One person's analysis of Troubadours

[Kilnger]

<div></div>Recently, a large amount of posts I've been reading on the troubadour boards have been negative and aim to exaggerate the bad things about troubadours. I'd like to give an analysis of how I feel the troubadour class is, simply because I believe it's a positive outlook, and may help individuals who want to be troubadours. Before I begin, I'd like to give some backdrop:I'm a level 60 troubadour on Antonia Bayle, and I've pretty much levelled with a static group consisting of a troubadour (me) a shadowknight, an inquisitor, and a brigand. We're the type of people that regularly like to challenge ourselves, and thus we typically aim to do things that would otherwise seem overly difficult. Many times, the things we do are made possible simply because of the fact that I'm around. I have a pretty random assortment of Adept I's, Adept III's, and Master I's (Masters are Aria, Precision of the Maestro, Alin's Tranquil Serenade, Taffo's Dazzling Ditty, Kian's Devestating Anthem, Oppressive Discante, and Demoralizing Processional). I have no fabled equipment, am in full cobalt, and wear some treasured items.  I've done some minor raiding, but even then, I've not gotten the full raiding experience, so figure that my view on it is somewhat tunneled. Now, time to get to the start.Troubadours are what I believe to be one of the most underestimated class in the game. We have massive utility, massive DPS, and pretty much a skill to fit almost every single situation. About the only thing we CAN'T do is rez our group if a priest didn't give us an essence. The thing is, what people don't understand is that all of our skills, all of our power, and all of our abilities...are not something we can use as individuals.Let me go into specifics. To start, our utility is absolutely ridiculous. We can heal with health song, we can help tanks who are having trouble, we can charm, we can mez, we can even stifle if we so please. If things begin to go bad, we can evac, and we can swap resist songs around to fit almost any damage type (except for noxious). We have songs that make our party act, defensively, as if they were three to five levels higher, and attack quite a bit faster. Even still, we have one of the highest damaging abilities in the game, and to top it all off, we can still do melee DPS (weaker then almost every other scout). The only real challenge is of course, fitting all of that into five conc slots. We can easily adjust to fit any circumstance (mob has a constant group DoT? Health song. Melee heavy group? +str/sta and +attack speed. Caster heavy group? Out comes the self buff, hate song, and aria). And to top it all off, we have a power song that can keep our group going, even when they can go no more. We can even go so far as to adjust our own personal stats to better accomodate a route we choose, such as going str/agi to focus on melee DPS. Troubadours take the group, shake it around, and make it something better. That's something to hold your head high about.Now, I mentioned our 'massive DPS.' Many other troubadour players will argue until their blue in the face that we have one of the worst DPSes for a DPS class in the game. Yea, that's true, if you only count your own personal DPS. However, is that a real good way to judge your true DPS? Consider Aria, one of the most popular songs for troubadours, and easily one of the most powerful. At Master II, Aria of Exaltation causes 170-284 damage 30% of the time whenever any offensive spell is cast, roughly. While 30% seems small, figure the fact that this applies to the entire group. If you cast ten spells, and three proc, you added a whopping 900 damage or so. However, if six people cast ten spells, and three proc, you've just added 5400 damage by just having the song up. That's nothing to sneeze at. The argument then goes that simply means that troubadours are delegated to be with casters, right? Wrong. Taunts, offensive abilities, and almost all non physical effects can trigger Aria. That means if your tank is taunting, he has a chance to proc. If your healer is debuffing, he does too. And even if you got into a very heavy melee group, toss on attack speed, raxxyls, and any other songs you want, and call it a day. Unless your group regularly breaks the haste cap, +10-15 haste is nothing to sneeze at. The troubadour's biggest weapon of all time comes from the overly powerful Precision of the Maestro.Now, first, understand that PotM requires a bit of help from your group mates to achieve the big numbers. Alone, within the 20 seconds, troubadours can get off roughly ten to twelve spells that all proc the precision as well as Aria. At Adept I, Precision of the Maestro adds roughly 175-214 damage. This means that from the troubadour alone, you've dealt roughly 2000 damage, assuming no resists. On one mob. Now, add in five other people doing that, and each adding a certain amount (Remember, even taunts work). If you want to get REALLY sadistic, start adding in more mobs. Assume an encounter of five. The troubadour, using Adept I of the ability, just dealt 10000 damage with one buff. No matter what people say, that's not something to ignore. Precision can deal such ridiculous damage if used properly, with the downside of the fact that you won't actually see these big numbers.Now I won't lie. Troubadours are lackluster in some areas. Some numbers could be bigger, and other songs are typically not really worth the conc slot. Most troubadours have a typical constant set of two or three songs that they virtually never change, simply because these songs are better then most. Because we have everything doesn't mean we're neccessarily good at everything. Jack/Jill of all trades, Master of None. There is no song currently that's completely worthless. They just have such small uses, so specialized uses, that most people choose to ignore it as compared to using it. This is the weakenss of the troubadour class, that those songs are simply not up to par with the others.The two examples that quickly snap to most people's minds are Requiem and Dove Song. I'm not going to bother with the resist songs, because those can be of some use, little though they are. Requiem of Reflection is a very. very specialized song. Unless there are multiple mobs spamming AoEs, this song isn't even worth putting up. Of course, throw it up when you got four or five mobs all casting AoEs, and you'll soon see that Requiem isn't all that bad. It's just not as good as every other song we have. Dove Song is another iffy song, mainly because it doesn't do anything particularly noticeable against non yellows. Sure, it's all well and good when you're fighting mobs that are orange and yellow, or when you really need that focus skill. But why bother? A third of the classes don't even use those skills, so it's typically not even worth the use.Many troubadours, and would be troubadours, need to realize that our own personal strength is going to be weak. We don't exist to be individually awesome. Our true strength, our real power, comes from the fact that we essentially make the group we join that much stronger. We add damage even if we didn't try. We make our group stronger then it really can be. Troubadours are the unsung heroes of Everquest II. We actively help the group be more then they are. And we do it so well, nobody even notices.Don't play a troubadour because you want to be the best. Play a troubadour because you want to make those around you the best that they can be. Not to mention, you can look pretty good doing so in the process.Strengths:Massive utilityTons of damage added to the group overallJack of all trades, master of noneWeaknesses:A few lackluster/weak songsVery low personal DPSJack of all trades, master of noneRemember, if in the end, your group has done things that would have otherwise been impossible, then you've done something that no other class can rightfully claim to do. Be proud of who you are. Be a troubadour.Edit: Friend reminded me of a few things I forgot to mention, so I'll mention them now.We have two other abilities that are rather important in a troubadour's life: Lullaby and Charm. Charm is essentially one of the weirdest songs we have. It can be one of the most useful, and at the same time, one of the most worthless. Charm can be used as a very advanced form of CC, mostly if the group wants to take the risk. Charm is also a very, very useful solo tool in that it can not only knock one of the enemies out of the fight, but give you an additional boost of damage. Pre 50, Charm can be used to take on multi-mob encounters, or at the least make them possible. To top it all off, if you're fighting a very hard enemy and you need a moment's rest, drop a charm, get put out of combat, regenerate, and resume. You will typically heal faster then the mob will.Once you hit 50, things change. Lullaby becomes the quintessential all purpose tool. Lullaby can make otherwise overly difficult encounters possible by taking one of the opponents out of the fight. It makes adds not as threatening any more. Healer ticks off a patrol? Put it to sleep. Lullaby can also be used as a kiting mechanism. Sleep it, snare it, run off, stifle it, keep running, shrill, AoE yell, lullaby, rinse repeat. At it's best, lullaby can be used as wipe prevention. In one incident, the group I was with aggroed three wandering djinn in Poet's, plus a bunch of minotaur. We killed the minotaur and one guard, and ended up seperated by the doors. In order to raise the fallen, and reunite the group, I had to keep two djinn guards held in lullaby while the bruiser had FDed, broken combat, and slowly begun to revive the group. When the doors opened, they ran through, ressurrected the rest, and we came back and slaughtered the djinn. The funniest part of all was that one of the djinn was half dead simply on aria procs alone.Soloing for a troubadour is easy. Everyone can solo. Solo encounters are built for that. If you want to take on heroics, it's possible, but realize it will take a long time. Remember, we are not individually strong, we make those around us better.Thanks for reading. Please feel free to comment as you choose.<div></div><p>Message Edited by Kilnger on <span class="date_text">02-12-2006</span><span class="time_text">08:27 PM</span></p>

[ForgottenFoundling]

<div></div><p>Few will argue about our utility.  Our personal/solo dps sucks though.  Utility means little when you're by yourself.</p>

[Myrddhinn]

<div></div><p>"Those who practice altruism will face ingratitude." <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>I do agree with all but few of your points.</p><p>Raiding in main group (if no dirge is up) or in Casters' group is very enjoyable too.</p><p>As is the HO mastery... And i would be very pleased to see HO effects reinforced to make a real difference between groups that use them and groups where the "60 MT" does not know the difference between a Boot and a Horn...</p>

[Frigid2000]

<div></div><p>Oh, I couldn't agree more with your points.  Troubs are group/raid Gods.</p><p>But it's frustrating to watch a bruiser walk up to a heroic mob (triple arrow up) kill him without even getting put in the yellow (mob was 4 levels below him) and I can't kill a triple arrow 9 levels below me.</p><p>By the way, I think they nerfed our snare.</p>

[pera]

As its been said before, we make dang near any good group great, and general thats very true.  The troub imo really doesnt have a role in the MT group, except in very specific situations and where a dirge/corier is not available.Now solo we can be one of two things, either very good solo, or extreamly bad at it.  The amount of skill required to solo as a troubador imo greatly outpasses the majority of other classes, if not all.  Enchanters are probably farily close to us if not just a bit behind in requried skill.  Since we really have no good means of good dps we really have to relay or either charm, mez or kiting.  With PoM things become a little easier but still kind of rough at times.With the change to charm our pets are a little bit more reliable as long as they dont take damage, which can be hard some times in multi mob encouthers.  I'll give away my secret on this :-p if you assist through your pet you are normaly goign to be able to keep agro off of it because youare both attacking the same mob, but mobs with damage shields its almost trival to even try to use a pet against them.  Oh yeah by the way mobs that taunt or Ice comment of the bat make extreamly bad pets.  I find priest or scouts mobs to the most reliable vs good damage out put.I have gotten to the point of being able to solo most DoF instances except for Storm Feathers roost, I can get everything but the last harpy wow she is tough, but normaly each of these instances take much longer than any other scout or fighter (except for guard hehe) due to our major lack of dps.I think if we were given the ability to use poison like the rest of our scout friends it would really help.  I'm also saying this in the advent of several of our abilites have been greatly nerfed in the past few months.  with the latest being Alins Serenade.  With the overall decline of our utility to group/raids we do needsomething in return.  Poisons are being nerfed in the Expantion as well (reduced damage, proc rate) so they would not make us overpowered compaired to other hybrid classes.  Expecialy enchanters their dps has seen a major increase as of the past few months, it would be nice to see the same for us.<div></div>

[Jehannum]

<div></div><blockquote><p></p><hr><p>Kilnger wrote:Now, I mentioned our 'massive DPS.' Many other troubadour players will argue until their blue in the face that we have one of the worst DPSes for a DPS class in the game.</p><p><font color="#66ff00">Just to add a wrinkle you neglected here, things like the de-aggro Alin's line also allow more people to take advantage of the extra damage PotM affords without (necessarily) drawing aggro instantly and dying, which puts a real hurt on dps.  Again it's dps the character involved would <strong>not</strong> be able to use without our presence, so as far as I'm concerned that damage accrues as much to our credit as theirs.</font>The two examples that quickly snap to most people's minds are Requiem and Dove Song. I'm not going to bother with the resist songs, because those can be of some use, little though they are. Requiem of Reflection is a very. very specialized song. Unless there are multiple mobs spamming AoEs, this song isn't even worth putting up. Of course, throw it up when you got four or five mobs all casting AoEs, and you'll soon see that Requiem isn't all that bad.</p><p><font color="#66ff00">The problem you're missing here is that AoE <strong>DOES NOT PROC REFLECTION</strong>.  It might cause the reflection buff itself to pop up, but AoE and dragon breath <strong>CANNOT BE REFLECTED</strong>.  Period.  Been that way since they fixed enchanters' reflection ability.  The only situation in which RoR is currently useful is where mobs attack for non-physical damage.  Even there it's weaker than almost any other song we could play (including Aria in the MT group) but it has a small use.  Anywhere else, it's a wasted conc slot.</font></p><p> It's just not as good as every other song we have. Dove Song is another iffy song, mainly because it doesn't do anything particularly noticeable against non yellows. Sure, it's all well and good when you're fighting mobs that are orange and yellow, or when you really need that focus skill. But why bother? A third of the classes don't even use those skills, so it's typically not even worth the use.</p><p><font color="#66ff00">Dove song is fabulous against anything level 63 and up.  Anyone who tells you different is pushing the "troub buffs suck" agenda.  Not too useful in non-raid situations generally, which probably is why you haven't seen it really shine - but it most certainly boosts dps substantially in fights where, otherwise, most mages are getting solid resists.  In combination with our stacking debuffs (Kian and Zander) along with other class buffs/debuffs (warlock+troub=even more skill) Dove Song can help a lot, especially with the tougher fights in PP:R and similar locations.  I think a lot of Dove's bad rap is based on pre-LU13 troubs who (like me) were used to being demigods in our own right and able to propel tanks (and casters) to full deific status.</font>Many troubadours, and would be troubadours, need to realize that our own personal strength is going to be weak. We don't exist to be individually awesome. Our true strength, our real power, comes from the fact that we essentially make the group we join that much stronger. We add damage even if we didn't try. We make our group stronger then it really can be. Troubadours are the unsung heroes of Everquest II. We actively help the group be more then they are. And we do it so well, nobody even notices.Don't play a troubadour because you want to be the best. Play a troubadour because you want to make those around you the best that they can be. Not to mention, you can look pretty good doing so in the process.Strengths:Massive utilityTons of damage added to the group overallJack of all trades, master of noneWeaknesses:A few lackluster/weak songsVery low personal DPSJack of all trades, master of noneRemember, if in the end, your group has done things that would have otherwise been impossible, then you've done something that no other class can rightfully claim to do. Be proud of who you are. Be a troubadour.</p><div></div><p>Message Edited by Kilnger on <span class="date_text">02-12-2006</span><span class="time_text">08:27 PM</span></p><hr></blockquote>As a troubadour, I enjoy doing 7 impossible things every morning and topping it off with breakfast at Milliways.  <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[VericSauvari]

<div></div><div>i think we are pretty valuable to any group, our mez alone has saved my raid a few times if  the chanters go down or im the only mezer</div><p>Message Edited by VericSauvari on <span class="date_text">02-13-2006</span><span class="time_text">12:48 PM</span></p>

[schwantz007]

<div></div>Well said. I too play a 60 Troubadour on AB server. I must say that I was one of those who was terribly upset with the changes to troubadours that came into effect with the LU 13. In fact I was so disillusioned that I quit playing my main character and even became very casual with my playtimes. However, a friend of mine in my static group called me on my incessant whining and starting parsing me with a parser that took into account the proc dmg for both Aria and PotM. Because I was so unhappy with the new role assigned to us I failed to see what I was in fact actually contributing to groups. When my alt hit lvl 60 and started doing the runs that my Troubador was doing I really noticed the lack of troubadour/utility class when one was not present in the group. I totally agree with you, with myself in my semi static group we can overcome challenges much easier than we do if I leav the Troubadour at home and take out the alt. However I agree we are underestimated but we are certainly not overpowered, as our soloing abilities suggest. Even so soloing, provided you have the right  buffs in place is really not all that bad, just time consuming in some situations. Thank you for the breathe of fresh air. This post makes me feel guilty for the few negative posts( I hardly ever post) that I have placed in thee forums before.

[Bassist]

This should be stickied for future troubs, since it accurately gives both sides.  Even without the reflect, our one bugged song does block.  "All things possible, none of them easy."Maybe just put in a few points about Dove Song actually being useful.  An easy way to tell?  Ask a Wizzie or Warlock how much damage their highest damage spell does without it up.  Then ask with it up.  Better yet, do a DPS parse on a long fight with it and without it.  It's a really nice song to use in a caster-heavy group when going white and up.  Yes, doesn't add much blue and down, unless it changes that blue to a green <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  But, then, who brings a troub to an easy fight?<div></div>

[Kilnger]

The Dove Song: A closer analysis.I have to preface this by saying that I've never really raided, but I have consistantly fought orange and yellow mob cons over, so I have a bit of an idea how this works. I've also done a bit of research, and tried to tie it together as best as I can. If anyone can see anything that needs to be fixed, please mention it as such, and I will edit this post.Before I get into the nitty gritty of what exactly this does mechanically, I will start by saying what it reads as doing. The Dove Song lowers your chance to be partially resisted, as well as raising the focus to the entire group. Essentially, this song makes it so casters do more damage consistantly and get interrupted less often. The strength of the Dove/Swan line lies mainly when fighting yellow, reds, and oranges. Everyone knows that when you fight something higher level, the level difference will make it so that more abilities miss, more spells are resisted, and the fight is just all around harder. Well, this song helps avoid that, but in a more complicated manner then it seems.Firstly, there are things known as crushing and glancing blows. These 'blows' are a way to further stack the odds in favor of the higher level creature/player. If the level difference between two things is high enough, the higher level mob/creature will have a chance to hit for significantly more damage. Alternatively, the lower level mob/person will have a chance to strike for significantly less damage. The first scenario is a crushing blow, the second is a glancing. While I am not sure if these exact things exist in the game, there is a derivation of them present.Resists and armor mitigation go up with level on a solid slope for mobs. Most mobs typically do not have a very high armor value (as can be seen when a scout fights a mob, and that scout proceeds to turn and fight a plate mob), probably somewhere in the field of leather and chain, maybe even cloth. Mobs also typically do not have as high a resist as players do, but levels themselves count towards something. Why? Well, let's look at a very basic glance of the numbers.Every level, you gain 5 max skill points to all of your skills (1 every 20%). You can tell what a person's acting level is by simply multiplying the skill you have times your level. So if you have 300 defense, you are considered to be tanking as a level 60 of your class would (regardless of your actual level). The best thing you can do is to raise your skills as high as you can to boost your own abilities to do things you were not able to do. Example: If, as a level 60 fighter, you have 300 defense, a level 63-65 mob will hit you much more consistantly, and you'd take more damage overall. If you boosted your defense to 320, you would be considered to be a level 64 fighter, and you wouldn't neccessarily take as much damage.Now where does dove song come into play? Well, if you've noticed, a lack of melee skill when facing a higher level mob simply results in a very high amount of misses, lowering your DPS overall. You'll hit on occasion (usually for somewhere near your normal damage) but when you're missing quite a bit more of your attacks, it really hurts your DPS. Spells, somewhat like melee, have a chance to be flat out resisted (closest thing you'll have to a miss). The biggest difference between spells and melee is the fact that spells actually take time to cast. Missing two of your attacks takes no effort on your part, aside from turning on an auto attack. Missing a spell takes away two or three seconds of the caster's time where they had to sit and cast it. Most of the time, the spells are resisted because the monster simply was that much higher level that it just ignored the ability. Even when the spell hits, the damage is significantly reduced (remember glancing blows?) and the overall damage of the mage plummets. Dove Song makes it so that you cast spells at a significantly higher level. While it doesn't make the spell deal more damage or make the mage cast faster, it makes spells more reliable overall, and raises DPS of a mage, simply on the premise that their spells hit that much more. When you start getting into white and lower con mobs, you'll find that the spell difference is already substantial enough that dove song won't make any difference whatsoever (Players can't crushing blow when I last checked).The best part about dove song is that it doesn't just help mages; if you're in a six man group, and you're fighting yellow to orange con mobs, dove song can help fighters taunt more reliably and clerics buff more reliably. Not to mention, allow your spells to hit.The Swan Song line is a line that's prevalent use is raiding, and it's secondary use is when you fight things that are significantly higher level then yourself (your group likes to challenge themselves). It's a good song to run if you're in a group with mixed levels, and the people who need to cast spells are lower level then you. It's also a fairly good song to use in PVP, simply because players have much higher resists then mobs. The downsides are that the swan song line is really lackluster or not worth using when you're fighting white or lower con mobs. Great tool to use when you HAVE to land mezzes though.Thanks for reading, feel free to comment.<div></div>

[pera]

<span><blockquote><hr>Kilnger wrote:The Dove Song: A closer analysis.The best part about dove song is that it doesn't just help mages; if you're in a six man group, and you're fighting yellow to orange con mobs, dove song can help fighters taunt more reliably and clerics buff more reliably. Not to mention, allow your spells to hit.Thanks for reading, feel free to comment.<div></div><hr></blockquote>Is this actualy proven, because i really would like to know if this makes a differance or not?  Because i know most fighters(all but cursaders) do not have any casting skills other than focus.  With out them having any of the skills will bosting it have any effect?  I can defiently understand this helping a crusader out a lot but how much would it effect a brawler or warrior?</span><div></div>

[Jehannum]

<div></div><p>Just a couple points Klinger - well-written piece generally, but some caveats.</p><p>1. Dove/swan songs reduce the chance of a <em>complete</em> resist, not a partial.  Partials are based on mitigation value (spell resist number) rather than level or skill.</p><p>2. A level 60 fighter with a defense skill of 350 is not treated as a level 70 fighter with respect to defense's effect.  He's treated as a level 60 fighter with extra defense.  It does help, don't get me wrong, but it's no longer the trump it was before LU13 (which seems to have fed your analysis)  Otherwise, we'd still be stacking troubs with guards in the MT group every time, just to get capped avoidance.</p><p>At this stage, 5 points of skill do not mean you're attacking or defending one level better; they do, however, affect your defense and offense with respect to both high and low-level mobs.  Lower-level mobs get hit most of the time anyhow so the difference is minor, while Dove does make a difference on whites and yellows.  Its main notable impact is on high yellows up to reds where it seems to roughly halve the resist rate, or at least reduce it by about a third* (I'm still gathering data but things seem to point that way).  Coupled with a warlock's Seal line (I think that's the one with skill mods anyhow) resists from an orange (65-66ish) mob seemed consistent with unbuffed spellcasting on 62-63 mobs.  Before you get TOO excited, that's a +3 level effectiveness for roughly 50 points of disruption/subjugation etc which used to equate to <strong>10</strong> levels.  Still, it's better than nothing and well worth using on most raids - I'd be surprised if anyone's done Poet's Return or any other 65+ content without either Dove or Seal running.</p><p>*by this I mean a 60% "hit" rate seems to move toward 75-80% with one buff and closer to 85-90% with both Dove and Seal.</p>

[Jehannum]

<div>Heh, our tanks swear they see a difference but I dunno to be honest whether it affects taunts... It comes down to whether taunts are an attack form or base off one of the skills (I'd imagine subjugation or disruption if so, but it's a tough call)</div><div> </div><div>I've never actually parsed to figure out whether it does any good to their taunts though.  All I thought to do was check our wizards' and warlocks' hit %</div>

[Kilnger]

Thanks for your feedback Jehannum, I would like to respond though out of curiousity and to spark a conversation.1) I think the Swan Song line does indeed help a bit to lower partial resists. Resists (and mitigation in general) work in a manner where a certain number equals a certain % of absorbtion as relative to your level. This essentially makes it so someone walking around in a full suit of cobalt would have more then 50+% absorbtion (just tossing out numbers here) to an equal con of the same level. This is of course quickly tossed to hell when you factor in ups or downs. I feel that if Swan Song does actually increase your casting skill, you somehow work on a different mitigation value then you did before. Admittedly, this is partially flawed because you can't concievably raise your own level (literally) and deal more damage to someone in that way. It would still be interesting if it lowered your chance for a partial resist because you'd be seen as higher level (if only by a bit) for purposes of casting the attack spell. Example would be you're a level 60, casting a spell against a level 65. Their spell mitigation states that they have, say, a 50% reduction to a level 65. Perhaps Swan/Dove Song could say that the person casting is actually a level 66 (or around there). This would just meant that the mitigation is still less, but still there. This could also mean that the mob has naturally high resists towards that field, and you're fighting them on equal territory.2) I didn't get my anaylsis from pre LU13 stats, but more on the general workings of the skills for some MMOs. Possibly, the skills could have been changed so that instead of flat out giving you the additional levels, it had a very sharp curve of diminishing returns. So say the first ten points gives you two levels, then the next ten gives you one level, and the next ten gives you half, and so on. This would be a bit more in line with how the way skills work now, and would make a bit more sense then just giving you certain benefits, because then what's the point of pushing your skills past a certain point?I think there's something different in the way things work with skills. Obviously, it's not a flat out simulated level increase, but there's some sort of thing that skills grant. I have noticed that when I have higher +slashing/piercing, I tend to hit things more often, even if they're just whites and yellows, and especially if they're orange or red. I also typically tend to hit for more damage consistantly, but the higher damage is fairly negligble. I've run some parsers with a friend before, but not enough to actually be deemed a steady information in terms of the defense stat as well.One thing is interesting though. I think resists have an innate number placed into them that if you have your resistance above a certain % (with respect to level) you gain a chance of flat out immunity. This is different from armor mitigation, since when you get hit, you take damage either way. I'd be very curious to find out what that number is where partial resists become immunities, and no resists become partial resists. Thinking about it, I think it's something that relates to both the resist number as well as the casting skill you have. PVP dueling with dove song and off is what fuels these thoughts by the way.Food for thought, but thanks for providing me with some info as well Jehannum.<div></div>

[Jehannum]

<div></div><p>1. That's an interesting thought, to be sure; I can't say for certain whether the skill points might affect the scale on which the mob's mitigation (whether positive or negative) affects damage dealt.  One of the problems, of course, is that it's tough to find non-raid opponents of an appropriate level to test these sorts of things at present, and raid opponents usually have such a fluid set of debuffs on them it's difficult to retain any real degree of control to test.  When changes are obvious, it's easy (like with the -3k to all mitigation or our Precision) to see their effect but some effects are much subtler.</p><p>2. I have to admit I'm not 100% certain of how skills scale against higher and lower-level opponents, but based on what has been officially posted, skill bonus is actually most effective against anything white or under, but its effects are most valuable on anything yellow and up.  At white level it's most effective though I'm not sure precisely what that effect is as most of my songs are master level and I don't have much trouble with resists most of the time.  At blue and below it's meant to more or less eliminate resists but again, I rarely get any in the first place.  At yellow, I get a few resists but with Dove Song up I reduce that to the same almost-never-resisted state of white/blue mobs.  At orange I get fairly stiff resists without it, and with it I land mez (master 1) roughly 5 times in 6.  I hadn't noticed it increasing the damage Shrill deals, though - however, I do notice an improvement in the hit% from about 80% to about 90-95%.  Even the debuffs which seem to land poorly on orange mobs normally (Demoralizing M1 at about 35%) land much better (60-ish %) with Dove Song active.</p><p>I believe you're right with respect to resistance (mitigation) affecting the chance of an outright resist too; I've noticed (but never parsed so it could be inaccurate) that my debuffs seem to land better if I first land Slothful and then Zander (and Kian, if there's no mezzing going on).  That amounts to a fairly big mental debuff (assuming we hit on mental) which does seem to affect the resist rates of other songs.  Even on mental-immune mobs I've found that the debuffs seem to have normal effect though of course Kian's is essentially <strong>only</strong> a WIS debuff at that point.</p>

[Kilnger]

1. Half decent place to test would be the Poet's Palace, especially with the unique/beautiful/demonic form. While they're not raid material, they are heroic, and may live long enough to check. If not, djinn do in a pinch, not to mention, that they're everywhere.2. Taunt IS helped by dove song, if only to the point of making the resist amount plummet. I've been wondering if debuffs recently can actually get partially resisted. I know that, for one, AoE debuffs can get resisted per mob (so you only get two out of three for example), but I wonder if numerical debuffs can actually hit for less. I know that DoT damage scales as determined by how much resist the target has (easy test, use Kian's, let it tick, use a mental debuff, look at tick again), but does it apply to numerical? If nothing else, perhaps high resists creates a chance to just shrug off an ability already on them. I'd wonder if they have to make this resist at a lower amount, or if they do it at a certain amount.3. I got to thinking about Requiem, and I noticed something in the times when I made reflections. The spells reflected were hitting for substantially less damage then they would've if cast by the thing casting it. Because of this, I wonder if reflections are actually based off the spell casting skills of the person that reflected it. In other words, would that make this song even more horrible if it was a guardian that reflected it? I'd think the spell would be best if it literally just made the caster essentially cast it on themselves. I'd be very interested to see how that works, if only to see other possible ways that Requiem could be utilized (great in duels).<div></div>

[Trollb]

<div></div><p>"But it's frustrating to watch a bruiser walk up to a heroic mob (triple arrow up) kill him without even getting put in the yellow (mob was 4 levels below him) and I can't kill a triple arrow 9 levels below me."</p><p>The bruiser is great soloing, that is their prize. Troub is being all things to all groups... especially once you have priest + troub. Seems out of this world stuff is possible.</p>