My first pass bard impressions is that while i like it i think i have too many small issues that add up to keep me from playing it out of the gate in EA. Im not sure which are bugs, intended, or oversights but a few issues that have cropped up in my play sessions and theorycrafting are as follows.. PSA this will be formatted poorly im freeflowing off bullet points...
This is not to discredit xil as he did a great job.. to take bard from where it was to here in a crunch by himself was a herculean effort. i have 25 years of bard xp and if my ramblings help cool and if noone reads it also cool i just felt compelled to say them for my own sanity because i really do want to enjoy bard.
BLOAT.. there are just not enough skill slots to accommodate the scope of the bard.. for defensive options you have ac song and like 4 diff resist songs with many mobs doing multiple schools of spells.. haste, overhaste, and spell haste where 2 if not 3 of those being needed in any grp comp.. hp and mana regen which dont combine until way later. there are just way too many things you need to to be doing that far exceed the mathematical limit between spell slots and cast times while also being worse at those tasks than others.. jack of all trades master of none, yea yea sure sure, except why not just invite the master of that role instead.
I kicked around the idea of curbing this by playing with auras and stances or combining (even if it would need to be nerfed) songs. I would combine overhaste and spell haste, there is very limited spell haste and overhaste and with bards overhaste being the best it never leaves the rotation unless you are in a raid and put in a healer or caster grps but even then there may be a mix, mana and health should be combined on the first iteration even if the mana takes more levels to scale to keep its relative equity with other mana regen lines. possibly combine the resist lines into 1 song which would allow me to make meaningful choice and sacrifice to bolster my groups protections.. nasty named/camp/multi grp named/raid encounter and im in the tank grp i can give up 2 song slots for ac song and resist song, or i can protect dps groups with aoes.. also combining the resist songs in the long term would allow for better flexibility in encounter design with mobs firing off several different schools of dmg, dots, debuffs. i thought about auras and stances to alleviate some of the burden but combining some songs would be better long term i think.
MEASURE ISSUES ...if i have a full measure and start to cast another song with the intent for it to take a songs slot in the measure and manually cancel a song when the new song finishes it will still force off the new oldest song.. so if you do it you basically lose 2 songs
-Offensive songs are stripping out your measure.. if you have a full measure and go to mez a mob even without the intent to add the mez to the measure it will do it anyway since you have no control.. except another problem arises if you go to mez a 2nd target it will drop another song from the measure. same with any other song that forces its way into the measure. pressing and holding the key for 1-2 seconds to add a song to the measure would be a potential fix but i dont know how clunky that would be. and if you dont want to add it a standard press and release would sing the song but not mess with your measure in case you did want the dot/slow/mez to continue.
-Getting stunned entirely shuts off your measure.. causing 1-all of your songs to fall while also forcing you to retwist through them to set the measure/twist back up setting you back from 9-15 seconds.
- Measure needs visual indicator of the order the spells will be dropped and with the cancelling issue i mentioned above fixed it would allow a freer flow on how you rotate songs in and out of measure
While i do like the idea of measure for adding a little more free flow interaction than melody mechanic from EQ, the increased spell slots and creation of a few melody rotations to cover different scenarios on the fly i think melody is more versatile and measure can feel like its at war with itself quite often. I think symphonic aura is the most elegant solution to the problems. even if symphonic is only 3 songs and song timers are dropped to 15 allowing the twist of only 4 songs, be they cc, offensive, or utility songs. since there are several near non-negotiables, this change plus the above mentioned combing of more songs would allow us to be that jack of all trades master of none not a jack of the trades i currently have room for
PULLING - being designated as a puller without a way to drop aggro or effectively split mobs beyond lull.. so if it gets resisted or the mobs pat through your lulls and pull them anyway you and maybe your grp are in big trouble.. give us fading memories to allow us to kite the mobs out mezzing them getting our single or 2-3 mobs fade off the aggro retag and then mez the adds as we bring the single to the tank.. allowing us to fill that role but not as easy and cleanly as monk
-The dmg vocal also has a really short range only 15 compared to lull/mez/dot being 30m if you can even slot the dot or dd vocal making using your kit to pull inferior to a thrown weapon which im not the biggest fan of why have stuff in a kit you cant or dont want ot use.
MISCELLANEOUS- as a class wearing many hats buffing/debuffing/ccing/dispelling npcs i have no default access to sense magic <which i think should be default just in the game since you wrapped it into most peoples self buffs but there are a few people who also need it that have no access to it without a select few classes who can buff it.. bard archer rog are a few i know need it but dont have it maybe fighter>
-Cha scaling with very poor cha itemization while only scaling 2 things.. mana and dmg songs..
give bards a proc aura that add a proc to melee swings and spells/heals maybe an aura that gives all the resists and then one that is the ac and absorb making us choose how we want to augment our grp based on the grp comp and content we are doing
poor race selection.. we have 2 in tree land, dwarf and human but nothing in the deep... DEEP GNOME BARD PLZZZ
id also prefer dw with bard only inventory slots for instruments where you get the mods from all of the instruments but only combat stats from your main instrument slot..
Sorry for the painful read like i said i was flowing off the top of the dome and prob missed some things i could think up if i spent more time but i wanted to get some of my thoughts out even if noone reads them.
