The Official Warchanter Lamannia Feedback Thread

[Seikojin]

I think the frozen edge enhancement can be 1d3/4/6, but should get boosted by spellpower (much like the sonic swash can) and fits with the bard applying spellpower buffs to their attacks.

The speed boosts for running do nothing to make bards faster than any other combination out there. Bard using warchanter and swash speed as well as sprint boost was as fast as propulsion boots and wings combined. Both can make a market dash from the guild airship tower to the gate for the harbor in 13 seconds.

I do agree that the tacticals for bard should have their dc's boostable by tactical dc boosters. I know the concept is their dc's will be high out of the gate, so I can understand the exclusion at the moment. I will get some runs with average dc's and see what it does for epic content and heroic (no destinies and level 8-20 quests).

I also think the cleave should count as a cleave for legendary dreadnaught purposes.

[Kielbasa]

I think the frozen edge enhancement can be 1d3/4/6, but should get boosted by spellpower (much like the sonic swash can) and fits with the bard applying spellpower buffs to their attacks.

This. Also thematically the last tier should grant stacks of lethargy on critical hits. I would also love to see armorer grant stacks of lethargy or something ice related when an enemy hits you.

[Rull]

Aaargh, sorry, I retract every statement about liking these changes and take back any praise given.

Loading Spinning Ice up with 3 prereq enhancements, 2 of them costing 6 AP each...

Enhancements should be about choice, a way to specialize the character in the way you personally like him, to diversify him for other players

I'm all for slightly awkward restraints. I'm all for tradeoffs.
This is not an "interesting restraint". It's not a serious "tradeoff". For example, 15 AP for a 4W cleave is what you spend if the rest sucks so bad you don't want that either. and you feel dirty afterwards."


Only do the 1/2/3 thing if it's meaningful. It must be realistic that someone spends one or two points, but not three.

3 PRR / 5 PRR / 6 PRR. Now that's meaningful. Someone wants only 3 cheap PRR for a bargain. Someone people want to focus on it and invests more.
2 PPR / 4 PRR / 6 PRR is not.

Only do the 2->2 thing if the second ability is too good for 2 AP, but the package for 4 AP is balanced. So, as an interesting gimmick, you give the option of taking just the (weaker) first ability for 2 AP, for if someone might want that to fill out his points.
Never put conditional abilities in the first tier, use this only with small benefits everyone enjoys. The second ability can be build-specific.
Also never put an ability in the second tier that makes the first ability obsolete. You may say 'upgrade', but people just feel cheated out of their point when they have to spend it to get something the first ability that they really don't want but still have to take.

Only do 2/4/6 only with single abilities where the 3/5/6 rule applies. Here is were the 3/5/6 mechanic shines and people can seriously consider putting in 0, 1, 2 or 3 tiers. Putting some ability behind it like "2/4/6->1/2/3" kills that interesting choice.

I'd say never do 1/2/3->1/2/3 in general, it's clunky. And certainly not 1/2/3->1/2/3->1/2/3.

But in a monstrous cluster**** you managed to do 1/2/3->2/4/6->2/4/6->1/2/3 with very conditional abilities in a tree that people feel is already too AP constraining.

[Vargouille]

Some changes we're working on:

• To clarify & update, the AP cost of the following enhancements become 1 per rank: Iced Edges, Frozen Fury, Spinning Ice, Chant of Power
• Increase PRR from Warmaster to +15 (still a Music Bonus).
• Frozen Fury and Spinning Ice Difficulty checks adjusted to be generally of the form: "Attack enemies around you with a weapon for +2(W) damage. Each enemy is frozen solid if they fail a Fortitude save (14 + Charisma modifier + 1/2 Bard Level + Stunning modifiers), for a number of seconds equal to your half your Bard level. Bosses cannot be frozen." Increased ranks increases how much Bard levels contribute.
• Expeditious Chant and Rallying Cry become Tier 5.
• Northwinds gains increased cooldown and no saving throw.
• Expeditious Retreat becomes Tier 5. (We want the commitment to Tier 5 here to be greatly rewarded. In the past we've probably erred too much on the side of front-loading desirable abilities.)
• Updated text on Song of Heroism to reflect that it gives +1 damage bonus to Inspire Courage.

[Scrabbler]

Frozen Fury and Spinning Ice Difficulty checks adjusted to be generally of the form: "Attack enemies around you with a weapon for +2(W) damage. Each enemy is frozen solid if they fail a Fortitude save (14 + Charisma modifier + 1/2 Bard Level + Stunning modifiers), for a number of seconds equal to your half your Bard level. Bosses cannot be frozen." Increased ranks increases how much Bard levels contribute.

1. Stunning items, huh. Well that's more powerful than other kinds of items would've been, because it directly synergizes with the Stunning Blow feat you might also be using to CC the mobs.
2. Bard levels don't fully contribute to DC unless you put all 3 ranks into the enhancement huh. So the practical result is that low-level characters can save a few AP on Frozen Fury, and only need the full investment once their Bard level is high.

Expeditious Chant and Rallying Cry become Tier 5.

Well, you've resolved the situation where over 95% of Bards would try to build in Expeditious Chant. Not only does that lock it out for Swash and Spellsing, but having it in t5 makes the AP cost more painful. The AP spent on Expeditious Chant are no longer helping you climb the tree for t5 access.

This means there is a slim reason for someone to take Rallying Cry instead of the stronger alternative: he simply ran out of AP.

[G_Lich]

Some changes we're working on:

• To clarify & update, the AP cost of the following enhancements become 1 per rank: Iced Edges, Frozen Fury, Spinning Ice, Chant of Power
• Increase PRR from Warmaster to +15 (still a Music Bonus).
• Frozen Fury and Spinning Ice Difficulty checks adjusted to be generally of the form: "Attack enemies around you with a weapon for +2(W) damage. Each enemy is frozen solid if they fail a Fortitude save (14 + Charisma modifier + 1/2 Bard Level + Stunning modifiers), for a number of seconds equal to your half your Bard level. Bosses cannot be frozen." Increased ranks increases how much Bard levels contribute.
• Expeditious Chant and Rallying Cry become Tier 5.
• Northwinds gains increased cooldown and no saving throw.
• Expeditious Retreat becomes Tier 5. (We want the commitment to Tier 5 here to be greatly rewarded. In the past we've probably erred too much on the side of front-loading desirable abilities.)
• Updated text on Song of Heroism to reflect that it gives +1 damage bonus to Inspire Courage.

These all seem fair, thank you for the constant feedback and listening to players, you're not going to please everyone all the time but man these are looking both A. good and B. balanced.

The stunning modifiers look pretty win. Definitely something worth looking into... Now i'm seriously reconsidering my 16/2/2 bard split currently and am on the fence to either take him to max dps/defense mode with fighter, or go pure bard for future proofing if i want to play w/ the other stuff some times.

Freezing stuff reliably would be fun. Before the DC's didn't look doable, but with stunning, I think it could make a huge difference. It will visually change the battlefield, which is always interesting to see.

Thank you for keeping it fresh.

[hcarr]

I was really weary of the changes and they were better than I thought they would be. I have not messed around with the frozen line yet.

I really like the always on chant. saves me from singing 2 songs even if they were mostly for my own personal use anyway because the group was already gone by time I got to them.


Wish list for tree

Can we get maybe +2 to damage at cap or put it with the crit multiplier on tier 5 or something like that to increase the difference between damage from the other 2 bard pres.
Please give a 20% boost to song duration.
As I was running around I wanted to make Warmaster an always on chant and add +4 dodge to it. (This would most likely only happen if it only worked on the bard character; but I could live with that.)

[Systern]

Some changes we're working on:

• To clarify & update, the AP cost of the following enhancements become 1 per rank: Iced Edges, Frozen Fury, Spinning Ice, Chant of Power
• Increase PRR from Warmaster to +15 (still a Music Bonus).
• Frozen Fury and Spinning Ice Difficulty checks adjusted to be generally of the form: "Attack enemies around you with a weapon for +2(W) damage. Each enemy is frozen solid if they fail a Fortitude save (14 + Charisma modifier + 1/2 Bard Level + Stunning modifiers), for a number of seconds equal to your half your Bard level. Bosses cannot be frozen." Increased ranks increases how much Bard levels contribute.
• Expeditious Chant and Rallying Cry become Tier 5.
• Northwinds gains increased cooldown and no saving throw.
• Expeditious Retreat becomes Tier 5. (We want the commitment to Tier 5 here to be greatly rewarded. In the past we've probably erred too much on the side of front-loading desirable abilities.)
• Updated text on Song of Heroism to reflect that it gives +1 damage bonus to Inspire Courage.

Bummer about Expeditious chant becoming Tier 5. I rather liked it on my swashbuckler build.
Arcane Shield Chant's cost seems high. 6 AP for 6 resists seems like the benefit:cost ratio is low. 6% Absorb? Better... 6 Resist.. Meh.



Are there any efforts going to base song duration of the core class songs?
Song of Heroism, level 6 Warchanter core 3 has a base duration of 15 minutes.
Epic Arcanes press a button, go through a .5 second animation, and get 20-25 minute buffs.
Epic Divines press a button, go through a .5 second animation, and get 20-25 minute buffs.
Epic Bards put AP into increasing song duration, use an Epic Feat on Lasting Inspiration, go through a 6 second animation + 1 sec global cooldown and get an 8:10 Inspire Courage, Inspire Excellence, Inspire Greatness, and Inspire Heroics. Very uninspiring for the opportunity cost.

All Bard Capstones should get +200% song duration. Reward the pure bards. Stop making them work to be 1/3rd as good as other buffers.


On Lammania, I TR'd my bard into a test build. I put all 80 AP into the bard trees, because some are compulsory (like song duration in Spellsinger), and absolutely could not put anything into the Racial trees. On the plus side, there's enough meat there now to actually spend 80 points across all class tree. On the negative, there's way too many 2AP multi rank things so that the racial tree is ignored. Currently, she's at 41/32/7 points across all the trees. Points-in-tree requirements mean that she can't get what she wants in the racial/secondary tree. After the cost reductions, and T5 moves, she could drop to 41/23/7 + 9... but those 9 points can't meet milestones.


Northwind should have a save or a cooldown, not both. +cha modifier is already going to be lower on warchanters (as pointed out frequently). Is the effect "Triggering" the cool down when they make the easy save, or when they get frozen?

[bbqzor]

Some changes we're working on:
To clarify & update, the AP cost of the following enhancements become 1 per rank: Iced Edges, Frozen Fury, Spinning Ice, Chant of Power

Good, this was sorely needed.

Increase PRR from Warmaster to +15 (still a Music Bonus).

Good, this helps take some pressure off "required" enhancements for the warchanter itself to melee, and helps it do so better.

Frozen Fury and Spinning Ice Difficulty checks adjusted to be generally of the form: "Attack enemies around you with a weapon for +2(W) damage. Each enemy is frozen solid if they fail a Fortitude save (14 + Charisma modifier + 1/2 Bard Level + Stunning modifiers), for a number of seconds equal to your half your Bard level. Bosses cannot be frozen." Increased ranks increases how much Bard levels contribute.

Ugh. I hate the idea of trying to fit tactics items/twists/etc onto a class already trying to do 50 things at once with gear (tank enough to live in melee, land cc spells/effects, cast meaningful heals, have enough mana/songs to sustain buffing, etc). They get no mileage out of it except this one ability, it puts undue strain on itemization. It also makes it cost MORE AP for pure bards, who before could just drop 1 point in all the way up and try to ride things out on EH. I can appreciate, and agree, that some kind of adjustments may be desirable for how this DC works, but this is one I just dont agree with, at all. Its too hard to support for a bard-centric warchanter, and the abilities are high enough up the tree that I dont think tactics centric characters are really going to be adding bard to use them. It will potentially leave them out in the cold for everyone. I will reserve judgement until actually testing this new change, if you are set on it, but I cannot see this playing out well in any fashion, unless the rest of the tree gets much cheaper somehow so its not a HUGE opportunity cost for bards to sing 12 AP PLUS a stun item, and possibly twists, into trying to make this function.

Expeditious Chant and Rallying Cry become Tier 5.
Expeditious Retreat becomes Tier 5. (We want the commitment to Tier 5 here to be greatly rewarded. In the past we've probably erred too much on the side of front-loading desirable abilities.)

Another ugh. Saying "we were too generous with the other 45-ish trees so we are being conservative now" doesnt really work unless youre planning on adjusting the other trees the same way (which, it should be noted, is also something I do not agree with at large). I dont think moving it to T5 is, on its own, unduly terrible... but the reasoning here is pitiful. It has nothing to do with balance within the PRE or comparable costs at the varying tiers. It just backstacks more points to the top, in an already expensive tree, and forces people to buy other things which are not nearly as "good a buy". T5 will now cost something like what 11-12 AP? Thats pretty steep for that far up the tree, and makes it very difficult to keep AP costs down. Do you have any other plans to shuffle the tree around a bit to help mitigate this issue? Or are warchanters just going to be stuck with needing 50+ AP in their tree (related, other things are too expensive also, as previously mentioned).

Northwinds gains increased cooldown and no saving throw.

Im not one to turn down a no-save cc ability... but is that a good idea? I dont want to see this go live, have people build around it and get used to it, then see it nerfed because it wasnt thought through. A high dc save with a lesser cooldown seems more appealing to me... but if you devs are confidant this is not OP, and the cd is not so long it becomes pointless (anything over 20s lands in that boat, btw... and it should be more like 12s or 15s to keep pace with other comparable things) then so be it.

Updated text on Song of Heroism to reflect that it gives +1 damage bonus to Inspire Courage.

Have you VERIFIED it provides actual fear IMMUNITY now? Previously I have witnessed people getting feared with the song version on, rather than the spell version. And check that the fear immunity portion is not cut-paste from the spell, where it fades off fighting a beholder or something where the player receives no combat log feedback or icon changes because the buff is still up, but a portion of the effect is gone? Similar to how the shield spell, for awhile, was losing magic missile immunity after 1 min despite the icon and AC portions lasting 5 minutes? Can we get an official word on that please? It would be nice to, with confidence, finally swap the spell out for a unique song.

Nice to see some of this (AP cost changes, openness to move tree around a bit) but not nice on some other things (nerfing the ice abilities and T5 costs, imho). Can you consider adjusting Skaldic Rage's AC to not be so punitive (as mentioned in my other post, -2 AC is appropriate, -4 is being punitive, especially so at level 1 when all other rage effects are only -2 until epic's primal scream). I hope other AP costs are further evaluated to get this tree cheaper somehow. And that Kingly Recovery may see some passive regen, such as 1 every 5 or 10 minutes (mimicing the Unyielding Soverignty timer it takes its effects from but allowing bards who had to sink T5 and AP into it a higher burst capacity). Anyhow ty for the updates at least, its nice its not forgotten... I just hope the next round is more appealing.

[Dilbon]

Looks like my pure 20 dwarf warchanter is going to wield Giant's Fist.

[FlaviusMaximus]

Well, you've resolved the situation where over 95% of Bards would try to build in Expeditious Chant. Not only does that lock it out for Swash and Spellsing, but having it in t5 makes the AP cost more painful. The AP spent on Expeditious Chant are no longer helping you climb the tree for t5 access.

This is a fair point. I understand the fear of frontloading powerful abilities, but if everything really good ends up on tier 5 and everything on tier 5 costs 2AP per rank because of how good it is, one ends up plugging a whole lot of AP into that one tree since they have to spend 30AP just to get to where all the big money abilities start.

Expeditious Chant makes sense on tier 5 though. Perhaps AP costs on the 5th tier could be adjusted slightly.

[Scrabbler]

Nice to see some of this (AP cost changes, openness to move tree around a bit) but not nice on some other things (nerfing the ice abilities and T5 costs, imho).

What ice ability nerf? All I saw posted was some pretty big buff...

[btolson]

Some changes we're working on:

• To clarify & update, the AP cost of the following enhancements become 1 per rank: Iced Edges, Frozen Fury, Spinning Ice, Chant of Power

Iced Edges and Spinning Ice are already 1 AP per rank... did you mean some other enhancements, or just weren't sure what the current build included?

Some changes we're working on:

• Expeditious Chant and Rallying Cry become Tier 5.
• Expeditious Retreat becomes Tier 5. (We want the commitment to Tier 5 here to be greatly rewarded. In the past we've probably erred too much on the side of front-loading desirable abilities.)

Do these mean the same thing or am I missing something?

[Dilbon]

This is a fair point. I understand the fear of frontloading powerful abilities, but if everything really good ends up on tier 5 and everything on tier 5 costs 2AP per rank because of how good it is, one ends up plugging a whole lot of AP into that one tree since they have to spend 30AP just to get to where all the big money abilities start.

Isn't that kinda the point? If you want lots of good stuff on one tree, you get scraps on the others.

[maddmatt70]

Some changes we're working on:

[*]Expeditious Chant and Rallying Cry become Tier 5.

maybe you should move one of the tier 5 enhancements down to tier 4. Seems like too much stuff in tier 5 now. I have really mixed feelings on this change. I do not know how powerful this is in practice and the implications of this.

[*]Northwinds gains increased cooldown and no saving throw.

This is fine as long as it is not more then 20 seconds.

[*]Expeditious Retreat becomes Tier 5. (We want the commitment to Tier 5 here to be greatly rewarded. In the past we've probably erred too much on the side of front-loading desirable abilities.)[/LIST]

[IronClan]

• Expeditious Chant and Rallying Cry become Tier 5.

So now you have a T2 Action boost pretending to be a T5? Seems legit...

[Scrabbler]

So now you have a T2 Action boost pretending to be a T5? Seems legit...

An AOE version of an action boost has enough power for T5... but not enough to be on a multiselector directly competing with an AOE action boost that automatically triggers every 10 seconds forever.

[Scrabbler]

It will be pretty common for a Warchanter build to have 4+ Chant enhancements (Ironskin, Reckless, Power, Expeditious, and maybe Arcane Shield). If possible, please find a way to combine those into a single "Warchant Combo" icon, so that everyone's buff bar isn't pushed over another 5 spaces.

On a related note, and as a possibly easier request... it would be nice if players who are permanently emitting an aura don't have to see that aura icon on their own screen. If I know I'm a Paladin, then seeing Aura of Courage up there isn't providing any info...

[Silverleafeon]

maybe you should move one of the tier 5 enhancements down to tier 4

Kingly Recovery ?

If they are keeping it, sounds like a bit of a shakedown going on in tier 5.

[Cetus]

Some changes we're working on:

• Frozen Fury and Spinning Ice Difficulty checks adjusted to be generally of the form: "Attack enemies around you with a weapon for +2(W) damage. Each enemy is frozen solid if they fail a Fortitude save (14 + Charisma modifier + 1/2 Bard Level + Stunning modifiers), for a number of seconds equal to your half your Bard level. Bosses cannot be frozen." Increased ranks increases how much Bard levels contribute.
  

How the HELL do bards gain access to a mass stunning blow effect before FIGHTERS do??????????

This is ridiculous