Bards finetuning.

[mya]

Ok, some more time has passed, and how our idea of bards has changed?

 

Fired weapons - I think they should keep it. There are ways around it and although extremely powerful, I have seen 100 HP from arrows it can be prevented by all classes.

 

Steal - I'm of the opinion that this skill should disappear. Or at least be moved to a selection scheme.

On a first engagement a Bard can clean his target of most consumables, making a second engagement completely tip in favor of the bard.  I have done this, it's not pretty.

 

Brawl - This in my opinion is the most important fine-tuning of the class.

There is no class that get six attacks that doesn't have to give up some deference for it, mainly in the form of dual wield. Dual parry is abysmal for defense when compared with two handed. And two handed as the two handed damage bonus on top. No one can look at Bard brawl and call it balanced.

 

It's so powerful that I have yet to see a bard use their spell songs. A battle vs a bard it's mainly them dirt kicking, then using the dissonance for "damage+LAG". If you somewhat don't die easy they steal you stuff and might remember to rehearse four seasons.

 

Bard melee is so powerful and fast that most fight they just don't use their strange spell like songs.

 

Remember, they can have a 2 handed avg 32 weapon with Physical/Magic/Fire/Ice/Holy/Light vuln, that can flame-blind you (firelance style), is blessed/evil no-drop and can be cursed but not uncursed, of which you have no knowledge regarding parry/dual parry/weapon block, and that can strike up to 6 times a round. And it freaking plays songs.

 

So my suggestion is to tone Brawl down. Make it 4 attacks regular. Allow 5 in cities like old bards.

And bump the weapon defensive rating to Polearm.

What this does is makes the bard less offensive and more defensive. Moving from a path of blitzkrieg to a more balanced approach. This way bards will have time to use the multitude of songs the imms have come up with and enjoy the more intricate aspects of the class.

 

Bards right now are all power and no brakes.

[Mali]

 

[f0xx]

Be done with steal.

[Enethier]

Bards never had brawl give 5 attacks. Brawl was their gimped 4th attack. You should know this, with all the talks we had about the old bards. Bards also do not get 6 attacks without giving up a defense, so I'm not sure what you mean. Well, maybe with haste but that doesn't really count since other classes can haste too. 

I agree on getting rid of steal, they kind of don't fill that same role anymore, seems a bit much.

 

Tuning (heh pun) brawl should imo only be done on the %chance side, not removing affects of the skill entirely.

[Zhurong]

I've seen bards, many of them, get more hits in than a warrior vs high ac class, even melee. When you have high ac, weapon/shield or even polearm, they've always seemed to massively out dmg me. Even as my fire giant zerker, wielding a fire weapon and raged, bards do more dmg. This doesnt even include their command skills.

[f0xx]

A lot of your information is wrong, Enether.

I am glad we agree on steal though.

[Anume]

A little update:

there have been some recent changes already, concerning their tac, the weapon class instrument as well as their weapon crafting (less average possible now, less hr dr total possible now). As you won't see the later as long as the old instruments are around, it will most likely take a bit to see how they do now, unless Morl comes up with some way to exchange the old instruments with new ones.

[The Forsaken]

Now accepting pay pal bids for old school bard weapons.

[Fool_Hardy]

LOL

[mya]

Time to roll fury zerk.