Bard: that one class

Averi

@Sidonia

If they were I'd cry. 

Zeon

Yeah bards use their rapiers to afflict people with affliction to lock them. I have no clue what you're talking about. 

@Aktillum I have no idea what you're trying to show me with that timestampless log of someone not curing.

Aktillum

@Zeon Hallelujah cured aeon within <10s of them summoning it back into room

My fault for not using any type of hindering and just going for aeonlock.

Sidonia

Judging from the timing on rebounding and aeon flings, hallelujah caught gecko and aeon wore off. I don't get it.

Zeon

Yes hallelujah can do that. So can any form of passive curing. Though of those other forms of passive curing, most of them are more reliable, whether due to having a reliable proc rate (every 20 seconds) or just being hella fast (demon syphon is absurd).

I'm all for removing passive curing completely, but saying that bards have a ridiculous version of it hasn't been true for 3 years. There's a lot of misinformation about bards that floats around because it's such an underplayed class. Hallelujah, trueparry, overlapping stun are three big ones.

Xith

Yeah, it's regarded as being the most OP class cause it used to be. Sounds like a jab is faster than 3 secs while voice is consistent 3 seconds, but with tunesmithings your overall affliction rate could be like 3 every 3 seconds, except that I'd only consider the limb to be useable for locks.

Accentato = damage

Acciaccatura = limb

Martellato = prone

Pesante = stun

Scanning the skills I imagine with clever arrangement of venoms you might chase their herb balance with your rapier while messing with salve balance on voice. Lots of salve skills though, plus the eventual limb break I imagine. Would be different to approach a lock from the salve side rather than herb. New questions:

- Do tremolo/vibrato break both arms/legs or just a single limb?

- What does noise give exactly?

- Does contradense give random mental afflictions or a specific one?

- What's Songbird? Not sure I've seen anything like that.

Do any rapiers get close enough to herb balance to stack much of anything? I imagine with stun it could get pretty close, and if you use a continuous voicecraft chain that keeps adding things in addition to venoms it's probably still doable.

If it were me I'm sure I'd make an auto system to manage voicecraft at least, with the option to insert an ability manually as needed. Don't see an asthma song though, so I suppose that's the trickier part for bards?

Jarrod

Tremolo/Vibrato are one limb, specified left/right on use.

Noise, iirc, is amnesia.

Not sure on Contradanse, think random.

Songbird has a chance to sing a random voicecraft affliction from a small list of possible afflictions each time you sing at someone.

Xith

Jarrod said:

Songbird has a chance to sing a random voicecraft affliction from a small list of possible afflictions each time you sing at someone.

So it's like Devil for voicecraft? Or Loki for voicecraft?

Sidonia

Xith said:

Yeah, it's regarded as being the most OP class cause it used to be. Sounds like a jab is faster than 3 secs while voice is consistent 3 seconds, but with tunesmithings your overall affliction rate could be like 3 every 3 seconds, except that I'd only consider the limb to be useable for locks.

Not sure why you're calling tunesmithing afflictions.

Xith said:

Scanning the skills I imagine with clever arrangement of venoms you might chase their herb balance with your rapier while messing with salve balance on voice. Lots of salve skills though, plus the eventual limb break I imagine. Would be different to approach a lock from the salve side rather than herb.

There is no benefit to trying to overcome two separate balances with two separate attacks that are each slower than the balance you're aiming at.

Xith said:

Do any rapiers get close enough to herb balance to stack much of anything? I imagine with stun it could get pretty close, and if you use a continuous voicecraft chain that keeps adding things in addition to venoms it's probably still doable.

If it were me I'm sure I'd make an auto system to manage voicecraft at least, with the option to insert an ability manually as needed. Don't see an asthma song though, so I suppose that's the trickier part for bards?

Rapier can get sorta close to herb balance (if you're willing to spend a lot), but being close to herb balance isn't enough, and neither is being a tiny bit faster when you factor in rebounding/hindering/parry and so forth. Asthma can be delivered on a venom, so the lack of an asthma song isn't the problem, it's the lack of speed in outpacing your opponent's curing.

edit:

Xith said:

Jarrod said:

Songbird has a chance to sing a random voicecraft affliction from a small list of possible afflictions each time you sing at someone.

So it's like Devil for voicecraft? Or Loki for voicecraft?

It is similar to devil but it doesn't proc every hit (chance seems fairly low) and lasts for X amount of time rather than Y amount of attacks.

Averi

@Xith

I think like loki voicecraft sortof. 

Songbird gives a chance of giving a random affliction to the enemy whenever one uses voicecraft that is different from the voice affliction one used.  

For example, if i whistled for songbird and then was fighting you and then sang noise at you or something, songbird would give a different voicecraft affliction that isn't noise.  

Contradanse is random.  It gives a random affliction periodically.

Edit: I dunno what devil does.  

Velyse

Contradase doesn't specify the affliction given, but it'll always be a focusable affliction. I think it can give about 5 different affs: Masochism, recklessness, stupidity, confusion, dizziness. Sticking impatience would help, but the rate of affliction is slow enough that you would have to stick it for a while for it to really start contributing. It was about once every 12-15 seconds.

And @Xith, I think the problem is that voicecraft doesn't work on the deaf. Any time someone eats hawthorn you have to undeafen them again, which is based off of a 3 second equilibrium. If that wasn't there (and if swashbuckling worked properly in adjusting rapier speed), I would totally do what you were suggesting. As it is now, I'm probably going to get as fast of a rapier as possible and just figure out how to support people with pesane/accentato/tremolo and envenom. Auralbless's EQ really ruins any benefit that a fast rapier would have. If there was a venom like oculus for deafness, it might be viable, but that just isn't the case.

Ironically, bard suffers from a lot of the same problems as priest. There's no real way for them to "punish" you for curing a certain way, so they're really easy to shut down. Most of the bard passive afflictions would be better on a priest, and vice versa. 

Averi

@Velyse

There's prefarar. That strips deafness.

Velyse

Averi said:

@Velyse

There's prefarar. That strips deafness.

I didn't know! I wish that the HELP VENOMS file reflected this. Hum... That might be viable then. When/if they fix Swashbuckling speed I'll have to give it a try.

Yue

Velyse said:

Averi said:

@Velyse

There's prefarar. That strips deafness.

I didn't know! I wish that the HELP VENOMS file reflected this. Hum... That might be viable then. When/if they fix Swashbuckling speed I'll have to give it a try.

I disagree. I think having mostly accurate HELP files is a playing perk. Small things like this being left to the player to discover in-game is a bonus, IMO. Like raze/speed, being ablaze (they changed this, it looks like), etc.

Garao

I didn't read many of the posts other than the OP and this last page, so my bad if I'm repeating that which has already been said  

Bard could be helped a lot by fixing upper-end rapier speeds and re-implementing the songblessing speed boost, pesante stripping

deafness as well as stunning is a nice idea. I don't like songbird at all, please remove. Bard is an affliction class with good damage potential in groups if that hasn't already been established. 

You can get in front of herb balance with pesante, but you can never -stack- anything long enough to regain balance unless you have an absurd rapier speed, which is the important part.

Theoretically, with contradense or songbird getting -extremely- lucky you could hide impatience under a goldenseal stack, but I think that's a pretty ridiculous requisite for a bard to be able to get anywhere. Bard's abilities need to be changed to allow the Bard some actual control over what they're doing to their opponent. Revise songbird, pesante, speed, the mechanics of harmonics, and voicecraft speed could use a boost to 2.5. Better to give them a really decent offensive arsenal and then balance from there imo, makes it more fun. I'll have to let you ACC guys deal with that though, I guess ... :-&

No idea what's happening with my text.

Velyse

Everyone is saying to delete songbird, but I'd rather it just be redesigned to something non-affliction based, like a seek skill. I want a little songbird fluttering around

Darklyre

Velyse said:

Everyone is saying to delete songbird, but I'd rather it just be redesigned to something non-affliction based, like a seek skill. I want a little songbird fluttering around

Hence my idea of having it work like devil tarot - have the afflictions it sings be controllable, but only for a short period before it flies away, then have the skill be on like a 2 minute cooldown or something. More useful than random afflictions, gives bards a burst capability, and isn't overwhelming as it's temporary.

Garao

That's not how devil tarot works by the way, that would also be a little bit strong and doesn't address the rest of the issues with Bard - if you implement the other changes people have been talking about as well as specifiable songbird affs on every voicecraft aff it would seriously be incredibly strong. 

Darklyre

Garao said:

That's not how devil tarot works by the way, that would also be a little bit strong and doesn't address the rest of the issues with Bard - if you implement the other changes people have been talking about as well as specifiable songbird affs on every voicecraft aff it would seriously be incredibly strong. 

I shoulda specified "sorta like," as obviously devil tarot is more limited in what affs it can do. It's the whole "temporary boost to affliction speed" concept I was aiming for.

Xith

I imagine songbird is almost fine the way it is. It'd be of more help if other skills were more reliable, but it does sound like the primary problem might be rapier speed.

Voice balance is, as I understand it, a universal number, so shortening it makes some of those things a bigger pain than they are already (dwinnu, lay).

@Sidonia You actually quoted what I said about tunesmithing, which is that only 'limb' could be considered an affliction. (if I'm understanding its function correctly)

So yeah, either the rapier should be faster or some useful tunesmithings could be added to compensate. How long is the stun on pesante?

And perhaps add the potential for strip deafness to the songbird?

With the other lockers though (serpent, apostate, shaman) there are confined speeds, all nimble curses are the same, and all normal dirks give the same dstab speed. So if swashbuckling's effect for speed was increased more then a really top notch rapier could make the locking overpowered. So it may be that only high-end rapiers should make locking feasible, as a specialisation. That or just a stance that gives lower damage and defense in exchange for slightly higher speed?

Does DrunkenSailor have any benefit?

Velyse

@xith My pesante stun was about .3 seconds, last I tried it. It's definitely balanced for a faster rapier. DrunkenSailor is supposed to increase evasion just like acrobatics (which we also have). With 0 avoidance, I haven't noticed any increased evasion with acrobatics + DrunkenSailor, but I haven't really tested it extensively. It certainly isn't a drastic amount of avoidance at lower levels of the avoidance/dex spectrum.

Here's the description:

Enter the stance of the drunken sailor. Makes you much harder to hit with

normal attacks from physical weaponry. There is a mana drain associated with

this stance. To end the stance, either switch to another stance, or select

STANCE NONE or UNSTANCE.

The other stance is HeartsFury, which I'm 90% sure is currently broken.

Edit: And you're right about rapier speed. Hopefully this will be something they fix in the upcoming knight weapon review? 

Sidonia

Xith said:

@Sidonia You actually quoted what I said about tunesmithing, which is that only 'limb' could be considered an affliction. (if I'm understanding its function correctly)

And perhaps add the potential for strip deafness to the songbird?

Which means that you can't count tunesmithing as an affliction for beating herb balance, which is how you would stack afflictions to work towards a lock.

You should only be using voicecraft if your opponent isn't deaf. Songbird procs on voicecraft, having songbird strip deaf would make no sense.

Xith

Oh good point.

But I can still see the convenience in a salve addition right before you finish with anorexia.

If you managed to stack impatience, asthma

0 - Jab curare (arm break) + accia other arm

0.1 - bloodroot

0.1 - mending

1.1 - restoration

1.3 - sing quesadilla

1.4 - touch tree(?)

2.5 - Jab gecko + accia other arm

The toughest part would be the stacking, but

0 - jab - pes

0.3 - herb

0.4 - epic

1.8 - herb

2.5 - jab

3.3 - herb

3.4 - epic

Looks to me like a 2.5 bal rapier can barely chase paralysis in tandem with epic. 2.5 was a guess. So what's the actual balance of an okay bard rapier?

Garao

Faster than 1.8, the problem is not rapier speed it's the reason why you need such a ridiculously fast rapier to get -anywhere-, heh

I thought pesante stun was .5s but I'll go with .3s. Now this is with a rapier of even 1.8s speed

0 - jab pref- pes

0.3 - herb HAWTHORN

0.4 - epic

1.8 - bloodroot <-- crucial part.

1.85 - jab(?) curare or prefarar

3.3 - bloodroot or hawthorn

3.4 - failed epic or epic <-- absolutely nothing is being stuck here or from this point on

The first one isn't nearly viable because you're saying that you need to stick two high prio afflictions as a bard before you can even begin the strategy, and then not have them shield or run away on a random arm break.

To stick an aff as a Bard, as a lone jab is not faster than herb balance and the only way they can use their secondary aff (which is only once every 3 seconds) is by removing deafness from their opponent of which means they must use their first venom as prefarar with pesante which requires a 1.7s speed rapier or waiting until they are forced to eat another herb for some reason while you are still on balance. Yet even then in unlikely circumstances, that's only a single aff being stuck and you will not make progress.

On the songbird topic: there is no usefulness in songbird. It is random and thus uncontrolled, it doesn't proc often and you do not know when it will proc. Why not just change its functionality to that of a deliver and retrieve (think poem mail! Or something) and give Bards tweaks in areas they could actually use. 

Delphinus

All I know is that the sooner bard gets fixed, the sooner we'll actually have one.

Tvistor

I was thinking we just remove Swashbuckling/Harmonics/Voicecraft and replace them with Tekura/Telepathy/Kaido to rebalance it.

Sidonia

Xith said:

0 - Jab curare (arm break) + accia other arm

this doesn't work, hits the arm you target

Averi

@Tvistor

Only if Tekura uses a rapier!

@Velyse

Heartsfury adds like 100 points of damage for me. That's all I've ever seen it do

Tylor

 

Xith said:

If you managed to stack impatience, asthma

0 - Jab curare (arm break) + accia other arm

0.1 - bloodroot

0.1 - mending

1.1 - restoration

1.3 - sing quesadilla

1.4 - touch tree(?)

2.5 - Jab gecko + accia other arm

New class specialisation?

Velyse

@Averi I just tested HeartsFury in game, and it didn't increase my damage at all. It has counterattacked off non-parried attacks in the past, just like the AB file says it should, but it seems to suffer from the same accuracy problems as riposte in that regard. I haven't tested it as extensively to see if you smite priests with your rapier simply because it's a much lower chance to counter, and requires you to take damage, and even then smiting with a rapier only happened when you missed due to them dodging.