BARD FiX - Suggestions

[roces9]

Okay, I'm not sure how many of you whipper snappers know whats going on out there but I'll give you the down and dirty. Our two class defining abilities- the things that gave Troubs their Identity- Charm and Mez were nerfed. Very Badly. Charm's duration went down by 98%. That is not a hyperbole. That is a fact. Mez's duration went down by 90%. Fact. Before you start shouting about no conc-slots and mobs taking hits on charm, I know. Been there done that, I use new charm for cool little tricks too. But that's all our spells are now, Cool little tricks. It used to be a viable solo tactic that people used all the time. They take away what makes us Troubadors and then force us to buy back some durration with AAs? You have got to be kidding me. If the Devs made Wards 98% less effective and then asked you to spend 5 AAs to only make it 94% less effective, Shammans everywhere would be [Removed for Content]. And rightly so. Run speed: I dont know of a game where Bards are not significantly faster than other classes aside from EQ2. They nerfed our runspeed then made us spend 8 Kos AAs to get it back to where it was. But on the other hand Wardens spend 5 EoF AAs and can run 1% slower than us. Does that make sence? Not to me it doesnt. What if this happened to Wizards? Sorry guys, Big Fat Nuke 3 only does 25% of its original damage, but don't worry! We've got an AA ability that Costs 8 points that brings it back up to par! Good playing: In a raid (grouping and solo are a little different here) let's say your group gets an additional 3.5k dps from you having Aria's up (not an unreasonable number spread acros 5 other people). You do 1.2k dps and that makes you passive, fire and forget buff 3 times more effective then you playing your class really well. People can't tell the difference between a good Troub and a Bad Troub. If a Ranger is only doing 1k dps, some one will notice and say "Hey! Stop sucking!" but you can barely tell if the person behind the Troubador is a skilled person that has been playing for years or just a 2 boxed /follow buffer. Yes we have PoTM, and yes I understand the idea behind sacrficing personal DPS to make the group better, but you cannot say that it takes a good player to hit PoTM every time it refreshes. And Flaye, stop talking. Pretty please? With sugar on top? A lot of people get the wrong Idea about Bards when you come in here talking like you know everything about Troubs and how "awesome" they are. Yeah my bard was awesome too, in his 30s and 40s. You hit a brick wall when your buffs, CAs and debuffs stop scaling as well in T6 and T7. When you can't solo a Yellow ^ mob at level 57, you'll know what I mean. Yeah yeah you can Mez kite, but I dont like spending 5 minutes taking down a solo mob. Sure not all classes are supposed to solo well. I'm okay with that. But I could solo just fine before I lost 98% durration on my charm. So in short, We're [Removed for Content] off becaus the Devs keep nerfing us then asking us to buy back some of our functionality with AAs. That is insulting and Rude. Again Imagine that happening to any other class. Sorry Tanks, your only have one taunt, that generates 98% less aggro and has a 45 second recast. BUT! You can make it 94% less aggro and a 42 second recast if you spend 5 AAs on it! I shouldn't have to explain to people that Selos actually makes them run faster then SoW and then have them still bed the Warden for it. We're [Removed for Content] because the difference between an awesome troubador and one that is afk is SIGNIFICANTLY lower than the difference between a great and poor (insert any other class in the game). We're [Removed for Content] because the Devs have no direction for us. Are we Crowd Controlers? Nope. Are we Hybrids? Kinda. Well, what do we do well? Turn on Arias, Alins and Brias. And I'm really sick off all these T4 and T5 Troubadors comming here and saying that we rock. Play a Bard to 70, Raid with him. Spam your heart out, get out DPS'd by a Fury who was still healing, go afk for 5 minutes to get a snack, come back and have some one say "Hey... shouldn't PoTM have refreshed by now?" and then tell me that this class doesnt need fixing. Tell me why do we have 48 pages of [Removed for Content] of people if there isn't something that needs tweaking?

[Emerix]

THe mez and charm changes are thousands of years out . no points talkin about them still . Ask rangers what they been thinkin when they went from ubah to crap in one update if you wanan backtrack . Its  -not - like troubys are the only class that got nerfed .

Charm and mez didnt give troubys their identity . We were never supposed to be as great crows control like chanters. That got fixed .  If you dont agree with the way SOE designs their game quit .

They gave us a higher tier runspeed buff when tehy nerfed the old one . We didnt lose much there . Other classes lost much more when they made the runspeed changes so that Bards dont look as bad as they were when EOF came out .

If your group doesnt see if your afk youre doin something wrong .

If youre bad your not throwing jesters and pom . Make a macro sending people who got jesters a tell . That helps them because they can adjust  . Talk to the major dps when to do jesters on them to half the recast on inspiration decap and stuff . Also you ca half therecast on potm by puttin jesters on yourself after casting potm . thats at least one more potm during the fight . an afk trouby doesnt do that . And it helps dps .

If you cant kill a yellow ^ you suck . not the class . its you . Cope with it .

I do agree that more temp buffs would sure be fun and exciting .  The lack of them doesnt make us useless .

And there are 48 pages of people complaining because the topic is a ) very old and b ) the people who cry most are those who dont have the slightest clue how to make the most out of their class . And the lack of skillz makes them think the class sucks .

Also try common sense before you insult people who disagree with you roces

[roces9]

Kalyria@Antonia Bayle wrote:

They gave us a higher tier runspeed buff when tehy nerfed the old one . We didnt lose much there . Other classes lost much more when they made the runspeed changes so that Bards dont look as bad as they were when EOF came out

If you're trying to tell me that we made out well on the runspeed changes then I don't know what you consider not "[losing] much there". Correct me If I'm wrong, but getting our skill nerfed and having to buy it back with EIGHT big KoS AAs is not making out well. Wardens can run 1% slower than us, have to spend 5 EoF AAs to do so, and Don't have to be right next to the person for it to work. Not to play the EQ1 card, but back in the day you would notice a Bard whizzing past you. Now the only thing you notic whizzing past you are 50% mounts. The only reason that we don't look so bad is because Shammans don't have 50% sow anymore. Not meant to have crowd control? Actually we were. It was in the class description from launch to the Mez nerf. It was something like "Can use their songs to control the minds of their enemies". When Chanter's made unfounded complaints that we were CCing almost as well as them the Devs shot us in the foot. Remember when we could mez epics? Remember when it didn't take 5 AAs and Jester's Cap to keep two mobs Mezed? Yes I'm still mad about this because they changed one of our primary roles in a group. It *was* our class defining ability. IIRC the Devs even called it that. I agree, we need more active buffs. It makes no sence that *most* of the reasons we are in a group or raid is for Brias, Alins and Arias which are Fire and Forget. Yes we have PoTM and Jester's but if you look at parsers Aria's is overwhelmingly our biggest contribution to Raids and it takes absolutely no effort to do. I didn't say that there was no difference between a good Troub and a Bad Troub, it is just less noticible that the difference between a Good and Bad any other class. You know if the healer isn't healing because the Tank is going to die. And finally- Yes, I insulted Flaye. He spouts crap out of his mouth and pretends like its Gospel when he hasn't gotten his character to 50. Do I tell people how to play Wardens because I have one that's 51? Nope. Also before you lable me "that guy that just insults people who disagree with him" again Flaye uses lots of sarcasim and "rolls eye faces" to make the person who posted before him look stupid when they are only offering an opinion. People who don't know what theyre talking about shouldn't contribute to the conversation.

[Novusod]

roces9 wrote:

And I'm really sick off all these T4 and T5 Troubadors comming here and saying that we rock. Play a Bard to 70, Raid with him. Spam your heart out, get out DPS'd by a Fury who was still healing, go afk for 5 minutes to get a snack, come back and have some one say "Hey... shouldn't PoTM have refreshed by now?" and then tell me that this class doesnt need fixing. Tell me why do we have 48 pages of [Removed for Content] of people if there isn't something that needs tweaking?

I have a level 70 troubie and I still think the class rocks. The only reason a fury can out dps me is because the parse'ers are inaccurate. Every time Aria or PotM procs I don't get credit on the parse. Maybe if bards actually got credit for their scores of proc buffs and show up on the parse I would top it every raid. Players would drool over how powerfull troubies are as they should be doing now. I don't need a parse to tell me I am good and I already know it.

[missing_peace]

Novusod wrote:

I have a level 70 troubie and I still think the class rocks. The only reason a fury can out dps me is because the parse'ers are inaccurate. Every time Aria or PotM procs I don't get credit on the parse. Maybe if bards actually got credit for their scores of proc buffs and show up on the parse I would top it every raid. Players would drool over how powerfull troubies are as they should be doing now. I don't need a parse to tell me I am good and I already know it.

The parsers are not innacurate at all.  The damage done by the fury is theirs and theirs alone.  It's no different than if another class gives a proc effect to you and you take credit.  If the fury wasn't there then you do not magically compensate for the missing procs.  It's not your damage, it is theirs.

But let's look into this a bit further. 

Bards do make their groupmates stronger, but so do furies and berserkers and buisers and necromancers and defilers and on and on and on.  Almost every class in this game has group level buffs.  Bards, in general, have a larger selection of buffs to choose from, but they have the exact same concentration limit as all other classes.

A bard should be just as powerful solo (self buffed) as any of the previously listed classes.  However, they are NOT.  When you group, all classes become more powerful since they all share their respective abilities.  But in a group a bard is left even further behind due to their poor solo performance.

So, what can be done about this issue?

I submit that the damage potential and defensive abilties for bards is too low.  In theory, their buffs should be able to compensate for these weaknesses, just as other classes use their own buffs to make up for their weaknesses.  However, bard buffs, due to their group oriented nature, have been weakened and watered down in order to prevent problems with 'overpowered' groups.  Because of this, the buffs no longer make up for the weaknesses of the bard classes.  For the troubadour, utility such as charm and mesmerize have been substatially reduced.  This leaves little avenue for the class to compensate for the numerous shortcomings still facing it.  The 'base' levels for the classes must be raised to correct for the continuous erroding of utility from the top end.

[liveja]

roces9 wrote:

A lot of people get the wrong Idea about Bards when you come in here talking like you know everything about Troubs and how "awesome" they are.

Look, you know what? I'm freekin' sick to death of people mis-reading me. I'm not bloody well freekin' saying that Troubies/Bards are "awesome", nor have I ever claimed I know "everything about Troubs". I'm saying they're effective, not broken, & fun to play.

If you can't get your head around that, & are instead going to pillory for me making claims I haven't made, or for incorrect inferences YOU drew from my posts, then just ignore me. Thank you.

[liveja]

firza wrote:

Anything I would solo will be solo'd faster by the majority of classes. So that question is irrelevant.

AN exemple would be PP. (yup, eventhough previous tier its heroic, but its a good example in this case).

I've tried soloing PP on my Swashy. I can't do it. The ^^^ Djinns kick my butt. Maybe if I actually had REAL gear, I could shine like a bright Swashy. But then, I forgot that you seem to think Swashies can get by with "simple" gear.

OTOH, now you're talking about soloing Heroic content, whereas I've been talking about soloing non-Heroic content. So, sorry, the question isn't irrelevant at all. Yea, I can sure solo non-Heroic content on my Swashy faster than I can on my Troubie. O, gasp, the WORLD might fall apart because I take 30 seconds longer per encounter!!!!! O, me-o-my, someone do something to save the children!!!!!

I'd apologize for the sarcasm, but I'm not sorry about heaping scathing amounts of contempt on something I consider to be just slightly above a pathetic whine. I'm terribly not sorry to say this, but what you're talking about is veering dangerously close to what I call "broken players".

I am afraid that the difference between us is ambition. i strife to be good.

I'll pretend I didn't read that, & that you didn't include it in what has otherwise been a very civil conversation, & that you won't say things like this in future. Thank you.

(and btw, stances can not be compared with group buffs.....because they are not for groups).

Um ... you DID see where I suggested the consolidation to approximate a personal "stance" buff, didn't you? Please tell me you saw that, so I know you're actually reading what I'm writing, & not just whatever it is you feel like inferring. Because if you're just making wild inferences without reading, then I'm responding to a brick wall.

[liveja]

missing_peace wrote:

A bard should be just as powerful solo (self buffed) as any of the previously listed classes. However, they are NOT.

I'll reserve judgment on that until my Troubie is 70th level, so I can compare him to my Swashy.

At current levels, however, the difference between what my Troubie can do now, compared to what my Swashy could do then, isn't enough to worry about.

But in a group a bard is left even further behind due to their poor solo performance

I don't perform poorly when soloing or grouped.

[Frigid2000]

Argue against this.

Sure. A troub can spec down some trees, increase his soloing capability. Great. Now we're useless for raids.

Sure. A troub can spec down some trees, have people drooling over him for raids. Great. There went our soloability.

Not the fastest runner. Not the best charmer/mezzer. Lowest DPS scout and most would argue, right at the bottom of every single class in the game in terms of DPS. And I am discussing personal DPS. Aria and Precision do NOT count as personal DPS for your groupmates, hence they should NOT be counted on the parse. Snare isn't the best. Bow abilities aren't the best. Bring the best buffs to casters, yes. But outside of a raid, matters little.

Can we solo?  Sure. I am not going to sit there and spend 45 minutes soloing a heroic mob when MOST ALL OTHER CLASSES (and don't you dare argue that.) can walk up to most heroics that I cannot solo and beat the living [Removed for Content] out of them without even blinking.

So as a troub, we have to pick. Suck worse at soloing or be useless for raids. We're not the best at anything. Being "jack of all trades" is fine, but it seems we're more like the "deuce of all trades", considering how weak most of our abilities and damage really are. They leave us not on par with any class, but far below most others in comparison.

Given the complete lack of drops that are suited for a troub, I honestly do not believe the developers know quite where to stick us. Because we're supposed to be both a caster and a melee class and it's just not functioning at the moment. And given the amount of people playing troubs, I can see their frustration.

But instead of posting another message, whining about the class - how about some suggestions? A complete revamp of some of our abilities needs looked at. Remove the root/stifle from Precision. Give us a better charm/mez. Up our damage on some abilities. Remove the concentration slot from our personal buff. How about some dumbfire pets like some, for some stupid reason I can't comprehend, top dps classes get? 

This is how troubs are at the moment. And until you get to level 70 and experience everything about a troub, no one, and I mean NO ONE, should sit there and defend that nothing is wrong.

[Cuz]

Kalyria@Antonia Bayle wrote:

And there are 48 pages of people complaining because the topic is a ) very old and b ) the people who cry most are those who dont have the slightest clue how to make the most out of their class . And the lack of skillz makes them think the class sucks .

 

Also try common sense before you insult people who disagree with you roces

You know, I love a little irony after supper, thanks. Now, I've established that I'm displeased with the class, and it's the second time in this thread where some one says it's because "I suck at the class". So for the second time, I'll ask what I could do to be better at it. Please be as detailed as possible. Thanks in advance.

[PaganSaint]

roces9 wrote:

Okay, I'm not sure how many of you whipper snappers know whats going on out there but I'll give you the down and dirty.

At this point I thought you'd know what you were going to talk about acting this presumptous. Our two class defining abilities- the things that gave Troubs their Identity- Charm and Mez were nerfed. Very Badly. Charm's duration went down by 98%. That is not a hyperbole. That is a fact. Mez's duration went down by 90%. Fact. Before you start shouting about no conc-slots and mobs taking hits on charm, I know. Been there done that, I use new charm for cool little tricks too. But that's all our spells are now, Cool little tricks. It used to be a viable solo tactic that people used all the time. They take away what makes us Troubadors and then force us to buy back some durration with AAs? You have got to be kidding me.

Crowd control was not a Troub's class defining capacity. Try being the top mage DPS increasing class in the game for starters as your class definition goes. A little more utility such as Death Prevention spells, group and single target to be a balance versus a Dirge's ressurects would be nice. If the Devs made Wards 98% less effective and then asked you to spend 5 AAs to only make it 94% less effective, Shammans everywhere would be [Removed for Content]. And rightly so.

Sorry that you are stuck on something that was incredibly overpowered to start with was nerfed a fairly long time ago, then you were allowed to enhance it back to something more useful. Run speed: I dont know of a game where Bards are not significantly faster than other classes aside from EQ2. They nerfed our runspeed then made us spend 8 Kos AAs to get it back to where it was. But on the other hand Wardens spend 5 EoF AAs and can run 1% slower than us. Does that make sence? Not to me it doesnt.

You do not take the wisdom line for runspeed. If your primary focus on taking that AA line is runspeed and not the group wide casting speed and group wide crit chance increase you are completely the suck at being a support class. What if this happened to Wizards? Sorry guys, Big Fat Nuke 3 only does 25% of its original damage, but don't worry! We've got an AA ability that Costs 8 points that brings it back up to par!

I'll be sure to tell all of the troubadours I see that they are doing much less now than ever before because their runspeed is not completely surpassing everything else. Good playing: In a raid (grouping and solo are a little different here) let's say your group gets an additional 3.5k dps from you having Aria's up (not an unreasonable number spread acros 5 other people). You do 1.2k dps and that makes you passive, fire and forget buff 3 times more effective then you playing your class really well. People can't tell the difference between a good Troub and a Bad Troub.

If people cannot tell the difference between a bad troub and a good troub, then they aren't in a position knowledge wise to be taking advantage of a troub. The differences are rather major, JC timing, application and sharing around; PoTM timing, JCing self to maximize time it is up; ability to maintain the debuffs available, and knowledge of when to bother applying them, all of that while maintaining maximum JC coverage, PoTM up time and dealing damage; and finally the ability to deal out their own DPS. In that order. Good troub's are recognizable, if you don't think so, you can't be included in that category, you use it as a crutch to explain your play style.

If a Ranger is only doing 1k dps, some one will notice and say "Hey! Stop sucking!" but you can barely tell if the person behind the Troubador is a skilled person that has been playing for years or just a 2 boxed /follow buffer. Yes we have PoTM, and yes I understand the idea behind sacrficing personal DPS to make the group better, but you cannot say that it takes a good player to hit PoTM every time it refreshes.

Already covered how you can tell good troubs from bad ones, but the whole sacrificing personal DPS bit doesn't fly. Your debuffs hit for damage from Aria, PoTM, hostile spell proc gear and and proc's from your group. Your only "sacrificing of DPS" is done when you apply JC to someone other than yourself. An incredibly minor dip in damage output if you don't suck at target swapping. And Flaye, stop talking. Pretty please? With sugar on top? A lot of people get the wrong Idea about Bards when you come in here talking like you know everything about Troubs and how "awesome" they are. Yeah my bard was awesome too, in his 30s and 40s. You hit a brick wall when your buffs, CAs and debuffs stop scaling as well in T6 and T7. When you can't solo a Yellow ^ mob at level 57, you'll know what I mean. Yeah yeah you can Mez kite, but I dont like spending 5 minutes taking down a solo mob. Sure not all classes are supposed to solo well. I'm okay with that. But I could solo just fine before I lost 98% durration on my charm. Flaye seems to know much more about the class than you do with your speil of random crap. Its a shame a troub in T7 only thinks his class was good in T4/T5. You pretty much suck something awful if you can't quickly kill a yellow single up as a bard. So in short, We're [Removed for Content] off becaus the Devs keep nerfing us then asking us to buy back some of our functionality with AAs. That is insulting and Rude. Again Imagine that happening to any other class. Sorry Tanks, your only have one taunt, that generates 98% less aggro and has a 45 second recast. BUT! You can make it 94% less aggro and a 42 second recast if you spend 5 AAs on it! I shouldn't have to explain to people that Selos actually makes them run faster then SoW and then have them still bed the Warden for it. Troubs have recieved nothing but buffs since T6. Their DPS has increased, Their utility has increased, their buffs have increased. What you are seeing is a decrease in people being able to play them. Bards are not a class for button mashers. Bards are not a class for someone who thinks they need to be doing phenomenal DPS compared to others.

Bards are not easy to play. But those who can, laugh at people like this person. We're [Removed for Content] because the difference between an awesome troubador and one that is afk is SIGNIFICANTLY lower than the difference between a great and poor (insert any other class in the game). You mean significantly lower as in, the poor troub does either half the damage of the good troub, or does the same DPS and doesn't apply debuffs, nor JC to people outside his group, assuming he is even applying it to people in his group.

Yeah thats not significant at all. We're [Removed for Content] because the Devs have no direction for us. Are we Crowd Controlers? Nope. Are we Hybrids? Kinda. Well, what do we do well? Turn on Arias, Alins and Brias. Then you slap JC on the MT for when aggro gets loose, you slap it on Healers for spike damage mitigation/AE damage recovery, slap it on DPS for quicker burns, slap it on yourself for more PoTM for your casters. The you have maintenence of atleast Int debuff to lower that AE damage. Then you whine because being a Hybrid Support(primary) and DPS(secondary) class roles is without direction. And I'm really sick off all these T4 and T5 Troubadors comming here and saying that we rock. Play a Bard to 70, Raid with him. Spam your heart out, get out DPS'd by a Fury who was still healing, go afk for 5 minutes to get a snack, come back and have some one say "Hey... shouldn't PoTM have refreshed by now?" and then tell me that this class doesnt need fixing. Tell me why do we have 48 pages of [Removed for Content] of people if there isn't something that needs tweaking?

Your fury is not out DPSing you without your buffs, slacking on healing, and outside of certain situations. Atleast if you are knowledgable in how to play your class. And don't even try to play the "you don't know what you're talking about" card. I do, I've killed every raid mob in the game. I've played both dirge and troub for them, mostly dirge, but enough of troub to see exactly how you don't know what you're talking about.

Your guild/group/alliance suck if they can't tell the difference between you being AFK and playing, the significant difference in raid DPS compared to you playing and you being AFK or even not playing well, or they have never seen a truly good troub.

[Cuz]

PaganSaint wrote:

roces9 wrote:

If people cannot tell the difference between a bad troub and a good troub, then they aren't in a position knowledge wise to be taking advantage of a troub. The differences are rather major, JC timing, application and sharing around; PoTM timing, JCing self to maximize time it is up; ability to maintain the debuffs available, and knowledge of when to bother applying them, all of that while maintaining maximum JC coverage, PoTM up time and dealing damage; and finally the ability to deal out their own DPS. In that order. Good troub's are recognizable, if you don't think so, you can't be included in that category, you use it as a crutch to explain your play style.

No offense, but that's the bare minimum I'd do or expect from a troub in my group. When I see a troub that cancels all his debuffs to recast them when PotM is up, I'm reminded of a tank that flips the mob. It's a little thing that makes me think a player is better than another. From my point of view, you just said "don't be an idiot" and you'll be a good troub. But maybe it's just me and I may have missed some of the intricacies of your "how to be a great troub" rant.

[PaganSaint]

I said poor troub and good troub.

A great troub is pulling down 1k+ ZW DPS, 1.4k+ DPS on group mobs, while "not being an idiot" as you put it.

Combine this with actually knowing who needs JC and when, keeping track of roughly who has immunity for how long and you go from solid/good Troub to a great one.

A great troub is experianced with the encounters, on a zone by zone basis, knowing when to cast what for each specific encounter. A good troub has a specific order and list of what they do when depending upon group or single target, but with very little difference zone to zone, or encounter to encounter. A filler troub is one who just pushes buttons, gives JC to their sorcerors and maybe a healer or someone who asks for it, clicks PoTM whenever its up without JCing themself. A bad troub buffs, turns on auto-attack, clicks PoTM randomly as they watch TV or just goes AFK for five minutes randomly.

[StrollingWolf]

Please keep in mind, while threads giving feeback are useful, they quickly become useless when people start fighting with each other. Feel free to discuss the topic, but don't turn the topic into fighting and insulting each other.

Thanks.

[firza]

Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:

missing_peace wrote:

I'll reserve judgment on that until my Troubie is 70th level, so I can compare him to my Swashy.

this is exactly the reason why you should reserve judgement on many of the items you think to know about, but rather fail to see the points made.

[firza]

StrollingWolf wrote:

Please keep in mind, while threads giving feeback are useful, they quickly become useless when people start fighting with each other. Feel free to discuss the topic, but don't turn the topic into fighting and insulting each other.

Thanks.

ack, sorry. Read your message after my previous quote.

I will stop posting in this article, since I have given my feedback....some pages ago.

[Zeral498]

I am quite surprised by the number of people who are claiming that the Troubador class is perfectly fine the way it is. Seriously people - take your heads out of your [Removed for Content]. If you've played your class to 70 and have actively raided with him/her, you should be quite aware that this class has multiple problems that requires attention from the devs. Just because we're functional in our current state doesn't mean that we don't have problems. We do have a problems, and we do need help. This applies not only to Troubs but bards in general.

[Fromingo]

Novusod wrote:

Fromingo wrote:

Nailaim@Runnyeye wrote:

but even than doubt anything will be done about us poor extremely screwed over bards

nothing will be done if bards don't get in here and keep our issues on dev's minds. 

The problem with this thread is that people keep making wide exagerations that are blatently false with no specifics to back up their complaints. Who exactly extremely screwed over here?

No the problem is the few people that put up some ideas that might improve the class are getting ignored while most are focusing on 1-2 lines and taking off on tangents how people don't know how to play their class or making exaggerated claims of bard DPS.

PaganSaint wrote:

But playing the class to its maximum, breaking 1500 DPS for a Troub, or 1800 as a Dirge, is much more difficult than breaking 2.4k as a Swashy. Thats with full debuffs as a dirge. Pretty much, you're not that good at your class, especially if you're an old hand at trying to play it, if you are complaining about how "broken" bards are, you just don't know what they are capable of producing.

case in point...  I am on the top raid guild on our server. Never seen our very well equipped and played troubs or dirges break these numbers.  Saw a zerker break 2700 last night though in EF...

Now we had some ideas earlier on the thread lets discuss them some of them

[Fromingo]

Flaye@Mistmoore wrote:

What I said -- all I said, from start to finish -- is that I don't think Troubadours are "broken", & I highly doubt that Dirges are, either. But as for changes, I'd be perfectly happy if the only thing that changes is the removal of the concentration slot from our self-buff. Poisons, stances, & so on, IMHO, are unnecessary.

Flaye isn't your troub in his 40's?  Seriously the disparity between what bards used to do and what they do in the end game is HUGE.  At 46 my dirge was still freaking awesome.  For example  you know those self heals Dirges get that used to do a good job keeping me alive back then, only raised by a tiny amount by lvl 70.  While the damage done to me raised by several hundred even over 1000 per hit.  Now those self heals barely put a dent in my health even with AA's poured into them(which I didn't have before in my younger days).  Same with damage, it did not increase in proportion to other classes or keep pace with the combat and encounter revamps in general. 

[PaganSaint]

Fromingo wrote:

Novusod wrote:

Fromingo wrote:

Nailaim@Runnyeye wrote:

but even than doubt anything will be done about us poor extremely screwed over bards

nothing will be done if bards don't get in here and keep our issues on dev's minds. 

The problem with this thread is that people keep making wide exagerations that are blatently false with no specifics to back up their complaints. Who exactly extremely screwed over here?

No the problem is the few people that put up some ideas that might improve the class are getting ignored while most are focusing on 1-2 lines and taking off on tangents how people don't know how to play their class or making exaggerated claims of bard DPS.

Claims of how "broken" or "[Removed for Content]" bards are is what is being exaggerated. The DPS claims are top end, but then again, using the low end to balance a class like is being tried for here, is just completely wrong.

PaganSaint wrote:

But playing the class to its maximum, breaking 1500 DPS for a Troub, or 1800 as a Dirge, is much more difficult than breaking 2.4k as a Swashy. Thats with full debuffs as a dirge. Pretty much, you're not that good at your class, especially if you're an old hand at trying to play it, if you are complaining about how "broken" bards are, you just don't know what they are capable of producing.

case in point...  I am on the top raid guild on our server. Never seen our very well equipped and played troubs or dirges break these numbers.  Saw a zerker break 2700 last night though in EF...

 Huh, I hope that is ZW. Because ours does 3.5k+ on some encounters in there. Have seen him break 4k on a couple. So I really would like to know what you call the top raid guild and what server.

Now we had some ideas earlier on the thread lets discuss them some of them

[Fromingo]

You're taking us off subject again Pagan with this 'my guild is better than yours' BS.   If your zerker is breaking 4K and your bards are doing 1500-1800 then still the disparity between DPS is too great and bards need a boost.     From what you describe the absolute best a bard can do (15-1800) will still be <= your average zerker (my old casual guild the lab equiped zerker could do around 1800 in MT group)  and is even <= to all the other classes like inquis, fury, mystic ect (all of which can parse in the 2-3+k range in my guild).   If you're cool with that fine.  The majority of us bards are not.  

[PaganSaint]

The majority of bards don't know how to play their class as much more than buff bots. The majority of dirges don't swap targets for spot heals then back, how to maximize CoB up time, which attacks are worthless compared to auto attacks and which need to be used every time they cycle, etc etc. The majority of troubs don't know how to maximize PoTM(both proc amount and up time) nor how to maximize AoA damage, cover the most people during the best times with Jester's Cap, and which CAs/Shrieks to use. This is not their fault for the most part. The majority of guilds don't equip their bards well, don't use a support class parse, and in general only care if the bard is running one or two specific buffs and never change those buffs depending upon zone, encounter, mob, group set up, and portion of the fight. But I find it funny that you won't answer. Comparing warrior DPS and bard DPS is comparing not apples to oranges, but comparing a battle tank to an apc for firepower. Its [Removed for Content]. If you can increase your damage through better equipment, paying better attention to parses, whittling away the fluff that lowers your damage while still providing your buffs and abilities, and timing you should not be complaining about how "broken" a class is, especially when you use a class known for tremendous burst DPS as a comparison against your support class.

[Carvium]

PaganSaint wrote:

The majority of bards don't know how to play their class as much more than buff bots. The majority of dirges don't swap targets for spot heals then back, how to maximize CoB up time, which attacks are worthless compared to auto attacks and which need to be used every time they cycle, etc etc. The majority of troubs don't know how to maximize PoTM(both proc amount and up time) nor how to maximize AoA damage, cover the most people during the best times with Jester's Cap, and which CAs/Shrieks to use. This is not their fault for the most part. The majority of guilds don't equip their bards well, don't use a support class parse, and in general only care if the bard is running one or two specific buffs and never change those buffs depending upon zone, encounter, mob, group set up, and portion of the fight. But I find it funny that you won't answer. Comparing warrior DPS and bard DPS is comparing not apples to oranges, but comparing a battle tank to an apc for firepower. Its [I cannot control my vocabulary]. If you can increase your damage through better equipment, paying better attention to parses, whittling away the fluff that lowers your damage while still providing your buffs and abilities, and timing you should not be complaining about how "broken" a class is, especially when you use a class known for tremendous burst DPS as a comparison against your support class.

where do you get a support class parser from??

[miliskel]

Carvium@Splitpaw wrote:

PaganSaint wrote:

The majority of bards don't know how to play their class as much more than buff bots. The majority of dirges don't swap targets for spot heals then back, how to maximize CoB up time, which attacks are worthless compared to auto attacks and which need to be used every time they cycle, etc etc. The majority of troubs don't know how to maximize PoTM(both proc amount and up time) nor how to maximize AoA damage, cover the most people during the best times with Jester's Cap, and which CAs/Shrieks to use. This is not their fault for the most part. The majority of guilds don't equip their bards well, don't use a support class parse, and in general only care if the bard is running one or two specific buffs and never change those buffs depending upon zone, encounter, mob, group set up, and portion of the fight. But I find it funny that you won't answer. Comparing warrior DPS and bard DPS is comparing not apples to oranges, but comparing a battle tank to an apc for firepower. Its [I cannot control my vocabulary]. If you can increase your damage through better equipment, paying better attention to parses, whittling away the fluff that lowers your damage while still providing your buffs and abilities, and timing you should not be complaining about how "broken" a class is, especially when you use a class known for tremendous burst DPS as a comparison against your support class.

where do you get a support class parser from??

same question

[PaganSaint]

Selective parsing on ACT for the win.Bard Parse (Used to be Bard & Chanter Parse, but yeah... Chanters can make top 10 rather easily now)Healer Parse (DPS, HPS, % Healed)DPS Parse (DPS, Max Hit)Then you go through and break it down for people who want to know how they did, what abilities/procs were their best or worst percentages of damage, their hit percentages(major contributing factor for low troub DPS, poor hit percentage as melee), and timing on weapons/CAs/ShrieksRight now working on some scripting to total up everyones CoB, Tomb's Calm, PoTM, and AoA procs in each bards group, but its going alot slower than I had thought it would. Going to need to selectively parse each group that a bard is in first, then break it down from there to show just from proc's how much damage the bard is adding to their group and the raid.

[Carvium]

interesting....  shame it wouldn't include what our buffs add to the group..  Hope you keep us bards informed when you have sorted out the scripting as i'm sure alot of us would be interested

[PaganSaint]

Its almost seeming like its going to be easier to just have each bard selective parse their own group, then grab total damage done per proc type, add each person's total proc damage together for each proc type then divide it by total time of fights to see how much DPS that bard is adding to his group from proc's. Things like Hit Rate / Resist Rate would/will be nigh impossible to parse without doing actual testing of the same group with or without bard with the same debuffs applied to get any picture of how much the bards actually add to their group for that encounter.As for Riana's it would take the same type of testing to see how much auto attack DPS that the buff is adding.

[firza]

PaganSaint wrote:

Things like Hit Rate / Resist Rate would/will be nigh impossible to parse without doing actual testing of the same group with or without bard with the same debuffs applied to get any picture of how much the bards actually add to their group for that encounter.As for Riana's it would take the same type of testing to see how much auto attack DPS that the buff is adding.

If you can not even parse that ALL data that you CAN parse, and about which you THINK you can make conclusions, are irrelevant.

Remember that parsing data is only interesting when its comparable. So you need to compare the WHOLE of one class with the WHOLE of another.

edit to add: (oops, sorry. should not be posting here anymore

[ReturnOfMadness]

YAY another slap in the face:Dirge

• Death's Door: Triggered damage can occur anytime the Dirge receives damage instead of only when struck in melee combat. Its chance to trigger no longer uses spell or weapon normalization, allowing it to trigger more often.

Troubador

• Performer's Talent: Triggered damage can occur anytime the Troubador receives damage instead of only when struck in melee combat. Its chance to trigger no longer uses spell or weapon normalization, allowing it to trigger more often

this is just a -.-ing joke tbh, this aint making it stronger this is just having it still a bloody waste of a conc slot and still wont EVER get used (except soloing sometimes i suppose)gj lockeye ya didnt let us down lol, just like with lu13 yeah gj...as for the raidwide resists, LOL, still a waste of a conc slot regardless which we are already lacking

[noahwik]

Nailaim@Runnyeye wrote:

YAY another slap in the face:Dirge

• Death's Door: Triggered damage can occur anytime the Dirge receives damage instead of only when struck in melee combat. Its chance to trigger no longer uses spell or weapon normalization, allowing it to trigger more often.

Troubador

• Performer's Talent: Triggered damage can occur anytime the Troubador receives damage instead of only when struck in melee combat. Its chance to trigger no longer uses spell or weapon normalization, allowing it to trigger more often

this is just a -.-ing joke tbh, this aint making it stronger this is just having it still a bloody waste of a conc slot and still wont EVER get used (except soloing sometimes i suppose)gj lockeye ya didnt let us down lol, just like with lu13 yeah gj...as for the raidwide resists, LOL, still a waste of a conc slot regardless which we are already lacking