Bard pulling with no ability to drop agro

Waffle_Goblin

This is what competent tanks are for.

Mesh

Waffle_Goblin
Of course, a good group may be able to compensate for their Bard being bad at pulling but then why describe Bards as pullers to begin with and then not give them the tools to do the job properly?

Raybane

Btw, doesn't repel reduce aggro and could be used for this?

Mesh

Raybane
Detaunts reduce your threat but they don't remove you from the aggro table so as a puller mobs will continue chasing you.

Giving Bard a reliable single target and/or AoE mem blur would be a good alternative that I guess is probably a bit more Bardly than FD.

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.

I see Fidric already beat me to that idea. This makes a lot of sense to me.

Detaunt on a Bard is next to useless whereas an AoE mem blur would be a class defining spell for a puller.

Fidric

i've actually moved on to wanting Repel to be an aoe knock back effect ;p

i'd probably prefer a mem blur to be more a single target song if that capacity was going to come bard's way. or just a different shout.

Raybane

Mesh Well, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to make the detaunt also remove you from the aggro table, if they really wanted to give this to Bards as that would bypass the need for something entirely new.

Mesh

Fidric
Whether it's a new shout or changing Repel, I really like the idea.

A reliable AoE mem blur would really close the CC gap between Enchanter and Bard.

Raybane
We can hope! Somebody poke @Xilith on this.

Gathbard

Well, if the pull is in tight spaces and goes horribly wrong, you don't need a simple aggro drop really, you need a mem wipe to reset the pull, otherwise you just buy a few seconds of life for the puller who'll simply die last after the horrible wipe they caused.
But I agree: if Enchanter can deal with such a situation with ease while Bard can't, then there is a big issue.
If the danger is just the puller dying (and assuming the group does its job) repel SHOULD be enough to put you down the threat list, at least it feels that's the intent of the skill being there in the first place.

Mesh

Gathbard

If the danger is just the puller dying (and assuming the group does its job) repel SHOULD be enough to put you down the threat list, at least it feels that's the intent of the skill being there in the first place.

As a puller you're the only person on the mobs aggro list. Reducing your threat does literally nothing.

Gathbard

Mesh no, I mean, once the rest of the party engages and generates aggro.
I agree that during the actual pull Repel serves no purpose at all, in fact even when I was reading the patch notes that made me go "huh? ok, I guess".
Even from the description it felt more like a DPS emergency threat drop than a puller tool.

Raybane

Gathbard I didn't even bother learning the spell as I didn't see any use for it. Giving it a use would be nice.

Zest

Mesh

Did you read the rest of my post? I flat out stated I agree bards do need an aggro drop. Just not one as spammable or unconditional as monk FD. Bards have a powerful tools for managing pulls monks do not: lull, charm, mez, & run speed buffs that can be applied to a charmed target(all castable while running), they shouldn't also have something on the same level of the flagship class defining monk ability, and to be honest something a bit worse will be enough.

The main thing bard needs a drop for though is recovering from lull crit fails which frankly a longer cooldown option or one with some kind of downside like a cast time or no mechanism to prevent nearby enemies from reaggroing would be sufficient for.

As long as they have insurance against the occasional lull crit fail or other occasional "oh shit bad pull scenarios bard already has the tools to split camps the rest of the time without having to flop dance to split.

Fell

Korenda 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

Bards can charm and mez. Currently, monk, SK, and necro can use FD to reliably pull singles from camps. If a bard can as well, why would anyone ever need mez for CC?

CC is already VASTLY deprecated in MnM -- the entire reason camps turn into boring grind-fests is because, after the first 30 second of the break, you then have four hours of easy solo mobs. The last thing devs should do is make that problem even worse.

Mesh

Zest

Just not one as spammable or unconditional as monk FD.

I actually prefer the idea of a mem blur for Bard after thinking about it. Changing Repel from an AoE detaunt to an AoE mem blur would be perfect IMO.

Seems more fitting thematically as a Bard and would require a bit of kiting and casting to reset mobs as they chase you rather than a single button fix like FD. Its AoE radius is fairly small so you'd probably have to cast a couple to reset a decent sized pack.

a longer cooldown

Depends what you mean by "longer cooldown."

I think Repel is currently 6s? Anything around there would be fine but more than that would just add a bunch of unnecessary downtime waiting for it to reset before you risk pulling again.

Zest

Mesh

An AoE memblur could definitely work, though without a lull effect a single resist or presence of a named enemy means the whole pack re-social aggroe pretty much instantly.

If we go the memblur route I'd actually favor adding a single target memblur with a short(maybe 6-8s) lull effect stappled on to it- either would allow you to use a single 3s cast to drop one add off the pull. Not as good of a 6-8 bad pull fixer but more flexible and able to at least mitigate the worst pulls by selectively dropping maybe 1-3 adds off the pull on the way back to camp depending on distance.

The duration of the lull effect is key though, the goal would be long enough that if all the enemies are chasing the bard when cast memblured target has fallen far enough behind to not social aggro by the time the lull falls off, but if you've already gotten back to camp and a are fighting in place it's not long enough for the monster to wander back out of social aggro range on it's own(mez should be the main tool by that stage of the fight). Being able to single cast remove a monster from the encounter throughout the entire fight would probably be too strong, though the door could still be open to using two casts to do that(memblur called by full duration lull).

Korenda

Fell A room of 8 mobs, your Lull has just failed. 3 second cast for either mez or charm.. thats 24 seconds to try and resolve the issue in a tight space where you cant run around trying to tag each mob and the mez wears off at 18 seconds.. This is not about CC, its about not having the proper tools in the toolbox to be successful at splitting a room.
Once a room is split, its split, CC is null and void less something happens and you get behind on spawns. CC in any game after you break a spawn can get boring, again this is not about the CC, its about having the right tools for the job, and mez is not the right tool, less you want to give bard AOE Mez than lets go.

Fell

Korenda A room of 8 mobs, your Lull has just failed... This is not about CC, its about not having the proper tools in the toolbox to be successful at splitting a room.

There are very few rooms with 8 linked mobs. If you can solo pull even those dense packed areas perfectly reliably, where would you EVER need CC? And yes, I've seen bards successfully CC a pack that large -- they need a lot of room to work to do it, though. If you're in a tight dungeon setting, bring, a monk ...or an SK ...or an enchanter .. or 2-3 party members handy with their roots. There's a lot of options that doesn't involve invalidating CC entirely.

Zest

Fell

This is why by contrast to many in this thread I really don't think bard needs anything nearly as spammable or unconditional as monk FD.

But I do think the need something to keep a random bad diceroll from becoming a 6-8 pull that they have no way to prevent. No matter how you dice it a class that runs that risk is not going to be a serious consideration for puller in hard content.

A minute plus cooldown aggro drop would be more than sufficient even if it had other downsides such as a cast time or no mechanism to keep nearby enemies from immediately reaggroing(so it only worked if you use it before enemies close).

Bard doesn't need any more ability to split or single pull I'd agree- those are strengths are the specialties of other pullers(monk/SK) and bard definitely shouldn't be flopping often enough to split with. What bard and any class meant to be a puller does need is something to allow situational awareness and a prompt response to recover the occassional catastrophic lull or similar ability crit fail from pulling everything in the room.

An aggro drop or memblur is the simplest way to make this happen, but stronger, faster, or AoE emergency CC would do it too.

CC should of course be important but I also don't think a bard should need a pocket enchanter backing them up to take on the role of puller in challenging endgame content.

Zaroua

Korenda
That's what secondary CC, oh shit buttons, cooldowns, and evacs are for. Or rezzes for the dead Bard. And if you're doing a camp that difficult, you'll want those tools available to your party.

Zest

Zaroua

And yet the other primary pullers have their own in kit answer without having to to get rezzed or evacced.

And its not like this is without precedent: EQ bards had fading memories. And lo and behold the point they got that added to their kit was when they actually started being used to pull in serious endgame content.

Honestly though as I've said repeatedly in this thread I don't think bards even need something as strong as FD, fading memories, or maybe even rogue smoke vial. It can have a cooldown and other dowbsides, but the class needs some answer to the kind of situation you dismiss as fixable by dying or the entire party bugging out. Those kind of "solutions" be necessary just mean the class isn't a serious consideration for the puller position.

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