Game Mechanics: Bard SPELL Item Effects should avoid stacking restrictions until 9/20/2001

[Rygar]

Evidence:
http://web.archive.org/web/200208170...ML/000323.html

Initial Explanation by devs:

We were also patching to remove some bard stacking problems. There was a way that a bard could, basically, cheat the system and double up on buffs.

To fix this problem we changed the way that spells cast from items work for bards. Bards using items that cast spells (not songs) will have those spells act just like regular spells, where they were acting like songs before. Bard songs stack with just about anything, and spells have their own sets of stacking rules. Bards casting spells from items were able to ignore the stacking restrictions of those spells.

Basic Summary:
Alan provided a lot of clarification in the thread, but basically if a bard was clicking a SPELL effect on an item, it treated that as a 'song' and not a 'spell'. Since there was no SONG stacking code from that spell, the spell stacked with everything. To clarify, it was working as intended for SONG item effects to have their stacking restrictions in place, but not for SPELL item effects.

Let's look at Damage shields: Bards could get a mage or druid damage shield on them, click their Singing Steel Bracer to generate Shield of Flame and it would stack (since it was a level 20 'spell' and not a 'song' effect). I need to find out more if unique effects also had stacking issues removed (such as DS Pot + Ring 8 + Ring 10 being able to stack to create the ULTIMATE DAMAGE SHIELD!).

I'm happy to find more evidence of this if you want to implement, but want to know IF you want to implement this change or is this a 'game breaking exploit' that you do not intend to fix?

Personally, I think having bards step up to tanking more would be fun [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] I don't know what other spell clickies are out there for bards which would make this entirely too powerful, or if there are just client issues preventing this and it isn't possible to adjust.