Bardadin and taunt vs. lore

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Lasos
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Bardadin and taunt vs. lore

Post by Lasos » Sun Jul 05, 2020 3:23 pm

Hello everyone,

I am currently rebuilding my old Bardadin after the Lore changes. I was considering switching out Taunt for Lore, giving me a final list of skills:

Perform: 33
Discipline: 33
Lore: 33
Tumble: 30
Heal: 21
Spellcraft: 33
UMD: 24 (for lesser moonblade)

I am not sure if the loss of taunt will be devastating to the build? I would very much like some thoughts and insights into this decision. Build is quite skill-starved, and since Perform, Discipline, Tumble and Spellcraft seems mandatory (and to some extend also some UMD and at least some Heal), there's really not a lot of points to move around with.

Best,
Lasos

AstralUniverse
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Re: Bardadin and taunt vs. lore

Post by AstralUniverse » Sun Jul 05, 2020 6:37 pm

You dont really need all this spellcraft. I would max Heal and take something like 5 Taunt, on the expense of Spellcraft only.
Svrtr wrote:

I've spoken with Kenji and warpriest will be allowed to take elemental avatar so keep this in mind too


Aelryn Bloodmoon
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Re: Bardadin and taunt vs. lore

Post by Aelryn Bloodmoon » Sun Jul 05, 2020 7:24 pm

Spellcraft + din saves are priceless. I wouldn't sacrifice there.

Question 1: How often do you find yourself spamming healkits for outright survival? Heal is a useful skill, but you can buy +10 kits, and with some extra work you can find gear with +2 heal on it to end-game enchant, giving you a potential heal score of +30 with zero ranks in it.

Question 2: How often does taunt come up in your melee as a necessity? With less than max ranks you're probably not going to be giving any caster spell failure, so unless you frequently need taunt to lower someone's AC to land your shots, I would consider giving it up completely and keeping your heal ranks.
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Seven Sons of Sin
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Re: Bardadin and taunt vs. lore

Post by Seven Sons of Sin » Sun Jul 05, 2020 7:54 pm

The combination of Curse Song + Taunt can be spicy.

I'd drop Heal. Heal these days seems more like an extra PvE survive-ability convenience than anything else. You're chugging Heal pots in PvP. You're using Lay of Hands + random Cure pots in PvE. Gold is plentiful so you can buy >+3 Heal Kits galore.

Heal skill doesn't seem esstential, imho. Drop those ranks, put them into Taunt, and away you go.
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Wrips
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Re: Bardadin and taunt vs. lore

Post by Wrips » Sun Jul 05, 2020 8:17 pm

If you are rebuilding as 26/4, you don't even need to put points in Taunt. Your modifier will be 25.

Lasos
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Re: Bardadin and taunt vs. lore

Post by Lasos » Sun Jul 05, 2020 8:35 pm

Wrips wrote:
Sun Jul 05, 2020 8:17 pm
If you are rebuilding as 26/4, you don't even need to put points in Taunt. Your modifier will be 25.
This is the 20/6/4 (bard/fighter/paladin) build. Perhaps i should just redo the character with 16 cha instead of 18 and use the gift to go to 16 int for 33 extra skill points. The Lore-change seems to have made one extra skill more or less mandatory (perhaps not, I know, but for many purposes reachin 50 Lore is incredibly usefull now). Would then loose out on 1 perm unisaves, 1 AC + 1 dmg on divine shield and might which would also be 1 round shorter, but would seem worth it for the ability to taunt at 33 + 9 (cha mod) + 8 (song) + gear while keeping Heal at 21 (which is just an incredibly QoL imo).
Last edited by Lasos on Sun Jul 05, 2020 8:48 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Lasos
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Re: Bardadin and taunt vs. lore

Post by Lasos » Sun Jul 05, 2020 8:47 pm

Aelryn Bloodmoon wrote:
Sun Jul 05, 2020 7:24 pm

Question 1: How often do you find yourself spamming healkits for outright survival? Heal is a useful skill, but you can buy +10 kits, and with some extra work you can find gear with +2 heal on it to end-game enchant, giving you a potential heal score of +30 with zero ranks in it.

Quite often, at least during levelling. I suppose it could be circumvented by more careful engagement or perhaps earlier reactions to sudden drops of HP. Its a QoL for sure, but a really nice one in my experience.
Aelryn Bloodmoon wrote:
Sun Jul 05, 2020 7:24 pm
Question 2: How often does taunt come up in your melee as a necessity? With less than max ranks you're probably not going to be giving any caster spell failure, so unless you frequently need taunt to lower someone's AC to land your shots, I would consider giving it up completely and keeping your heal ranks.
For PvE, where most of my experience lie so far, I find it decently usefull. Most often usefull for boss fights. I like the idea though of having good PvP capabilities too, where i suppose taunt has a lot of usefullness.

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Scurvy Cur
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Re: Bardadin and taunt vs. lore

Post by Scurvy Cur » Mon Jul 06, 2020 3:29 am

Aelryn Bloodmoon wrote:
Sun Jul 05, 2020 7:24 pm
Question 2: How often does taunt come up in your melee as a necessity? With less than max ranks you're probably not going to be giving any caster spell failure, so unless you frequently need taunt to lower someone's AC to land your shots, I would consider giving it up completely and keeping your heal ranks.
This, in fact, is the main reason to take taunt. It's not about the ASF, though that's nice. It's about the additional AC reduction that you can bring along with your curse song since battlebards of all sorts are about winning the AB/AC game as decisively as possible.

That said:

You really don't need much, if any, investment in taunt for it to be good on a bard.

As an example: if you take 5 out of heal and put it into taunt, and also scrub 3 out of spellcraft, because 33 ranks + 2 int + 8 bard song = 43 (and on a 40 modified spellcraft score your bonus to saves v spells will be plenty good), you'll almost certainly have enough taunt even before using curse song.

Your taunt is going to be 8 ranks + 8 bard song + 10 cha under these circumstances, for a total of +26 taunt. If you curse song your opponent for -8 concentration, that's functionally 34 taunt. 26 is enough to nearly always succeed against an opponent that has no skill investment in concentration. With curse in play, you will guaranteed beat even con-based builds with no concentration investment.

This just so happens to be pretty much every melee opponent ever.

A quick note re:taunt and heal.

Having a passable taunt score will help you through PvE with less damage taken, especially at low levels. This is because taunt + expertise is a good way to retain functionally the same DPS you have outside of expertise while snagging the 5 AC. Post-EE, taunt does kick you out of expertise (it didn't do so before), but you can play around this with the following algorithm:

1. Queue your taunt while you're in combat, presumably in expertise/imp expertise.
2. Let the top attacks of a combat round go off, then cancel your attack action. This immediately begins your taunt animation, which is shorter than the duration of the round. You don't technically need to let the first flurry of a round go past, but this helps make sure that you get your best attacks in and keep expertise up. Not mandatory, but best practices all the same.
3. Wait for the animation to finish.
4. Activate expertise or imp expertise at any time before the next combat round begins. While the game will not activate Exp/Imp Exp until the top of the next round, it will remember that you've signaled that it should be activated next time you attack someone.
5. Force attack your target by clicking on them. This is necessary since the taunt animation will leave you with no followup attacks queued, so you'll need to manually restart your attack chain.

If you've done this correctly, your expertise will come back up almost immediately as the taunt animation finishes and you start the next combat round. Total time kicked from expertise: a fraction of a second.


AstralUniverse
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Re: Bardadin and taunt vs. lore

Post by AstralUniverse » Mon Jul 06, 2020 11:48 pm

Scurvy Cur wrote:
Mon Jul 06, 2020 3:29 am
Having a passable taunt score will help you through PvE with less damage taken, especially at low levels. This is because taunt + expertise is a good way to retain functionally the same DPS you have outside of expertise while snagging the 5 AC. Post-EE, taunt does kick you out of expertise (it didn't do so before), but you can play around this with the following algorithm:

1. Queue your taunt while you're in combat, presumably in expertise/imp expertise.
2. Let the top attacks of a combat round go off, then cancel your attack action. This immediately begins your taunt animation, which is shorter than the duration of the round. You don't technically need to let the first flurry of a round go past, but this helps make sure that you get your best attacks in and keep expertise up. Not mandatory, but best practices all the same.
3. Wait for the animation to finish.
4. Activate expertise or imp expertise at any time before the next combat round begins. While the game will not activate Exp/Imp Exp until the top of the next round, it will remember that you've signaled that it should be activated next time you attack someone.
5. Force attack your target by clicking on them. This is necessary since the taunt animation will leave you with no followup attacks queued, so you'll need to manually restart your attack chain.

If you've done this correctly, your expertise will come back up almost immediately as the taunt animation finishes and you start the next combat round. Total time kicked from expertise: a fraction of a second.
When you cancel your attack mid round and the animation of the Taunt starts, you dont drop expertise immediately because it's in the middle of the round, and as a result, you get to keep your expertise for the remaining of the round, until it will eventually drop, but you can attack and toggle it again a fraction of a second after (if you time it right) as the next round starts? Just trying to understand. I havent played with taunt since EE and I didnt know it toggles off expertise now (sucks but sort of makes sense).
Svrtr wrote:

I've spoken with Kenji and warpriest will be allowed to take elemental avatar so keep this in mind too


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Scurvy Cur
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Re: Bardadin and taunt vs. lore

Post by Scurvy Cur » Tue Jul 07, 2020 4:51 am

AstralUniverse wrote:
Mon Jul 06, 2020 11:48 pm
When you cancel your attack mid round and the animation of the Taunt starts, you dont drop expertise immediately because it's in the middle of the round, and as a result, you get to keep your expertise for the remaining of the round, until it will eventually drop, but you can attack and toggle it again a fraction of a second after (if you time it right) as the next round starts? Just trying to understand. I havent played with taunt since EE and I didnt know it toggles off expertise now (sucks but sort of makes sense).
Not quite, but close.

You keep your expertise until the taunt animation finishes. It's only the completed taunt that kicks you out of expertise. So what you're doing is making sure expertise is ready to reactivate the instant you're done taunting.

Helpful Illustrative Video


AstralUniverse
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Re: Bardadin and taunt vs. lore

Post by AstralUniverse » Tue Jul 07, 2020 3:46 pm

Scurvy Cur wrote:
Tue Jul 07, 2020 4:51 am
Helpful Illustrative Video
Very helpful. And probably a fun mechanic to practice and perfect, like whirlwind. Thanks a lot.
Svrtr wrote:

I've spoken with Kenji and warpriest will be allowed to take elemental avatar so keep this in mind too


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