Bard: that one class

Averi

So I was wondering, have any of you guys been bard before/fought a bard?  

What works for them and what doesn't?  

I am having tremendous amounts of trouble killing people at the moment. And it's kind of frustrating. 

I can hinder people, but I can't seem to figure out how to make the die.  

Any help at all would be much appreciated. 

Thanks! 

Trey

Too bad you missed the good ol' days of doublejab and triplejab, when you could lock yourself by hitting someone's rebounding.

Mizik

It's a momentum class without burst affliction without movement hinder.

Pieces of offensive design. Will work on it when classleads become relevant again.

Vaehl

Slow-bard only worked when systems were bad. Speed-bard got nerfed.

Averi

Mishgul

You can still make a hit with the right tone.

Nellaundra

The last bard I died to basically paralyze/stupidity stacked me to death.  Kept me from doing much and then kept hitting me with DFA because I was stupid and didn't realize that they needed trees for that.

Antidas

@Nellaundra for the record, they dont need trees for DFA.

Tylor

I was a bard, for like...forever. While you do feel like you're made of rubber and can pretty much get out of anything, that's about all you're going to be able to do. Oh, and be the first target during raids if you're the designated harmonic 'keeper-upper'. I switched class a while ago and I'm glad I did, I feel like I can breathe -- Just my two cents.

Averi

Yeah. I can't figure out what this class is good for other than harmonics in raids and running. ALL the running. But then people get mad at me for running and then I die anyway. 

Sadly though, I love the arpee that comes with the class but the combat is hard.

@Nellaundra we can also highleap dfa, but I think if you leave the room and then come back, it doesn't work.  I can never like pull one off on people.

@Mishgul what do you mean by that?

Mishgul

When you hit the right notes, everyone will boogie with you.

Tylor

Mishgul said:

When you hit the right notes, everyone will boogie with you.

And then you just end up looking like this:

http://youtu.be/R3xwDDLuLcY

Aerek

I actually tried to find some plausible Bard strategies with @Sylvance before she started alt'ing, but I was stumped. You can get some nice damage in with limb breaks, prefarar, and vibrato/tremolo, but it wasn't enough to kill me. (Granted, I'm Paladin with fullplate; the only physical damage that scares me comes from monks) It feels like the only way to really be effective is to be able to flawlessly stack Percussia to keep them permanently stunned for 10-20 seconds.

Xith

Bards used to have nonsensical damage, now they're like the opposite of a glass cannon.

But with two balances and harmonics, it can't be more than getting a little creative to make stuff work.

Sylvance

Aerek said:

I actually tried to find some plausible Bard strategies with @Sylvance before she started alt'ing, but I was stumped. You can get some nice damage in with limb breaks, prefarar, and vibrato/tremolo, but it wasn't enough to kill me. (Granted, I'm Paladin with fullplate; the only physical damage that scares me comes from monks) It feels like the only way to really be effective is to be able to flawlessly stack Percussia to keep them permanently stunned for 10-20 seconds.

Totes. I wasn't terribly dogged with it, because that was before I had a -clue- about combat mechanics/theory whatever. The learning curve for a Bard nowadays is an utter bitch, and it doesn't help that we're a class that relies on speed... but can easily screw ourselves over by getting a rapier that's faster than voice balance.  It might be that if I come back to Bard combat now with a bit more of an idea of what I'm doing that stuff can start happening, but it was looking pretty bleak when we were testing.

Voice balance ought to be made to work like Striking; just to pre-empt the cries of OP, having Voice/Tunesmithing and Harmonics hitting at the same time is absolutely no worse than Infusion/Limb Damage/Striking, with voidfist going in the background.  That isn't a shot at BMs; I'm sure every other 'combat' class has brilliant stuff but Bard and BM are what I know about.

ETA - wtf is up with my quotes? Anyone know? My reply in italics.

ETA - and as soon as I post that edit it fixes itself..? wtf?

Zeon

This thread sure went from constructive moping and realistic apathy to CLASSLEADS 2013 pretty damn fast.

Tvistor

Playing serpent with voicecraft was the sexiest thing in the world.

Sidonia

Voice balance/aurabless being 3 seconds means you're either stuck with a 3s jab speed, or you're trying to coordinate two differently timed attacks and strip deaf without auralbless. Neither of these are fun situations, you're either too slow to afflict properly or wasting too much time on using prefarar.

Aerek

Tvistor said:

Playing serpent with voicecraft was the sexiest thing in the world.

@Tvistor Close. Playing a knight with voicecraft was the sexiest thing in the world. You can already hard-lock, it just takes some effort. I went from unable to "Hahahahaha, unstoppable!"

Mizik

Reminds me of Rangor and I arguing for Knight Impatience like 5 years ago.

Now we all like "O."

Iocun

Cap dsl speed and I'm all for knight impatience. (But only if serpents also get a viable way to afflict impatience without a prep!)

Sylvance

Zeon said:

This thread sure went from constructive moping and realistic apathy to CLASSLEADS 2013 pretty damn fast.

And straight from CLASSLEADS 2013 to being-an-asshole 101.

Zeon

I have my moments.

Sylvance

Aerek said:

I actually tried to find some plausible Bard strategies with @Sylvance before she started alt'ing, but I was stumped. You can get some nice damage in with limb breaks, prefarar, and vibrato/tremolo, but it wasn't enough to kill me. (Granted, I'm Paladin with fullplate; the only physical damage that scares me comes from monks) It feels like the only way to really be effective is to be able to flawlessly stack Percussia to keep them permanently stunned for 10-20 seconds.

Just to add that if Percussia is the intended way to Bard, it's practically impossible for anyone like myself with Eurolag.  Honestly, if they just gave us some bigger armour (BUT TEH LORE, SYLVANCE! TEH LORE!) and said "Your job is to support your allies, not to kill things" I'd be more than happy. Of course, this would create the kinds of bitching that has been in the Priest thread.  You can please some of the folks some of the time...

Darklyre

Sylvance said:

Aerek said:

I actually tried to find some plausible Bard strategies with @Sylvance before she started alt'ing, but I was stumped. You can get some nice damage in with limb breaks, prefarar, and vibrato/tremolo, but it wasn't enough to kill me. (Granted, I'm Paladin with fullplate; the only physical damage that scares me comes from monks) It feels like the only way to really be effective is to be able to flawlessly stack Percussia to keep them permanently stunned for 10-20 seconds.

Totes. I wasn't terribly dogged with it, because that was before I had a -clue- about combat mechanics/theory whatever. The learning curve for a Bard nowadays is an utter bitch, and it doesn't help that we're a class that relies on speed... but can easily screw ourselves over by getting a rapier that's faster than voice balance.  It might be that if I come back to Bard combat now with a bit more of an idea of what I'm doing that stuff can start happening, but it was looking pretty bleak when we were testing.

Voice balance ought to be made to work like Striking; just to pre-empt the cries of OP, having Voice/Tunesmithing and Harmonics hitting at the same time is absolutely no worse than Infusion/Limb Damage/Striking, with voidfist going in the background.  That isn't a shot at BMs; I'm sure every other 'combat' class has brilliant stuff but Bard and BM are what I know about.

ETA - wtf is up with my quotes? Anyone know? My reply in italics.

ETA - and as soon as I post that edit it fixes itself..? wtf?

I actually had the same idea and discussed it a bit with Mizik. Have voice balance work like Striking and make it run on the same balance as a songblessed rapier if used right before or after a jab, or else it uses its old 3 second balance if used alone. Obviously, there're some issues to work out to make sure Bards can't get so fast they beat cure balances when venom/voice/songbird/harmonics all hit at once, but it'd go a long way towards making Bards less "percussia or go home."

Sidonia

If a change like that went through, songbird could be removed and harmonics toned down to balance it, theoretically. Pesante might also be a problem, but all of those things can be easily adjusted, and I'd much rather have bard be usable in PK and lose some harmonics OPness, to be honest.

Darklyre

Sidonia said:

If a change like that went through, songbird could be removed and harmonics toned down to balance it, theoretically. Pesante might also be a problem, but all of those things can be easily adjusted, and I'd much rather have bard be usable in PK and lose some harmonics OPness, to be honest.

Maybe instead of having songbird be random, have it work similar to Swiftcurse or a devil tarot or something where you summon it and it lets you burst off three or four afflictions before it flies off. It'd be more useful than random afflictions, and not as ridiculous has having rapier/voice/songbird/harmonics going throughout the entire fight.

Velyse

If voicecraft is put on rapier balance, won't equilibrium from auralbless being 3s still mess it up? Or does auralbless cease to matter as a fight goes on, because afflictions stack up and then deafness becomes less important?

Sidonia

My solution to that would be:
+ Change voice balance to work off rapier jab speed
+ Remove auralbless, songbird
+ Change pesante to strip deafness and not stun, hitting after venom so you can't insta-sensitive. Move it further down in swashbuckling, near where raze is
+ Change acciaccatura to double the limb damage of the one jab it procs on
+ Remove aeternam/poes (they're cool in theory, but why do bards need an extra get-out-of-jail free card?)
+ Remove paxmusicalis (annoying mechanic)
+ Potentially slow down the rate at which contradanse/bagatelle/reel hit, to compensate for 240 speed rapiers + voicecraft

edit: Forgot to list reasons/justification for these changes.
Pesante/songbird/harmonics: If voicecraft were sped up to rapier speed, IMO songbird/full harms as they are now would be a bit too much passive offence to pair with that, and pesante stun would make that even worse. Removing auralbless would mean bards would need a reliable way to strip deafness on serpents (who can shrug prefarar), and this also adds flexibility, in that you can choose to use either venom or tunesmithing to do so).
Acciaccatura: With jabbing at ~2 seconds or less, you could acciaccatura/epseth/tremolo and mending-break 3 limbs, which far outpaces salve balance. It would also serve to speed up bard limb prep, which is currently laughable.
Aeternam/poes/paxmusicalis: See above.

Feedback/criticism welcome.

Averi

@Sidonia

If auralbless was removed, then the normal amount of damage we'd be able to do would be cut into half. because we wouldn't be able to envenom, accentato, jab, aurabless, voicecraft affliction.  We'd be doing approximately 500 damage per jab instead of 1000.  If this was implemented, then we'd need to be WAY faster and we'd need better instantkills because it'd probably turn us into a complete affliction class.  

bard limb prep will always be slow.  A dsl can prep a limb twice within approximately two seconds, a bard can only do so once.  I don't even try to prep and just give up on the entire thing.  

I think the main point of poes is that if we ever find ourselves locked and not surrounded by harmonics, we can still call a hallelujah to save us.  Usually I save a hallelujah and a continuo in my poes just in case.  Although I've never found myself in the above situation before, I often find myself not surrounded by harmonics. ((This probably has more to do with the fact that I suck at being a bard though )).  

I agree paxmusicalis is annoying.  It's like retardation except it doesn't really do anything. I don't see the point of it. 

If we were to reduce the amount of stun, maybe somehow reduce the efficacy of percussia?  I think that one is way more annoying than peasante because one can set a timer on it.  

Personally, I'd prefer to have some more damage related skills.  I find myself having an extremely hard time trying to kill people which may be because I suck at combat.  Being able to impale/disembowel as a bard would be nice because stacking 1k at a time at a speed of approximately 2.5-3 seconds is just not enough.  

Although faster voice balance and auralbless balance would be nice too. 

edit: I wouldn't mind nerfing some of the skills in harmonics in exchange for better voicecraft/swashbuckling.  Aside from hunting, they're not really that useful imo.  Hunting wise, they're like a blessing.

Sidonia

If voicecraft were rapier speed you wouldn't be hitting at 3 seconds, you'd theoretically be able to jab at like 1.7-1.8. That would make bard a fairly solid affliction class.

I understand the point of poes, and I don't think it's a needed ability. You already have hallelujah, which is one of the strongest passive curing abilities in the game, poes just means that if you let hallelujah lapse, you can activate it again even if you're locked. Or that you can percussia/lament/berceuse somebody trying to behead you, etc. Given all the other defensive stuff bard has, I don't see how it's needed.

Not sure what you mean re: DSL prepping twice, because with my proposed acciaccatura change, it'd be the same amount of limb damage at the same speed as a rapier DSL, albeit at the cost of using tunesmithing.

For damage, you wouldn't need to pesante every jab if you're jabbing/singing at rapier speed. Pretty much the first jab and then maybe every 5-10 depending how defensively your opponent fights, and they should be undeaf that whole time just from you using up their herb balance.

I totally forgot about percussia, but I don't think it's really that big of a problem, given you have to either predict when they're going to be in the room (and have perfect timing on your percussias) or give them a ton of warning when they're in room and see you playing it. Maybe limit the delay to 30 seconds, which would remove the ability to stack 10+ seconds of stun.

edit: I should mention that the character I play most at the moment is a bard, so I'm not just some outsider trying to destroy the class :P
I am also slightly biased towards affliction classes because I think they're more fun to play, but I understand that not everybody enjoys that playstyle. I still think damage augmented by smart afflicting would be an option for bards if these changes happened though.