Curious how Bards like the Deep Dive changes

Loekie1978

Bards speak up! I’m really curious if Bard could be my main when EA launches

Fidric

Tbd. Need to see actual tooltips.

Silly

Very happy about speed indoors. No mention of lull, hope we still have it, but lull shouldn’t be applied to measure. Needing wind to cast mez I don’t particularly like but I guess I’ll need to see how it works. Not sure how useful all the resist buffs will be other than magic resist. Happy to see how the magic debuff removal song works. I still feel it’ll be best to go MR trait for instant debuff removal but it’s a good option to have. Charisma change is nice but does this affect our lulls, mez and charm? Heal and mana combined to one song is good.

Foombus

Love it let’s see how it plays

Mesh

As someone who has been put off playing a Bard, the changes sounds great to me. Being able to maintain multiple songs without the tedious "twisting" makes me want to give Bard a try now. Have to wait for experienced Bard players to test the changes at higher level but they seem solid to me.

Faedawyn's Piping of Protection - Weave a mail of musical protection around your group, increasing their Armor Class and absorbing incoming damage.

An absorb could be very nice. Is it a flat value or does it refresh a small amount each time the song renews?

There's still a fundamental problem with Bard vs. Enchanter design that wasn't addressed with the rework.

Bard mez lasts 18s with a 3s cast time. The new AoE stun will help stabilize a pull but its 3s duration only gives you time to mez one mob before it ends.

The Mesmerizing Whisper line of short duration mezzes

Seems like it might be an attempt to resolve this but a) it costs mana and b) it means Bard now has to have two mezzes on their bar which is just an awkward solution.

I would prefer to see the Mesmerizing Whisper line removed and Bard mez cast time reduced to 1.5s. Since Bard cannot AoE mez, they should be able to get out single target mezzes quicker IMO.

Silly

Mesh

The mesmerizing whisper line is essentially a stun. I believe the max level one lasts 9 seconds and its single target. I use it a lot. But I may be swapping to the AOE stun instead, especially if they are on the same cooldown.

Gathbard

Waiting for an actual Bard Deep Dive post with a detailed list of the changes, since I can't seem to find one.

Edit after reading the deep dive:

First of all, Cha adds to damage, which is cool. although:
"It (charisma) would apply to healing as well, but Bards currently lack any such spell."
This part should not even be there, because what's the point? It would do this to this if you had it, but you don't so it doesn't? That screams first draft to me...but at the same time: is this an hint of possible healing skills in the future? mistery.
Still, it means that our main stat actually does something.

Loss of dual wield but gain of double attack. This is actually great because we needed a hand for instruments anyway.
Song stacking change looks interesting on paper but I'll have to try it out to see how it actually works before commenting on it, same for UI tweaks, but they look decent.

Buffed instruments: good
New melee ability: very good, and it buffs STR? What is this? So Gud
Keeping all shouts while gaining one: incredibly good compared to other classes who were gutted by their dives.
Charm no longer breaking when damaged: Wet dream.
Mezz changes to do something about overriding: will see. The nicest thing is seeing them addressing the issue, will have to test to see how effectively. The important factor is to avoid overlapping, no matter who ends up on top of the mezz chain (would be totally fine if it was Enchanter).

Double dots that stack and do more damage than what we had previously (and it really wasn't clear that the originals were supposed to stack): very nice. Will have to check in game
Primary haste plus stackable secondary haste: great

Dedicated Resist focused role that bard EXCELS at, with STACKABLE buffs: this is very, very very very nice. I suspect these will be the the main "guys, it would be nice to have bard" factor, especially to the pvp inclined.

Indoor speed buff: wet dream 2
Cleanse friendly and dispel enemy buffs: we're not worthy! we're not worthy!
Multibuff high level travel song: YES
New Long Cooldown: meh. Hopefully it sucks so it doesn't feel mandatory, because I hate long cooldown skills in this game, due to the silly spellbook management aspect. Still, at least it's only one.

All in all I'm very satisfied, in fact I feel a bit guilty.
I mean, I know that Bard REALLY sucked, so it's fair that we got a lot in the Deep Dive, but we really made out like thieves compared to others coughcoughshamancough

Very glad that I might be able to actually play a Bard in EA.
Oh, forgot a minor con: no mention of bard being able to use axes, which makes me a bit sad.
Also: still no deep race option for Bard? Is there no music in the deeps?

Mesh

Silly
The key difference is Enchanters ability to AoE stun and then single target or AoE mez a group of mobs to get everything under control quickly.

Trying to do that as a Bard when your single target mez has a 3s cast time is a lot more challenging. I feel like simply reducing the cast time would have been a more elegant solution.

Still, there are reasons to choose Bard over Enchanter now so that's great.

Fidric

Gathbard all we currently have is

https://monstersandmemories.com/updates/bard-and-enchanter-deep-dives

Full readable Patch notes and playable patch is not yet live to testers to see actual tooltips etc details

Loekie1978

Fidric ah right it’s not patched yet. I’m a little too eager hehe

Zest

I couldn't be happier.

Before we even get into changes they led off by addressing the apparent disconnect between the class synopsis(previous "well established role changes will mostly be about filling gaps" line) and the reality if the class and they clearly stated that pulling is part of the class role. These were the big two questions a lot of bards have been concerned about and addressing them directly was really reassuring.

Taken in combination with changes like indoor movespeed, dual wield being swapped for double attack, damage songs being consilidated, dispel songs, rollback of the painful charkbreak on damage mechanic, the change on how twisting works that simultaneously reduces the endless buff rotation but retains twisting as a core mechanic it's incredibly obvious that the devs listened to and worked to address bard feedback from the last few months- many of these changes are exactly what bards have been asking for and the ones that aren't seek to remedy common criticisms of the class design.

Bundling of songs seems good too, AC song is welcome, and resist songs are potentially really interesting if impactful enough, can't wait to try out the new goodies. Really glad to see bard on primary CHA. Limiting charm to humanoids/beasts was a good compromise for keeping current bard utility while letting enchanters be better.

My only complaint would be the lack of improvement to mez/lull. Bard is probably the second choice CC class after enchanter and imo lags a little too far behind- if bard needs to step into primary CC role in absence of an enchanter 3s cast 18s duration mez doesn't quite cut it in challenging endgame areas like Fallen Watch. Honestly I think 24s mez would be enough.

Lull mostly could use love because bard has no aggro drop or AoE CC, so lull crit fails puts the group in extreme danger that bard doesn't really have the tools to get them out- if they are to act as a puller they either need the tools to stabilize such a situation or for those crit fails to be exceedingly rare. This could also easily be addressed by just giving some kind of limited aggro drop, even if its on a long cooldown.

Honestly though overall incredibly impressed with our deep dive and now certain I'll be gaining bard come EA.

Gathbard

Fidric Yes ty. Found it later and edited the post accordingly.

Krooguh

Bards are too strong now imo. Can't believe they made reverse swarm kiting easier too.

Fidric

Bard deep dive tooltips

Zest

Krooguh

Honestly I don't think this patch marks the end end of balancing charm: it'a a good start targetting the grouping problem(charm out DPSing DPS classes) but reverse charming as a whole(not just for bard) is still the obvious nail sticking out.

Tbh though the previous attempted fix(the break chance when hit) wasn't the right solution- it was miserable to play with and had huge collateral damage to nonproblematic play patterns like just charming somethibg to tank for you and fight one enemy at a time.

There are plenty of ways to reign in reverse charm solo strategies in a narrow targeted way. The previous fix wasn't it and I'm glad they backtracked.

Krooguh

Ya at least they fixed charm not to replace 3 DPS in a group. Reverse charm swarming is powerful and all but just for leveling really.

Mutual

Aethoril needs an op Bard. As a non bard player, bard should be the one class that if you cross paths you just say… yes please. That feeling of every party member getting buffed is soooooo cool. Goes thematically as bards have the gift of gab and should be able to talk themselves into anything.

Now they just need a class quest for a long term tavern buff.

Moghjubar

The double dot stacking/ticking seemed very strong, especially with a default brass instrument equipped and spamming them both back to back. Can someone else confirm this? They seemed to be double ticking on re-apply.

Silly

Measure needs a toggle option.

As for everything else, I’m still testing.

Nullen

So is bard speed actually faster than SoW now at low levels? If I remember correctly bard speed was slower than SoW until like 50ish?