Bard Fixes

[taamas]

Originally Posted by astuce999 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Manasong is on its way to being returned to its classic form, and then there will only be one thing left to fix (that I can think of);

Bard Aggro. On live, I've always struggled as a bard for aggro, I always wanted to be a tank but as soon as someone else in the group sneezed I would lose aggro. After many acquisitions (Blade of Carnage, Hooked Shan'kor or whatever the veksar weapon was called, and later the DoN camp weapons with enraging blow augs), I was finally able to hold a little bit of aggro. This is because in the bard code, there is a massive modifier reducing any kind of hate a bard can produce. The only hate a bard was allowed to create was with damage, and pure hate procs. All other indirect hate (debuffs, slows, snare, haste, heals, stuns) did absolutely nothing. There were and probably still are many threads on the live forums or the concert hall on how best to acquire aggro as a bard, and they all involve a lot of work.

On this server, the bard code does not seem to have this modifier. One mez, one slow or one proc from a weapon and I steal aggro. It's not just from warriors, but from everyone. If I instrument twist 2 AE dots and slow/snare and heal song, no one can take aggro from me for more than a couple seconds (they steal it, and then the server ticks and my dots take effect and I get it back).

I am not complaining. I love holding aggro, but in all honesty, it's not classic. And that should supersede any other arguments about what to do. It is also a double-edge sword, when kunark comes out with the AE resist songs, bards are going to die very fast unless this modifier comes in.

I can attest to this, although my example is from Luclin, so things might've been changed around beforehand. Here's the scenario:

Guild was raiding Akheva Ruins, killing The Itraer Vius (had to look up his name it's been awhile hehe). You know, the one where you have the casters and healers hide behind the wall right behind him. So basically the tank dies, subsequent tanks die, and pretty much the rest of the melee. I was meleeing the whole fight (Epic + Primal Velium I think), while twisting whatever it was that I was twisting. It basically took a melee extermination for me to finally get aggro, but once I did, the healers kept me up and we downed it. It's a rooted mob, so if all the melee dies, he starts summoning the casters one by one to their death, so thats why I had aggro over the casters. If it wasn't rooted, all the DPS would be dead, probably healers as well, before I would've finally gotten aggro so it would've been a wipe at that point.

I remember this distinctly because of how awesome it felt to tank a raid boss. First time I've ever done it, on a bard no less!

Now, compare that to what we play now, it's completely different. I play an SK, and we all know how ridiculous the snap aggro is on Disease Cloud. Enchanter mez aggro I understand, because it's always been like that. However, Bard mez aggro is about the same here, which I never remembered in my experience playing a Bard. Sometimes it takes my SK 2-3 Disease Clouds before I get aggro from a Bard mez. If my Bard way back when had this kind of aggro ability, I would've been in paradise (I was a closet tank [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] ).

So yea, just that I'd give ya my two cents.

[mitic]

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

Sometimes it takes my SK 2-3 Disease Clouds before I get aggro from a Bard mez. If my Bard way back when had this kind of aggro ability, I would've been in paradise (I was a closet tank [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] ).

actually, noone can beat bards on aggro on this server. equip a staff of writhing, get your dex up high, cast slow, cast any debuff, ghetto stun with your mezz and you will be instantly the maintank [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]