Bard dots after patch

[Lazortag]

Originally Posted by Amelinda [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Charm duration for bards was ALWAYS random. sometimes you got lucky and managed a 30s charm at level 60+ but most of the time that sucka would last like 3 or 4 tics and WHAM!

This isn't really true is it? There's abundant proof showing that it should only last up to 12 seconds in kunark. When did the duration increase?

As for swarm kiting, I think the problem is actually pretty simple. When you body aggro a mob, you get a certain amount of aggro. When a charmed pet attacks a swarm of mobs, the pet gets a certain amount of aggro. The aggro generated from the former is less than that of the latter. I think this is an issue with distance aggro or something, or maybe social aggro, not being as high as it should (I don't know if swarm kiting worked on non-social mobs because I didn't play a Bard on live). This is been bug reported probably a hundred times. Not complaining about it or anything, but it has definitely been reported.

[astuce999]

the problem with swarm kiting is that the social aggro generated by the pet attacking a mob is transferred completely to the bard and doesn't stay on the pet, so instead of the swarm trying to kill your pet, it beelines for you.

iirc lvl 39 charm duration was raised to "up to" a minute either late velious or early luclin. It was initially 12 secs and was raised to 18 secs (I think) at some point during kunark.

I found a site that had some of the concert hall stuff but nothing that talks about the nerf for dots, either for, or against.

Logically, since bards can't root, but instead can cast while moving, it would make no sense that this nerf would affect them. Add the fact that bard dots already last only 18 seconds, the "balanced" part of the nerf of adding extra ticks to dots so that it would end up doing the same damage couldn't apply to bards even if it wanted to.

still looking,


cheers

[Twizzt]

Jerus, did you play a bard on bertox by chance?

[astuce999]

all right, found what I think is conclusive info.

on http://web.archive.org/web/200209220...://eqdiva.com/

there's the post on "news" that says

Patch Message - 9/4/02
Espio Idsavant Wednesday, September 04, 2002 8:55am CST
The latest news...

To discuss today's patch, goto this thread

Items in bold are ones that might be important to bards, lines in italics are my own comments, as usual. Todays patch is a big one, so get comphy...

The unannounced changes:
Every patch has 'em. Here are the changes that have been discovered so far that VI neglected to mention in the patch message:

- The level 39 Charm song can now last up to a full minute. Its manacost, however, has been increased as well. 'Swarm kiting' has now become quite difficult
- The level 15 Mez song is now a targetted mez song (it used to be AE). Unlike the rest of our mez songs, it does not have a MR debuff nor a knockback/forward
- This was kinda mentioned, but not quite clearly. The level of experience you get for low level blue cons (ie, like mobs in Sebilis, most of whom arent over 50, with the exception of the areas past the lower jail) has been drastically reduced.
- Bard icons no longer blink, again. I guess its too hard to make it an option, since it seems half the people like them and half dont.

~ Espio

so that's when charm was changed to a minute.

And I also found, unfortunately for me;

http://web.archive.org/web/200208020...ww.eqdiva.com/

where specifically bolded it says:

-Removed the reduction in damage to Damage over Time spells when used on NPCs that are moving.
Yes, this means we do full damage now while kiting!

so that means that unlike I thought, bards were affected by the dot nerf.


cheers!

[Vidrata]

Pretty weak shit the dot damage reduction was removed in luclin, which means we'll never see it removed here.

[Lorastine]

Luclin could happen one day, cheer up bro.

[jerus]

Yeah i do play Jerus on bertox.

And yeah i understood charm is random duration just wanted confirmation that it wasn't longer duration yet. I knew in like luclin era i was swarming like crazy and was longer duration than the 12-18ish i get here, but that's fine. Agro is still wonky not sure if it's supposed to be like that, as others said mobs don't seem to assist pets on mobs.