Early Look: Bard Changes

[Ultramaetche1]

Inspire Courage now grants a Music bonuses to Attack, Damage, saves versus Fear, and Universal Spell Power. These start at a base of +1 Attack, Damage, Saves vs Fear, and 3 Universal Spell Power. (Max values: Damage +8 (4 from Bard levels, 3 from Warchanter, 1 from Fatesinger), Attack +8 (4 from Bard Levels, 3 from Warchanter, 1 from Fatesinger), Saves vs Fear +8 (4 from Bard Levels, 3 from Warchanter, 1 from Fatesinger), Universal Spell Power 30 (4 from Bard Levels, 3 from Warchanter, 3 from Fatesinger - x3 per increment))

Currently Bards can get more than +8 Atk/Dmg does that mean you're are nerfing Inspire Courage?

+1 | +1 : Base [atk + dmg]
+3 | +3 : Bard lvl 8/14/20 [atk + dmg]
+3 | +0 : Inspired Bravery (Warchanter T1) [atk only]
+0 | +5 : Warchanter Cores (lvl 3/6/12/18/20) [dmg only]
+0 | +2 : Fragment of the Song Valor (Fatesinger T5) [dmg only]
+1 | +1 : Echoes of the Ancestors (Fatesinger T4) [ atk OR dmg]

+8 |+12 : Total [atk + dmg]

[Thar]

From the OP:



Inspiring Echoes in its current state is far too volatile to re-introduce. It made making new Bard Songs basically unfeasible. This implementation still saves you songs, but it's much less likely to break the game.

It would be real sad for epic Eldys edge to lose some song buff as that was not an easy item to aquire. If the buff doesn't make sense, could it provide something significant to the bard songs in another way?

Not clear on the fatespinner spell song changes? are they still providing the dc, spell point discount and spell point regen? could this be boosted for epics?

[Lynnabel]

Currently Bards can get more than +8 Atk/Dmg does that mean you're are nerfing Inspire Courage?

+1 | +1 : Base [atk + dmg]
+3 | +3 : Bard lvl 8/14/20 [atk + dmg]
+3 | +0 : Inspired Bravery (Warchanter T1) [atk only]
+0 | +5 : Warchanter Cores (lvl 3/6/12/18/20) [dmg only]
+0 | +2 : Fragment of the Song Valor (Fatesinger T5) [dmg only]
+1 | +1 : Echoes of the Ancestors (Fatesinger T4) [ atk OR dmg]

+8 |+12 : Total [atk + dmg]

Currently, Inspire Courage does not stack with items that increase your Attack/Damage. Furthermore, all of the rest of the base Bard Songs do not stack with most everything else, making them actually pointless to sing. With this new change, all Bard Songs will stack with everything. This is a fairly significant buff.

[WiseFreelancer]

So I recently returned to life as a bard, which has often found itself secondary to my love of favoured souls. I am more genuinely excited about these changes then I thought I would be, and its making me reconsider a lot of the skipped "buff" bits of the class that I'd put to one side because I found them too much hassle.

I have two (minor) questions while we're on the topic:

Hello! We're here today to give you a first look at plans for significant changes to Bard coming up soon! This is pretty early in the process, so things are still subject to change; we'd love to know what you think![COLOR=#ff8c00][B]

These are separate than the always-on songs because of their relative power level, with one exception that I will explain further below. Elyd Edge’s Inspiring Echoes will now cause this single-target Bard Song to always also apply to you as well, regardless of who you have selected, instead of its original effect.

Does this allow the bard to gain the bonuses currently only applied to allies? Most core bard buffs in the single-target list are ally only I believe. Obviously useful to a Spellsinger regardless.

Can we also have more items with this effect now too? I was surprised and slightly sad the new raid item didn't have it.

Chant of Power is now part of the Aria, providing 2/4/6% melee and ranged damage and spell critical chance for all spells.

Can you clarify what 6% melee and ranged damage even means? That has always annoyed me. Is it 6 Melee Power? Or 6% buff on the total after Melee Power? If it is the former, can it say that when its changed? Another offender of this is the 5% damage buff in Primal Avatar that is equally opaque.

[WiseFreelancer]

Currently, Inspire Courage does not stack with items that increase your Attack/Damage.

How did I not know that?!

[Ultramaetche1]

Currently, Inspire Courage does not stack with items that increase your Attack/Damage. Furthermore, all of the rest of the base Bard Songs do not stack with most everything else, making them actually pointless to sing. With this new change, all Bard Songs will stack with everything. This is a fairly significant buff.

It DOES stack! Bard Songs are currently a morale bonus to damage and items like deadly/accuracy are competence bonuses.

[Lynnabel]

Does this allow the bard to gain the bonuses currently only applied to allies? Most core bard buffs in the single-target list are ally only I believe. Obviously useful to a Spellsinger regardless.

Yes, it does

Can we also have more items with this effect now too? I was surprised and slightly sad the new raid item didn't have it.

No promises, but yes, this change makes it 100% less actually dangerous to re-introduce. The timing on this revamp did influence that item, which is unfortunate, but it's now possible to make a lot of fun bard items that weren't feasible technically before. Expect a lot more than just "Sonic, sonic, some more sonic, and some Anthem" in the future for Bard Itemization

Can you clarify what 6% melee and ranged damage even means? That has always annoyed me. Is it 6 Melee Power? Or 6% buff on the total after Melee Power? If it is the former, can it say that when its changed? Another offender of this is the 5% damage buff in Primal Avatar that is equally opaque.

It's actually exactly what it sounds like - 6% melee and ranged damage. It's the same scalar (additive) to Relentless Fury. We discussed changing it to melee/ranged power but that would actually be a pretty significant nerf in certain situations This sort of % modification is rare and super strong, and we want to continue to incentivise people to run Warchanters because they're super rad

[Ultramaetche1]

[Lynnabel]

It DOES stack! Bard Songs are currently a morale bonus to damage and items like deadly/accuracy are competence bonuses.

Bleh, I was thinking of Inspire Greatness. Good catch, sorry about that. Morale doesn't stack with Heroism/Greater Heroism - Music stacks with everything.

[Gratch]

Changes sound good as long as IC doesn't get nerfed.

Any chance the animators want to give two more instrument types for bards to use beyond lute? (Make one of them a pay for premium addition so the animators&musicers&devs make their monies).

[btolson]

It DOES stack! Bard Songs are currently a morale bonus to damage and items like deadly/accuracy are competence bonuses.

100% correct. The only thing it doesn't stack with is Good Hope.

[fivetigers]

Can bards all get a free lesser heart? Ditch lasting inspiration, maybe pick up some of the new options without having to level up all over again?

[GramercyRiff]

The consolidation of songs is fantastic if not obvious.

but wait stop the press...The songs that can only be on allies are also self buff now? That's pretty nice.

Everything being a Music bonus and therefore stacking is also nice.

edit: Warchanter is getting a pretty nice buff. I like this.

Fatesinger still seems terrible to the point that it doesn't really do anything. The 12th level feat also seems pretty bad. A 12th level feat just simply has to do more than what this does. It's also a Bard 12 feat right? Yep, definitely needs to be more powerful.

[Gemini-Dragon357]

Everything looks great! I've always liked playing bard and these changes will make playing the class significantly more enjoyable. That said, there are two things that I never made sense to me in the Warchanter tree.

Reckless Chant: +(2/4/6) Music bonus to universal Spell Power, Doublestrike and Doubleshot
Chant of Power: +(2/4/6)% Music bonus to melee damage, ranged damage, and spell critical chance.

To me it would make more sense for Reckless chant to give: "+(2/4/6) Music bonus to spell critical chance, Doublestrike and Doubleshot." And for the Chant of Power to grant spell power, melee power, range power. And usually you grant 3 spell power for 1 melee/range power so something like "Chant of Power: +(2/4/6) Music bonus to melee power, range power, and (6/12/18) universal spell power" would seem more appropriate.

At the very least the description for Chant of Power needs to be cleaned up. "2/4/6% melee and ranged damage" I assume that means 2/4/6 melee/range power, however it is not entirely clear if that's correct.

[Lynnabel]

At the very least the description for Chant of Power needs to be cleaned up. "2/4/6% melee and ranged damage" I assume that means 2/4/6 melee/range power, however it is not entirely clear if that's correct.

It's actually exactly what it says on the label - and significantly better than melee/ranged power at higher levels We discussed changing it to melee/ranged power but it'd actually shake out to be a pretty significant nerf.

[DrawingGuy]

I do like this direction. Outside of Inspire Excellence or a Spellsinger while I'm on a caster, the game was at a point I could literally care less about bard song buffs as most of what they did was already taken care of by gear and other buffs (be it from pots/scrolls/clickies/casters). This change will help make them matter. There are a few things I'd like to see:

1) Can you make Bardic Inspiration play a song clip randomly each time it is cast? This will help add variety to repeated casting and prevent the loss of some of the sound clips. Wouldn't say no to some new song sounds as well!

2) Inspiring Echoes: While I do prefer the concept of singing a few different songs for everyone rather than the same song for each person individually (the earlier suggestion of song variety would help a little), I do understand the mechanic limitation. I do think just self + target is very weak as all it does is save a single cast and introduces possibly the same flagging issue you mentioned: Would it mess up your own buff when casting it on an undead Wiz? I would say go in a new direction: Have it increase the range of Aria (either stacking with Warchanter's 18 core, or if that isn't acceptable, adding 50% the range of what the core does non-stacking). I see that as thematically fitting - your Aria now fills the room and echoes off the walls inspiring people at farther reaches. I also think the new Elyd Charm should get it with this change - the item needs an additional ability. The fact that a set bonus of anthems is counting against it when other item set bonuses don't count against the 4 I don't think is fair.... especially when the only way to get the set bonus is to make the Anthem on the item redundant.

3) This goes outside bard song changes, but I would like to see Spellsinger's Mass Hold SLA cooldowns halved. 60/40/20 on a spell that normally has a 3.5 to 6 (before faster casting buffs) is extreme IMO. I'd even go as far as saying 18/12/6, but 30/20/10 would still be a heavy SLA penalty if you deem as needed. I think Bards deserve to be the king/queen of CC, and I think that simple change would go a ways to encourage Spellsinger bards.

[Gratch]

Can bards all get a free lesser heart? Ditch lasting inspiration, maybe pick up some of the new options without having to level up all over again?

Lasting Inspiration could be awesome if they just slightly reduced the cooldown on Turn the Tide. Right now even with all the song duration buffs, the downtime is way too long. Alternatively replace lasting inspiration with a means for bards to actively extend song duration that requires some active upkeep. ALL top-of-the-meta weapon damage bards currently run in LD. Fatesinger SHOULD be updated so it's their first choice. PLEASE FIX.

Turn of the Tide: (Active Cooldown: 6 mins) Spontaneous Song (expend a song to activate). Turn of the Tide grants a full BAB, +3 to hit, +40% damage, DR 15/-, a +4 Charisma, and deals +5d10 +75 Sonic damage and +5d10 +75 Light damage per hit. (This magical damage does not affect Bosses.) While under the effects of Turn of the Tide, rolling a 1 on a Will save is not an automatic failure. Duration: 20 seconds (affected by lingering song and similar effects). Note: Activation of this ability forces everything in a 10 second cooldown. You can't swap gear, activate other abilities or drink potions during those 10 seconds. The suggested use of this ability is when you have adequate health to survive combat and have activated all other boosts you may need. After this ability's activation, the only thing you can do is attack.

[Lynnabel]

1) Can you make Bardic Inspiration play a song clip randomly each time it is cast? This will help add variety to repeated casting and prevent the loss of some of the sound clips. Wouldn't say no to some new song sounds as well!

Yes, we can

2) Inspiring Echoes: While I do prefer the concept of singing a few different songs for everyone rather than the same song for each person individually (the earlier suggestion of song variety would help a little), I do understand the mechanic limitation. I do think just self + target is very weak as all it does is save a single cast and introduces possibly the same flagging issue you mentioned: Would it mess up your own buff when casting it on an undead Wiz? I would say go in a new direction: Have it increase the range of Aria (either stacking with Warchanter's 18 core, or if that isn't acceptable, adding 50% the range of what the core does non-stacking). I see that as thematically fitting - your Aria now fills the room and echoes off the walls inspiring people at farther reaches. I also think the new Elyd Charm should get it with this change - the item needs an additional ability. The fact that a set bonus of anthems is counting against it when other item set bonuses don't count against the 4 I don't think is fair.... especially when the only way to get the set bonus is to make the Anthem on the item redundant.

This is really great feedback! Thank you!

Don't worry, it won't mess with the targeting for yourself. You'll get the right Heal over Time no matter what your target's state is.

We don't have a good way of adding an ability to Elyd Charm. However, brief spoiler, there will be other Bard items in the future that hook into Anthem as a set of one set. This is only the first of the Anthem Melodies, not the last. Also, it's only 2 other sources of Anthem, which isn't too difficult given we've got a bad habit of putting it on anything that vaguely smells like Bardic anything.

Gonna be real, though, the Bardic Aria's area is already so big and lingers for so long that any increase - even doubling the radius - is kinda unnoticeable. It's passable for just the core, and I like where it's at for that ability, but Inspiring Echoes does need something else... exciting. I'm open to suggestions, unless that suggestion is "the old version of Inspiring Echoes."

[Lynnabel]

Lasting Inspiration could be awesome if they just slightly reduced the cooldown on Turn the Tide. Right now even with all the song duration buffs, the downtime is way too long. Alternatively replace lasting inspiration with a means for bards to actively extend song duration that requires some active upkeep. ALL top-of-the-meta weapon damage bards currently run in LD. Fatesinger SHOULD be updated so it's their first choice. PLEASE FIX.

Turn of the Tide: (Active Cooldown: 6 mins) Spontaneous Song (expend a song to activate). Turn of the Tide grants a full BAB, +3 to hit, +40% damage, DR 15/-, a +4 Charisma, and deals +5d10 +75 Sonic damage and +5d10 +75 Light damage per hit. (This magical damage does not affect Bosses.) While under the effects of Turn of the Tide, rolling a 1 on a Will save is not an automatic failure. Duration: 20 seconds (affected by lingering song and similar effects). Note: Activation of this ability forces everything in a 10 second cooldown. You can't swap gear, activate other abilities or drink potions during those 10 seconds. The suggested use of this ability is when you have adequate health to survive combat and have activated all other boosts you may need. After this ability's activation, the only thing you can do is attack.

Completely unrelated but I'm fixing that stupid 10 second global cooldown bug right now.

[cru121]

Bards could use some love.

I play two bards:
* Swashbuckler - half dozen lives, always swashbuckling, usually deep splash, rarely singing
* Spellsinger - IIRC at least 4 pure spellsinger lives so far, mostly evoker; sings a lot

My ideas of buffing bards would be probably a bit different. I'd make warchanter a solid defensive third tree (similar to ranger DWS, artificer RM, etc.), slapping non-trivial amount of HP, PRR,MRR, devotion into the cores. And non-trivial amount of melee power.

For spellsinger, I'd allow them to bypass immunity to enchantments for targets susceptible to fascinate. Right now spell singers have okay DCs but they can CC only a very limited subset of targets. Therefore, they are useless in end game. And one can only hope that some tidbits from the upcoming caster DPS pass will be also thrown at bards.

Also, bard past life is very weak. If it was bumped, more people would struggle through some bard lives.


Now to your ideas.

In general, less singing is OK. Passive is fine.

Inspire Greatness: How often do this tick/renew? Wiki has some vague info "About every 10 seconds all nearby allies get the buff". Will the temp HP renew every 10 seconds? If yes, this would be definitely worthwhile.

Inspire Heroics: +4 saves and AC. Stacking, okay. Dodge doesn't count, people usually keep it maxed. Could use something cool, heroic. You know, it's a level 15 ability. For example something like, on activating action boost, gain some short lived tasty heroic benefit.

Arias: Okay.

Sustaining Song single target is a nerf. Try exploring some other ways.

Improved Bardic Music feat: Not gonna take it. Sorry. It's weak. Needs more oomph
* +1 music bonus to max dodge
* +5% music bonus to AC and max HP
* all bonuses are doubled for bard 20.
It must be crazy good for a feat starved class.

Fatesinger needs a lot more work. I guess you're not interested in doing any balancing work now.

Warchanter: I would slap a lot more passive stuff to the cores. HP, PRR/MRR, Melee Power etc.
* Capstone:
** Active: Cooldown? DC? Duration? Eligible targets? Will it be charisma based?
** Passive: Consider a multiselector for +4 STR / +4 CON / +4 CHA. Or +2 to all