Bard Skill Tree Ideas

Hello my fellow bards! I thought I would pop in and drop some ideas about a possible bard skill tree since the artifact instruments are a hot topic.
First where would it fit on the skill wheel? Prolly would be fine down with tactics/focus/taming/ext.
It would include new skills that would be a short 2-5 second song that auto played specific tunes so that when others hear it they can learn and quickly understand which buff is being applied to them. These would be seperate from the stronger instrument buffs, and ment to be utilized inbetween playing songs or in a more active role for tough dire situations.

So lets get into it.

Bard's Crescendo
Increases the radius that music buffs are applied.
----------------[Left Branch> skills]----------------------------------[RightBranch> passives]
Bard's Requiem-------------Bard'd Ballad----------------------------Bard's Fermata
Applies a DoT-----------------Applies healing % Buff.-----------------Extends the duration of
in a frontal cone---------------increasing the healing---------------------Requiem and Ballad
2-3 mobs max-----------------------others do--------------------------------------------||
----------||--------------------------------||---------------------------------------------------||
Bard's Forte-------------------Bard's Minuet-------------------------------Bard's Cadenza
Loud blast-----------------Applies Slow effect (atk/move)------------------Extends the duration of
Does Dmg------------------------in a frontal cone----------------------------------Instrument Buffs
Single target?----------------------2-3 mobs max.----------------------------------------------||
---------||---------------------------------||--------------------------------------------------------||
Bard's Fortissimo-----------Bard's Chorus-------------------------------Bard Specializations
A massive Sound blast--------Applies a layered--------------------------------Extends Fortissimo's Stun
Stuns and applies -DR%-------DA Shield effect.-------------------------Increases Number of Chorus Shields
Single target?------------- Each hit removes a layer-----------------------General buff increase all around.
------------------------------------lowering the DA%---------------------------------Could be many types.


There would also be new crafted enchanted instruments that give more specialized buffs (melee att+/ele resist/ext)
So these are kinda my starting ideas off the top of my head. Feel free to suggest any ideas / balance adjustments you can think of. I will prolly edit this when I think a bit more on it. Generally I tried to think of a spot unfilled which is the support role and where it can fill in gaps without overpowering.

I dont think any of these would overpower anything, one balance I could see is power spread. Basicly as bard you are sacrificing your dmg and what not, thus the need to transfer it to others.
Lets give some examples:
As a bard id expect to transfer about 50-60% of my dmg to my party members (mob debuff/party buff) while doing about 20-30% through DoT and spike dmg. While loosing about 10-20% of my overall dmg (if i were to just be melee/mage), it is accounted for by supplying dmg migration through buffs /debuffs.

So in a party situation, the more members in the party the less the bard skill buffs would do per member.

With that in mind everyone in the party would need to be working effectively to fully utilize the power supplied, and promoting better team work
@DarkStarr @Chris

 

I'm the one most likely to be a Bard in our group, as I'm the one that starts playing the Kettle Drums during barbarian battle royals, and will sometimes whip out an instrument and play during a fight just for the fun of it.

5 second songs I have no interest in, that's not Barding.

My request is that skills can be changed and activated, but the song must play on. Perhaps they get a bonus for completing 1 minute, 2 minute, 3 minutes songs.

In other words, as a Bard I should be able to choose the appropriate "Soundtrack" of the moment from sheet music and/or abc files, and play it all the way through, regardless of which skills he is activating.

Perhaps we need a "Barding" stance that lets music be played while firing off skills.

The second thing that needs to happen is that the Bard can keep up with the group while playing, ie. Run and Play at the same time.

 

Perhaps you misinterpret, There are the instrument buffs that are active while you are playing, but the bard skills would add a second layer to that.
A quick 5 second melody that would apply a buff that lasts say 5-10 mins. You could then play a song with instrument for that buff. But these skills would act as more active constant buffs that are applied inbetween songs, or on the go inbetween camps, thus making it easier to kinda stop and go.

 

This is a great start. Some constructive criticism would be that I don't think it makes sense for your Bard's Minuet, an attack skill, to fall under Bard's Ballad, a healing buff skill. Seems the attack skills should all be on the far left, starting under Bard's Requiem. You could do a split branch from under that.

I'd also like to see some other bard buff skills added, choose some of the following maybe:

• Buff to focus and health combat regen
• Buff to magic/elemental resistances
• Buff to attack speed/glyph draw speed/spell casting speed/movement speed
• A skill that can increase the threat of a given target. For example, you target the party tank, play a skill, and the mobs would all aggro the tank. Bard can target himself as well, paving the way for bard off tanks. (provocation)
• A skill that can pacify a target for a given amount of time. (peacemaking)

I'd like to see the ability for bards to play for extended periods of time, like 5-10 minutes to get longer-lasting buffs (1-2 hours for example), especially if given in a tavern building when administering. This would entice taverns to employ musicians to play there (or roll an alternate account to do it). Would encourage traffic to these locations, and generate more demand for bards. Entrepreneurs could also offer premium vendor locations at these taverns, or perhaps next door to a popular tavern. Could expand on this system of buffs applied in taverns: food consumed in taverns give a 5% buff increase for example. Perhaps drinking in a tavern while listening to music gives a focus regen buff for example. Just more reasons to drive traffic to taverns where players can socialize (if they choose of course - some will).

I don't think instruments should give specific buffs, but maybe give an increase to specific skills.

Perhaps rare songs sheets could drop, that give unique buffs as well. Maybe the song sheets are what determines which buffs are applied.

 

Good ideas, yea I wanted to keep the skills sorta tame and not too powerfull as they take less effort to be active and last longer, while promoting the better buffs from crafted enchanted instruments that need to be actively played (like att+/ ele resist/ atk speed/ ext.)

prolly right about the minuet, kinda was running out of room to visualize another branch in text haha. Might have to draw something out.

Really like the tank/threat idea alot.

 

Bard ftw!! i would love to see a skill tree in that direction

 

To keep with the other skill trees, we need 10-11 skills + a specialization. Probably 3-5 passives and 5-6 actives + specialization.

I'm reconsidering taking the buff type off the instrument. I think you are on the right track in keeping with that. Keeping the buff type (magic/elemental resist, etc) on the instrument would encourage bands to play buffs, and prevent players from stacking all the different buffs themselves.

I definitely want to see long-lasting/stronger buffs that get applied in a tavern atmosphere AND shorter/weaker buffs that can be applied with a quick play in the field (maybe 5 second tune).

I'd really like to see the sheet music have something to do with the effect as well. Either specific tunes/songs could be rare drops, or perhaps blank enchanted sheet music that could be inscribed with song of choice.

 

I've loved bards since EQ, they surely need bard/buff /support skill tree here.

 

what do you mean?

 

By type of buff, I mean stuff like magic/elemental resistance, health/focus healing, attack speed, etc.

My original post mentioned that I thought instruments shouldn't determine these type of effects, but just rather the strength/duration of them and potentially an increase to specific types of buffs (+50% magic resist strength) for example.

But now I'm thinking if the instruments themselves dictate the type of buff, then it would be cause for bands to form. For example, maybe you have one person playing a flute of defiance, another playing a lute of invigoration, etc.

Players seeking these long-lasting buffs would just come into the tavern, spend 5-10 minutes listening to the band, and get both buffs simultaneously.

 

The bard tree needs four skills that most of us already know @DarkStarr @Chris

Musicianship
Discordance
Provocation
Peacemaking

Please don’t make the tree 3x for the sake of adding things and be different than UO. Four bard skills just works.

 

I think it could go both ways, the artifact insruments would have specific buffs assigned to them, but i think being able to craft any buff on any instrument would be nice. So someone could craft a lute or a flute with ele resist, then just up to the preferance of the players. Certainly could organize your buffs by different instruments, but if u just wanna play lute, should have that option too i think.

But also yea the song duration increasing the effect is also a good idea, tho it would certainly have to be balanced. How long does one typicaly play for before moving or needed to reapply other buffs? How fast would it increase? Would it really be worth the idea if it takes a while to be really effective? Only things that arise in my mind with that idea.

 

I love any Bard idea period... It seems like a bard tree would be easy to do in SOTA.

 

As someone who has played a bard for years In D&D 2e and 3e/3.5 I definitely like the idea of my large list of abc files giving my group buffs. In that regard if it were implemented I'd suggest something akin to the Bard's fascinate ability in D&D but make it a root effect. I can see it now

*Plays Comfortably numb*
*Target is fascinated and starts seeing laser lights everywhere*

 

Oh I would soooo love a Bard skill tree!

 

I think these ideas are pretty solid, of course with some additions, and would work with our current system without needing too much development.
And later down the down if they want to implement some Rhythm based mini game to boost buffs, they could do that