Victorious Concerto needs to be fixed

[Malachaimorgan]

<p>So.....the developers decided to go live in the expansion with the nerf to Rhythmic Overture/Victorious Concerto.  One has to wonder how they decided that this was overpowered and needed to be nerfed given that it STILL ISN'T WORKING CORRECTLY.</p><p>Victorious Concerto is only triggerable about 1 time in 10.  Oh, and with the nerf, even when it does work the total 4 seconds casting time means that dps actually goes down when  you cast it.  Other than bards, were any other classes left with a completely broken endline?  Yet another sign of the gross neglect the developers have shown toward the bard classes.</p><p>Devs, if you would, please let us know when our new endline is actually going to work.</p>

[Prestissimo]

<p>Considering that troubs still have power drains, I'm going to bet never. Of course, we're theoretically going to see a bard revamp coming soon, but again I have no faith at this point which makes me inclined to believe it will be a dirge revamp and perhaps get troubs up to RoK level if theres time for it. I would love to be proven wrong though.</p>

[Aaramis]

<p>To be honest, I almost expect the new stuff to be broken.  It's the track record for MANY expansion starts, and not just in EQ2 - in almost all MMOs there's always bugs/issues to work out.  The fact that other classes have working new AAs and we don't is also par for the course I guess.</p><p>What irked me were the other little changes that I hadn't read about or considered previously.  For example, Raxxyl's does absolutely *nothing* for us solo now.  It's purely a group buff now for the true casters.  Whereas a Dirge can benefit from his/her own Harl's, we get nothing from Raxxyl's anymore.  Just doesn't seem fair, but then that's the life of a Troub isn't it?</p><p>'Course, if you want to look at it a different way, it does free up a concentration slot while solo.  But then there's the problem of what to replace it with.  HP regen song I guess?  /shrug.</p><p>The other thing I found a bit odd was that PoTM doesn't reflect each class' casting stat, and has stayed as +INT only.  Granted, everyone can benefit from the extra damage per cast, but now only the mages benefit from the +INT.  A day ago I could be in a group with a Paladin, Fury, and Coercer, and all of us would benefit from the stat boost of PoTM.  Now, given that same group, only the coercer would.  Seems a bit off to me.  Not sure why they couldn't code it to boost your class' casting stat so that all casters benefit equally.</p><p>Anyways, just my morning gripes.  Aside from those issues, and a few other bugs (i.e. Allegretto not greying out when on;  possible dps drop when over 1k AGI (see other thread);  RO/VC being buggy and a known issue since well before release), I can't complain *too* much.  If anything, I've noticed a dps increase with the expansion.  Additionally, and this may just be me looking at the game with new eyes, but it seems as though our spells hit significantly harder when the enemy has been mentally debuffed (or is it now arcane debuffed?).  This is something I've always done anyways, but I now noticed my shouts landing significantly harder after I had landed a brilliant blade or slowing chant, which wasn't as obvious before this patch.  But again, this may just be me.  Dunno.  Would love to hear more feedback on this.</p><p>*edit* - one other thing that's a plus, I guess.  With the elimination of the stats in the Bard AA tree, that frees up some points, and now gives no reason why all Bards couldn't obtain both Turnstrike and Rhythm Blade.  It's a mere 2 AA points now for the first level of both, whereas before it would have cost 10 AAs.</p>

[Lethe5683]

<p><cite>ReverendPaqo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Considering that troubs still have power drains, I'm going to bet never. Of course, we're theoretically going to see a bard revamp coming soon, but again I have no faith at this point which makes me inclined to believe it will be a dirge revamp and perhaps get troubs up to RoK level if theres time for it. I would love to be proven wrong though.</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #993366;">I don't have any experiance playing a troub but are the power drains even usefull? As a dirge even when using CAs/Spells as fast as I possibly can I will never run out of power in any normal group or raid unless it's a mob with a power drain.</span></p>

[Aaramis]

<p><cite>Lethe5683 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #993366;">I don't have any experiance playing a troub but are the power drains even usefull? As a dirge even when using CAs/Spells as fast as I possibly can I will never run out of power in any normal group or raid unless it's a mob with a power drain.</span></p></blockquote><p>Maybe for PvP, dunno - haven't tried PvP in EQ2.  But for PvE?  Very minimal use, if any at all.  And I've never, ever, drained an enemy's power enough that they can no longer cast, despite some very long battles and me using power drains at every possible chance.</p><p>Let's hope this is looked at if/when they ever do a Bard class review...</p>

[Writer Cal]

<p>It's late for me, and this was a long time ago.  But back near the end of RoK, I recall being in a horrible, sucky raid where it was taking so long to kill Doomcoil in PR that we actually drained all its power.  Before we succeeded in doing this, we were joking in Vent about whether or not he'd stop casting all his major spells and AoEs if we got him to 0% power.  Nope, didn't happen.  He still casted them with 0% power, like clockwork, no problem.</p><p>For the rest of the stuff...</p><p>Raxxyl's is rubbish now. Also, our dps is still the lowest of the four utility classes, our utility is still the most limited, and while we do have that one specialized spot with mages, there's little else we can do that other classes don't do just as well or better.</p><p>It's not so much that Troubs are broken, as other classes just have more utility and dps to offer from a player perspective.  People complain about Bards taking too many raid slots, but in most raids that have their pick of classes, it's one Troub with 3+ Dirges.</p><p>(Also, don't forget our super awesome Mez AA now. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> )</p>

[Antipalad]

Let them know with your wallets, they don't read this forum. I cancelled my account.

[Divakitten]

<p><cite>Antipaladin wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Let them know with your wallets, they don't read this forum. I cancelled my account.</blockquote><p>I'll be doing the same if Troubadors (and bards in general) aren't brought more in line with Enchanters soon. Adding insult to injury, I'm seeing some priest classes outparsing Troubadors now...</p><p>Perhaps SoE doesn't want anyone playing Troubadors. Their treatment of the class since the proc nerfs last Spring has been abysmal.</p>

[Malachaimorgan]

<p>So it appears that Victorious Concerto is now working properly.  Too bad it still sucks.  Based on some testing data, and extrapolating to a standard group,  it appears that Victorious Concerto will now proc for 2500 - 3000 damage per attack for a 10 second period.  Based on several tests, it appears that each of the dps classes in the group will proc it 10 - 12 times during that 10 second period; and the casting time is 4 seconds.  It isn't too difficult to develop a pretty good approximation of what Victorious Concerto would do to group-wide dps if it were just a simple click-to-cast spell and weren't being hidden behind a whole bunch of bells and whistles.  So, lets see...here's the stats if this were just a simple click to dps spell:</p><p>Casting time :4 seconds</p><p>Damage (2500-3000) x (10-12 procs per person) x (4-5 dpsers in group) = damage 100,000 - 180,000</p><p>So a single click spell that did 100k to 180 k would be awesome...even with a casting time of 4 seconds.</p><p>However, let's now divide that 100k to 180 k by the 5 minute recast timer</p><p>(100,000 - 180,000) / (300 seconds)</p><p>Hence, we arrive at the total real impact of the new bard endline ability; which is a long-term 333 - 600 dps increase group-wide; about the same as adding poison from the Agility AA tree.</p><p>So we got a 4 second cast time (2 autoattack swings lost) ability that does 333-600 dps group-wide; that's pretty awful.</p><p>A couple of the most efficient troub abilities (such as Perfect Shrill) effectively do between 250-350 dps with a casting time of 1 second; So, while Victorious Concerto adds 1.55 times as much damage group-wide as Perfect Shrill does, it takes 4 times as long to cast.  In fact, the time efficiency of this spell is so poor that I would rate it's long-term effiency as about equivalent to giving us a second Painful Lamentations spell.</p><p>Even if we discount the long-term efficiency and assume that we're only going to  us it once, on a short fight, it's still only doing 100k to 180 k group wide with a 4 second casting timer or 25k to 45k damage per second of casting time (Most tier 1 dps have several abilities that contribute about this much or more; ie assassinate or ; so for a short 10 second time-window (once every 5 minutes), the bard gets to contribute about the same amount of group-wide dps as tier 1 dps.</p><p>Btw, the ability only does between 25,000 and 36,000 damage when cast while soloing; which, when divided by its  casting time amounts 6,250 - 9000 damage per second of casting time (btw, the long casting time precludes auto-attack).  Keep in mind that during the 4 seconds casting time, this is the only damage we will be doing, exclusive of damage-over-time tics already on the mob.  So, once every 10 minutes we get to substitute 6,260 - 9000 dps for the cumulative dps of all the rest of our abilities.</p><p>As you can see, the practical effect of the new bard endline is pretty underwhelming.  Btw, I wonder if the developers did this kind of analysis before nerfing the ability.</p>

[Sephamon]

<p><span ><strong>Malachaimorgan </strong>this thread contains some of the most interesting (and frustrating) information regarding the changes to the Troub class post SF. Thank you for your research and analysis. Might I suggest you try and change the title though as I doubt any developer will read it as is.</span></p><p>I know it feels pointless sometimes with feedback but this is seriosuly good stuff and needs to be read by those with any sort of power and inclination to make the changes required.</p><p><span ><strong>Malachaimorgan </strong>is your opinion would reducing the cast time to 2sec (and on the move?) make this more useable ability? </span></p><p>Perhaps we need to start a thread guys with a concise collection of the latest Troub balance/mechanic issues in the light of the SF xpac? I know I have a few things I'm going to raise from a pvp perspective....</p>

[Malachaimorgan]

<p>Ok.  Got some better raid numbers for Victorious Concerto.  The power is now going off consistently, so I was able to us it in a raid; PC's Abom Lab.  Based on those numbers, at first it looked like the devs stealth patched the multiplier from 5% of ten second damage back to 10% of ten second damage.  However, a closer look and follow-up with a training dummy shows this not to be the case.  During the raid, VC was proccing for an average of 7400 damage; as opposed to after the raid with a training dummy when it was proccing for 3200.  Obviously, some of this is due to an increase to my damage from raid buffs.  However, looking at my short-term dps in the 10 seconds while recording in the raid  vs my short-term dps while recording on a training dummy, a simple increase in dps can't account for anywhere near the amount of this 130% increase.   Ie; was parsing around 7400 dps against the training dummy and around 9500 in the raid; short term.</p><p>Hypothesis:  The multiplier Victorious Concerto is using isn't consistent.  Perhaps the devs have changed the multiplier to from 5% to 10% while in groups or raids.  Tested this with a bot and a training dummy.  Did same test with a creature conjuror for verification.  It doesn't look like the multiplier increases in a group.  Perhaps the multiplier increases only in the raid.  If anyone can show why VC is proccing for 3200 solo, but 7400 in raid, I would be grateful.</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">So, lets update the earlier evaluation based on this new info.  Keep in mind that this analysis applies to the raid context only and assumes that VC is going to be proccing for around 7400.  Interestingly, it appears that crit multiplier and perhaps crit % do affect VC.  Sorcerers in the raid were proccing VC for an average of 9600 damage while the brig, Illu and I were only proccing for around 7400.  Otoh, the brig, Illu and I got about 100 procs raid-wide off of VC, while the Sorcerers only got around 50 procs; likely due to their increased casting times.  PCs lab is a good place to evaluate VC because it is full of solo mobs.  However, I still need to do a good analysis of VC against large groups of mobs when the mage group is spamming aoes.</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">In any case, we will use the following assumptions for this evaluation:</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Two sorcerers proccing VC 5 times per use for 9600 damage/proc = 96000 damage</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Bard and 2 other dps proccing VC 10 times per use for 7400 damage/proc = 222000 damage</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">So, total proc damage per use of VC: 318,000 damage</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">(Close observers will note that faster casting classes are getting significantly more advantage from VC than sorcerers; which implies that dirges will likely get somewhat better numbers out of VC than a troub in a dedicated mage group.)</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Updating our earlier analysis for raid-use only, it appears that Victorious Concerto will now proc for a total of 318,000 damage during a 10 second period. </p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">So, dropping off all the bells and whistles and based on a hands-on analysis of actual raid use:</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Casting time :4 seconds</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Description: Does magic damage equal to 318,000</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">So a single click spell that does 318k damage for the group is pretty darn awesome.</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">However, let's now divide that 100k to 180 k by the 5 minute recast timer</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">318,000 / (300 seconds)</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Hence, we arrive at the total raid impact of the new bard endline ability; which is a long-term 1080 dps increase group-wide; for comparison, Aria of Magic provides a 1250 point dps increase group-wide.</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">So we got a 4 second cast time (2 autoattack swings lost) ability that does  1080 dps group-wide or 270 dps per second of cast time; that's not too bad.  Our arguably most efficient spell; Perfect shrill has a cast time of 1/2 second and does about 310 dps or 610 dps per second of cast time. </p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">If we discount the long-term efficiency due to the long re-use timer and assuming that we're only going to us it once, on a short fight, it's doing 318k group-wide with a 4 second casting timer or 79.5k damage per second of casting time.  Much better than in the earlier analysis, however most tier 1 dps still have several abilities that contribute about this much or more; ie assassinate.  However, most such abilities are short-term 1 shot abilities and don't provide the sustained damage increase VC appears to provide.   Keep in mind also that the 318k damage is spread out over 10 seconds, so the short-term burst effect is only to increase group-wide dps by 31.8k.  In fact, this is perhaps an even better no bells and whistles description of VC:</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Casting time: 4 seconds</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Recast time: 5 minutes</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Description: Increases group-wide dps by 31.8 k magic damage for 10 seconds.</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Based on this analysis, I have respecced VC into my regular raid AA setup.</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I still believe VC to be a bit lackluster compared to some of the other class endlines.  I think the short-term burst damage potential is about where it should be; somewhat impressive but not imbalancing in the short term. </p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">But  the long recast time still takes the cumulative effect of this ability from being a nice 'endgame' ability back to being a weakened Aria of Magic or a gimped PotM. Aria of magic provided a 1250 dps increase to the group and PotM increased group-wide dps by 1620 and raidwide dps by 4060.  Meanwhile, VC only provides a 1050 dps increase.</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>The devs should really consider dropping the reuse timer on VC down to no more than 2 minutes and 30 seconds and making either Rhythmic Overture or VC an instant cast ability.  This isn't going to effect the short-term burst damage it generates in any way and will put it in line when compared with Aria and PotM.  </strong></p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">The casting speed increase is really needed because as it stands, solo casting this is pretty worthless.  Casting Rhythmic Overture counts as an attack, so throwing the whole Rhythmic Overture/VC combo takes a total of 4 seconds.  Because casting VC isn't an attack, it is possible to game the system by casting RO on one mob and then using the recorded damage number to trigger VC on another mob, thereby reducing the effective casting time to 2 seconds.  However, this trick is so situational as to be negligible.</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">As noted earlier, VC is proccing 3200 damage when cast solo and normally lands about 10 times during the 10 second period it is up.  So, VC generates 32,000 points of damage.  However, to generate those 32,000 points of damage, you have to do nothing but cast RO/VC for 4 full seconds.  No auto-attacks or anything else; for 4 seconds your dps is effectively zero.  So, by doing the math....32000/4 = 8000.  Casting RO/VC increases my dps from the around 7200 dps to 8000 dps.  I dunno about you, but having the ability to increase your solo dps by around 10% for 10 seconds once every five minutes is pretty [Removed for Content].</p><p style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span></p>

[Morgane]

<p>Thanks for that in depth explanation. Perhaps that will be part of our upcoming "revamp"?</p>

[ScouseReds]

<p>seems like some players not using it right aswell, in raid should be getting 15 k+ off VC</p><p>alot of troubs i spoken to don't know that it a buff cast on a mob and that mob alone incoming dmg is tracked from them,</p><p>here is what i do:   refresh debuffs if needed >potm up > cap self>Start RO>get illu to give you spell dbl attack > thunderous>shrill>tap>bellow>mellee ca's>try get another thunderous .</p><p>i also (depending on grp make up)have summ do there short term ele proc mystic do there stampede illu pom sk do OP stuff</p><p>if u try some of the above you will see a big improvment. There is some stuff with the the spell like 15 secs of RO would be better been able to auto attack during this cast or make it instant, make it proc from any attack aswell be nice so debuff would proc it ...but come on we are just troubs</p><p>potm is a issue with it not getting any extra from the stats component of the spell ...=(</p>

[Hanari]

<p><cite>ScouseReds wrote:</cite></p> <blockquote><p>seems like some players not using it right aswell, in raid should be getting 15 k+ off VC</p></blockquote> <p>i hate VC!</p> <p>most trash dont live long enough, chainpulls dont help much cuz of the "lack" on blue aoes. The extrem long casttime lower my dps alot. On nameds its different , u have to time it between aoes and with debuffs and stuff. As a troub u cant slack to do a little dps. And always i got kicked, stuned, stiffled or the named memwipes on me..</p> <p>Sure i cast it and hope for the best, but it isnt fun at all.</p> <p>at the end are mystics the better troubs !</p>

[kuwappa]

<p><cite>Hanari@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>ScouseReds wrote:</cite></p><p>at the end are mystics the better troubs !</p></blockquote><p>completely agree.</p><p>we should do 2 step, RO and VC.RO is affected various condition (stun, daze, KB, miss attack ,resist attack etc...)RO and VC are long cast. and can not modifer<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/c30b4198e0907b23b8246bdd52aa1c3c.gif" border="0" />VC is long recast. and can not modifer <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/c30b4198e0907b23b8246bdd52aa1c3c.gif" border="0" />VC is very very short duration. ( 10sec and can not modifer<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/c30b4198e0907b23b8246bdd52aa1c3c.gif" border="0" /></p><p>VC have potencial but hard to use it.</p>

[Banditman]

<p>Stampede and VC are very different.  Me, I'd rather have VC.  It procs on spell, CA and auto attack.  Stampede procs ONLY on melee attacks, no spells.</p><p>With Troubadors positioned as "Mage buffers", the fact that VC procs on spell attacks makes a huge difference.  The groups that a Troub would be in most of the time would get very little benefit from Stampede.</p>

[Rhavin]

<p><cite>Banditman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Stampede and VC are very different.  Me, I'd rather have VC.  It procs on spell, CA and auto attack.  Stampede procs ONLY on melee attacks, no spells.</p><p>With Troubadors positioned as "Mage buffers", the fact that VC procs on spell attacks makes a huge difference.  The groups that a Troub would be in most of the time would get very little benefit from Stampede.</p></blockquote><p>Would be nice if it procced on hostile spells instead of just damaging spells. And it doesnt proc on bump for some reason (which is a CA).</p>

[Hanari]

<p>i would like to see that VC dont grey out if RO comes back up. maybe doubbleclick Ro for canceling, but waste of a good RO cuz of MT linkdead, Loot, or a simple break hurts.</p> <p>I´m not asking for a no deathpenalty. nothing better then a timewarp-Incinerate during RO on Phera´Celsis fight and the charmed wizzi hit u with Fission. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>