Early Look: Bard Changes

[janave]

Could you guys change:

Tailwind: +0/0/1 Damage from Inspire Courage, +1/2/3 competence to damage for missile weapons

:to stack with deadly items?

When this was made i think competence bonuses were super rare on gear.

[HastyPudding]

Are these changes slated for U40.2 or U41?

I LOVE these changes. It makes warchanter more interesting and makes buffing the party infinitely faster and less of a hassle.

[Maquist]

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."

I don't play a bard very much, so I don't know how useful these suggestions will be, but I'll just toss out the unrefined, raw ones I have in my head.

Playing off the idea of echoes, a duration increase. By the time you're using a weapon with Inspiring Echoes, this might be just about useless. And on the backend it might be overly difficult to make it happen correctly. I would assume that a second hidden effect would have to flag on the characters as a pending effect, sort of like Heroes' Feast. When the main effect ends, a lessened version of what they just had expire could apply.

Or it could somehow apply sonic damage to the characters' attacks and spells. Whether it's a flat amount of points or a few d6 of sonic, I don't know. But since very few things are resistant to sonic damage, it could be useful.

I had also considered things like the reverberation of the echoes gives a blur effect, but by this time people probably have a better (an possibly permanent) blur going. But in this same vein, maybe it's a percent chance missile deflection?

Like I said, I don't know how useful these are. But maybe they'll give someone else a seed that leads to a good idea?

[Hipparan]

I need more time to look this over, but first:

Why not just make Bardic Inspiration a mass buff and lower the number of songs bards have? If sustaining song is an issue, why not turn it into a single target third song or even an SLA?

Edit: I appreciate the boosts for Warchanters, but I still feel like Spellsinger is getting left out. Side note: please change the audio of "Horn of Thunder" to be the horns of the Archons and not screaming! This will forever be an obsession of mine

[DrawingGuy]

Yes, we can



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."

Yay! Thanks Lynnabel.

The ability to fill the area and still hit casters and ranged - especially in Raid situations where they may stay away from you for a fair amount of time - would still give some situational use to larger areas, but here are a few other suggestions:

- Faster Bardic songs. While there is the concern of clashing with sound clips, anything to make buffing faster would be desired and would play along with what the feat originally did. This would also give a tactical benefit to Fascinate if it made that cast faster.

- Aria now grants Fear Immunity. You're so inspired by the bard's aria that the song echoes within your heart and you're now immune to fear.

- Less inspired, but have it grant the Improved Bardic Music feat, or a stacking version of it.

[droid327]

You can expend a Bard Song to scream the songs of your frozen ancestors

aaAAAaaaaaAAAAAA!!!!!

aaAAAaaaaaAAAAAA!!!!!

We come from the land of the ice and snow
From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow

I know this was 100% what you were thinking when you designed the new capstone and I expect that to be the sound effect associated with it

[Lynnabel]

aaAAAaaaaaAAAAAA!!!!!

aaAAAaaaaaAAAAAA!!!!!

We come from the land of the ice and snow
From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow

I know this was 100% what you were thinking when you designed the new capstone and I expect that to be the sound effect associated with it

Inspired by this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBLdQ1a4-JI

[FuzzyDuck81]

Yes, we can

Inspiring Echoes does need something else... exciting. I'm open to suggestions, unless that suggestion is "the old version of Inspiring Echoes."

I'm kinda hoping one of those song clips just a proper metal scream, a la the into to Immigrant Song

as for another exciting effect.. maybe it puts a contingency-style effect on the recipient, eg. a combination of arcane shield & a decently powerful healing & restoration effect that kicks in at 25% or so HP - the whole "heroic second wind" thing would be nicely in keeping with the inspiration theme & the ability to give team-members a handy emergency safety net would be really desirable for many players.

[Ahwaric]

Inspired by this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBLdQ1a4-JI

Well, first that came to my mind was Death Throes of the Terrorsquid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TKyNTwD3Yk (quite long, so go to 4:17).
It has long aaaaaaaaa, a lot of snow & frozen, and has bonus pirates & kraken.

On more serious tone, great idea with the bard changes & definetly needed. Playing druid/bard I almost never use bard songs, as the effect is too weak, casting time is too long, and then it goes away very fast. This change should make me use other songs than just greater heroism and occasional inspire competence.

On a slightly related note due to it being bard thing (was going to post it in Hey Lynnabel! thread anyway, sorry for derailing the thread, but currently might get more attention here ). Any chance for more non-metal bucklers. There are just 5 named ones, 3 of which are outdated (lvl 24 & 27), and the rest are lvl 9-10/29, so huge gap. I hoped for Spectre Deflector to be non-metal, i.e. spiritcraft leather or darkwood, but tough luck. Any chance to change it yet, as current material (dwarven iron? why?) does not give much? /END of DERAILING, sorry

Edit: and thanks for explaining what exactly chant of power does, it has bugged me for years (ever since I started).

[Ralmeth]

At first I was pretty excited about the changes, but after thinking about them I have some concerns...

I like the proposed changes to turn song effects into music bonuses, and to make it easier to sing songs. Those sound like great changes! However, I'm concerned that these changes are going to make it difficult to play a Bard and not be a Warchanter. Will this kill off Swashbucklers, because Warchanters are getting the bulk of the buff? Could you please consider the AP costs / tiers of where the Warchanter benefits are, such that someone with Swashbuckler as their primary tree could get at least a decent amount of benefit? It seems right now that you would have invest heavily into Warchanter to get the bulk of the benefit, but that was just a quick look.

[btolson]

Can I hope the new Bardic Inspiration will NOT turn off auto-attack? So unnecessary and annoying. Dirge and some other songs don't turn it off, nor do they eff up if you're in melee range of your target if used while autoattack is on.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

We need more buffs in my opinion. A Bard's dps increase to a raid group, is not enough to justify them. You'd simply be better off with another dps.
I know that Bards can do other things---but support classes need to be valued, and they don't bring enough to the table right now. Fatesinger could use the most changes. EA is superior to Fatesinger from a DC casting, and healing, standpoint---you get wings to! Blitz is superior from a dps standpoint. Fatesinger should feel impactful and unique.

Cheers, these changes look great. Very happy to see these.

[Kza]

This looks great!!

I Think they still will be too weak but hopefully im wrong.

Plz consider: 1 more dps sla in spellsinger tree and a sonic Power belt ala ravenloft with Equipment bonus.
2 the temp hitpoints as a pulse that refresh every 30 seconds during the duration. (or is it any pulse already that i missed?)
3. Tweak all bonuses to be double on yourself than on other toons you sing for.
4. Let the single target song give buff instantly but you must as a bard sing until the end. (So ppl running of get the buff)
5. Plz make us have like 10 store options of different melodies for our song. I want new melodies!

Even if all those would be implemented im sure bards would not be op, but strong. Not as fvs or druids but strong enough.

But i love you try make them funnier reducing buff time!!

[Kza]

Can I hope the new Bardic Inspiration will NOT turn off auto-attack? So unnecessary and annoying. Dirge and some other songs don't turn it off, nor do they eff up if you're in melee range of your target if used while autoattack is on.

Amen, this is important. So annoying.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

The problem is not that the songs take too long to sing. The problem with the current abilities is that they are not impactful.

These changes provide excellent stream-lining of the numerical aspects of play---however, they don't change how we feel about, and play, the class.
In order for changes to be impactful (and loved) I think they need to make people feel more bardy while they're barding about.

Swashbuckler (and swf) was awesome in this way.

I think we could use animations that are impactful. The problem with the current abilities is that they are not impactful. The problem is not that the songs take too long to sing. We benefit from meaningful numerical adjustments accompanied by roleplaying stuff.

MOAR roleplaying stuff please!

[LrdSlvrhnd]

Song of Heroism from Warchanter isn't mentioned here. I know what the plan is from the PC, but 1) have there been changes since? And 2) I'm sure others are also wondering, or will wonder when they think about it.

[Lynnabel]

Song of Heroism from Warchanter isn't mentioned here. I know what the plan is from the PC, but 1) have there been changes since? And 2) I'm sure others are also wondering, or will wonder when they think about it.

Unchanged, currently. I'll standardize the duration and actually give it the fear immunity it's supposed to have, but if it does end up changing it'll become an Inspiration ride-along buff.

[RevCo]

I generally don't play a bard but I do use the bard ED since being on a etr wheel at the moment. Gonna guess bard changes as a class will have a domino effect in this case scenario?

[PsychoBlonde]

Why is the bonus attack and damage so miserably titchy? We got +19 Deadly items and +28 Accuracy but we're supposed to be impressed by a whopping +8 that requires a specific all-in class build? And waste one of your level 12+ feats for +1 on a class that's already screaming tight for feats? Are you joking? Especially since now you have to stand in aura range of people for them to even get the bonus, instead of hitting them with it once and being able to ignore them for the next 8-10 minutes.

While the songs taking a while to apply is a bit annoying, the main reason bard singing is deprecated is because the bonus is TOO SMALL TO MATTER.

An all-in build should be more like +20 to hit and +15 to damage (or some combination of damage-boosting effects like doublestrike, bonus crit damage, something).

Sustaining Song is pretty much the only good song these days, and making it single-target is (effectively) a bit of a nerf.

The DC on a bard's Suggestion SONG ability needs to be fixed so that the DC is based on perform or something along those lines. Since the DC is pathetic this ability is currently useless.

If you guys CAN do it, the bard trees could use a few tweaks:

Spellsinger:

• All of the SLA multi-selectors need to be changed to grant BOTH spells.
• Reverberate's damage needs to be increased or fixed somehow, it doesn't do anything like the amount of damage the other DoT's in the game do and it's not apparent why.
• It's not readily apparent how Enthrall is different or better than Fascinate, especially since all the bonuses to Fascinate don't work with Enthrall.
• Raucous Refrain/Reviving Verse is an idiotic ability, it gives +saving throws against 4 effects, two of which DO NOT GIVE A SAVING THROW (energy drain and exhaustion).
• Is Frolic's duration going to be the same as your Bardic Inspiration's duration? That might actually be useful.
• Capstone Wail of the Banshee needs to be altered to use Enchantment DC instead of Necromancy.
• Could really use +sonic crit damage somewhere in the tree.

Warchanter

• Iced Edges needs to scale with Melee Power
• Needs some melee power
• Howl of the North only applying on a 19-20 is harsh

Swashbuckler

• Could use some melee power maybe, and a revisit to the "thrown" portion of the tree to make it maybe kinda an actually viable option

[kmoustakas]

Are there any plans to fix some of the broken bard hirelings that carry 'actions' that no longer exist like 'ironskin chant' action button?