Early Look: Bard Changes

[Ahwaric]

We'd like to keep Spellsinger being linked thematically with Bardic Inspiration, and Warchanter being linked thematically with your Bardic Aria.

It keeps bugging me - why use name "aria" for passive, while using "bardic inspiration" for active, special boost?
Arias are mostly culminative parts of music works, parts that also "provide the opportunity for vocal display for concert singers" (quote from wikipedia). On the other hand inspiration can be more passive - you can be inspired even by the portrait on a wall.
Please, please switch it around. Is it too late?

Regarding passives linked to warchanter and actives to spellsinger, that is what I always expected from the two trees, so keeps it in theme.
And imho vocal display fits more to spellsinger, Warchanter is more busy with inspiring his or her companions by displays of swordfight (or even axefight).

[Lynnabel]

Great feedback! Here are some quick notes about stuff that jumped out at me.

Also, there is no reference to what will happen to Song of Heroism. It’s not included in the Aria description and it is not mentioned in Bardic Inspiration either. Being that it is an AOE song, it makes sense to add it to Aria.

Tentatively just keeping it as-is, am also okay with adding it to the Aria. It depends on if people would like the lingering effects for party splits more than they'd appreciate the hands-off approach.

The big loser here is without doubt Sustaining Song, because the song has two effects - healing on cast and healing over time.

Sustaining Song's splash heal has a new home in the place Boast used to live in Warchanter, so if you like the splash heal on cast you can get the best of both worlds - a massively increased duration (and undead and repair channels) for the heal over time, and an easier to access splash heal lower in a tree.

Again, like in allure there is a reduction in the number of the extra songs. Should be fine…

I was going off the wiki when those shorthand notes were compiled, forgive me if they're incorrect. We're not touching any availability of any extra songs.

Warchanter capstone: please specify how is calculated the DC freeze effect (like Frozen Fury?), what means significantly slowed (%) and what would be significant cold damage over time. I like the mechanic and the flavor of the ability, but without values it is hard to say whether it is interesting or not.

We'll have more details relatively shortly on the specifics, but the DC will match Frozen Fury's, significantly slowed will probably match Limb Chopper, and significant cold damage over time will be some large number of d6s

Thanks for the rockin' feedback, and you don't need to convince me to play a Bard - my favorite class is Bard, I've got all my Bard lives, and I've even been rocking it for a lot of my racial lives. Pure, fighter/rogue split, doesn't matter to me, I love 'em too much to play anything less rad

[Lynnabel]

It keeps bugging me - why use name "aria" for passive, while using "bardic inspiration" for active, special boost?

Bardic Inspiration is taken straight out of the 5E Player's Handbook, and I just sorta thought Aria was a cool name for a constant musical backdrop :P

[HurtyouBad]

1 button pressed 12 times is still 12 buttons pressed. 1 * 12 = 12. 12 * 1 also = 12. You failed in reducing the number of songs sang because of some notion that making one part single target is a good idea. Spin it anyway you want, you're still wrong.

All of them not Sustaining Song on the second and subsequent uses of the Bardic Inspiration. Did you read the early look notes? Or for that matter, you OWN WORDS? Every use of Bardic Inspiration to cast Sustaining also casts every other buff tied in with it... which means you are repeatedly casting the same exact buffs over and over. Which, according to https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/redundant is completely redundant. It is, specifically, repetitious and excessive; and exceeding anything necessary or normal.
.
I understand ignoring all feedback is SSG policy, as is being abusive and trolling customers so I'm ignoring you after this.

YOU wanting 1 button pressed at entrance of Quest or Raid is in NO WAY saying Steel or Lynn have lied here or spun it in some way...you need to get over the fact that 12 buttons pushed is in FACT less than currently pressing 70 buttons [thats just the 5 Inspires] for each member of RAID to get each of the 5 Inspires, so if your happy with 70, god bless you for your version of Fun but to say Liar or 12 isn't 1, is NOT right......would I love 1 button to do as you say, hell yes I would, would the Devs LOVE to give us players that, I'm sure they would....but if you haven't followed along in DDO, that the Producer & Devs have been doing alot of changes over the years to KEEP those of us still here and enjoying the Game plus keep them here giving us STUFF to enjoy and what THEY love to do.....then I'm not sure what your meaning by the above Thread.....just my thought/opinion on the matter , carry on

[Vyrzain]

Frankly, because no one uses Boast :P

...................

/sigh… I see Boast used all the time : )

We laugh at the animation but it tells us when our bard has that extra 100 HP.

Boast is / was one of the best and most used songs for our Bard.
It is fast casting and has a good / useful buff.
Something that would keep the Bard alive!

Sad to see it go : (

[losian2]

Bardic Inspiration is taken straight out of the 5E Player's Handbook, and I just sorta thought Aria was a cool name for a constant musical backdrop :P

I'd assume because 'bardic inspiration' doesn't really have a set effect anymore, but a range of effects. i.e. if someone has "Bardic Inspiration" on as a buff it'd be weird for it to do all kinds of different stuff, and it's probably easier to code a secondary effect with dynamic effects triggered by inspiration.. and that way aria can have a tooltip that suggests that it is applied by the individual's inspiration and applies a range of effects.

It makes sense enough to me! Triggering ability -> thematic effect name

[Lynnabel]

/sigh… I see Boast used all the time : )

We laugh at the animation but it tells us when our bard has that extra 100 HP.

Boast is / was one of the best and most used songs for our Bard.
It is fast casting and has a good / useful buff.
Something that would keep the Bard alive!

Sad to see it go : (

If it helps, considering the weighty temporary HP component of Inspire Greatness, the original Boast would have lost most of its uniqueness no matter how we sliced it as it wouldn't have stacked with the Aria.

[Selvera]

Please let us know what you think!

Ok; let’s go over a few points.

Reaction 1) Awesome, I like the direction and this should make my planned (in a few live) swashbuckler build very slightly stronger then it currently is planned to be. (Mostly just because I won’t have to sing at the beginning of every quest).

Reaction 2) I’m digging the new duration on bard buffs. Certainly make them feel more usable on any character who’s not just a buff-character. Might makea buff-only character feel non interactive/boring; but I feel like such a character’s probably too weak to even make as an architype anyways, so if no one’s going to play it why care? I like the new duration.

Reaction 3) Wait; you’re nerfing the bonus damage in warchanter and fatesinger? That sounds wrong; if you’re trying to make bard buffs feel more impactful; nerfing them for investing in buffing seems like the wrong way to go.

Reaction 4) Looking over that heroic feat again, it’s far too weak for me to work into my build. I’m planning a dps melee and considering dropping cleave my feats are so tight; something that gives a negligible buff to a couple songs that I might use isn’t going to make the cut. It’s very far from making the cut. Probably wouldn’t make the cut even if it gave max dodge.

All in all, I like the update, but I don’t want to see inspire courage nerfed for those who have invested in it, if anything it could be buffed. I also think that bard gear needs to be updated significantly -> A lot of the endgame bard gear currently gives more and/or recharging uses of bard songs; and this significantly reduces the need for that. On the other hand; endgame gear and stacks of pastlives add up to bringing a pure support bard is much worse than bringing a DPS to a raid group; and investment through gear and pastlives don’t really improve a support bard’s ability to provide support (besides survivability).

I would like to see bard pastlives grant bonuses to inspire courage (+1/2/3 damage) instead of what it currently does.
I would like to see endgame bard loot grant increases to bard songs instead of additional uses of bard songs.
I would like to see Ironskin chant’s bonuses doubled with the warchanter capstone, Reckless chant grant spell critical chance instead of spell power, and chant of power grant spell critical damage instead of spell critical chance.

I would like to see fatesinger grant additional bonuses to bard songs at all tiers, and make the tier 5 and 6 fatesinger abilities more attractive. Some ideas:
Bound fate and grim fate are now 2 ranks each; with rank 2 granting the full bonus of the current rank 3.
Fragment song of clarity applies to the target of your single-target song buff (not just self cast).
Fragement song of valor now deals its vulnerability on vorpal hits (instead of 2% chance).
Turn the tide now effects bosses.

It would be nice if there was an item; enhancement or feat which significantly reduced the damage a bard does (10%? 20%?) in exchange for increasing a bard's inspire courage by a factor of +1 per 10 charisma (or +1 per 5 charisma modifier). Something that would make a significant damage increase for bringing a bard to a full party or raidgroup; but lower the bard's personal damage output a little.

[Lokeal_The_Flame]

............

Bard update?

Indecision between making the upcoming iconic tiefling a Bard or a Sorcerer earlier........

Now a bard update?

With Bards on SSG's mind, I think it is safe to say that SSG is going to make that Iconic Tiefling a Bard!

Further more the addition of cosmetic cloaks is most definitely SSG playing with the kind of code that the Tails would also work with to determine their movement, after all see how the cloaks flow and it clicks.... similar mechanics for tail movement just makes sense.

[HastyPudding]

It's the exact same ability that Sustaining Song was before, just in a lower enhancement tier and a different Bard tree. Same icon. Same hold time, same animation, same range. The only difference is that the heal over time portion is now a Bardic Inspiration thing and therefore lasts significantly longer.

Sorry, but that has nothing to do with what I said.

I know it's the same ability (split into two parts). It's just the initial AoE heal of sustaining song was always quite weak. However, the AoE + HoT of sustaining song was worth a song use. The weak AoE heal alone is not really worth a song use when bards have ready access to multiple ways of healing; this is why I said the AoE heal should be buffed slightly or made to scale better to make it useful.

[thunir]

Great feedback! Here are some quick notes about stuff that jumped out at me.

Quote Originally Posted by cacyreus View Post
Also, there is no reference to what will happen to Song of Heroism. It’s not included in the Aria description and it is not mentioned in Bardic Inspiration either. Being that it is an AOE song, it makes sense to add it to Aria.


Tentatively just keeping it as-is, am also okay with adding it to the Aria. It depends on if people would like the lingering effects for party splits more than they'd appreciate the hands-off approach.

This is the same problem I have with Inspire excellence, you should put Inspire Excellence in the "Bardic Inspiration".

[droid327]

Bardic Inspiration is taken straight out of the 5E Player's Handbook, and I just sorta thought Aria was a cool name for a constant musical backdrop :P

Actually, since you bring it up, this is something that bugged me when I first read the notes...

An aria is a piece written for one voice. It's an operatic equivalent to a solo...everything stops and the focus is all on the one character singing. It's kinda the opposite of a steady background song.

A better and still cool sounding term might be "sonata", or even better "reprise", which means a repeated phrase of music

[Vyrzain]

If it helps, considering the weighty temporary HP component of Inspire Greatness, the original Boast would have lost most of its uniqueness no matter how we sliced it as it wouldn't have stacked with the Aria.

But does not ALL Temp HP stack?

I know Song of Heroism, Boast, Words of Encouragement and False Life stack.
Thus +150 Temp HP on a 7th level Bard.
This was nice and VERY helpful for 14 AP in that tree.

Anyway, I see you need to remove Boast because of some space issues however for what we are playing now that 100 HP is a loss after the next update : (

Plus being only a 7th level Bard this character will never benefit from Inspire Greatness.

[Niminae]

As a bit of a quick comparison, given that Spell Song Vigor is currently also single target, the current time to fully buff an entire raid group with every single song is 56.4 seconds plus however long it takes to sing literally every single other song in the game. Remember, every song lasts the exact same amount of time now. You can hit people with your Bardic Inspiration at the start and they'll have that heal over time on them for a lot longer than they do currently.

This, if it delivers as advertised a significant decrease in Bard group/raid buffing times, is a very good thing.

[bbqzor]

Tentatively just keeping it as-is, am also okay with adding it to the Aria. It depends on if people would like the lingering effects for party splits more than they'd appreciate the hands-off approach.

Hands off approach 110%. Bards are party characters. I would much rather have quality of life for helping the party, than I would doing extra work so someone can run off and keep a small bonus. Add to Aria please.

Sustaining Song's splash heal has a new home in the place Boast

This change, plus the bump to the new healing song and the temp hp provided on inspire, are gold. Literally everyone wins.

the DC will match Frozen Fury's, significantly slowed will probably match Limb Chopper, and significant cold damage over time will be some large number of d6s

This is awesome. While many bard abilities scale sonic dmg with sonic spellpower, it may make sense to scale this cold damage with melee power. Its WARchanter after all, not wearing-druid-loot-for-that-one-thing-chanter. Just a thought. And in case you missed it, just awesome.

Sparkles? Everyone likes sparkles.

I can understand not replying to most of my post, but sparkles? Really feel like the sparkle graphic from Beacon of Hope's Shining Light would be great for bards to trigger on themselves. Maybe with Turn the Tide. Just saying. Sparkles.

[Silverleafeon]

Hands off approach 110%. Bards are party characters. I would much rather have quality of life for helping the party, than I would doing extra work so someone can run off and keep a small bonus. Add to Aria please.

+1 completely agree

Overall, changes to song update looking good

Hoping the SP & HP regeneration last as long as the total single target song duration.

That will actually reduce singing events for bards that actually take the time to renew the sp regen songs during raids for the spellcasters.

[zehnvhex]

or even better "reprise", which means a repeated phrase of music

Agreed on this front.

It also seems weird to have a thematic name for the pulsing AE and the single target song is just "Bardic inspiration."

It'd be like giving wizards a new spell that contains all the level 1~9 common buffs and calling "Wizard Buff", then combining stinking cloud, death aura and wotb into a new spell and call it "Zehpyr of Putrefaction"

[Propane]

Thanks for sharing - I like the direction this is heading.

This will make having a bard in the party a lot more helpful to the party for sure!

Can we give some more incentive to play the Bard itself?

How about having the bard songs affect the singing bard by 2X (rest of party gets 1X)? or something similar?

[Niminae]

[Snippage!]
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!

BEFORE WE BEGIN:
Bard Songs of the modern era have been eroded in their usefulness as other buff and item effects have infringed upon their channels. They were meant to be a small, ever present bonus, and to instill the feeling that no matter what character you are playing, a Bard will help them excel at what they do best.

now grants a Music bonuses to Attack, Damage, saves versus Fear, and Universal Spell Power.

now grants +4 Music bonuses to all Skills.

now grants Music bonuses to PRR and healing amplification, as well as 20 temporary HP.

a +4 Music bonus to all Saves, +4 Music bonus to Armor Class, and +4% Music bonus to dodge.

We hope very much that these changes preserve the spirit of a Bard without any of the old, less interactive parts. Drastically reduced buff time and increased buff effectiveness will go a long way to making Bards more team players, and new character options open up build diversity for players to explore. Please let us know what you think!

I'd caution against power creep. Can't Bards provide buffs which are not stacking in order to be a worthwhile addition to a party? Look, I'm all in favor of having Bards be a desired member of a party. I just don't think that having them add Music bonuses to already existing stats is the way to go about doing this.

Is there no way to have Bards boost others in some non-stacking manner?

[cru121]

Is there no way to have Bards boost others in some non-stacking manner?

Easy!
Remove all permablur items and blur consumables. Blur is now useful.
Remove all displacement clickies. Allow bards to cast displacement on others. Useful!
Remove melee/ranged alacrity, speed item effects. Haste is now useful.
Remove heal scrolls and other healing consumables. Healing is now useful.
Remove Deadly enchantment, extra [W], limit enhancement bonus of weapons. Inspire Courage is now useful.