Bard nerf feedback

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by msheeler » Wed Nov 23, 2022 4:35 pm

Subtext wrote:
Wed Nov 23, 2022 2:51 pm
I think that's a bit much for someone who essentially just had the first lesson of lockpicking 101.
Observer - Are you a master lock smith?!

Lock Picker - No, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night!

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by Sincra » Wed Nov 23, 2022 11:17 pm

Subtext wrote:
Wed Nov 23, 2022 2:51 pm
Kelaris wrote:
Wed Nov 23, 2022 1:43 pm
I can understand needing to lower the top end contribution towards skills since bards were an outlier, but I find it frustrating to lose access to the jack of all trades/skills aspect of the class. The things I miss the most are being able to open basic locks/disable traps (expensive sail suit will take a long time to remake), and helping unskilled people with climbing, basic sailing, and riding. Most builds have the majority of their skill choices eaten by "mandatory" skills for basic combat functionality, leaving very few people (including the bard) able to invest many points in interesting skills.
That said, I think even for people with minimal investment it might be nice if at least the baseline bonus applied fully. It's not going to turn you into a pro but when you're hovering just so below a certain DC, it just might make the difference.
It does, Core song, as in, not a specific, still gives a bonus to all skills. Just at the reduced rate of 1/6, not 1/3 as pre adjusted.
Kelaris wrote:
Wed Nov 23, 2022 1:43 pm
If these changes are staying, please consider making bard less awful to play at lower levels, and increase its personal contribution in combat. Between the short duration, lack of charges, long cooldown, and weak effects, the song is borderline worthless until the mid 20s.
This is entirely build dependant and not something we can address without upsetting balance in favor of a single playstyle.
If you want longer songs most bards can afford the associated pre epic feat cost.
Notably nothing was changed regarding AC, AB, damage, etc so I'm not sure how they don't contribute much?
If the issue is charge amounts It likely involves being less triggerhappy and being more aware of when they are actually needed.
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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by Helsing » Thu Nov 24, 2022 4:21 am

Kelaris wrote:
Wed Nov 23, 2022 1:43 pm
If these changes are staying, please consider making bard less awful to play at lower levels, and increase its personal contribution in combat. Between the short duration, lack of charges, long cooldown, and weak effects, the song is borderline worthless until the mid 20s.
Bards are awful to play at lower level? Don't you know there's instructments that gives Summon Creature VI 1 use/day at lvl 3? With Spell focus Conj these can carry you to mid level easily.
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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by Sandrow » Thu Nov 24, 2022 7:06 am

Helsing wrote:
Thu Nov 24, 2022 4:21 am
Kelaris wrote:
Wed Nov 23, 2022 1:43 pm
If these changes are staying, please consider making bard less awful to play at lower levels, and increase its personal contribution in combat. Between the short duration, lack of charges, long cooldown, and weak effects, the song is borderline worthless until the mid 20s.
Bards are awful to play at lower level? Don't you know there's instructments that gives Summon Creature VI 1 use/day at lvl 3? With Spell focus Conj these can carry you to mid level easily.
I agree with Helsing partly. The nerf doesn't hurt bard much in the battle aspect.
But earning enough gold for such an instrument is also painful, especially many rich summoners would buy them ahead of you. Normally you won't be about to collect all the materials or enough gold till mid levels.

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by Subtext » Thu Nov 24, 2022 8:28 am

I'd consider early bard levels to be quite a bit easier than most classes even without expensive items.

Summon creature II and III scrolls are affordable early on and will help with the early writs. By then, Animal Empathy (especially on Skal) and Leadership (for henchmen) will carry you till epics even when going solo.
Finding someone to make you gear with +2 to skills will make that even easier and it's not too expensive.

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by AstralUniverse » Thu Nov 24, 2022 11:19 am

Sandrow wrote:
Thu Nov 24, 2022 7:06 am
... especially many rich summoners would buy them ahead of you.
You mean... bards?
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I've spoken with Kenji and warpriest will be allowed to take elemental avatar so keep this in mind too


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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by Sl1pp1f1st » Thu Nov 24, 2022 7:03 pm

Negates whole class feature with a level 2 spell.

Also slashes 70% of all skills by 12-20 (!) points making it in a lot of respects worse than vanilla bard. Level 30 vanilla bard song in contrast gives +19 to all skills, making this abomination a vastly different experience from even the base class.

Curbstomps SoTH bard a little extra by eating additionally two epic feats, one of which provides literally no benefit to the class whatsoever (Epic Reputation is trash, and yes, the FOIG way of acquiring it for free is gone).

Yea, I'd say it's a little much.

If the main gripe was EDR bard, how about just returning con requirement for EDR to 21? Heck, make it 23. Or simpler yet, disable SoTH if EDRI is present.

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by Sandrow » Fri Nov 25, 2022 1:47 am

AstralUniverse wrote:
Thu Nov 24, 2022 11:19 am
You mean... bards?
Some sort of bard. I know there is a 27 wizard/ 3 bard holding 20 of the harps merely for mass haste

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by Svrtr » Fri Nov 25, 2022 2:12 am

Sl1pp1f1st wrote:
Thu Nov 24, 2022 7:03 pm
Negates whole class feature with a level 2 spell.

Also slashes 70% of all skills by 12-20 (!) points making it in a lot of respects worse than vanilla bard. Level 30 vanilla bard song in contrast gives +19 to all skills, making this abomination a vastly different experience from even the base class.

Curbstomps SoTH bard a little extra by eating additionally two epic feats, one of which provides literally no benefit to the class whatsoever (Epic Reputation is trash, and yes, the FOIG way of acquiring it for free is gone).

Yea, I'd say it's a little much.

If the main gripe was EDR bard, how about just returning con requirement for EDR to 21? Heck, make it 23. Or simpler yet, disable SoTH if EDRI is present.
The main gripe wasn't EDR bard, it was nigh always the sheer skill bloat bard allowed for, and how minimal investment in a skill would allow a bard to still get mid 30s to 40s with little investment. This also especially allowing for 90 listen bards and/or solo QB bards.

The intent was to curb skill bloat bard song allowed for, and it was successful. You still get 1 rank per 6 levels and have songs that themselves have more targeted bonuses, just not 2 epic skill foci values worth of bonus

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by Gwenneth_Corvain » Fri Nov 25, 2022 8:06 am

Svrtr wrote:
Fri Nov 25, 2022 2:12 am
Sl1pp1f1st wrote:
Thu Nov 24, 2022 7:03 pm

If the main gripe was EDR bard, how about just returning con requirement for EDR to 21? Heck, make it 23. Or simpler yet, disable SoTH if EDRI is present.
The main gripe wasn't EDR bard, it was nigh always the sheer skill bloat bard allowed for, and how minimal investment in a skill would allow a bard to still get mid 30s to 40s with little investment. This also especially allowing for 90 listen bards and/or solo QB bards.

The intent was to curb skill bloat bard song allowed for, and it was successful. You still get 1 rank per 6 levels and have songs that themselves have more targeted bonuses, just not 2 epic skill foci values worth of bonus
After playing my bard in the new rules i can give some feedback from the average / non-optimized builds point of view:

Bard-song in terms of battle-strenght has not changed at all. It is still -good-. (more on the effects of that later)

The skill-cut to 1-in-6 levels does not seem so terrible either - the number gets smaller and that seems a good targeted approach to the specific "the numbers are too high" issue.

What really shows and hurts though - is that the specific songs to help certain situations and skills in that situation now give very very little utility to less-than-fully invested skills.

These songs for me had the specific niche utility to get some non-expert just over the threshhold. That utility is now lost making the use of these songs almost pointless. To those who already have full investment in a skill the song -still- gives massive boosts though so i am not sure whether the target of preventing solo-QBs or just-too-high possible numbers was achieved. Lower skills can't get up, but higher skills still skyrocket through the song.

Ironically there is a secondary effect of this - since going in for really good song-effects now provides much less practical utility it is entirely reasonable now to forego stronger songs that -still- would only give minimal points in an untrained skill. Instead, as has been recommended before in the thread - the bard can now actually take EDR or divine smite / might / shield feats, adding to their individual power instead of their be-useful-to-groups power.

My own battle-strenght has gone up considerably because of this update. This change is creating more selfish solo EDR-bards because that is now more useful than the specialized songs.
To be clear - this isn't a complaint or gripe. I mean to give practical feedback. Bard is still a functional and fun-to-play class. Nothing is broken beyond playable. It is just my observation that bards became worse at their core-skills in favor of their battle-prowess.

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by Cagus » Fri Nov 25, 2022 3:09 pm

Bard had become a class that was capable of out competing almost all other support built classes, in almost every scenario, while then also retaining the capacity to be incredibly hard to defeat.
The above changes are designed address this.
Not sure, what the problem was, but this seems to indicate their sturdiness.

I don't see this was addressed in other way then only by turning off the signature class skill (song) with lvl2 spell.
Other changes are:
Cost of epic feat
Cost of epic feat
Nerf skills for party
Nerf skills for party more (but only for those, who need it most)
Officially disabling anti-scry song feature (even that one didn't work in the first place, so not sure why this needed nerf, this couldn't even be exploited yet)
Removed song bonus to listen, MS.

Not sure if these changes were really addressing bard's capacity to be incredibly hard to defeat.
It just seem to take away options for mostly non-battle situations.

Have to agree with the guys above. This seems worse than vanilla bard.

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by -stick- » Fri Nov 25, 2022 4:27 pm

If we Could at least keep the song Selfish Solo outside of the silence spell effect it would ease the pain

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by Yvesza » Fri Nov 25, 2022 5:20 pm

Bards have a lot of innate ways to mitigate silence, ethereal visage and minor glove of invulnerability which both make you immune to the effect.
They can also wear the SR helmet to stop scroll and wand castings of the spell, or get access to spell mantles or a casting of spell resistance from a cleric or favoured soul to become all but immune to it.

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by AstralUniverse » Fri Nov 25, 2022 5:50 pm

Vanilla bard was op. Comparing to vanilla bard wont get us far.

Afaik, a bard cannot negate a silence aura with spell resistance helmet since it is not cast on them and I honestly dont remember if there's a spell resistance check when you enter the aura. That said, there's a very easy way to negate such auras and it is to use dispel wand on the ground. Even lesser dispel works (lesser dispel can also be casted from a spellbook with no verbal component while inside silence aura, it is essentially auto-silent spell).
Cagus wrote:
Fri Nov 25, 2022 3:09 pm
Not sure if these changes were really addressing bard's capacity to be incredibly hard to defeat.
It just seem to take away options for mostly non-battle situations.
I want to address this because I think you're missing the point of the update, or at least how i see it. Bard is not that hard to defeat in pvp. It is not that durable of a class in general. This nerf was not meant to target bard's durability in combat at all in any way. It was specifically meant to reduce the 'jack of all trades' efficiency when it comes to skill check situations (stealth vs detection, apprise, search, disguise, sail and many others) which was the most broken op part about bard. Now it is more chill and rewards people who are trying to actually be good at that said skill rather than just get a random +20 with no investment from any side. It was also meant to put a heavier tax on song of the heart because it's really *that* good and the investment should be proportionate.

So over all I'd say it is very good that the capacity to be incredible hard to defeat was not compromised (if it was even there to begin with, that's debatable) and since none-battle situations are exactly where bard was the most broken op, I do believe your feedback to be correct in observation, but since that was precisely the goal of the update, I think we're good.
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I've spoken with Kenji and warpriest will be allowed to take elemental avatar so keep this in mind too


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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by Yvesza » Fri Nov 25, 2022 5:56 pm

AstralUniverse wrote:
Fri Nov 25, 2022 5:50 pm
Afaik, a bard cannot negate a silence aura with spell resistance helmet since it is not cast on them and I honestly dont remember if there's a spell resistance check when you enter the aura.
You can absolutely negate silence, there's a check when you enter the aura or have the spell cast upon you.

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by AstralUniverse » Fri Nov 25, 2022 6:02 pm

Yvesza wrote:
Fri Nov 25, 2022 5:56 pm
AstralUniverse wrote:
Fri Nov 25, 2022 5:50 pm
Afaik, a bard cannot negate a silence aura with spell resistance helmet since it is not cast on them and I honestly dont remember if there's a spell resistance check when you enter the aura.
there's a check when you enter the aura
No one is using the wand on the bard, but I wasnt sure about this part. Good to know.
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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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by -stick- » Fri Nov 25, 2022 8:22 pm

Yvesza wrote:
Fri Nov 25, 2022 5:20 pm
Bards have a lot of innate ways to mitigate silence, ethereal visage and minor glove of invulnerability which both make you immune to the effect.
They can also wear the SR helmet to stop scroll and wand castings of the spell, or get access to spell mantles or a casting of spell resistance from a cleric or favoured soul to become all but immune to it.
there are ways but they are unreliable, the class can't have enough of those spells which are all easily breached and their duration will be too short if used from an item and you have to keep all of that up just to maintain your class's main ability its depressing.

that's why i think that Selfish Solo should get a free pass

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by Yvesza » Fri Nov 25, 2022 8:51 pm

-stick- wrote:
Fri Nov 25, 2022 8:22 pm
Yvesza wrote:
Fri Nov 25, 2022 5:20 pm
Bards have a lot of innate ways to mitigate silence, ethereal visage and minor glove of invulnerability which both make you immune to the effect.
They can also wear the SR helmet to stop scroll and wand castings of the spell, or get access to spell mantles or a casting of spell resistance from a cleric or favoured soul to become all but immune to it.
there are ways but they are unreliable, the class can't have enough of those spells which are all easily breached and their duration will be too short if used from an item and you have to keep all of that up just to maintain your class's main ability its depressing.

that's why i think that Selfish Solo should get a free pass
Silence is just as easily countered, it can even be dispelled reliably. Bard has a suite of tools to deal with it, there's counterplay to a bard now even if it's niche. It's not a free pass to destroy bard, it's an option to be considered.

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by Sandrow » Sat Nov 26, 2022 3:04 am

A cleric with silence aura can easily defeat a bard. Stronger summons, ignoring all songs, overwhelming spell casting ability, divine power and divine shields.

I won't be surprised that bard are wining other supportive characters, because bard's topic is supporting. They have something unique, but can't doing the mass zoo spells or AOV. At that point, they are in good place. Those EDR bards are surprisingly tough, though. Selfish solo might need some rework

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by Sincra » Sat Nov 26, 2022 3:30 am

To clarify the reason for the update:
Bard with both SotH 3 and EDR was too much, this is just a fact of how strong 9/- is when you're also providing an effective level X song with a universal +1 to base song effects.
This is the tankiness concern that was addressed in conjunction with the SotH being made more expensive. It is now impossible to buy everything you want in feats for this setup and have a level 30 song.

On skills, it was oppressive how mandatory bard had become as a catchall improver. This is especially true of people investing 1 point out of a possible 33 and getting bumped by 17 to 23 points in the skill.
This then exasperated the issue of how easy it is to reach the soft 50 cap for the uninvested.

On silence, it is thematic and already had interaction by stopping you activating both buff and curse songs, this is the natural evolution.
For reference I'd encourage people to actually look at the silence AoE radius, it's very small and thus won't be easy to employ, even beyond all the stated ways to mitigate.
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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by Hazard » Mon Nov 28, 2022 5:53 am

I think these changes are great and it hasn't at all put me off playing bard in the future. I can still fit all the stuff I want on the build!
Actually really glad to see this class and their skillbloat get toned down. Also glad that AB/AC wasn't touched, seems fine.

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by Drowble Oh Seven » Mon Nov 28, 2022 5:57 am

The skill buff delivered by song feels horribly underwhelming for a 30-level investment, but the combat buffs are still wonderful to have. It hurts, but I like the direction away from the night-and-day difference having a bard or not makes. I'd like to see it applied to other sources of skill buffs, being honest. Skill point investments should be meaningful to a character.

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by Sl1pp1f1st » Mon Nov 28, 2022 6:09 pm

OK, here's my feedback and experiences with neo-neo-Arelith bard. My perspective is that of a skillbard and as such skills is mostly what I will be discussing. I also fell for the meme that 25 base charisma would be enough of a sacrifice on a class that needs 16, so I was greeted by my favourite time waster - yet another forced relevel.

Chests
Pilfering Poem used to give 19, I now get 6. I have played this game for way too many years and the novelty of this little mini-game of finding trap, disabling trap, opening lock has long since worn off. Bard has since NWN's inception been one of the few classes blissfully fortunate enough to be able to more or less ignore it with minimal investment and now it has to contend with having another half page of gear to mitigate the damage while still somehow only having six pages of inventory. Arguing that it is unrealistic was, is and will always be a dumb argument in a fantasy game. I challenge you to break into a museum, attempt to don a suit of full plate armour in an instant and afterwards sprint around in it. Are you going to make full plate wearers take ten minutes to armour up and move at 50% reduced movement speed? I think not. Claiming that this advantage is unfair to other classes is also a moot point when 95% of arcane familiars picked on the server do the same thing. The end result is I will still get through to the treasure, only I will have wasted yet more time on yet more inventory management and gear swapping, so this change succeeds only in ruining a quality of life feature that bard has always had.

Sailing
Sea Shanty, in my case, went from a bonus of +22 Sail to +17. I'm cool with it. We do however have a thread on sailing going on five pages complaining that the sea is not inclusive and this update will make it worse. This update is more than likely extreme enough to make a good number of bards shelve or quit, making the bard requisite for doing edgewater sailing even rarer and further locking away this content for a good number of players. The difficulty of sailing and fighting in the edgewaters remain the same.

Climb
Traveler's Tune used to give +27 Climb, I now get +6. The sail thread suggests it is bad to lock away content behind an arbitrary skill and the same applies to this. I used to be able to handle even the most difficult climbs whereas now I can only access the easy/mid tier spots by getting gear, managing my scarce pages of six inventory, swap gear and - once again - waste my time on a quality of life feature bard has had since climb was introduced. Not only on the bard's part, but bard was the sole option for a lot of characters who are completely inept at climbing to participate in this content and now they can only dream of it. I, being stupid, also failed to make my character an air genasi because I didn't have the good foresight to predict my skill would be slashed by 78% from one day to the next. On a side note, if I want to do any wyvern riding content I can also eat **** and cry about it, because I went from a bonus of +32 to a bonus of +6.

Listen
Svrtr wrote:
Fri Nov 25, 2022 2:12 am
This also especially allowing for 90 listen bards and/or solo QB bards.
Sure, I don't know what possessed them to make Amplify turns/level either. My listen can still get pretty high with rounds/level stuff and I'm fine with that. Sentinel's Song sure looks silly however, going from +22 to a healthy +0. I can instead give the middle finger to every character around me and opt for the most boring song in the book, Selfish Solo, and get +6, here's me playing the support class.

Stealth
Deceptive Ditty went from +22 to +17 Hide, +0 Move Silently and also looks silly. My stealth game was probably in the top 10-5% of the server, now it is downgraded to viable for PvM only, locking me away from additional content. Arguing that it is unrealistic to sing and move silently remains a dumb argument in a fantasy game. I encourage you to get an oxygen tank and dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench and not die from decompression sickness. Are you going to instantly Fugue anyone stepping out of a diving bell? I think not. I play a sneak, so this is the equivalent of cutting all melee classes' disc or all caster classes' spellcraft and concentration by 22 and bard with their lead foot is no longer cool enough to hang out with with their shady friends. Having gutted my Dexterity for Charisma and very few spells granting Move Silently there is also no way to recuperate this loss.

Jack of no trades
If you look up bard in more or less any fantasy lore setting you will find the phrase "Jack-of-all-trades" or some variation thereof. All of the above combines to make this abomination of a bard a Jack of no (some) trades and is a hollowing out of their class identity which has persisted since 2002. What you have succeeded in removing is for the most part also simple QoL features like dealing with chests and doing climbing spots rather than features making them percievably imbalanced in PvP, making the class more of a drag to play, unfun and indeed, a waste of time. Skillbloat is mentioned, well skills is the sole reason many pick this class in the first place and the bard gets neither powerful spells, summons or combat proficiency as the tradeoff.

PvM
Who cares. Hardcore Arelith with low level stuff like kuo toa priests with two casts of Acid Sheathe is long dead and levelling is easier than it has ever been. I guess I get minus two AC due to no Armor Skin. I do miss being able to get rid of the writ paper to free up my inventory though.

PvP
I tend to not partake in this either, since the fastest way to get your character nerfed into the ground is to wield it successfully in PvP. If I theorycraft however I can see that my character is squishier and I can forget about cornersneaking, so the likelyhood of participating in this game of punishing success seems even lower. As for the Song neutering by Silence I would perhaps be a little more willing to entertain Globe of Invulnerability and Ethereal Visage arguments if they were not so readily breachable and Breach so readily available. If I were to make a comparison, it would be along lines of keeping 1 minute duration Haste continually up, Freedom of Movement, or Divine Shield and Divine Might, which is some of the most tedious part of PvP in the first place. Wands of Silence were mentioned, but it is even worse, being a level two spell it can be put on potions, these can be imbibed and pretty faces can be caved in all within a single round. Dispels were mentioned, well wands of such only work if you land it next to the target, and doing this on a hasted target running around seems difficult and inconsistent. Using the wand directly on the target does nothing, and contrary to the immunity spells, Silence does not find itself on the Arelith Breach List. Applying another Silence potion also is a much smoother and quicker action than trying to land another hit of a wand. As for Spell Resistance, none of the items granting such look particularly attractive and this again punishes bards foolish enough not to anticipate their class feature would be negated by a level 2 spell and thus made their bard a race with natural Spell Resistance, further furthering the divide between the Have SR and the Have no SR races.

Rushed & Unfinished
Half the songs now do nothing making this update feel like a rushed, half thought out, half finished, halving of a class unworthy of PGCC testing, much less live server implementation. Sentinel's Song gives 0 Listen, Deceptive Ditty gives 0 Move Silently, Masking Melody now recieves no ESF Perform bonus, this looks good to you? Would it perhaps be wise to address some of these issues before nuking a class from one day to the next? Is there a particular reason this had to be shipped out so suddenly after SoTH bard seemingly being fine for eight months?

TL:DR
Aniel wrote:
Wed Mar 23, 2022 3:40 am

From sorrowkitten, Red Ropes, Aniel, et al
With contributions from KenC
===========
BARD UPDATE
Bard has had a lot of work done to it to make it a more versatile, enjoyable and user-friendly class to play. Many bugs were fixed and new features have been added.
This, out the window
All QoL features removed, time wasted
Content locked for both bard and friends
Bard unviable for high end stealth
Sea worse
2/10, cannot recommend

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by Xerah » Mon Nov 28, 2022 6:52 pm

It's unfortunate when someone's seemingly thought out post is filled with sarcasm and aggression leaving it hard for any developer to spend their time parsing through it.
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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by Morgy » Mon Nov 28, 2022 7:13 pm

Sl1pp1f1st wrote:
Mon Nov 28, 2022 6:09 pm
BigPost.
Some decents points, but as Xerah pointed out, it kills motivation for anyone to re-consider changes if they feel like they've just been slapped in the face with rudeness. Your post would be easier to read if you cut out the ranty bits.

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