Bard Feedback

I have speced Bard now 3 times and end up just emptying the tree. I'm not sure what it is supposed to be so maybe some others can give feedback as maybe I am just doing it wrong.

Essentially it feels like a mix of some others trees with higher casting times.

A heal over time that you wouldn't use over Healing Grace as it takes four times as long to activate.

An AOE that I didn't bother to use because of the lack lustre damage. The damage is based off of your focus maybe? Great if you have loads of amazing kit but not for the average player. Maybe scale the damage so its meaningful to someone with 600-1000 focus and it scales down steeply from there. At the moment why wait the 8-9 secs for this to go off instead of just putting down an unspeced Ring of Fire?

An AOE DoT, see above. It also didn't seem to apply to more than one mob around me.

Some buffs that seem to have little real world gameplay impact. Now admittedly for me I am judging it on my Tamed pet. The numbers look impressive but I felt little impact on either myself or my pet. Maybe it is better in a group of other players?

A debuff that there also seemed little point in singing.

The mesmerise is nice but maddeningly, my pet won't attack a mezzed pet. Great if you don't want it to break it but surely it should if you command it to. My pet has to wait until the mesmerise wears off!

So it feels like some skills from other trees with much higher cast times. I just ended up not bothering to use them.

Maybe if there was something that rewarded you for waiting the time to sing 2 or 3 songs. A Crescendo ability that after the second song it starts stacking a Crescendo ability and the more songs you sing the more powerful it gets until you decide to unleash it. You could have a heal, damage or buff version.

It needs to be meaningful though if you are having to wait 30 or so seconds to use it. Exploitable maybe by just keeping songs twisted out of combat and then just letting it go at the start of an encounter but maybe this can be overcome in some way.

Maybe the buffs could overlap and have some interaction. Singing Anthem of Alacrity followed by Savage Sonata could create a separate extra effect. Maybe casting the heal over time followed by the focus over time triggers an extra effect. There needs to be more of a reason to stand there using these long casting skills beyond what they currently offer.

A provoke style skill like the UO bard one would transform this tree. It would add some much needed DPS, tactics and flavour.

The changes on Test just seem to kill it stone dead. The effects have little impact as it is so halving them means I would never go back. Knock 2-3 seconds off and leave the skills as are and give us a reason to keep singing songs as opposed to just pressing a key every 8 seconds.

 

And can heal up to 12 people, unlike healing grace, which heals just one per cast.

Bards seem to do quite well in larger parties. Especially the focus regen skill and the stats buff, though the other skills can be useful at times as well, making your party faster and enemies slower can be nice as well.

Do not think it is good skill for a solo tamer, ever since they nerfed the damage it is not very useful alone or in tiny party.

 

Ah sure that is something in it's favour.

Maybe it is designed around large parties although it must be so boring for the bard. Clicking an icon every 8 or so seconds.

 

Same as everybody who doesn't use auto-attack. I'm not seeing any difference, now that they can stack.

 

What other skills are the same? I can't think of any skill tree where the induction time is so long. I do lock the glyphs so don't stack them that way so maybe that is the issue. It should be viable both ways though. Even stacking locked skill from other trees by holding the key down to get a 5 or 6 stack is quicker for most skills. For example I can 6 stack a Ring of Fire and let it go in the time it takes for the really weak AOE DoT to go through its cast time.

 

I agree the cast time is too long, but the one I was responding to was "Clicking an icon every 8 or so seconds". You have to do that for every skill, or click and hold to charge them if they are locked. That part isn't any different, its just the insane cast time that makes me not want to bard. Its also what makes it useless unless you are playing online, in a large group. I mostly play offline, and when I do play online is with maybe 2 other players. Maybe the cast time should be based on the number of targets when it starts?

 

Wasn't it always intended to be a support tree? I thought it was deliberately designed to be kinda pointless for single players to use, but really good in a group.

 

I said from the start the buff should begin as you start playing, and you should be able to switch between them on the fly.

What we got game design wise would be better suited for a mega blast class, FF7 stlye summons, a ritualist (lay out the candles type) or similar.

 

Looks that way. Shame as Tamer/Bard UO stylee was my hope. Must be really boring even so for that player in the group. I guess players find the buffs worth it in groups but it seemed to have little effect on my pet at all.