Babylon System is the Vampire wrote: ↑Thu Apr 28, 2022 2:45 am
Firstly, let me apologize if this should have been its own thread. My topic is going to focus more on the splash damage 30 bard is getting, but since when this came up on discord someone who likely has access to the "behind the scenes" conversation mentioned that these things now had to account for the dirge singer, I figured the two were related.
Second, let me apologize because this might get a bit long.
So, the changes to expertise and discipline...
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The expertise thing I'm still not sure on, because on one hand I get that damage is pretty good on curse since it forces your opponent to choose between removing the curse and risk taking more damage or waiting a bit to heal up before removing the curse. On the other hand, loosing 10 ac for a dex 30 bard is pretty awful. Loosing that much on a strength 30 bard is character breaking. I need to see lich damage in practice since it still wasn't doing damage to the AI as of this last weekend to fully come up with an opinion on this, but its definitely something I am concerned about for my character going forward.
As a side note, the timing is a but wonky too. Comparing it to taunt, taunt takes up an entire round, and drops expertise at the end of the action. That means that you can often reapply it right after it drops leaving you only open to one flurry. Curse song now drops it at the begining of the round as the action starts, which means not only that you are down expertise longer its possible you may be looking at two rounds. The way expertise toggles, if you don't hit it at the right time sometimes it just doesn't apply. And even if you notice it, you are going to have to wait another round to get it on. All of this is pushing bard toward being the most micromanagy class in the game.
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The discipline thing I am baffled by. Thats not to say I can't see the arguments, I can. +17 discipline sounds like a lot to get for no investment (even though bard song gave +19 to all the skills for 20 years with one song and was never an issue). But the truth is that there is an investment. Getting to 70 perform is not automatic, especially for dex bards. And even at +17 disc those dex bards are still going to have one of the lowest disciplines on the server more often than not, because people make them to get people out sailing. So thats two epic focuses right there. I got more to say about the potential effects on sailing down the line, but getting back on topic of all the skill songs that I could see getting nerfed the disc songs were way down on my list. Discipline is not one of those skills that the more you have the better, there is a threshold, so these songs won't make the party suddenly discipline monsters. They likely already are, because everyone is and unless you are willing to only log in when your bard is around it seems like a loosing bet to skimp and rely on that plus 17. So all this accomplishes is making the bard easier to kill. Maybe that's the goal, but I hope you understand that if you make it too easy no one is going to play bards. And I didn't even touch the fact that shifting songs is not an instant action, it takes a round.
As my second side note of this post, I know there is going to be some pushback to the above. I get it, you look at all the goodies on paper and say wtf this is super powerful. But I challenge those people to actually play a bard to 30 before they make bold claims. While leveling it up and maxing out its gear for pvp on the pgcc is fine for testing, it doesn't take into account the long journey to get there (its a very gear intensive class), or all the other choices you have to make along the way to be good at something like sailing, or *gasp* qbreaking.
So, now that that's out of the way, lets bring it back to dirgesinger. First off I want to say that I love what was done with this class, and if i hadn't made a bard a week before these things were first announced I would be all over trying it out. It looks really cool. But if other builds are getting nerfed because of the potential synergies with this class, something is wrong in my opinion. And even if you disagree with that opinion, you have to understand that right now sailing lives and dies by the presence of 30 bards. You can make the argument that people are too obsessed with their sail score out of fear of coming out on the losing end, and i wouldn't disagree. I've poked my nose into most of the big sailing crews that have existed or do exist, and its the one constant theme. But that's where we are. That changes if bards become less essential to sailing of course, but I'm sure its not an easy fix since if you do something like remove sea shanties suddenly wisdom based classes become the new bards. So its not like a swift change is definitely around the corner. My point being, if you make 30 bards unplayable, you also hurt all that new sail content at least in the short term. We need more sailors, not less.
Anyhow, let me double down on my preamble apologies and head on out of here. Thanks for reading.
