Bard pulling with no ability to drop agro

Korenda

In Monsters & Memories, the primary classes with explicit drop-agro capabilities (such as Feign Death) are the Shadow Knight and the Necromancer.
Shadow Knight: Gains access to Feign Death at level 6, allowing them to drop combat aggro and split camps.
Necromancer: Also utilizes Feign Death to completely shed accumulated threat after mitigating damage or escaping via invisibility.
Rogue: Features utility items/tactics like Vial of Smoke for evasion and stealth mechanics, functioning similarly as an escape/enmity-reduction tool.
The Ultimate Puller: Monks use Feign Death to completely clear threat from aggressive targets. This allows them to run into dangerous areas, pull groups of enemies, and selectively "flop" to split camps so the group can fight single targets safely.

So you want Bards to be pullers, but give them no ability to drop agro for splitting rooms only to bring the whole zone down on 1 either there group, or two training it all to the zoneline inevitably killing all players trying to camp there creating a bad look for the bard and for yourself. Why? Do you seriously think Lull is the answer? Really? Single target mez 3 sec cast 18 sec duration gonna fix this? 2 second duration mez with a 90 second cooldown going to fix this? Really? We need a drop agro ability ASAP.

Mesh

Agree.

Giving Bards a reliable aggro drop similar (or identical) to FD would be great for the class and create some parity given their subpar CC kit compared with Enchanter.

Along the same lines, I think giving Bard some type of immobile summoned item they can place at a location that mirrors their songs from a distance would be great QoL and allow you to roam and pull while maintaining buffs on your group.

Call it something like a "Resonance Podium" with a 30m duration.

Fidric

the repel shout should at least be an AoE memory blur effect, i don't see any situation where you will need a 'detaunt' on bard.

Gathbard

I would argue that the current CC kit of Bard is stronger than Enchanter, and they can cast everything while moving.
I don't know. I really don't see the need of an aggro drop.
Technically Bard has the tools to deal with the worst "winnable" situations and even some disastrous ones.
If anything, FD is too strong (less now that it can be resisted) but Monk has no CC, so...

I do agree that detaunt makes little sense on Bard though.

Silly

Fidric

If they do make repel a memblur, it can’t be an instant memblur because due to its aoe proximity you’ll just re-aggro right after you use it because you’re in social aggro range. They’ll need to reconfigure it to make it work properly. Also, if the memblur has a chance to fail, any one mob that fails its memblur will re-aggro everything else within social range.

Classic

Help me understand the state of Bards. I have yet to play one in MnM but I've played on a lot in EQ which we can all agree there are some similarities. I also realize the rework just came out.

Languid Lullaby line, the Bard's Lul songs, decreases aggro for pulling. Or has that been drastically changed?

Somniferous Serenade line, enthralls targets for up 3 ticks (18 seconds) not 3 seconds, correct? In EQ, one could easily keep 2 mobs mezzed by switching back and forth casting mez over and over until the tank was ready.

Siren's Thrall line, charming a humanoid/beast for 3 ticks (18 seconds) opposed to mezzing.

So if I'm understanding this correctly, and they work similarly to EQ, if there were a 6 pull, I'd lull at least two of them, pull 4, charm one and mez another. That leaves 2 mobs for the tank/group to handle. Continue charming/mezing until a mob or two has died. Is that not how it goes? Obviously sh!t happens, resists, mistakes etc which will always leave Monk as the premier puller which they are intended to be.

I ask because I want to understand MnM Bard and I'm thinking of Bard being my first alt that I make after the seeing the deep dive updates to them.

Khadyn

They could get a version of the Rogue's evade since bards in most fantasy settings fall under the Rogue category.
Instead of the single target (acrobatics skill) version that Rogue has they could get an AoE Evade that scales with the Bard's acrobatics skill level.

Zest

Bard definitely doesnt need anything approaching FD. The only thing bard really needs an aggro drop for is the occasional disastrous lull crit fail not for regular splitting so a long cooldown would be fine.

Heck I don't think it even necessarily needs to have a mechanic built in for preventing nearby KoS mobs from reaggroing. Bard is a class all about being faster than the things chasing you and maintaining distance, and again what they need is a way to with good judgement abort a bad pull early, not a get out of jail free card like FD.

I thoroughly believe an aggro drop is the missing tool in the bard kit, but it doesn't need to be FD or even fading memories for that matter to fill that hole.

Cheezo

I think an ability on 5min cooldown to break all agro would be good for bad pull situations.

Azaya

Classic twisting is different, but yes otherwise it mostly plays out like you describe.

Korenda

The cooldown is the mana usage per agro drop. make it a substantial amount to use, but not so much that you cant correct the failed attempt to split a room giving you the ability to keep the pulls coming so group can keep killing. Should you need to drop agro 4 + times in a row, your gonna need to sit and med, hence your cooldown

Krooguh

What more can you greedy bards possibly want? Aggro drop no way.

Korenda

Krooguh Then we should not be considered a pullling class. Will just sit with the the rest of the group and sing songs from now on. It would seem all they want bards for these days is a mana battery anyway. The classes listed above at the start of the thread can do that job.

Raven

Dropping aggro is for sloppy pullers. I consider Bard players to have more surgical precision in handling the pulling situation and they should not make drastic mistake or learning the area when they pull. The worst case scenario is pulling more than intended and by more not more than 3 by which they have the capability to mez and/or charm a few.

Dropping aggro is for people learning the area or people who make a lot of mistakes and the process is slow, not for efficient chain-pulling. But then again my groups always have CC + chain pulling all the time. We do NOT want aggro drop, we want NPCs to be in camp ALL the time non-stop. That's the puller job in my static group.

Aggro Drop is over-rated.

AND if a situation happens where a mistake was made and we get trained which can happen despite of having an FD puller... you can always 1) Evacuate, 2) that shaman spell, 3) Everyone uses their cool downs and handle it which is what makes this game exciting and beautiful.

Metavahn

im gonna say no, they nerfed druids and charm now people are jumping ship to the next class they want everything on, want a puller get a puller, bard already does ALOT

Korenda

Metavahn Thats fine, but they are defining the bard as a puller. See Bard class Deep dive. https://monstersandmemories.com/class-bard-deep-dive
"Overview

A common question after the initial Bard direction post seemed to be, “What exactly is the Bard’s role?” So, let’s begin by clearing that up. Bard is a versatile support class who focuses on supplying buffs that stack with other classes' signature buffs, crowd control, and pulling."

If we are defined as a pulling class we should at least get the tools for the toolbox. If one chooses to not use those tools cause they feel to leet for them that is their choice.

bosui

While I think it would be very nice to have an aggro drop akin to fade on bard I don't think it's wholly necessary either. I personally would prefer something in line with our lull, which bard's version is already seemingly less restrictive than other pacify effects. Perhaps something like a targeted AoE lull on a long-ish cooldown that can hit maybe 4 targets at once but still have the ability to fail like regular lull, I think that would be more in line with bard's current design here.

Metavahn

you can make a wizard pull doesnt mean they are the pulling class, id not like to have a situation like modern mmos where every class just feels the same, devs could call any class a puller but why should they give everyone FD

Oofok

Bards get crazy run speed, the ability to cast while moving and CC abilities. They have the least restrictive lull which is one way to try to avoid these situations, but when that fails they just have to handle overpulls differently. And that's a good thing, classes being unique is what makes them interesting. If you're stuck bringing too many back you can just run them in a circle a little away from the group and the others can grab one at a time. Even while doing this you can contribute to the fight which is something none of those FD classes can say. You can still buff group, you can still dot/dd the mob, and you can charm one and send it at the current target. If timed right that charm will wear off just as the first one dies and voila, 2nd mob is already in camp. Alternatively you have as much time as you need to mez them. And sure, certain techniques aren't going to work in every situation, and every group composition isn't going to be able to do every camp, that just makes sense. You should be putting together the right group for the camp or picking the right camp for the group you have. And if the amount of mobs getting aggroed on the pull is outrageous you most likely need to re-examine where you're pulling from and which mob you're aggroing first.

Mesh

Gathbard

I would argue that the current CC kit of Bard is stronger than Enchanter, and they can cast everything while moving.

Being able to cast while moving has minimal impact in most dungeons.

I can't see how you can compare Bard and Enchanter CC. Enchanter can mez 4 mobs for 30s in roughly the same amount of time it takes a Bard to mez a single mob for 18s. Night and day difference.

Zest

Bard definitely doesnt need anything approaching FD.

Why? The deep dive specifically mentions one of Bards focuses is intended to be pulling. A puller without any way to drop aggro is just a bad puller IMO. In any difficult camp you're just waiting for something to go wrong that you can't recover from.

Especially considering that Bards struggle with CCing groups of mobs quickly the way Enchanter can. If your Lull resists it's going to take you 3+ seconds per mob to get things under control which can be 15-20 seconds worth of combat on some camps. You'll be dead long before then.