Early Look: Bard Changes

[Aelonwy]

The question about number of songs was never addressed. Have there been any changes to the number of songs bards get or can possibly acquire?

Were there any changes to Fascinate? Either in timing, length of animation, duration or range?

[Lynnabel]

The question about number of songs was never addressed. Have there been any changes to the number of songs bards get or can possibly acquire?

Were there any changes to Fascinate? Either in timing, length of animation, duration or range?

No, no, and no, no no.

To keep this in scope we're just going to address buff songs. There will be a time in which we look at CC, but this is not that time.

[Aelonwy]

Thank you.

[IlmerSilverhilt]

I was watching the livestream and Lynnabel said she needed ideas for Elyd Edges Inspiring Echoes.

My concern with these changes is the aura and splitting of parties, so here is my idea: Expend a song (might have to be a clickie on the weapon), to cast a shadowy image of yourself that follows the targeted player around and has its own aura. Make the benefits half of the real bard maybe so ppl wont have a bard bot to cast it on themselves to substitute for the real thing 8) Basically like a dryad who follows you around and does the same thing. Make it look like the bard casting it with the translucent green used on trash in Killing Time...

Just the first idea that popped into my mind. A visual buffing echo.

[Lynnabel]

I was watching the livestream and Lynnabel said she needed ideas for Elyd Edges Inspiring Echoes.

My concern with these changes is the aura and splitting of parties, so here is my idea: Expend a song (might have to be a clickie on the weapon), to cast a shadowy image of yourself that follows the targeted player around and has its own aura. Make the benefits half of the real bard maybe so ppl wont have a bard bot to cast it on themselves to substitute for the real thing 8) Basically like a dryad who follows you around and does the same thing. Make it look like the bard casting it with the translucent green used on trash in Killing Time...

Just the first idea that popped into my mind. A visual buffing echo.

This is a rad idea but completely infeasible technically. I like this line of thinking, though. What if holding it made your Aria linger twice as long?

[Gabrael]

This is a rad idea but completely infeasible technically. I like this line of thinking, though. What if holding it made your Aria linger twice as long?

depends, how long is the aria lingering effect anyway

[Lynnabel]

depends, how long is the aria lingering effect anyway

60 seconds, which is the current duration. I'm not sure if we can actually dynamically change duration this way, though, so don't quote me on this being a sure thing :P

[Salamandar]

Thank you Dev's! Especially Lynnabel for taking our questions. Watched the Live Stream today, your general enthusiasm for the upcoming changes and your concern for the Elyd Edge in particular has given me great hope for the future of my Bard!

Thank you very much for consolidating the songs, it's something I've wanted forever, and thank you again for you quick response to our concerns regarding healing songs, I think the compromise will work out perfectly! Just gives me more incentive to get additional racial enhancement points!

Has there been any mention on the proposed date of said changes? I have perused the thread and if it was mentioned I missed it and apologize.

-Salamandar

[Lynnabel]

Thank you Dev's! Especially Lynnabel for taking our questions. Watched the Live Stream today, your general enthusiasm for the upcoming changes and your concern for the Elyd Edge in particular has given me great hope for the future of my Bard!

Thank you very much for consolidating the songs, it's something I've wanted forever, and thank you again for you quick response to our concerns regarding healing songs, I think the compromise will work out perfectly! Just gives me more incentive to get additional racial enhancement points!

Has there been any mention on the proposed date of said changes? I have perused the thread and if it was mentioned I missed it and apologize.

-Salamandar

Soon^tm

(Probably U41 but that is subject to change, as always We'll have more info as we get closer to release)

[Salamandar]

Soon^tm

(Probably U41 but that is subject to change, as always We'll have more info as we get closer to release)

Potentially U41? Your Awesome! /Fingers crossed!

-Salamandar

[Ralmeth]

60 seconds, which is the current duration. I'm not sure if we can actually dynamically change duration this way, though, so don't quote me on this being a sure thing :P

As you are spending a lot of time updating the mechanics of how songs are played, I would think you would want to stick to something that is easy to modify, as opposed to coming up with an exception to your new mechanics. In addition to an increase in duration, what if Inspiring Echoes provided a chance that a song would be regenerated, after playing a song? That way if you're in a large party, you could stretch your songs further. I'm not sure if this is needed, as I mostly only ever sing Reign and Fascinate.

[Lynnabel]

As you are spending a lot of time updating the mechanics of how songs are played, I would think you would want to stick to something that is easy to modify, as opposed to coming up with an exception to your new mechanics. In addition to an increase in duration, what if Inspiring Echoes provided a chance that a song would be regenerated, after playing a song? That way if you're in a large party, you could stretch your songs further. I'm not sure if this is needed, as I mostly only ever sing Reign and Fascinate.

Oh, duh. What if it changed your Anthem frequency from 5 minutes to 3 minutes?

Great idea, thank you for the inspiration (pun intended) XD

[Valerianus]

what about giving Different Tack bonus to hit and damage instead of the actual damage only? for consistency with (almost) every other class or
tree? yes i know that mech too is giving only int to damage but int to hit is readily available in Harper. no, don't say go pdk, they are ugly. and no don't say bards get a lot of bonus because they sing songs because that's a buff, not an excuse to leave them lacking :P

to hit is never enough in high end game cause bloated mobs stats




also, if the tiefling iconic will be bard, like, an enchanter, it would be a nice moment to remove bonuses from druid past lives, feats, enhancements, i don't know, whatever gives bonuses to charmed mobs along with hires pets summons. NO bonuses to charmed mobs please.

[Silverleafeon]

Concerning buffing raid party members, I have found that it is wasteful to single buff a party member with only one spell due to cooldown restrictions.
Generally, when I buff a party member I choose 2-3 most useful spells and go down the list to cast thus.
This avoids the typical wait time.

In raids, Bards are often expected to cast greater heroism on every party member at the start of the raid (while waiting for late arrivals).
Adding a song to this cast while Greater Heroism is on cooldown is fairly easy to do.


Definitely looking forward to the longer HP & SP regeneration, and reconsidering Bards are a possible final build.



PS THANKS for updating songs!!!

[guzzlr]

This is a rad idea but completely infeasible technically. I like this line of thinking, though. What if holding it made your Aria linger twice as long?

If this happens then is has to be dedicated to:



You named it, and so it will be.

[Hakushi]

I haven't read everything, but is fascinate getting changed as well, or only the buff songs?
Also, there's actually a buff part that is getting added to Fascinate, maybe this could be moved to either Aria or the Bardic Ispiration leaving Fascinate as a CC only song.

Completely unrelated, when you use Bardic Inspiration it now randomly picks one of the available bardic music sound loops to play, so expect a little bit more musical variety when you're passing out buffs

I like that idea.

[Silverleafeon]

I haven't read everything, but is fascinate getting changed as well, or only the buff songs?
.

No, no, and no, no no.

To keep this in scope we're just going to address buff songs. There will be a time in which we look at CC, but this is not that time.

This seems to be a "we managed some extra time and decided to update via feedback on song buffs EI: too many, take too long, don't stack with non bard stuff, ect…"?

Not an actual Bard pass, but a let us fix something asked for years ago?

[katz]

how do you drag a long time bard player out of semi-retirement from the forums? post about bard changes!

i am intrigued. i think this is a really positive change. i mostly skimmed the responses up til now, but a few comments did stick out to me. i love Love LOVE the idea of consolidating songs and thereby cutting back on number of songs needed to sing. this has been asked for for soooo long! the idea of splitting them into constant songs and triggered songs is an interesting one that i hadn't considered before. and changing everything to a music bonus so we aren't stepping on each other's toes and casting worthless buffs? <3 <3 <3 !!!

to some degree i always get a better feel for how something works when i get a chance to play with it... just reading the "such and such grants +W" and "thus and so grants +%" just don't quite... make enough sense to get excited about... until i can tinker. i dunno. just the way my mind works i guess. once i can actually see the tree and hover over the effects is when it clicks for me. but from what i've read i'm at "cautiously optimistic"

i kinda dislike the change to inspiring echoes, altho i can see why it would have to be changed given the changes being considered. i still don't like it though... simply changing it to "effects the bard also" while nifty, devalues the everlivin heck out of it. like seriously.

things that stood out to me while skimming responses: i like the idea of random songs being played. i like the idea of adding more song clips to the pool. i LOVE the idea of adding a "cha to to-hit".. it'll reduce the whole "you must be a PDK to be a viable bard (especially warchanter)" thing. i LOVE the idea of making iced edges scale with... something ... anything. spell power. melee power. idk.. idc...that 1d6 cold damage is pretty sad at cap, especially in light of how other similar "added elemental damage" abilities in other class trees have been made scaling.

Improved Bardic Music strikes me as kinda "meh". either make it an auto-grant (like monk stances) that you can choose to take if you don't have sufficient bard levels (like monk stances), or give it more punch... (i'd ask for both, but i think actually getting both is unlikely. lol)

my personal thoughts on fascinate/enthrall... i agree with other posters saying that it makes no sense that the boosts to fascinate don't do anything for enthrall. proposed fix? change the way enthrall works. make it so if you have the enthrallment ability, your basic fascinate CHANGES to enthrall. no 2 buttons that do nearly, but not quite, the same thing. any bonuses to fascinate now work on enthrall, because it's now just a boosted fascinate.

all in all, i'm excited to see what this change will bring.

also, yes please on the idea of a lesser heart for those of us who may need to make adjustments pending addition of new feats/abilities/etc

[Sebastrd]

Oh, duh. What if it changed your Anthem frequency from 5 minutes to 3 minutes?

Will Anthem even be desirable? It sounds like songs are going to be something you do at the beginning of a quest or after shrines, but not throughout a quest/raid. At the moment, I can't imagine running out of songs being a thing. Maybe after the CC song pass that might matter, but who can say?

[FestusHood]

This is a rad idea but completely infeasible technically. I like this line of thinking, though. What if holding it made your Aria linger twice as long?

Unfortunately, the Elyd Edge is so dated now that nobody would want to hold it for longer than it takes to sing a song.

I'm no bard specialist, but i do happen to have a pure 20 pdk warchanter right now. I guess i'll throw in my two cents worth.

Right now, i will typically sing three songs regardless of party size: Inspire Courage, Song of heroism, Inspire Excellence. I'm not sure i like the idea of turning these into chant abilities that require being in proximity to the bard to have them working. They are all aoe songs now so not really a big deal to sing them, even multiple times during a quest. My inspire courage and inspire excellence each last about 8 minutes now, but they continue without needing to be near the bard. I would almost rather you would add these into the single target omni song. Giving the heroism song fear immunity would make casting greater heroism on everybody redundant so that would be good.

The warchanter capstone gives +5 attack and damage on top of the inspire courage, but it only lasts for three minutes. I made the elyd edge hoping that this buff would gain the aoe effect inspiring echoes gives to inspire heroics, but it doesn't. As a result i never bother with most of the single target song buffs except for renewing inspire heroics to gain the effect of the wc capstone every three minutes. Many of the things you are adding into the omni song are now warchanter chants, so that will actually result in me having to sing many more songs to buff than i currently do. Meh. You are basically inverting which buffs are chant and which are attached to songs. Characters will now have to remain close to me to receive the inspire courage and excellence buffs, but not the current music bonuses.

I would suggest that you allow the warchanter cores to retain all of the damage bonuses to inspire courage that it currently has, otherwise it seems like an overall nerf to the warchanter's buffing prowess to me.

You might as well just leave boast as is, nobody will use a song just for an aoe bump heal when you could just cast a mass cure spell. It was a nice kicker to sustaining song, but not something somebody is likely to use on it's own. I don't have either boast or sustaining song on my current bard so i don't really care strongly one way or the other.

Will the enhancements that affect song duration still work the same? I suppose with all of those the length of the omni song will be upwards of twenty minutes so at least it will cut down on rebuffing mid quest.

Some people have mentioned adding melee power to the bard trees but i don't like the idea myself. The swashbuckler already has the outrageous crit bonuses and the warchanter gains from his own buffs which make up some for the lack of melee power. It's a fair trade since the idea is that the bard is sacrificing personal power to increase the overall party power. I'm always against homogenizing the character types. The spellsinger does need some bumps to it's sonic nuking abilities for people that choose that route. Maybe change the cores to a multi selector between enchantment dc bonuses or caster levels for sonic spells ala sorc.

That's all i can think of right now.