Better room-wide abilities: Magi or Bard

Cerres

I've played around with a few different classes. Question is which class has better room wide abilities? Magi with Crystalism or Bard with Harmonics? Last I played Magi was more or less damage centric and had no reliable way to strip mass, but with the new Artificing skill I'm not completely sure where they stand. And I'm also not at all familiar with Bards. Any information would be greatly appreciated!

Kiet

Hard to say. 1v1 or groups? Harmonics generally have a bigger passive effect, but ret + destabilize addiction give mages an edge in the 'actually do something specific' area.

Aegoth

Magi has WAY more group utility/effectiveness than Bard. Hands down. Deepfreeze/vibes/ret/hailstorm/holocaust/destabilise vibes/hellfumes/etc. Magi just wrecks face

Shirszae

I am surprised you did not put holocaust in first place

Kiet

Aegoth said:

Magi has WAY more group utility/effectiveness than Bard. Hands down. Deepfreeze/vibes/ret/hailstorm/holocaust/destabilise vibes/hellfumes/etc. Magi just wrecks face

He only asked about crystalism/harmonics, though! With everything else, magi has better aoe definitely, but as far as those ttwo skills only, it depends on whether you'll get to use ret/destabilize adduction

Kaden

Magi vibes can also be used to enable below x mana instakills.

Kafziel

Generally harmonics will be defensive in nature in group fights. The affliction harms aren't all that useful, but continuo/gigue/anthem/canticle/wassail are all very good for boosting a group. Bards have the advantage that harmonics are useful in line of sight fights, but magi definitely has more impact in a melee. For in-room group attacks bard basically only has percussia. Don't get me wrong, percussia is awesome and spamming it on a big group of enemies wins you a lot of fights, but it's not really all that versatile compared to what magi can do. Noise is also nice for cancelling tumbles out of ret

Saeva

Yeah, I don't even know bard -that- well but from everything I know about raiding with bards, magi is definitely going to have more versatility and overall range of utility. If your mage can stay alive (hardest part) and knows what to do and when to do it (or not to do it), they can manhandle a room and change the tide fairly dramatically.

Kafziel

Back before retardation changes bard/magi were a basically unstoppable combo. Harmonics and stridulation in retardation along with percussia shut down zerg rushes so hard it wasn't funny. I dunno exactly what the ret changes did but apparently harmonics don't fire in ret anymore?

Ahmet

Kafziel said:

Back before retardation changes bard/magi were a basically unstoppable combo. Harmonics and stridulation in retardation along with percussia shut down zerg rushes so hard it wasn't funny. I dunno exactly what the ret changes did but apparently harmonics don't fire in ret anymore?

Neither harmonics nor vibes fire in ret