Charging bard skills

Depends how you are doing the math to come up with DPS.

Would a better fix for you be that bard skills no longer benefit the caster or thier pets? You seem more focused on taming mechanics interaction with bard buffs.

 

I use the lua tools available for us, SotInfo and OCX Tools.

Yeah, the past few posts have been focused on it, but Bard in itself is too strong.

Not benefitting the pets wouldn't work, as how do you play bard then, once the instrument fix comes out. Not benefiting the caster would cause other issues across the players. Like I've said, tone it down a bit, introduce the instrument requirement as it was always supposed to be, and fix that bug synergy with taming, or balance it.

 

@Violet Ronso good points and well said and meant.

Yet placed in another salad of words from a different angle, what you're saying is that Barding skill as it currently is, is like the drug called "crack", where top players simply need to have it nerfed, because they just can't keep away from it if it's left as it is.

Our game attendance from our players currently has a wave to it, where there are waves of returning players when a new scene instance opens and another wave from 2XExp events. Durring these waves of revival are created time windows for a chance to sell our "guests" things before they again leave to a more challenging next new game or others they are "content with/in", because they do not find their own contentment here in sota. There's allot of just plain "nomad gamers" who are never really content anywhere. Within that small window of time these challenge minded winners have with us, there's very little for them to purchase, yet did that small burst of nomadic players spend enough to have funded the new scene they came to see/play in?

Then there are those players who are looking for "a place". A place meaning a game to be content with and move into as if it's a new house. They're looking for New Britannia, yet what they find is an obstacle course to an end-game where they are being forced into it with gaming and hunting behaviour that must be adhered to in finger marching buttons "only". Yet even when those finger marching steps are all followed, then they are informed that because of some "drug addiction to barding is happening in some far away uncomfortable content", that they can no longer enjoy any freedom from having to march those fingers, dooming them to the regimental marching or leave to find a game that cares for thier players who come looking for "a place" to live to find contentment.

It's the loyal of our players who are forced into what they must do, because of some far away distant uncomfortable place where technolians await side by side each other for something to respawn for them.

It's very repetitive to be in a "top content" party waiting for the next spawn wave, which is where many of our "top skilled" players are most of the time. Yet these are the players we are catering our entire skill sets for forsaking all others?

The type of players who come looking for "a place", go someplace else looking for "a place" when they don't find "a place" of contentment here.

Barding is very comfortable "as is", for our people who will stay and do buy Ep2.
Barding for this purpose, needs all the alure it can have, until it's time to sell Ep3.

If we make Bard less special than it currently is, then we take alure away from Ep2 when and if we do that ~TL~

 

I agree with time lord-

Buff other stuff and make whatever comes out in episode 3 more enticing.

I think bard needs the instrument (craftable with perks on it) and penalty for not having it or vocal whatever. Other than that, most the other trees need love first.

 

For those wondering these are single target numbers from a 30s window in the field, and slightly outdated as I've upgraded some arties. I can sustain it for the 5 minute window on a practice dummy but that's 400k+ damage, so not many chances to do that out in the wild.

Some numbers for comparison are the 1200 single target DPS I've gotten out of a chaotic feedback daggers build (which with potion changes no longer functions), and the 1400DPS I'd max out at with that build against multiple (2) targets. My most recent fire build would top out around 1200-1400DPS single target, though it took a pretty susceptible target (such as Brign, Lord of Water) and it left me incredibly vulnerable. Damage from these builds was also less consistent/sustainable.

On the many-target front I would need to test the Wyvern and Nightmare a bit more, but it would be competing with the >3000DPS a high end fire mage can manage in some situations, and the 2500-3000DPS a death mage can reach in many fewer situations. I'm not sure if pets will quite mach up here, but we're comparing to two incredibly powerful builds. I wish I could add some comments about Air mage builds, as recent changes (lightning storm namely) have popped them up into the same OP tier as Death for certain, and possibly even Fire.

Of the builds mentioned above I'd say Fire was roughly on par with Bard/Tamer in terms of difficulty of the playstyle, at least as I liked to do it, when fighting melee mobs. In other situations it was more difficult. The other two builds, and especially the chaos daggers build, were far more complicated and demanding to play.

 

I think alot of people overlook the fact that alot of the numbers that are being compared are from people who are extremely high adv level. I am not saying that bard/tamer at any level isn't very very strong. However I am bard/tamer and i am about 14 adv levels below say for example Coswald, i have dumped just about 95% of all my xp into only Tamer/Bard trees and the best dps over that 30s ocx timer is 650!! I have never never never ever came anywhere near that magical 1400 dps number that keeps getting thrown around from a player who has Every Bard and every Tamer skill at 160+. The amount of xp it takes to get ALL of those skills to that level in the the double digit BILLIONS!!! I only have 3.5 Billion xp TOTAL. Now with that being said the minute my pet doesn't get aggro or looses aggro i as the super non defensive skilled player cause all my xp went into my pet and my songs am running for my life cause i literally have less then 15 damage resist and less then 5 damage avoidance. I could be more in those i am sure but i haven't gotten around to doing more enchants/mw on certain gear. My point is what we need to stop doing is choosing to bash and scream for nerfs to skills and build based off what super high level players can do in the game! The Coswalds, Billie Bons, Jemma Stars, Alphaine Nine's of the Game are just billions and billion of xp ahead of most of the people in the game. I mean lets be honest lets just have Jemma Star do a reroll of his skills and dump all 30 billion xp he has into oh hell i don't know sun magic, the results are going to be insanely stupid damage because he has the xp to put into it to make it stupid. Yes bard does need some changes, they need to implement the Bard voice Training, they need to take a look at why bard spec is effecting Frenzy in the tamer tree and either fix it so it don't, or implement more synergys like that with the other trees to give more builds the same kind of effects if paired together. But what needs to stop is people crying about high level tamer/bards or high level archers or high level fire mages....... They are high level they are going to do insane amounts of damage that us little low level people just can't do yet...... YET stop complaining and get to leveling and you to can be Coswald or Jemma

 

That's a very valid point, and it should be noted in all conversations like this that certain builds pop and be come viable at different levels. That said, it seems like Bard/Tamer scales way better than many builds. I mentioned a chaos build that basically didn't work if you couldn't put at least a couple billion XP into, but while bard tamer is difficult at the very start (under AL 80 or so) it then gets more powerful than most other builds quite a bit sooner. I think only fire is convincingly "easier and stronger sooner".

To get solid numbers out there, the core of my taming build is about 7.2b XP if we exclude things like Tame Creature, and Psalm of Stagnation and other bits that aren't required for combat or that I use in side builds. So if we call that 7.5b just to throw in side things like some armor skills, base stats, tactics stuff etc, that's AL143, pretty high indeed. I've also not trained Air's Embrace or Strength of Earth to put on my pet though. There's some ways in which I am being lazy in the build and missing some potential.

 

It's a Matter of Trust...
"When Players Rage Quit"

SOTA in this regard is not to be trusted, entirely due to the digitization of "New Britannia", which is a name seldom used now, because it depended on the illusion of New Britannia being "a place".

We cannot trust that what we work so hard to achive will not become disempowered by the "Technolians", which is a name for those who are just as Agent Smith in the matrix, our jail keepers who dominate what we are allowed to do here, build here and keep here in New Britannia.

A digital number counter has more important impact on the security of a player's life efforts, than whether or not it rains, than whether or not a planet is in the sky, or whether or not there is a siege.

The number counters do all this and seek to do even more to solidify their power over what we have purchased into, invested our playtime into and great deal of our own real world wealth to help build.

We came to build New Britannia, they come to build dominance through digits, building "The Guardian" from the historical days of our Ultima, a controler and munipulator bent of the destruction of New Britannia and thus rule over all our lives, all our things, all our skills, all of all there is without the slightest regard of presurving the illusion, the vision which is ot was New Britannia.

What you buy with real money here changes, what you invest your energy into building changes, all things you count on for your enjoyment here changes, all in the cause of our digitization implemented to jail us within it's cells of the elitist munipulators, the Agent Smith's of our matrix.

New Britannia is lost, it's nowhere to be found in 100s of posts because the Technolians, the Numberphiles, the Munipulators have digitized it out of exsistance. Immersion and world building to the Technolians mean something totally different and runs counter to our world having the power to munipulate them, instead, they have achieved the power to munipulate it and not in any elemental magical way, oh no, they rule through digits and computer programs, and they cause more on our gaming lives than the Sun or the Moon or the Planets, or the Weather.

Our world now is a dead world of digits, where those that came seeking New Britannia now build life rafts to escape the guardian's digital warrior minions.

If you enjoy it and trust it, whatever that is here in our game, it is subject to change or being taken away by our digital elite.

New Britannia is digitized out of exsistance, it's illusion now imprisoned through numbers and it's players tortured through the same.

It's a matter of broken trust, when players rage quit.

The Agent Smith's of our world have won New Britannia is no more, it's illusion of being "a place" digitized out of exsistance.

Everything left behind cannot be trusted in.

It's not going to be the $20,000.00 as last year.

It will be a few more $1000 maybe, until our world shapes and effects our lives more than the digitizers do.

I'm busy building my life boat away from the digitizers.
I seek a different type of world immersion not an immersion into digits~TL~

 

Yea what tinelord said, fix other stuff first before we nerf bard. Bring subterfuge and water up to above 400 dps when you invest 7 billion exp onto it.

 

I think that this is proving to be harder to implement than they expected.

 

I am bummed Time Lord did not bringing up the powerful Exodus, the computer in the daemon tower where even the floor attacks you stealthily from his story….


Psst. Great story.

 

I agree that the bard tree is too strong and should be adjusted, but I think the priority should be to get the bard mechanics to a good place and then go from there.

Like others have already said, barding is invariably a stacking game, not only because charging isn't viable for long cast times, but also because stacking is the one thing other than moving that you can do while playing a song. Maybe the practical thing to do would be just to not have stacking/charging for bard skills and adjust the floor upward if needed. Having charging times based on execution time makes sense for other trees, but there's no reason it has to work the same way for bard.

I think it would also be possible to use the original instrument system to implement a bard bonus without having to add a new held instrument mechanic. There are already animations and graphics for all the instruments, so why not just remove the turtle speed walk from that mode and have a song keep playing as long as you are playing your instrument? Then you could have an across the board bonus to bard skills while playing off a sheet, with any non-bard skill use ending the song.

Also like others have said, there should really be some stat, existing or new, that is directly relevant to bard skills. It's pretty dumb how effective bard skills can be with no gear investment whatsoever, and that can't be said about any other tree in the game.

 

I'll say it again, F-Balance!
Development is all about money balance!

The Power of Change $ and the micro-transaction...
For me, it's all about the world building and how to monetize for more world building because I'm a world lover. Take for instance if all our magic had something like Sun and Moon Magic have, if it were raining, everyone's water skills would be crazy high and while it were windy air magic would be crazy high and when it were both windy and rainy they'd both be rocketing sky high in increased power. We could tie earth magic's power to one of the slower planets and fire to one of the swift panets, or tie all the skills to the planets so we can then do away with all this "totally wasteful balance spending" each and every time we introduce some new "thingamajig". If we could just do that, then not only would it save development $ from all that wasteful balance spending, but also create a very much greater demand for learning potions and unlearning scrolls, as each of us then start talking about what's upcoming in the sky and constantly preparing and adjusting our character's for the next wild, wild ride of crazy out of control, lip licking power tripping.

@Lazlo makes allot of sense... desurves some real though around what he had to say.
~Time Lord~

 

The Bard skill tree already received some balance last year. The Bard skill tree works well as it is now, there's no need to re-visit this tree and start making adjustments.

The rush of players asking for stronger pets received their wish. They have strong pets. If your pet is too strong without bard, then naturally its stronger with bard. So fix your pet problem as there's no need
to destroy the bard tree to compensate for great pets.

Playing Bard:
The player trying to execute bard skills will have his hands full trying to execute bard skills using different methodologies;
--Long charge times for full stack for long duration skills ~50 seconds. (short charge times for full stack for short duration skills ~20 seconds)
--Faster charge times using skill stacking methods, but it requires the player to have more physical dexterity to accomplish this task. In addition, you lose combat slots for skill stacking builds.
--Bard songs require micro management as song durations vary from ~20 seconds to ~50 seconds. Constant micro management if you want to use a few bard skills to keep them active.

I use bard to augment my tank, fighter, fire mage, archer, etc. I have to micro manage deck swapping as I use the stacking method as my combat slots are limited by using bard in my combat scheme.

 

This.
And not just subterfuge and water.

I don't disagree that bard/tamer and the various combinations is much more powerful for much less cost investment (in both xp and gear) but that power is needed to be able to do the new high level content. Let's bring other trees that have long been neglected up to that level, tweak some numbers, and do something about the damned magic resist/immunity everything seems to have.

Its no surprise to me at all that "throw a pet at it and sing songs, stay out of harms way" seems to be the new thing, when everything has 30k+ hp and can 1 shot you. And your very best damage output with billions invested with extremely streamlined gear is a fraction of what can be done by the pet of a player who has been playing the game for a month.

But back to the original problem - This is all just exacerbated by the fact that the bard tree is gated against players who can't do the finger dance due to hold-to-charge being unusable. I think bard has great ability to bring potential to a lot of builds - if it was actually usable in the way that every other tree is.