<p>For about 2-3 years, the optimum raid setup has been 4 bards and 4 chanters.</p><p>This is probably one of the longest, most profound imbalances in the game. Put simply, there aren't enough people playing Chanters and Bards compared to other classes to match this demand. The evidence for this is overwhelming - look at the number of high end guilds trying to recruit only Chanters and Bards, or form a pickup raid and guess what classes you'll be lacking.</p><p>The Bard and Chanter classes just aren't fun enough to make 1/3rd of players (8/24 raid slots) want to play them as main characters. And we shouldn't have to constantly choose between making people bring boxed Bards, or roll with a clearly suboptimal raid that not only does less DPS, but also has substantially weaker aggro control and power regen capability (not to mention the various other benefits like Gravitas and Jester's Cap).</p><p>This is a fundamentally broken bit of design, and the designers need to stop burying their heads in the sand and pretending it's perfectly reasonable for 4/24 classes to ideally occupy 8/24 (or even 9/24, since 2 Illus in one group are a perfectly viable option for Mage DPS).</p><p>Some would say nerf Bards and Chanters, but I think buffing them is, ironically, a better solution.</p><p><strong>Make every bard song raidwide.</strong> Just one troub in a raid and you've got the deaggro, aria, skill buffs, DKTM, allegro and fortissimo in every group. The net effect of this, is to make a <strong>second</strong> Troubador still <em>desirable</em> (they can run the songs the first troubador doesn't have conc for, and you benefit from a 2nd PoTM and JCap), but considerably less <em>essential. </em>The same can broadly be applied to Dirges. The only 'nerf', if you can call it that, would be to change the effects on both epics since PoTM and CoB should be raidwide by default.</p><p>The same can loosely be applied to Enchanters. You should only really need one in a raid for basic power regen in every group. If you consider, as it probably should be, the ideal raid as having one Illu and one Coercer, it becomes apparent that their DPS and Haste buffs as well as their regen should probably be slightly lessened, but made raidwide. They're a trickier balancing act compared to Bards since they have more single target buffs, but as long as 3 Illusionists are essential for an optimum raid, something isn't right.</p><p>The net result of making buffs raidwide would be a set of 4 classes that alone bring massive power to a raid force. This might be imbalanced, but I'd rather 2 bards and 2 chanters could bring that massive power than needing to kick 4 other less desirable classes (e.g brawlers and summoners) to shoehorn in 4 more buffbots. This unfortunate mechanic as it is at the moment is a massive barrier to non-hardcore raiding, and even in hardcore guilds how many people can say they're playing a bard/chanter because they really want to, and how many have to admit they're playing one because it was the only class the guild were recruiting?</p><p>It really does seem win-win that you could improve these classes whilst simultaneously fixing the fact too many are needed in a raid at the moment.</p>

<p>Well written, I would have to agree 100% with you.  This would open up 4 raid spots for unused classes.</p>

<p>(( /agree</p><p>bards who cant sing loud enough for more than 5 people to hear them are pathetic and should take up pottery or quilt-making instead. *nods*</p>

<p><cite>TuinalOfTheNexus wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The net result of making buffs raidwide would be a set of 4 classes that alone bring massive power to a raid force. This might be imbalanced, but I'd rather 2 bards and 2 chanters could bring that massive power than needing to kick 4 other less desirable classes (e.g brawlers and summoners) to shoehorn in 4 more buffbots. This unfortunate mechanic as it is at the moment is a massive barrier to non-hardcore raiding, and even in hardcore guilds how many people can say they're playing a bard/chanter because they really want to, and how many have to admit they're playing one because it was the only class the guild were recruiting?</p></blockquote><p>But would you really bring those supposed less desirable classes?  Bards and enchanters are brought along to maximize the dps of the raid.  If you make it so you need a token dirge, troub, coercer and illy then you just shift to bringing along those known for super high dps like the preds and sorcerors. It's just shifting the problem from one set of classes to another. </p><p>Something we are working on is to make every class desirable.  It's something that takes time though.  I don't see bards or enchanters really getting raid wide buffs though.  Even if they were made raidwide you still would need to bring them along for the other stuff like tandem, IA, TC, epic procs, etc which means they are still highly desired for these buffs.</p>

<p>You know what would be nice?  An MGB AA.  Let each of those classes pick one buff that goes raidwide.</p><p>Click your MGB ability, then a buff, and that buff goes raid wide.  Yummy.</p>

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Something we are working on is to make every class desirable.  It's something that takes time though. </p></blockquote><p>and giving said bards and chanters AAs like PoM and Dextorous Sonata does nothing to reduce the time its going to take</p>

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Something we are working on is to make every class desirable.</p></blockquote><p>Then you also need to work on what makes some classes desired on raids but undesirable to play...</p>

<p>What about the other end of the spectrum? Cause id love to see anyone who complains about a bard taking their raid slot to go out and try to solo as a bard. Chanters really have it good I'll admit that, but with bards there is another type of balance already in place. Tho bards are great in raid settings we are some of the weakest soloers, and less important in groups then tanks,healers, and even dps.</p><p>There is another reason raid guilds are always recruiting bards and chanters. They are some of the least played classes. As you make other classes better in raid situations you better make bards the soloers that bruisers/wizards are and also make having a bard in your instance group as win/fail dependent as having a healer.</p>

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>But would you really bring those supposed less desirable classes?  Bards and enchanters are brought along to maximize the dps of the raid.  If you make it so you need a token dirge, troub, coercer and illy then you just shift to bringing along those known for super high dps like the preds and sorcerors. It's just shifting the problem from one set of classes to another. </p><p>Something we are working on is to make every class desirable.</p></blockquote><p>Some of the "less desirable" classes (like summonerr) <span style="text-decoration: underline;">need </span>bards and enchanters. I don't mean need in a "I'd love to have a troub in my group" or "Wow, tandem would be cool", but in a <em>"If i don't have a bard and/or Illusionist I won't parse ... period"</em>. <strong>THAT</strong> kind of imbalance is at the heart of this. Making bards raidwide would allow for less group buffs, and thereby murder summoner dps, which is already in the can and all but nonexistant outside of bard/enchanter raid settings. If some classes brought more utility to a raid, then perhaps bards/enchanters woulnd't be needed as much and they woulnd't be as unbalanced (a subjective term) or as scarce as they are now.</p><p>When a class CANNOT parse without two other classes present, there's a problem.</p><p>edit: yea, outside of a raid, bards can't solo for anything. I find it sad that every raid needs multiple, yet no one cares in an instance. I don't call that balance.</p>

<p><cite>Ballads wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Tho bards are great in raid settings we are some of the weakest soloers, and less important in groups then tanks,healers, and even dps.</p></blockquote><p>My Troubie solos very easily -- even more so after I got to ROK & learned how to kite -- & at 80th level, Dirges (in particular) are one of the most desired classes in a TSO group. In fact, Dirges are so desirable for T8 TSO groups that I'm thinking of changing my own Troubie to Dirge ... the only thing that's stopping me is that there are soo many Dirges, & not enough Troubies.</p><p>IMO, the idea that Bards & Chanters are hard to play is an ancient fossil that survives only because "received player wisdom" is difficult to overcome. IOW, people "know" they're hard to play, because they keep getting told by other people -- who may or may not actually know what they're talking about -- how hard those classes are to play, rather than actually experiencing them for themselves.</p><p>I wouldn't complain if Bard & Chanter buffs were made raid-wide, but I'm suspicious that as Aeralik said, making them so wouldn't cause anyone to bring more Fighters. Instead, those raid slots will be filled with more healers & DPS, because the vast majority of raid encounters I've seen in this game simply don't give enough for more than a couple fighters, anyway.</p><p>IMO, that's the big issue: it's not the design of the classes that needs changing, but the design of encounters. So long as encounters remain mostly "tank-&-spank", Fighters will remain less desirable than other classes, because you only need a Tank for the named, & maybe an Off Tank for adds or the rare encounter (like Kor-Sha twins) where you need to fight two different mobs simultaneously in two different places, or the Ire Sisters in Hate where the script might force the need for 1 fighter of each class.</p><p>I truly believe the other big problem is the 24-player design. I remember the "good old days" of EQ1 where tons of people came along -- a whole big guild party -- & mass chaos ensued in Vent. Because you needed so many people, you couldn't afford to be "picky", & so there was more room for more classes. I saw precisely the same problem happen in WoW, when raids dropped from 40 player to 25 or fewer. Raids now seem to be less an exercise in community, & more an exercise in min/maxing the raid force's capabilities with a more limited set of players. Even in one-guild raids, more than 24 people means people get left out, & bad feelings arise when people feel left out because Guild Scrub A simply signed up first.</p>

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>But would you really bring those supposed less desirable classes?  Bards and enchanters are brought along to maximize the dps of the raid.  If you make it so you need a token dirge, troub, coercer and illy then you just shift to bringing along those known for super high dps like the preds and sorcerors. It's just shifting the problem from one set of classes to another. </p></blockquote><p>This overlooks two important things though;</p><p>Firstly enchanters and bards don't just maximise raid DPS. They also maximise power regeneration, which is critical in many named encounters, and also importantly bring massive aggro management and survivability buffs. You make out like 8 chanters and bards are needed just to parse high, when in fact they're also very desirable for any named encounter too.</p><p>Secondly, DPS classes all have niches. Assassins are extremely good DPS on trash, but aren't so good on named where they have to joust or on multiple target encounters. Warlocks slightly lack single target DPS, but are great against multiple targets, and the same can be said for Summoners (if they have bard and chanter buffs, without them they're a waste of space). There are many encounters that would be easier with 10 warlocks, but there are also many encounters where 10 assassins would work better (and, similarly, many encounters where 10 assassins would be a poor choice). So realistically a raidforce is better off with a variety of DPS classes. Whilst you do need to do some tweaking for Summoners especially, there is at least a vague balance across DPS classes.</p><p>Most importantly though, you can stick <em>any </em>of 15+ classes in a DPS slot and they'll fill the role to within about 20% of each other. But you can't stick any scout in place of a bard and have them do the job, much like you can't put any mage in place of an enchanter.</p><p>I kind of feel it weird that you say 'token' dirge, troub, coercer and illy like it's a bizarre notion there should only be one in an 'optimum' raid. This should actually be how things are!</p><p>I notice other posters saying bards are bad solo or not fun, and the reason people feel this is because they're pretty much forced to play one because demand for other classes in comparison is tiny. Whilst some people out there love playing the class, the simple fact is they don't represent 4/24 EQ2 subscribers. Our highest turnover class is definitely Bards with the average expectancy before they burn out and quit being 2-3 months, purely because the vast majority of people aren't playing them as a first choice of class to play. So I guess this is also costing you subscriptions.</p>

<p><cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Raids now seem to be less an exercise in community, & more an exercise in min/maxing the raid force's capabilities with a more limited set of players. Even in one-guild raids, more than 24 people means people get left out, & bad feelings arise when people feel left out because Guild Scrub A simply signed up first.</p></blockquote><p>I wouldn't put that solely on the players though. A big part of this is the complexity of the raid encounters and how they're structured to basically "require" min/max raid group builds. Take the Overking in Kor'Sha. In of itself it's not a particularly "difficult" encounter, but if you go into that fight with a half-baked raid, you're not going to win. Or put it another way, how many pickup raids taking all comers are you aware of that can beat the Twins or Overking? And I mean a real pickup raid, not an experienced raiding guild filling in a few empty slots.</p><p>Note that I'm not advocating that SOE dumb down any raid encounters. I'm simply pointing out that the primary driving force behind this desire to create a "perfect" raid force is largely driven by the design of the raids themselves. It becomes a kind of self-reinforcing feedback loop where raiders want more of a challenge, SOE makes raids more complex, which requires further refinement to the raid's class composition, APs etc., which in turn leads to the desire for more of a challenge once that content is completed.</p>

<p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Raids now seem to be less an exercise in community, & more an exercise in min/maxing the raid force's capabilities with a more limited set of players. Even in one-guild raids, more than 24 people means people get left out, & bad feelings arise when people feel left out because Guild Scrub A simply signed up first.</p></blockquote><p>I wouldn't put that solely on the players though.</p></blockquote><p>I could have sworn I put a very large lump of the blame on the developers for poor encounter design. Do I need to quote myself???</p>

<p><cite>TuinalOfTheNexus wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I notice other posters saying bards are bad solo or not fun</p></blockquote><p>I can't comment on the "fun" part, because everyone's idea of fun is different.</p><p>I can, & will, continue to argue against the notion that Bards are "bad solo", because in my own experience, <strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">it simply is not true</span></strong>.</p><p>In fact, I'd go so far as to say that people who are convinced Bards are "bad solo" need to Learn To Play. I know Noaani, for instance, claims he/she doesn't need to Learn 2 Play, & is still convinced Bards suck solo, but I honestly have NO idea why Noaani -- who otherwise seems a very competent player -- would hold such a curious idea.</p><p>It's a "curious idea", because it's not freekin' true -- it's nothing but an ancient fossil that needs to be dug up & re-buried. & yea, while I may not represent a significant portion of the EQ2 playerbase, I think there's a significant portion of the EQ2 playerbase that desperately needs to Learn To Play.</p><p>Edit: Let me put it this way -- if I can solo a Troubie -- equipped in T7 MC & using the Frostfell Icy Axe -- in Kylong Plains at level 68 ... <strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">anyone</span></strong> can, or should at least be able to puzzle it out.</p>

<p><cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I could have sworn I put a very large lump of the blame on the developers for poor encounter design. Do I need to quote myself???</p></blockquote><p>Well, the point you made about raid encounters being "tank and spank" is largely incorrect (e.g.: mostly scriptless encounters that don't require any real thinking, just burn the mob). If you try to "tank and spank" Master P or the Sisters in SoH, the Twins or Overking in Kor'Sha, Venril, Druushk, Nexona, Silverwing, etc. then you're going to lose.</p><p>But I gathered that your objection was more towards the design choice of raid size, not the specific difficulty of the encounters themselves.</p>

<p><cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>TuinalOfTheNexus wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I notice other posters saying bards are bad solo or not fun</p></blockquote><p>I can't comment on the "fun" part, because everyone's idea of fun is different.</p><p>I can, & will, continue to argue against the notion that Bards are "bad solo", because in my own experience, <strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">it simply is not true</span></strong>.</p><p>In fact, I'd go so far as to say that people who are convinced Bards are "bad solo" need to Learn To Play. I know Noaani, for instance, claims he/she doesn't need to Learn 2 Play, & is still convinced Bards suck solo, but I honestly have NO idea why Noaani -- who otherwise seems a very competent player -- would hold such a curious idea.</p><p>It's a "curious idea", because it's not freekin' true -- it's nothing but an ancient fossil that needs to be dug up & re-buried. & yea, while I may not represent a significant portion of the EQ2 playerbase, I think there's a significant portion of the EQ2 playerbase that desperately needs to Learn To Play.</p><p>Edit: Let me put it this way -- if I can solo a Troubie -- equipped in T7 MC & using the Frostfell Icy Axe -- in Kylong Plains at level 68 ... <strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">anyone</span></strong> can, or should at least be able to puzzle it out.</p></blockquote><p>How good a class is solo is a relative, not absolute measure.</p><p>What I mean is, any class in the game can kill a solo mob or even a ^^^ outdoor mob that's not control effect immune. However, there's only a select few classes that can, for example, solo Shard of Fear completely, or reliably kill ^^^ nameds in instances and dungeons without needing uber gear to do it. By comparison to these classes (e.g. Necromancers and Bruisers), Bards are a weak solo class - this doesn't mean they can't kill a solo or even heroic mob, it just means there are other classes that are noticably better at it.</p><p>I don't really want to get this derailed into an argument about the soloability of Bards though, because it's largely irrelevant. The whole point is that, with the current raiding setup, 4/24 or 1/6 players need to have a Bard main. They don't, and that's why guilds, raids, and groups are forever struggling to find Dirges and Troubadors. Making Bards a godlike solo class so everyone rolls one FOTM-style is not a solution. The obvious solution, getting back to the OP, is to make the optimum raid setup require 2 Bards, not 4.</p>

<p>Bards can solo outdoors fairly well as long as the MOB can't snare or stun.  If I have enough room to bow kite and use spells I can drop them.</p><p>That said.......we are bad at soloing in comparrison to other classes.  For my background......8 years or so playing a Bard in EQ1 from swarm kiting to melee mezing I've pretty much tried it all.  And from release to present playing a Troub in EQ2.  When RoK first came out and I was not in raid gear soloing was pretty tough.  Now that I am in full fabled it's really not much easier but a bit better.  A lot of TSO MOB's got stun/snare though this expansion with again makes things really difficult because of our low mitigation and relatively low DPS.</p><p>So bottom line is.....Troubs can solo......and if you want to take your time you might even take down a heroic if it is mezable and you want to waste 20min of your time.  But you won't see Troubs FDing into KC to clear every named in the place like some other classes can do.</p><p>If you think we have it easy soloing I would suggest playing some other classes for comparrison.</p>

<p><cite>TuinalOfTheNexus wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>What I mean is, any class in the game can kill a solo mob or even a ^^^ outdoor mob that's not control effect immune. <span style="color: #ff0000;"><strong>However, there's only a select few classes that can, for example, solo Shard of Fear completely, or reliably kill ^^^ nameds in instances and dungeons without needing uber gear to do it. By comparison to these classes (e.g. Necromancers and Bruisers), Bards are a weak solo class</strong> </span></p><p><span style="color: #339966;"><strong>By that comparison, MOST classes are "weak solo classes", not just Bards, but since we all know that MOST classes are NOT "weak", the comparison is meaningless & says nothing at all about the difficulty of soloing a Bard.</strong></span></p><p>I don't really want to get this derailed into an argument about the soloability of Bards though, because it's largely irrelevant.</p><p>I<span style="color: #339966;"><strong> understand, but you brought it up as a reason why people don't play Bards in the first place, thus a reason why there aren't enough Bards. In that sense, whether or not it's true that Bards can or can't solo effectively is entirely relevant to the subject at hand. As I said, people don't play Bards more often, because they "know" the class is "hard to solo", but the fact is that what they "know" is not true. Ergo, people SHOULD talk about that subject, in this thread, so they can learn that Bards are not hard to solo -- are in fact FUN to solo <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> -- & thus maybe more people will play Bards more often.</strong></span></p></blockquote><p>In any event, I agree with Aeralik that making bard & chanter buffs raid wide isn't necessarily going to make the currently undesirable classes suddenly more desirable. People aren't going to replace the "missing" 4 Bards & 4 Chanters with 8 Fighters, they'll replace them with more healers or raw DPS.</p><p>One last comment on the relative soloability of Bards: I have an 80 Swashy, a 71 Troubie, a 60 Conjy, & a 59 Wizzie. I enjoy soloing the Troubie every bit as much as I do the Swashy & the Wizzie, & far MORE than I ever enjoyed playing the Conjy. I can't solo ^^^ Names with my Troubie like I can with the Wizzie ... but OTOH, I couldn't care less. What I can do is quite easily solo all the way to 80, in a reasonable amount of time, & have a great deal of fun doing so.</p>

<p>I would love to see bard and chanter buffs go raidwide.  I don't think it will make the very successful raid guilds change thier lineup, but I do think that it would help less successfull guilds run raids more succesfully. </p><p>I am also of the opinion that making bard/chanter groupbuffs Raidwide would dovetail well with buffing other classes raid desirablility.  Bards and Chanters are the best of the group buffers as I understand it, and as thats thier slot they should probobly keep it, but not at the expense of the other 20 classes, moving some of the buffs raidwide keeps them in the premier support role, while not requiring 4 bards and 4 chanters to buff the raid.</p><p>Raids can be succesfull with less, but more is generally wished and recruited for.</p>

<p><cite>Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>People aren't going to replace the "missing" 4 Bards & 4 Chanters with 8 Fighters, they'll replace them with more healers or raw DPS.</p></blockquote><p>I must've missed the downside cause I don't see it. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p>

<p>When people make sweeping generalisations about the desirability of bards and chanters on raids, they really are only refering to DIRGE and ILLUSIONIST.  No raid force is clamouring to have 2 coercers or even 2 troubadors. No, they want one each coercer and troubie and 3 of dirge and illusionist. Dirges and Illusionists are also extremely more desired in groups than their counterparts. Dirges have an easier time soloing than troubadors, though coercers are lucky that their soloing is better than illusionist and considerably easier than a lot of classes.</p><p>But, as a coercer, hearing sweeping statements about 'chanters' annoys me 'cause it's illusionists that are so highly desired, not coercer.. and one of the primary roles of the coercer (hate gen) is about to get changed in some way with the changes to fighters. Once more coercers might even have their so-called guarenteed raid slot go to an illusionist by preference.</p>

<p><cite>TuinalOfTheNexus wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>What I mean is, any class in the game can kill a solo mob or even a ^^^ outdoor mob that's not control effect immune.</p></blockquote><p>There are many ^^^ non-named outdoor mobs that my guard can not solo.</p><p>I find soloing on my dirge much easier.</p><p>Soloing on my illusionist is trickier, but he can kill more powerful mobs. Raiding with him makes my hand ache.</p><p>As has been said making most of the chanter/bard buffs raid wide would just free up slots for more DPS classes. It would mean that there were fewer places for chanters/bards on raids, but also make it more important to have one of each type, since the buffs will be having more effect.</p><p>Overall I don't think it would be good.</p>

<p>I didnt say bards cant solo, i just said some classes are infinitly better suited for it. If you were making a class to solo with , you wouldnt make a bard.</p>

<p><cite>Aeralik wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>TuinalOfTheNexus wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The net result of making buffs raidwide would be a set of 4 classes that alone bring massive power to a raid force. This might be imbalanced, but I'd rather 2 bards and 2 chanters could bring that massive power than needing to kick 4 other less desirable classes (e.g brawlers and summoners) to shoehorn in 4 more buffbots. This unfortunate mechanic as it is at the moment is a massive barrier to non-hardcore raiding, and even in hardcore guilds how many people can say they're playing a bard/chanter because they really want to, and how many have to admit they're playing one because it was the only class the guild were recruiting?</p></blockquote><p>But would you really bring those supposed less desirable classes?  Bards and enchanters are brought along to maximize the dps of the raid.  If you make it so you need a token dirge, troub, coercer and illy then you just shift to bringing along those known for super high dps like the preds and sorcerors. It's just shifting the problem from one set of classes to another. </p><p><strong>Something we are working on is to make every class desirable.</strong>  It's something that takes time though.  I don't see bards or enchanters really getting raid wide buffs though.  Even if they were made raidwide you still would need to bring them along for the other stuff like tandem, IA, TC, epic procs, etc which means they are still highly desired for these buffs.</p></blockquote><p>I've heard the bolded part for that last four years and honestly laughed every time I saw it for it not come true not will it come true. EQ2 has a design hole, it launched with itself painted into a corner in this aspect and will never get out of it. A raid holds 24 people so that if you wished to take each class equally you would have only 1 of each class. No current tier raid force is going to have 6 fighters, 2 bards (1 troub, 1 dirge), 2 enchanters, etc. Its just not ever going to happen, its  byproduct of just having to many classes from the beginning.</p><p>I am thankful however there has been the wisdom in the continued development of EQ2 to realize that adding more classes would only be furthering this problem, even if it has been limiting to the new things to add to the game in expansions.</p>

<p><cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>When people make sweeping generalisations about the desirability of bards and chanters on raids, they really are only refering to DIRGE and ILLUSIONIST. No raid force is clamouring to have 2 coercers or even 2 troubadors. No, they want one each coercer and troubie and 3 of dirge and illusionist. Dirges and Illusionists are also extremely more desired in groups than their counterparts. Dirges have an easier time soloing than troubadors, though coercers are lucky that their soloing is better than illusionist and considerably easier than a lot of classes.</p><p>But, as a coercer, hearing sweeping statements about 'chanters' annoys me 'cause it's illusionists that are so highly desired, not coercer.. and one of the primary roles of the coercer (hate gen) is about to get changed in some way with the changes to fighters. Once more coercers might even have their so-called guarenteed raid slot go to an illusionist by preference.</p></blockquote><p>I disagree.  We're *still* recruiting "a Bard".  Dirge, Troub, w/e.  We currently roll with 1-2 Dirges and 1 Troub.  We just recruited our second Coercer, in a search that looked for "an Enchanter".</p><p>The real problem here is that these four classes which are in extreme demand are generally among the least played classes on a server, making it seem very difficult indeed to field that "perfect" raid force.</p>

<p>Well, the only Coercer that a raid absolutely <em>needs</em> is for the MT group. The thing is about these "optimal builds" for a raid force, it's not the players making arbitrary decisions to min/max performance. The raid encounters themselves are largely designed to assume that the raid force is "perfect" and has very specific class combinations/ratios, otherwise the odds of failure increase dramatically.</p><p>If SOE was really more concerned about class diversity in raids, the solution isn't the vague goal of "making other classes more desirable", it's to change the raid encounters to support greater diversity, rather than virtually requiring the "2 of these, 1 of those there, 3 of these here" approach that we currently have.</p>

<p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Well, the only Coercer that a raid absolutely <em>needs</em> is for the MT group. The thing is about these "optimal builds" for a raid force, it's not the players making arbitrary decisions to min/max performance. The raid encounters themselves are largely designed to assume that the raid force is "perfect" and has very specific class combinations/ratios, otherwise the odds of failure increase dramatically.</p><p>If SOE was really more concerned about class diversity in raids, the solution isn't the vague goal of "making other classes more desirable", it's to change the raid encounters to support greater diversity, rather than virtually requiring the "2 of these, 1 of those there, 3 of these here" approach that we currently have.</p></blockquote><p>Firstly, I do agree with an earlier post that Dirges and Illusionists are generally more desirable classes than Coercers and Troubadors. But I do know I'd still rather see a group with a Coercer and Troubador than any other 2 random DPS or Fighter classes filling those spots. They might not be as desirable as Dirges and Illusionists, but they're still a heck of a lot more desirable than any other class in a group that doesn't already have a Chanter and Bard.</p><p>With regards to the above quote - I disagree that encounter design is a way to fix things. You make any encounter 'require' x class (usually a [Removed for Content] class you wouldn't otherwise have - e.g. Brawlers on Sisters, although granted they're not required per se), and it just becomes annoying that you need to make someone log their alt for the encounter or recruit someone just for 5 mins a week. What needs to change is the optimal setup for defeating the vast majority of existing encounters and all trash. 4 Enchanters and 4 Bards is, for want of a better word, stupid, and the only reason players accept it is because it has gone unfixed for so long it's become the norm.</p><p>There is nothing broken with Bards or Enchanters from a soloability perspective. To be honest I don't get the feeling they're an unpopular class to play, but just because of the ludicrous demand for them, there's a constant shortage. If 2/24 people were expected to play bards, that would seem about right (unsurprisingly). But the actual 'required' amount is <strong>double</strong> that. The only real reason to keep things as they are is a bias towards high end guilds that can happily recruit people willing to be buffbots - or any other class the guild tells them to be - for a shot at avatar loot. It is an absolute pain in the backside for everyone else to constantly raid with a suboptimum setup because of a fundamentally broken bit of class balance.</p>

<p>Main Problems is, Bards are lacking, as Bards lack DPS which helps in Rest of game.</p><p>Wizard > Warlock > Coercer = Conjurer = Necro = Illu</p><p>(roughly)</p><p>There is not a lot of DPS difference between four of the mage classes.</p><p>Assassin > Ranger > Briga = Swashi > Dirge > Troub</p><p>Illu and Coercer brings a real lot to a Group/Raid, they outright dominate on Mana-Reg, so far away, that in our Raids the bards often cancel mana reg.</p><p>The Bard DPS is a mess! And only real dedicated player stick with them.</p><p>Lack of DPS = Lack of Fun.</p><p>I love my Troub, but I puke that Illu's and Furies can out-dps me significantly, I lie with 3-5k in Raid, our Illu's in 4-7k and Furies on Damage Mod with buffs 3-7k. And we are just a disciplined 2-raiddays VP clear raidcom.</p><p>For soloing, my RoK legendary Swash kills easier, then my RoK Myth equipped Troub.</p><p>1. Fix Spell/Combat Art Damage Scaling! Broken Level 51+</p><p>2. Fix Troub Debuffs</p>

<p><cite>Faelgalad wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Main Problems is, Bards are lacking, as Bards lack DPS which helps in Rest of game.</p><p>Wizard > Warlock > Coercer = Conjurer = Necro = Illu</p><p>(roughly)</p><p>There is not a lot of DPS difference between four of the mage classes.</p><p>Assassin > Ranger > Briga = Swashi > Dirge > Troub</p><p>Illu and Coercer brings a real lot to a Group/Raid, they outright dominate on Mana-Reg, so far away, that in our Raids the bards often cancel mana reg.</p><p>The Bard DPS is a mess! And only real dedicated player stick with them.</p><p>Lack of DPS = Lack of Fun.</p><p>I love my Troub, but I puke that Illu's and Furies can out-dps me significantly, I lie with 3-5k in Raid, our Illu's in 4-7k and Furies on Damage Mod with buffs 3-7k. And we are just a disciplined 2-raiddays VP clear raidcom.</p><p>For soloing, my RoK legendary Swash kills easier, then my RoK Myth equipped Troub.</p><p>1. Fix Spell/Combat Art Damage Scaling! Broken Level 51+</p><p>2. Fix Troub Debuffs</p></blockquote><p>For 2 my main beef is that those debuffs last so short of a time and most of them do not bring extra dps with them so its a waste of a cast which equals less dps to recast them (especially since most of the time debuffs get resisted now)</p>

<p><cite>TuinalOfTheNexus wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>For about 2-3 years, the optimum raid setup has been 4 bards and 4 chanters.</p><p>This is probably one of the longest, most profound imbalances in the game. Put simply, there aren't enough people playing Chanters and Bards compared to other classes to match this demand. The evidence for this is overwhelming - look at the number of high end guilds trying to recruit only Chanters and Bards, or form a pickup raid and guess what classes you'll be lacking.</p><p>The Bard and Chanter classes just aren't fun enough to make 1/3rd of players (8/24 raid slots) want to play them as main characters. And we shouldn't have to constantly choose between making people bring boxed Bards, or roll with a clearly suboptimal raid that not only does less DPS, but also has substantially weaker aggro control and power regen capability (not to mention the various other benefits like Gravitas and Jester's Cap).</p><p>This is a fundamentally broken bit of design, and the designers need to stop burying their heads in the sand and pretending it's perfectly reasonable for 4/24 classes to ideally occupy 8/24 (or even 9/24, since 2 Illus in one group are a perfectly viable option for Mage DPS).</p><p>Some would say nerf Bards and Chanters, but I think buffing them is, ironically, a better solution.</p><p><strong>Make every bard song raidwide.</strong> Just one troub in a raid and you've got the deaggro, aria, skill buffs, DKTM, allegro and fortissimo in every group. The net effect of this, is to make a <strong>second</strong> Troubador still <em>desirable</em> (they can run the songs the first troubador doesn't have conc for, and you benefit from a 2nd PoTM and JCap), but considerably less <em>essential. </em>The same can broadly be applied to Dirges. The only 'nerf', if you can call it that, would be to change the effects on both epics since PoTM and CoB should be raidwide by default.</p><p>The same can loosely be applied to Enchanters. You should only really need one in a raid for basic power regen in every group. If you consider, as it probably should be, the ideal raid as having one Illu and one Coercer, it becomes apparent that their DPS and Haste buffs as well as their regen should probably be slightly lessened, but made raidwide. They're a trickier balancing act compared to Bards since they have more single target buffs, but as long as 3 Illusionists are essential for an optimum raid, something isn't right.</p><p>The net result of making buffs raidwide would be a set of 4 classes that alone bring massive power to a raid force. This might be imbalanced, but I'd rather 2 bards and 2 chanters could bring that massive power than needing to kick 4 other less desirable classes (e.g brawlers and summoners) to shoehorn in 4 more buffbots. This unfortunate mechanic as it is at the moment is a massive barrier to non-hardcore raiding, and even in hardcore guilds how many people can say they're playing a bard/chanter because they really want to, and how many have to admit they're playing one because it was the only class the guild were recruiting?</p><p>It really does seem win-win that you could improve these classes whilst simultaneously fixing the fact too many are needed in a raid at the moment.</p></blockquote><p></p><p>No, that would just make enchanters even more grossly overpowered then they already are and further increase the importance of both them and bards.</p>