilities and the buffs here are not strong enough and there is no healing. How about the Heal spell in the warchanter tree as well? More positive spell power enhancements in warchanter as well. How about combining some of these songs? Do you know how many songs bards have to play? It is silly - they need to combine songs. Combine Inspire Courage, Inspire Recklessness, Inspire Excellence, Inspire Greatness, Ironskin Chant, and Inspire Heroics and make them one song please.

My prediction is nobody plays this tree because swashbuckler is the same melee oriented concept, but better in the other tree.

I agree with all of this.

[thunir]

I agree with all of this.

Right, The thing is with +1 to Dmg on the core enhancements the other bard trees are going to be able to cherry pick what they want from this tree, and be at 80% on party support buffs. So, with the Warchanter having no real Melee capability, and no stand out support enhancements, no one will play it.

Developers gave Spellsinger the ability to regenerate SP, you need something of equal value, or it wont be worth my time.

You could just put the weapon enhancements in the core, and put +2/4/6 to Dmg on the Inspire as a tier 5 ability.

[Eth]

Right, The thing is with +1 to Dmg on the core enhancements the other bard trees are going to be able to cherry pick what they want from this tree, and be at 80% on party support buffs. So, with the Warchanter having no real Melee capability, and no stand out support enhancements, no one will play it.

Core abilities require you to spend 1, 5, 10, 20, 30, 40 AP in the tree.
I can see spending 6 or even 11 points as 'cherry picking', but still far away from 80%.
More than that your build already is kind of a warchanter, otherwise you simply run our of AP.

Compared to the other trees cores warchanter is simply lackluster IMO.

Considering the reworked trees as a whole, I can't see anyone going for warchanter as main tree.
Swashbuckler for own DPS.
Spellsinger for caster DCs.
That's why I agree with maddmatt there. It needs more.
Since it's supposed to be the party buff tree, better songs, yes please.

[mezzorco]

In general, I really like where this is going. I expecially love the fact that some songs will become always-on chants, it's like my person inspires others simply by standing around.

Things I don't give a feedback, either I like them very much or I can't be of any help.

• 1 AP, class level 1: Multiselector:
  
  • Skaldic Rage: Expend a Song to fly into a heroic Rage, granting you a +4 Rage bonus to Strength and -4 penalty to AC. When Skaldic Rage ends, you become fatigued. Rage Duration: 180 seconds. Duration increases with effects that increase Song durations. Skaldic Rage doesn’t stack with Barbarian Rage.
  • Skaldic Constitution: +1 Constitution (passive)
    

Ok. I think the CON choice is mainly for spellsingers and swashbucklers wanting to dip into WC, and I like it.
What I don't understand is skaldic non stacking with barb rage, while later in the tree boast gives +1 barb rage. Do you want WC to synergize with barbarian or not? You should make a choice and go for it, because boast and skaldic rage are in contraddiction.

• 30 AP, class level 18: Victory Song: Toggle: You have full Base Attack Bonus.
  Inspire Courage grants an additional +1 damage.
  
  
  • Stretch goal: Make this a simple permanent, non-toggle ability.

This would be good, really. The problem is, bard 15 grants access to Inspire Excellence and bard 16 gives you 6th level spells. Many bards tend to go for 16 levels, then multiclass.
Level 18 core should encourage staying pure, and to me +5hit +1dmg just doesn't seem enough.

• 41 AP, class level 20: Warmaster:
  
  • +10 HP. Inspire Courage grants an additional +1 damage.
  • When you Inspire Heroics, for 12 seconds both you and the targeted ally gain +5 Competence bonus to Attack, +5 Competence bonus to Damage, +25 Competence bonus to Physical Resistance and +50 Competence bonus to resist Acid, Cold, Electric, and Fire damage.
  • NEW:
    
    • +10 HP. Inspire Courage grants an additional +1 damage.
    • When you Inspire Heroics, for 60 seconds both you and the targeted ally gain +5 Music bonus to Attack, +5 Music bonus to Damage, +20 Music bonus to Physical Resistance and +20 Music bonus to resist Acid, Cold, Electric, and Fire damage
    • 60 second cooldown

Here, too. Very few WC will go pure. This addition is good, obviously, but it lacks something. Maybe you could bring back +2 STR and CON.
Take into account that a pure bard doesn't have access to power surge, divine might and the like, so it would be far from overpowered.

• Boast: (Song) Gain 10/20/30 temporary HP for 120 seconds. While you have these temporary HP you generate 50% extra threat and gain +1[W] weapon damage. 3rd rank: +1 Barbarian Rage use (if you have it).
  
  • New: Increase Temp HP, remove other aspects (leave +Rage use)
  • DPS is coming from other sources.

So it will only give you temp hp? I'm wondering if it's worth playing a song just for a bit of hp.
Maybe it could be 5% healing amp instead? (possibly move it to higher tiers)

• Words of Encouragement: When you Inspire Courage, allies gain +10/20/30 temporary HP for one minute. +5/10/15 Positive Spellpower
  
  • Remove pre-req from Boast

Like Boast, it would be unbalanced until level 5, balanced until level 10, worthless from 10 to 28. If anyone is going to pick it, it's just for positive spellpower.
Maybe, instead of +temp hp to allies, it could give music bonus to AC (if you're willing to fix it), in order to keep the bolstering feeling with a better scaling in higher levels.

• Iced Edges: While Gathering Cold in a Skaldic Rage, when you score a critical hit you gain Breath of Frost. This can trigger up to once every 12/9/6 seconds. \\n\\nBreath of Frost: Your attacks deal +1d6 cold damage for three seconds.
  
  • NEW: Toggle: Your melee and ranged attacks deal 1d3/1d4/1d6 extra Cold Damage.
  • Comparable to Arcane Archer stances (but both Ranged and Melee).

Very good. Remember to make it scale with cold spellpower.

• Frozen Fury: Make a melee attack with +0.5/1/1.5[w] damage. Affected enemies must make a Fortitude save (10/12/14 + Charisma modifier + 1/2 Bard level) or become frozen solid for several seconds.

I know you're trying to improve this, but it's unlikely to be effective unless you replace that CHA mod. Many players suggested STR or Perform. This is hard to balance, a cleric splash could be broken if it were STR, but CHA is definitely not a WC thing.
Think about dwarves and horcs, they're both perfect candidates to become warchanters, now look at their CHA.

• NEW: Frozen Cleave: 360 degree cleave that freezes everyone you hit (per Frozen Fury), +2/4/6[W]
  
  • Longish cooldown.

Very good ability, provided you somehow tweak frozen fury DC. It would be nice if it hits with both weapons while TWFighting.

• NEW: Kingly Recovery: Target ally or self heals 10,000 HP. Removes ability score damage, death penalty effects, negative levels, and the conditions blinded, dazed, deafened, diseased, exhausted, fatigued, feebleminded, insanity, nauseated, poisoned, and stunned. 3 uses per rest.

Why don't you give it a 5 minutes cooldown? Cleric version is tier 3, no fixed uses per rest and a 5 minutes cooldown. This is a tier 5, it should be comparable with cleric version, if not stronger.

[RD2play]

What I like:

Skaldic Constitution. Skaldic rage has been needing a constitution element to make it like the other rages. +2 or +4 would be preferable, but +1 is still an improvement.

Sorry but I disagree with you here, I think its good to leave con out here, to me Con is a Barbarian trait so I like the song rage and the barb rage to be different. I would prefer to see the song give A "+2rage bonus and a +2 music bonus to str" for a +4 total but also a +2 str on top of barbarian rage. So it will be useful for Bardbarian builds especially since its the first core.