Troubs in SF

[Morgane]

<p>No talk on the Troub board about the upcoming changes with the expansion now that the NDA has been lifted? What are you guys thinking? A few things I'd like to hear us discussing:</p><p>- Thoughts on the stat consolidation. Looks like AGI will be our primary stat now, I guess. I don't know how our current gear will be affected. I've heard they'll be changing the stats of some of the gear to be more viable for the class it was intended for but not sure what this means for jewelry, charms, etc.</p><p>- I've heard a rumor about Troubs getting power regen to target? Anyone know about this? (an AA choice, I think?)</p><p>- What about AA changes?</p><p>- Overall picture of the Troub's roll in raid groups</p><p>I got a beta invitation but was moving to a new house and didn't have a lot of time. Now that I have time, the beta servers have been down every single time I've tried to log in. So I have no clue what major changes are coming for my Dirge-recently-betrayed-to-Troub.</p><p>So what's going on out there? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Aaramis]

<p><cite><a href="mailto:Morghasi@Everfrost">Morghasi@Everfrost</a> wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>No talk on the Troub board about the upcoming changes with the expansion now that the NDA has been lifted? What are you guys thinking? A few things I'd like to hear us discussing:</p><p>- Thoughts on the stat consolidation. Looks like AGI will be our primary stat now, I guess. I don't know how our current gear will be affected. I've heard they'll be changing the stats of some of the gear to be more viable for the class it was intended for but not sure what this means for jewelry, charms, etc.</p><p>- I've heard a rumor about Troubs getting power regen to target? Anyone know about this? (an AA choice, I think?)</p><p>- What about AA changes?</p><p>- Overall picture of the Troub's roll in raid groups</p><p>I got a beta invitation but was moving to a new house and didn't have a lot of time. Now that I have time, the beta servers have been down every single time I've tried to log in. So I have no clue what major changes are coming for my Dirge-recently-betrayed-to-Troub.</p><p>So what's going on out there? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p><strong><em></em></strong></p><p>Yeah, the lack of discussion here has concerned me as well.  Having not been part of the SF beta, the Bard information is surprisingly devoid.  I've even looked on the EQ2 flames boards, and there's little information there other than "SF sucks for Troubs", "I'm quitting!", or "Consider my Troub retired!" posts, which isn't overly promising.</p><p>For AA lists, you can go to <a href="http://sf-aa.zxq.net/">http://sf-aa.zxq.net/</a> which lists most of the SF AA's based on screenshots people have sent in.  It looks like in the Bard tree, Rhythm Blade got an accuracy boost component, another ability shortens Bladedance's recast timer, a shielding song allows an ally to avoid the next attack, and another one boosts Allegro to add a reduction to reuse speeds of spells/abilities;  and in the Troub tree we got the power transfer (Energizing Ballad), a stun added to Lullaby upon termination (is this even useful?), our wards boosted on the resist songs, and maybe 1 or 2 other things.  Nothing major it seems.</p><p>In addition to the basic information floating around, it looks like a few other changes have been noticeable and for which I'd love more information, such as:</p><ul><li>what are the base critical multipliers for Bards?  For Predators it's been posted elsewhere they are 150% for melee crit, 130% for spell crit, 130% for heal crit, and 150% for taunts/detaunts.  Really curious what Bards got here.</li><li>as you mentioned, AGI is now the prime stat for all Scouts.  I presume this affects our song damage as well now too?  Would like confirmation on that.  And if so, has this resulted in any significant boosts to our shout damage?</li><li>what base AA changes are there in the Bard / Troubadour trees?  Anything of significance?</li><li>early testing either on this board or EQ Flames (forget where I saw it) mentioned that Rhythmic Overture with a caster companion resulting is a pretty disgusting parse.  Just curious what further testing has been done there, and just how impressive is it (if at all)</li><li>which spells / abilities were added for the 81-90 range?  I realize no new abilities were added, but I'm curious what got boosted and what didn't.  Jester's Cap II, perhaps? (combined with rhythmic overture could be very interesting)</li></ul>

[Pogopuschel]

<p>The information on <a rel="nofollow" href="http://sf-aa.zxq.net/" target="_blank">http://sf-aa.zxq.net/</a> is very out of date.</p><p>As to your questions, off the top of my head:</p><ul><li>Bards get a crit multiplier of 1.3 which is disappointing as the dps gap to the top DPS classes was already slightly too big for Troubs (not Dirges) in TSO imo. This will widen by what Troubs get vs. what DPS scouts get.</li><li>All our damage will be based off AGI</li><li>Rhytmic Overture (RO) was "fixed" in a way that it procs off all damage, not just melee auto-attack as before (which was a bug).  It was toned down in damage.  In its current state, it's not working reliably as sometimes the ability to "fire" it doesn't light up/work properly after recording your damage.</li><li>No JC II, but a new PotM, no new spells overall except for the AA endlines.</li><li>Another thing worth mentioning: Bladedance no longer drops upon damage taken.</li><li>The ward enhancer now also has a 25% chance to cure an effect when damage of the appropriate type is warded.</li><li>The Power Transfer is now also restoring the Troubs power instead of draining it.</li><li>You cannot shorten the recast on VC/RO with JCap. :/</li></ul><p>I'll post some screenies tonight after work when I get home and don't forget... <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></p>

[ScouseReds]

<p>just short and sweet..</p><p>was in the zone after the erudin library in the myth line and there was 3 of us lock,defiler and troub, i was hitting few 15 k+ parses ...i know yellow heroic con but wait  had a defiler hitting 13 k dps  this is also healing are cloth tank btw !</p><p>i do belive we will  be hitting 20k+ parse this expan i dont think we should be in the top end of dps but we should atleast be alot further away from a helaer class</p><p>ps mb zone is under con and will be changed on release if it gets relased to non us !</p>

[Morgane]

<p>One would think our dps would be on somewhat even ground with dirges. Dirges should be able to do more melee dps, sure... but then troubs should be able to do more spell damage. At the moment, I'm about even with the plate tanks on the parse, while our dirges can sometimes parse in the top 5. I guess I don't see that changing with this exp.</p><p>I'm glad they fixed Bladedance but I'm less than impressed with most of the other AA changes. Power transfer doesn't thrill me... now, besides the JCap and the UT hogs, I'll no doubt be getting tells complaining about power transfer. Maybe I'll refuse to spec for it! LOL</p><p>I've heard we'll be able to cast UT on ourselves, which is nice. Maybe to make up for the lack of dev attention to the class I'll just cast UT on myself all the time. hehe <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/908627bbe5e9f6a080977db8c365caff.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Pogopuschel]

<p>So finally got around to take screenies....</p><p><img src="http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/197/troubeof.png" width="929" height="755" /></p><p><img src="http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/2435/troubkos.png" width="942" height="696" /></p><p>Energizing Ballad and Rhythmic Overture are the end lines.</p>

[Torrin]

<p>Last tested RO/VC are broken in that you can cast RO but you have about a half second (if that) window to cast VC after it. Have to Spam VC to get it to trigger and even then you have a 1/10 chance of it actually working.</p><p>The power feed song no longer costs the Troub Power (this I haven't tested in about a week).  So it's essentially a free 100% power feed to a single target in raid every 3 minutes.  Imo the amount fed is too high, the duration is too long and the recast is too long. Been happier with a 3% every 2sec for 20sec with a 90sec recast. (that's 30% over 20sec and a 1.5min recast).</p><p>On the upside my beta buffed troub with a broken RO/VC was putting out 7k solo on a training dummy.. Beta buffed he had: fabled Ayonic Axe, T2 Shard Armor, Weaker TSO Instance jewelery, Withshadow Sword off-hand. No adornments, all Expert spells/CAs/Buffs.</p><p>On the flipside (to have something to compare to) my beta buffed Swash (post Dance of Metal reduction) was putting out 13-14k solo on a training dummy.. Beta buffed he had: fabled charm's way, T2 Share Armor, Weaker TSO Instance Jewelery, Withershadow Sword off-hand. No Adornments, all Expert CAs/Buffs.</p><p>So troubs are sorta in-line with where they need to be. They are gaining a bit more utility. Getting a damage increase along with everyone else and still put out about half the DPS of a DPS class.  The problem though comes from Dirges being inadvertantly boosted too much to the point they have both Utility and higher DPS.  They can hang with the Swashes in parsing but also have lifesaver utilities like Gravitas (which now is buffable to increase targets beneficial recast speed), Percussion of Stone and Sonic Barrier.. PoS being a reactive single hit absorb and Sonic Barrier being a 3min recast castable 3-hit damage absorb.  Sonic Barrier also does not have the "cannot be modified except by direct means" on it which means the recast can be reduced.</p><p>So in summary:Troubs got a few good things.. Dirges got far better things.  Both will be needed in Raids. Dirges will most likely still retain 3 of the 4 bard spaces.  Also both UT and BC are self-castable.. so if you're Troub and you have slacking mages feel free to UT yourself.</p><p>BC will lose a little of it's flavor once people are 90 and getting Raid gear.. as supposedly (not verified yet) some of the "Focus" adornments add Flurry.  However nothing has been mentioned of anything else adding to DoT/HoT ticks aside from UT (and of course our new Chaos Anthem AA boosts the tick count of our DoT).</p>

[Writer Cal]

<p>Yep, we're doing all right in SF.  The problem is other classes are still doing much better on all counts.</p>