[Ennewi]

https://web.archive.org/web/20001109...ML/023416.html

Grimstaff
Station Member posted 10-15-2000 06:09 PM
I hate bumps, if you can't think of anything significant to move the dialog along, then that thread is better off dying and being buried in the mass of other messages.
That said, I really do wish Verant would take a good look WITH AN ACTUAL BARD CHARACTER at how incredibly poorly lullaby works. Not past level 30, but when you get it and immediately after. This thing isn't so much resisted then, although it usually won't work on some of the targets, it just holds so poorly that you will end up with 25-30% of the monsters at random beating on you. The worst part is that its not usually the same guy, its a mix of them, first is joe, than bob, then al, then bob again, then joe.... good luck for the poor tanks to taunt off you then.

https://web.archive.org/web/20021213...&pg=1&sortby=4

Submited by: Druxinor On: 8/22/2001 10:54:17 PM Rank: worst 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 best
I play a lev 21 bard.
do bards suck?
only if an idiot is playing one..
and im not an idiot.
I recently dueled a friend of mine(to the death) three times... I was a lev 21 bard and he was a lev 20 warior... I beat him 2 of the 3 times...
I went toe to toe with a war and won...

bards dont suck.... ignorant fools suck...

Bards arent easy to play well...
but they are in the top 5 classes when they are.
Want to take the easy path? Be a mindless tank...
type /a and just sit back... Frankly, I prefer being able to heal myself and others, restore peoples mana, and give a 15% to 20% haste to the group... I've saved countless friend's lives by taking the atention of the mob away from an ally (bleeding to death) throw on my healing song... (extra taunt factor) and keep him from having a corpse run. does this allways work? no. are they gratefull when it works? yes.
for those of you that still dont understand...
were not ment to be the tank, healer, buff person, or the enchanter... though if the tank needs to pull back for a little bit to heal, we can take his place. Cleric got killed and everybody has low hp during downtime? throw on hymn of restoration, and watch the group be ready for battle in notime. tanks want alittle extra oomph in their swings? throw on anthem de arms.
chanter's mez break and he's oom? we can handle that too...
a bard is a jack of all trades, master of none.
dont expect us to tank as well as a lev 60 war or heal like a 60 cleric... we can't... we fill in the gaps in the group.
so stop ragging on bards....
we could ragg the same or worse on wariors, pally's, sk's, etc

so please shut your mouth berore you put your OTHER foot in tour mouth too.

https://web.archive.org/web/20010222.../000665-4.html

Digory
Station Member posted 02-20-2001 06:51 AM
I'm tired of the people who want bards to be and enchanter/warrior. That sounds boring to me. I like the tremendous flexibility I have as a bard. I get to adjust to both group classes and skills.
I heard Absor say defense would be improved. I don't particularly need much better melee skills. There is always someone to dish the damage, but bards take damage like little kids. Bards playing instruments or meleeing could use some defensive enhancements. Start dodge and parry earlier and give them much higher caps. It's not that hard to parry with an instrument. I have been a fencer and you'd be surprised how simple a weapon can be used to block any kind of blow. And many of our songs are major taunts.

https://web.archive.org/web/20010222.../000665-3.html

SIRANUI-ToD
Station Member posted 02-19-2001 02:11 AM

I'm sorry, Absor; I do not find this a very good list for the following reasons. Are these the only issues to be addressed? What I'd like to see is a few comments about where you (VI) see the bard in your game and what you see as reasonable and not; a background for the bard class if you will. This will help steer us - at the moment we are a jack-of-all trades class and in many ways don't know what to comment on, except for existing bugs. Can we please have feedback on status items NOT on your list, and reasons for non-implimentation; that would make me a lot happier.
Predominatly, you're dealing with existing bugs, rather than sailing 'fresh' waters. Yes, we all would love bug fixes, but we'd also like enhances in line with other classes and the use of a little imagination on the development team's behalf, rather than just fixing existing code. You seem to be taking the path of least resistance. Fixing what was broken is not balancing.

Again, a few points that spring to mind:

1) Give us an icon for mana song. This will save us getting told 'play mana' at least once an hour and would be an across-the-board benifit.

2) Increase in defense cap makes no sense and seems to be a simple 'keep-em-happy' enhancement route to take. post 50 (when extra defence raises kick in), we do not have the need for it (we are non-taunters and do not tend to get hit much unless we're on CC). From a RP point of view, why should an entertainer have the same defense as a knight or highly trained warrior? Jumping back to thread 5, yes defence is hard to raise, but it does happen eventually, as higher XP demands give greater oppertunity at increase per level. Aggro list manipulation is a good way to get increases. Ask for mobs to be rooted - then either manipulate aggro to get hit (heck, I can taunt off a 59th ranger in this situation, much to his chargrin), or simply ask tanks to not taunt. I would rather be enhanced in another direction that makes sense.

3) A small (5%) haste song that stacks and does not require an instrument. This will make a bard more worth having in a group with a chanter or shammy or as part of a riad featuring an enchater epic. The current instrument required song is useless - that 5 or 10% increase for the others means that the mob isn't taking bard melee damage (pitiful, I know - but it is probably at least 5% of group output) and takes up a twist slot that could be used for something useful.

4) Faction. specifically that entertainers were traditionally viewed as 'neutral' and could be welcomed in any land. ie improved starting faction, improved faction song or modification to positive faction enhancements. I made a lengthly string of comments on this. Any chance of a little feedback? I think I was the only person to offer a point of view on this topic as it is not 'combat' orientated, but rather a utility issue. It makes sense, it fits with the class (I can think of nothing more fitting in fact) and is not unbalancing.

5) Something, anything for us melee-wise. As is, if the group has a 'chanter, or indeed often just a root-parker then at higher levels we are usually less wanted than any other melee, hybrid, or indeed pet class. On multi-group ops, every buff and debuff is handled by speciality classes (even if not in the same group), leaving healing and damage dealing as the main in-group activity. A little more ability inside groups at these levels would be nice and a small melee tweak would be an easy path. Pallies and SKs are defensive, rangers offensive and we really should be middle ground. Our damage output is very low. Although we have duel weild, we lack the double attack of others. SKs and Pallies both have the option of 2-handers (we do not, neither should we) to offset some of this problem. More to the point, SKs and pallies both get OBSCENE one-handers that any tank would kill for to offset their non-duel weild advantage. So we are offensivly the weakest melee, hybrid or pet class.
Defensivly (and we're talking tank-ability here), we lack a taunt key and the damage ability to attract a mob's attention (except lower levels where song taunt gives us aggro), making us undesired even defensivly.
A duel weild capped at 50, a slight offense increase, backstab capped at 50 or a high level 'bellow' would cheer us up no end.

Siranui
ToD
Torv
Forteymj@hotmail.com

https://web.archive.org/web/20010222.../000665-5.html

Starling_Bane
Station Member posted 02-22-2001 06:45 AM
Ignore the trolling. Any bards who are as disgusted as I am with the bard issues (or lack of) addressed by the latest patch, please post your discontent. Reasoned arguement is obviously ignored, all we have left is complaint. Better still, vote with your feet & quit!
*Maybe* some of the bard problems raised will be addressed in a future patch, but, once again, the bards are left to last (probably to be overlooked yet again).

1) Increased defense cap.
Great for the lower level bards who have such a high aggro. Congratulations on this benefit, I don't begrudge you. From the point of view of a level 55 bard though, it's useless. I find it impossible to even generate any aggro at this level - I wish I could.

2) Level 20 bard song.
Time for politeness is at at an end. This is a bloody stupid move! OK, it's an easter egg for bards in their 20's (who don't really need it), but at the cost of upsetting the already-favoured enchanters even more. Next thing we will see is the level 20 mana song being nerfed or an enchanter spell introduced that makes it redundant. I suspect that this this was actually a move to reduce the number of bards soloing at this level, enticing them back into groups.

3) Denon's Desparate Dirge
Well, what can I say? The problem ISN'T the amount of damage, it's the fact that most bards can only sing it once per full mana bar, giving it a ridiculous re-cast time as the bard med skill is capped at *one*. It's redundant, it's useless.

This patch is truly pathetic for bards, given the improvements introduced for other classes. It's an insult.

Finally, those of you who don't like the post, troll all you like. I won't be visiting this board again. Playing text-only muds is more fun than playing the redundant EQ Troubador.

https://web.archive.org/web/20000520...ML/000831.html

Midi
unregistered posted 03-01-2000 12:17 PM Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
Usualy the ones I group with play manasong (stacks with ours) non-stop. Other useful songs will be healing post fight to help the healers, or a restance song of the appropriate type, the DD bellow, or charm release something for taunt(you know how well that works =).
An exmaple from last, on sol b bats cave:
me (49, then 48, then 49 enc)
45 bard
44 clr
45 war

45 pal later a 45 rog
41 nec later a 43 dru

Basically our speed spell is way faster the the bard song so I was casting STLW. Even clerity is better too I believe. With the mana song you get back the huge mana to cast this 2x. On bard I cast augment. Becuase of the incredible speed bonus of STLW and the near constant fighting, sometimes the bard would sing some kind of +sta song or the cleric or druid castd their energy song.

Esentially the bard was giving us every drop of mana he could. For 2-3 hours we were pulling bats and lava beetles almost non-stop after the break in. With clarity and the manasong we had enough mana to keep up with these pulls. The poor cleric was overworked having med for every last drop of mana for heas he could get. We got 2 bubbles of exp in those 2-3 hours. It was the best exp rate gain I have had in several levels, and it was all due to the massive non-stop pulls. Without clarity and manasong there was no way we got have managed that.

Other good uses would be KK for air. God type raid for twistong resistance songs and limited the damage done to you.

Bards and enchanters can work very well together.

https://web.archive.org/web/20041129...ID=19747.topic

Liquidated
Grumpy Moderator
Posts: 3625
(9/4/04 9:46 am)
Reply oh man
All I can say is the "vision" went to level 42 and stopped.... dead cold stopped. From skill ups to basic game play crap like even our songs going to 42... and then stopping.

Bards were missing basic abilities (lull and mez - remember the tree snake in qeynos?) and had issues with aggro unheard of. Bard gets aggro bard dies but well the closest place to bind in cazic thule was freeport and zoning on a more than minimum spec pc over a modem took 2+ mins. hey want a drum? well that's in north freeport... Good thing uber classes like necros and druids could bind ANYWHERE.

When kunark came out, entire classes changed roles.

Rangers became effective bards with no songs.... ok dps but insane aggro and no tankablility. A ranger NEEDED a cleric in group or nearby as the ranger was going to die over and over.

Tamsin Dyresoul
Minstrel
Posts: 215
(9/4/04 8:01 pm)
Reply Re: oh man
I'd have to go with Kareo here. I think even grumpy Liq would acknowledge the fun and exploration levels were so high back around Kunark era that we tended to overlook some of the nastier aspects such as binding issues, bard aggro(which was fixed later), and equipment issues (I'll summon some food and water now from my britches;b).

I mean, LGuk used to be like a friday night club where we all met up with friends and aquaintences to hang out.

When Kunark went live, I was on my necro. My namesake here on EZboard. I dropped my bard around level 23 late 1999, early 2000. To be blunt, I just couldn't figure out how to play him since the aggro issues were so bad and I had read twisting guides on the old websites. So I went Erudite necro and spent weeks in Tox forest. No Paineel, no real bank unless you wanted to risk death in Erudin, etc.