Rebalancing the Troubador

[AmadeusH]

Rather than wait months for re-balancing after these latest changes, I'd like to see ideas put forward to the devs now to improve and balance the Troubador in the scheme of the new realities. Troubs were an endangered species, let's not let it go extinct. Please put forward some ideas for re-balancing that will work with the goals the devs have in mind. Try to be moderate, we seriously need something done.Mez/Charm:Chanters will have this as a forte with epics, but how about instead of timer reduction, we have mob lvl reduction requirements. ie. limited to down arrow mobs so the soloing will not be impacted and yet do not help groups with heroics. But make it functional (charm 1% break chance instead of 10% and last as long as it did before or longer)Protection:Troubs protect the group. Dirges protect from melee, how about if Troubs protect from spells. The reflect spell fits the role, but seems to not be working and the mechanics of it is too complex. How about if we get rid of the procing to apply the buff portion and have it straight up have a chance to reflect when up and scale the percentage to quality. i.e. cast buff and it is on, no need to proc first. then at app1 it has a 5% chance to reflect any spell on the group (excluding raidwide/specials) at 25% effectiveness and at Master1 it has a 20% chance to reflect at 25% effectiveness. The 25% effectiveness is because reflecting epics at 100% would be considered overpowered. Or have it 50% on heroics, 25% on epics, etc to be more fair.Buffing spellcasters:One of our primary functions. Increasing offensive spellcasting skills does not have a noticeable effect and it too abstract. How about a more direct means of increasing caster dps by around 10-15%. Procs minimally help melee now anyway, so you could safely increase proc dmg or proc percentage chance. Also you could increase the AA slightly for casting time reduction. The greatest benefit being to the tier1 dmg spellcasters to try and up their dps by 10-15%.Also, we buff Str and Sta, casters effectiveness does not improve with str and sta however. Since casters are the target audience, I think they would prefer Agi, Wis and Int. Could change the buff to buff all stats? Yes, I know alot of other classes buff wis and int, but if it is to be a primary function of the Troubador, have to be able to do it better than them.

[Belisarius]

I like your ideas, Reflection spell just ticks me off when compared to the dirge version. Everytime I see it used I am angry, spell reflection needs to be looked at.

[Vandileir]

SOE, please do us a favor, and just throw the class out already.

you cant gives us anything in return that wont [Removed for Content] off another archtype or class, or cause a balance issue.

are buffs are right where there supposed to be IMO, helpful, but not over powered.

The problem is we now have nothing to go with them. no damage, no power tapping, no cc. Nothing but mediocre buff's/ mediocre debuff's

And every othe class can do that better 1 on 1.

We buff everything there for there all watered down

[Jaimster]

OMG I think I just figured out their master plan.  Some of what you are suggesting looks familiar... from our AA line options.

Perhaps we are just the first of the guinea pigs. No more standard class in the future. With the next expansion it seems they are going to be offering more inline with AA options. So for now, maybe they are taking each class and putting us at our most basic.  How we progress from their will be our choice... based on the AA lines. So instead of having one type of troubador - we will have 5. Well, more than that since each person can choose to take the minimum of each for 2 AA lines. With the new AA stuff, there might be secondary lines as opposed to everyone just maxing out the lines we are offered now, so there will be hundreds of possibilities.

This will do a few things:

Devs won't have to deal with as many "But I saw such and such a class do THIS but I can't do that"... the response can be, well chances are they chose a totally different line from you.

No one will be able to complain that things are too cookie cutter.

No ONE class will be able to agree that any future changes drastically effect them... there won't be huge concensus' on the forums because folks will have no way to compare the combinations of totally different lines.

In the end, perhaps it will make things FAR more exciting for everyone. In the meantime though, every time they do this to a new class... OMG!!! what are you doing to me???

I'm probably totally off base, but I'm trying to come up with explanations that make me feel... better (? not sure that's quite the right word)... since no other explanations have been forthcoming from the official sources.

[Belisarius]

I have thought that before. But if the base class is weak, then whats the point?

 

We have CORE spells that need to be corrected. Reflection is crap, always has been, no aa line will change that.

[Killerbee3000]

they could give us more and better buffs, as it stands now our buffs are nothing special and with nerfing our cc groups will now perfer chanters over bards.

power regen? chanters have it too.

health regen? zerkers have it too.

haste? how many other claases have that? lots.

stats buff? other classes have those too.

so what im asking for is basically give bards lots of uber buffs to pick from. after nerfing dps and cc buffs are the only thing left, but we lack any unique or uber buffs. 

[Jaimster]

Oh please don't get me wrong... I'm not heartily for the concept. I think I've probably doubled my post count this week ;p

There is no point to a weak base class. I think what they are planning for troubs that is now effective on test is awful. But what I posted above seems to be the only reasonable hope or explanation for what they are doing, assuming the are not planning on deleting the class altogether. 

If I knew they were temporarily breaking us/putting us back to what we were like pre- level 50 and pre-LU13 (sort of) in order to make us better afterwards, I could perhaps live with the changes, particularly if I knew that was the plan for all classes and we just happen to be the first.

If that is the case, I'm guessing a) there aren't thousands of us to complain and b) we are still at least useful in groups/raids if not terribly exciting to play...

[Snublefot]

Mez should be like it is today. Charm should be as is today. There was nothing overpowered in them before and wouldnt be compared to chanters after the nerf is on live. Because thats what it is, a nerf to chanters non-epic cc too.

Reflect. Diffrence should be in duration. Tripple the duration as seen today, and maybe make it like PoM. Problem is, this would become a MT team spell. Currently our role is that of ranged dps team. For the reflect to work in a raid environment and not change the current balance in raids, the spell would have to be raid-wide. Take the troub out of fight, 30s duration with 100% of fireing the proc, then 30s where any spell would be reflected. The amount of reflect could change depending on spell quality (eg 50% for adept, 60 for adept3, 70 for master).  5 minute recast since it would be pretty powerfull. Maybe even a significant cast time (10-15s).

Alternative could be a 10% reduction to spell damage raid wide, and always up. Or cast on single target in raid.

Interesting idea for the procs. Today a typical Wizard will get 4-5% added damage from the proc song. Would be interesting if it was 100% proc for 5% of the spell damage. Would actually make more sense then the random nature of the current proc song. Solo this would be more "dependable". With the random nature gone, you might even raise the proc to 6% :p

The Str/Sta buff is mostly a group/solo buff. In a raid environment most dps casters already have maxed int. Even I have maxed int :p Dont forget the solo part of Troubadour play. This is where we need the improvement most. Taking away the str/sta buff would severly [Removed for Content] the solo-troub. Maybe more then the cc-change and proc change.

[vinterskugge]

How to rebalance the troubadour class:  rollback the game to pre-LU23.

[Belisarius]

I like the idea of having aria proc 100% of the time for x% of spell dmg. thats a great idea.

 

DONT TOUCH POM THOUGH

[Kw]

Since our roles are changing so drastically with the recent changes now is the perfect time for them to put in instruments.  Maybe have 3-4 songs to choose from depending on what instrument you have equipped and you couldnt melee while playing the instrument. Possible songs. Im concentrating on caster buffs, Dirges could be more melee focused. Defense song - Reduce damage of all incoming spell attacks on group by a %. Offense song - Increase damage of all nukes by a %. Haste song - Reduce all cast/recast timers and power cost by a % Mez song - Encounter wide mez but you have to keep the mob targetted and cant move. Leviate song - Group safefall. Power song - Slowly transfer all the bards power to the rest of the group. Just some suggestions.  I know that Alin's and Bria's will always make us desirable in a raid, but something needs to be done to make Troubadors a fun class to play again.

[Myk]

IMO, there is no way to mitigate the damage being done to our CC abilities.  Those abilities were far from over-powered.  Let chanters mez epics and aoe mez while troubs mez non-epics and only single targets.  I just don't see how our cc abilities were so out of whack compared to a chanter where a change like this would occur.  Unless the devs cancel the changes or reduce their proposals considerably, a core function of the troub will be gone and, IMO, this class will be broken. 

In terms of mitigating the nerf to our proc (personal DPS), I would love to see troubs get another self-buff.  As it is now, troubs only have one self-buff.  The rest are diluted buffs since they effect an entire group.  Although the buffs are nice, they are not very powerful when ya solo or duo.  I would love to see a self-buff that increases our dps, perhaps a single proc buff that is more powerful than aria's but is single-target only. 

[Narben Von Nacht]

Our biggest problem seems to be that our buffs are balanced around the fact that we buff the whole group. While many classes can single target buff considerable amounts, our buffs are all wound back so they don't overpower, eg. we can't add 50% haste to the group in case there's a class that already has 50% self haste.  Our AP abilities add minor casting reductions and crit chances because certain classes can trigger massive reductions and crit chances.Unfortunately this has the effect that we add a little to everyone in the group because everyone else has other options and we're stuck with only our own abilities which then fall far below everyone else. My idea to fix this would be to take each buff spell we have and add a secondary effect to them which only affects the bard. ie Balletic Avoidance becomes our defensive stance by adding + defence to group and + mitigation to troub. Aria gives 30% proc rate to group and 50% to troub. An AP like DKTM still adds 7.5% crit chance but could give us a personal chance of 15%. The spell system seems flexible enough that this is possible and it would allow a method of boosting troubs without having to introduce new abilities.If we do get a new buff, the most useful we could be given atm would be a mitigation buff. One of the most annoying things I found with KoS is all the melee based AoE abilities that mobs have. We used to be able to buff against everything except poison/disease then along came KoS and every mob is crushing/slashing. Casters get nailed badly on raids from these attacks and could benefit greatly from a boost. While it runs the risk of placing us in the MT group being able to buff groups against melee would be a valuable ability. Maybe give us a mit buff that works in the same way as Alin's and only affects non fighters? If we can't reflect damage being able to reduce damage taken would be the next best thing.

[britn]

I'd give up mez completely for a real charm like coercers have.

[oldusrf]

I Remember with my first bard when the game came out, when i got the charm, this was great. It lasted for was it #0secs i think and a recast of either 3 or 5mins think it was 5. it did not take any commands, it broke if it got hit and you needed ALL 5 concentration slots, yes all 5 it stunk, i enjoy the new charm now, and i don't want it nerfed

[Jooneau]

What really ticks me off more than the actual changes to Troubador mez and charm is that they would implement these SWEEPING CHANGES TO THE CLASS without so much as an explanation why. They take the time to explain to Rangers why things were changing for them, but when was the last time anybody saw a Dev post here in the Troubador class forums other than to make some empty promise about instruments?

Message Edited by Jooneau on 05-15-2006 11:17 PM

[Aienaa]

IMO, there is no way to mitigate the damage being done to our CC abilities.  Those abilities were far from over-powered.  Let chanters mez epics and aoe mez while troubs mez non-epics and only single targets.  I just don't see how our cc abilities were so out of whack compared to a chanter where a change like this would occur.

 

The thing is, Chanters place should have the ability to effect Epic encounters....  No other class currently has this ability, nor will they ever have this ability...   What they are doing with all thier "control changes" is nerfing EVERYONE's solo and grouping abilities...   Nothing that they are nerfing effected epics in the first place, so there is absolutly no reason to nerf the abilities in the first place....  All they needed to do was change one of the Enchanters useless spells (Power drains) into a Epic mez, and that would give them a class defining role.....

As things are right now, Troubadors do not mez unless there is an absence of Enchanters, and the Troubador mez definatly does not affect epics....  

Enchanters have the ability to AE Mez, while Troubadors are single target Mez...  Where it would take an Enchanter all of 3 seconds to mez a group, it takes a Troubador 10 times the amount of time to mez the same encounter (max of 3 targets due to refresh)....  Enchanters definatly hold a huge advantage in the Mez department, and there is no reason to change it from the way it currently is...

SoE has always done things in extreams...  If they considered something a little over powered, they would nerf the hell out of it until it was useless (Troub buff stacking...  Used to be Troub was a must have in MT group, was nerfed all to hell and now turning into a afk buf bot where the buffs are just ok).....   If they decided something needed to be changed, they change it in a huge way (Rares for spells... used to be any of the 2 rares could be made into spells... Now they add a 3rd and for some ungodly reason they stuck 1/2 of the game population on the rarest of the 3 rares)....  Rather than making tweaks, they do sweeping changes, and seemingly without considering the concequeces of thier actions (Spell proc change.... Not only can fast casting people not proc spells such as Aria, but they can't even proc items like imbued rings or bone clasp girdle)...  Part of the biggest problem is, they don't play the game and don't have a clue as to how these changes are going to affect people....  Not only that, but they don't even listen to the people who have actually been playing the characters for nearly 2 years....  Lots of things look good on paper, but when put into pratical use totally flop....  SoE has been guilty of this many times in the past and they are doing it again....

Another huge problem is that PvE is being heavily influenced by PvP....  This is something that they said would not happen...  Then explain to me why the guards inside the cities will now kill you rather than just kick you out when caught....  Answer is simple...  It's because of PvP....  Why can I not use a bell of an opposing city to enter main city zones??  Again, because of PvP....  Many many things have been changed to ballance out PvP that effect PvE....  If they were going to do as they said and keep PvE and PvP seperate, then they should have done something like US Servers / Euro Servers, where each has thier own seperate patches...  That would have totally kept PvP from effecting PvE....  PvP patchs would be applied to PvP server only, and PvE patches applied to PvE servers only.... That way if they wanted to ballance classes for PvP, it would not effect class ballancing on PvE servers....

SoE needs to start thinking about what they are doing, because in my eyes this is turning into another SWG and things are going to get so screwed up that no one is going to want to play the game anymore....

 

Gwern - 70 Assassin  /  Parody - 63 Troubador

[Snublefot]

I've been thinking about the group-watered-down version of our spells. It might be what affect us most when we go without a group - or even  a full group. Maybe there should be a "self"-part of all troub buffs.

* Like Haste placing a 25% dps mod on self while keeping the current group haste.

* And the str/sta buff getting a 50% boost on self. Extend that to the Proc.

* An additional proc/dot on Aria with a "if caster is bard".

* Avoidance? Double it for caster.

* Maybe a self Heal/Heal over Time? That would improve solo survivability a lot. This would need to be extended across all tiers tough. Starting from maybe lvl 5 and then at 15,25,35 etc.

* Remove concentration need for Int/agi song. Its self only.

The great part of such changes would be that it would affect the casual/non-raiding Troub a lot.

In a raid setting those buffs wouldnt mean much. In the role I have in our guild I never have the above buffs up at all (exeption is proc). I guess most raid troubs have about the same role unless they happen to raid with multiple troubs. (Raid setup: Power song, Proc, Int buff (added damage on proc, unless fury in group), Hate reduction, Casting skill/focus song)

And still I think the mez/charm change need to be undone. Most certainly the Mez - there was nothing overpowered about it, and most certainly unerf the charm enough for us to "chain-charm" our target. A 20/20 charm with full controll and no conc might even be used.

[AmadeusH]

I have faith in the dev team, they have years of experience and have the longterm health of the game in mind. It actually takes alot of courage to implement the across the board changes that they have done in the face of mass criticism and consternation. It's a gamble. If you succeed you make a better, more desireable game, if you fail you make a... SWG mess.I have faith that there's a meaningful reason for an 8 second charm and it serves a useful purpose... ok... maybe not.Let's face the truth, they removed our charm, it's no different than when it took 5 conc to use. It was deemed overpowered in the grand scheme and effectived removed. As was our reflect, just too powerful. As was our mez and others.I can understand some of the reasoning, but all these removals have taken their toll, just add up all the spells that will not be used. The mez is a lvl 70 SPECIAL, the high end of our class defining spell, the reflect was a special, the charm a major line. We now have a huge gaping hole in our lineup from all these nonfunctional skills and spells. You don't feel very special when most of your specials don't work. You feel a little, unfinished?Can the spells be replaced with something different and not overpowered? If reflect does not fit into the overall balance, why burden us with it. Change it to a spell shield analagous to the dirge proc melee shield. If mez does not belong as a class defining spell of the troub, why burden us with it. Make the lvl 50/70 special a song that summons a possessed scout pet that lets us explore the way ahead and set off traps. Or anything that will aid us in our main function, in leading the group/raid to victory!

Message Edited by AmadeusH on 05-18-2006 09:37 AM

[Jooneau]

I don't have any faith in this dev team. Despite having the longterm health of the game in mind, they have years of experience in messing this game up in royal fashion. It may take a lot of courage, but it also takes a lot of arrogance and stupidity, to implement the across the board changes that they have done in the face of mass criticism, consternation, and "also ran" status compared to fun and successful MMO's like World of Warcraft and Lineage. If they succeed, they make a better, more desirable game, but this is the same company that totally screwed over SWG and made it a mess and seems hellbent on repeating its mistakes.There is no meaningful reason for an 8 second charm, and it does not serve a useful purpose.A charm that has a 10% chance to break every time the monster takes any damage is too powerful, and yet a charm that not only does not break on damage but actually mezzes the ex-pet when charm breaks and gives a flashy visual cue that the charm has broken is A-OK.It's "design by committee" going on there, and we were unlucky enough to get a complete jerk and [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] in charge of designing our class.

Message Edited by Jooneau on 05-21-2006 08:44 AM

[Sir Blig]

Another thought on what they can do for us

 

The Troubador description sais "Troubadors embolden their allies into performing outstanding standing feats of courage against their opponents"

 

How about allowing our buffs to work on top of the caps if need be, with the cap system most people have or can cap themselves and as soon as they have our buffs mean nothing.

 

So say a fighter has is strength capped already then how could we possible get them to perform a better strength feat than they could already unless our buff for strength would buff its value above the cap.

[Ballads]

Some really great ideas here guys. I personally like the self bonus to are buff and some of the buff suggestions to insterments.  here are some of my own.-Drums-10-15% increase to groups spell damage while equiped-Lute - 10% deaggro on a hostile spell group-Flue- 15-20% spell haste while equiped group-Guitar- 40% redution to group casting cost while equiped-tambarine-  10% less damge taken from hostile spells whlie equpied Dirges of coarse would have melee equivalent bonuses from Insterments. This + the personal bonuses someone else suggested i think would help rebalance are class. The while equiped may be a bit to much perhaps instead like a 30 sec buff that goes up when we play them. That would even give us a more active roll in battles instead of just buffing and afk. Take away the conslot requirement for are self-buff and give us a new buff like insterment focus that we must have up to use the insterments. I think this would truley make are class unique while not overpowering it.

[Kraks_Aforty]

Honestly, one of the things that made bards so amazing in EQ1 (Luclin that is) was group cures.  I think it'd be a great way to fix bards a bit.  Noxious and Trauma cures to Dirges, Arcane and Elemental to troubs.  Voila, a bit more reason to have a bard in a group/raid.  After that, adding a bit of auto attack DPS would help things out a little more also.

[Jaimster]

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Kraks_Aforty wrote:
Honestly, one of the things that made bards so amazing in EQ1 (Luclin that is) was group cures.  I think it'd be a great way to fix bards a bit.  Noxious and Trauma cures to Dirges, Arcane and Elemental to troubs.  Voila, a bit more reason to have a bard in a group/raid.  After that, adding a bit of auto attack DPS would help things out a little more also.

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That's a great idea - except considering the group buff options we have as dirges and troubs, perhaps reverse the cures   If we can up the arcane and elemental for our groups, we're less likely to need to "cure" those things... maybe?

[pikeymoose]

I am going out on a limb and saying that instruments never get implemented...Sony wants to simplify this class, not make it complicated. Spending time to improve a class that is very low played is a waste of time and resources. If you want better treatment play a class the devs play, or play what the masses play. All of our nerfs have been dumbing down/simplifying our class. We are real close to a buff bot, and some tools in groups have actually acused me of being afk....due to PoM giving the illusion that the toon is just standing there...LOL. Sonys next move will be to nerf our class to make auto follow (well afk buff botting) imposible....if you would even conside that a nerf. It will be the next crisis.I am serious when I say, instruments will never happen...it would be highly out of character for a company that is all about $$$.Moose

Message Edited by pikeymoose on 05-22-2006 02:10 PM

[Tirga]

The simplest fix I can see for the Troubadour class : Implement defensive/offensive stances. We could acheive better damage at the cost of defense, like other rogues. We could tank a bit better, even offtank (to make up for that lost mez) It's not a perfect fix, but we're the only scouts without stances as it is. Adding them would be a tremendous help.

[Kraks_Aforty]

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Tirga wrote:The simplest fix I can see for the Troubadour class : Implement defensive/offensive stances. We could acheive better damage at the cost of defense, like other rogues. We could tank a bit better, even offtank (to make up for that lost mez) It's not a perfect fix, but we're the only scouts without stances as it is. Adding them would be a tremendous help.

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No thanks, I'd personally prefer more utility.  I really like the group cure idea.  Also, to rebalance out the entire game a bit, give us some debuffs that are comparable to Brigands.  Ridiculous they are the only class in the game that can debuff a mob's mitigation to jack squat.  With a brigand on Gorenaire last week, we did 2x as much DPS as we did the week before without a Brigand.  I'm not saying they need to be nerfed, but I do believe debuffs similar to theirs need to be spread to other classes.  So, why not us?

[Killerbee3000]

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Kraks_Aforty wrote:

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Tirga wrote:
The simplest fix I can see for the Troubadour class :

Implement defensive/offensive stances.

We could acheive better damage at the cost of defense, like other rogues.
We could tank a bit better, even offtank (to make up for that lost mez)

It's not a perfect fix, but we're the only scouts without stances as it is. Adding them would be a tremendous help.

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No thanks, I'd personally prefer more utility.  I really like the group cure idea.  Also, to rebalance out the entire game a bit, give us some debuffs that are comparable to Brigands.  Ridiculous they are the only class in the game that can debuff a mob's mitigation to jack squat.  With a brigand on Gorenaire last week, we did 2x as much DPS as we did the week before without a Brigand.  I'm not saying they need to be nerfed, but I do believe debuffs similar to theirs need to be spread to other classes.  So, why not us?

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or how about a nice stats debuff similar to defilers one?  they could aslo give us one or two more concentrations slots and they could aslo implement instruments.