Why were bards changed?

Laksha said:
I dont have a bard, and seen many people complaining about this adn quiting their bards, so i have seen a lack of bards in the server, people not playing them, seems like the cure to have more bards in a raid has actually been worse than the problem itself...
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Zodium said:
you have effectively reduced the amount of bards that are useful on a given raid to one.
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(See above post by Zodium for context of the quote)

Laksha really hit the nail on the head in the fix being worse than the problem itself. There are a lot of bugs right now in bard songs, especially in a bards ability to solo effectively. This lack of ability to solo effectively is probably the biggest reason people are no longer seen playing bards. Hopefully wiz and team will get these bugs worked out soon, and you will again see a few people playing bards simply because they like the class, or you may see new people playing bards because they like the new bard class..

Another reason a lot of people have quit playing bards is because the class is completely different than what it was before. People got used to certain strat's and such playing bards, and now those strategy's are no longer valid and new ones need to be learned. People tend to rebel against change whether its good or bad, and that is another reason people have quit playing their bards.

Effectively reducing bards on a raid to one doesnt sound much different than what it was before. I understood before that bards werent really welcome on raids to begin with, and it doesnt sound like they are much welcome now, so here not much has changed.

I say change bards back to the way they were before, but lets face it, this isnt gonna happen. Either wiz and team have put too much time and effort in already, and are unwilling to throw away the work, or wiz really wants to make bards better, and honestly thinks that is what he is doing.

So please just play test a bard and post to the bard melody thread bugs or sugested fixes. Hopefully bards will be fixed soon, and will be more welcome on raids, and less bugged than they were before. (cause bards were kinda bugged to hell before this whole thing too)

Or, pray for the miracle of bards being reborn in their old light.

(question for wiz : Should we post bugs we see in the forums with sugested fixes or the bug list? I assume forums cause the bug list isnt supposed to be a sugestion box and all that jazz, just checking to make sure, thanks again for all your hard work)
 
zodium said:
Tanking
Warrior: 1 (if target is an SK-tank mob, reduce to 0; if target Rampages, increase to 2 or 3)
Shadowknight: 1 (reduce to 0 if target is not an SK-tank mob AND the present Warrior is fully AAed and equipped)
Paladin: 1 (assuming he has SSS, otherwise reduce to 0)

DPS
Rogue: 6 (Melee DPS kings)
Wizard: 6 (Spell DPS kings)
Ranger: 4 (10 rogues would be better but you can only bring 6)
Mage: 4 (10 wizards would be better but you can only bring 6)

Support
Cleric: 6 (Clerics are required for CH chains and also the best padders)
Druid: 3 (9 clerics would be better, but you can only bring 6 of each class)
Shaman: 1 (buff and slow/malo bot)
Enchanter: 1 (buff and curse bot)
Beastlord: 1 (Spiritual Purity and Spiritual Vigor)
Bard: 1 (See previous post)

Total: 36
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I didn't miss either monks or necromancers.
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Perhaps i'm blind or just not lookin right but I see neither the words 'Necromancer' or 'Monk' in that list.
 
I would say one monk is pretty required on most raids.. on most raid encounters i can think of you need to split something along the way
 
Laksha said:
depending on the raid mob you may need more bards, you will really need one to mana regen the healers, maybe another to mana regen the casters, one to debuff the mob adn another to buff up the mob. I dont have a bard, and seen many people complaining about this adn quiting their bards, so i have seen a lack of bards in the server, people not playing them, seems like the cure to have more bards in a raid has actually been worse than the problem itself...
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You are quite obviously not familiar with raiding on SoD and you should stop assuming it works like Live.

Laksha said:
I think a good raid leader can organize a raid with a good amout of people regardless of the class, as long as you have the MAIN classes, like clerics for CH chain and a heavy tank(war/pal/sk), back in the days we used to use paladins for LoH the main tank while he was trying to build agro on a ToV dragon raid, so it is all about putting the players to good use. Granted DPS+CH clerics+tank needs to be there but everyone is useful on a riad. But even if bards can cian alot of songs at once, i wont say no to more bards coming to my raids, they are always useful doing other groups not just the main group, and their debuffs, there is never not enough debuffs for a raid.
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I am very probably the most experienced raid leader on SoD, and the two guilds I have led (Guardians of the Winter and Legacy) were/are respectively the top guilds on the server at the time. My interest as a raid leader is not a fair distribution of classes and including everyone, it is to win with the least amount of people I can.

Maybe I'm a jerk, but that doesn't change the fact that the system is biased towards jerks like me and that should not be so. Yes, everyone is useful on a raid, but since raids are capped at 36 total and 6 per class, some people are more useful than others.
 
Zodium is right, i guess we were not listening to what he was saying, he is not agreeing to the set up that was designed for raids here. While i like the limitation to 36 people, thus not making the raid mobs way too hard that requires 70 people to raid, and 70 people raids is a disaster. I believe raids dont follow the perfect set up depending on the situation, so perhaps thats something the SoD developing team should look up. Yes this however is the best set up for raids, except that is very class discriminating adn you cant deny someone coming to the raid because of their class, thats not good morale. Sorry Zodium I was the yerk here i failed to read your post well.
 
I thought Zodium's little class list for raids is a bit obvious. But I still disagree. You need at least one monk to pull. I'm sure the SK tank could pull fine though, it'd just be a bit slower. Not to mention having your main tank pulling is kind of funny.
 
zodium is probably referring to the actual raid mob fight. in which case, you could probably drop the paladin you had for the buff, the beastlord you had for the buffs, and include better dps classes like monks/rangers/mages-assuming you've maxed out your rogues and wizards.

I don't think it is reasonable that all classes be required for every raid, but all classes have a place in a raid, even if it isn't the optimal one.

necros can do great dps, but not optimal. they can save time by FDing a cleric or two, in an optimal raid you aren't dieing anyhow. they can mana-pump a cleric or druid so that the CH chain lasts a bit longer.

monks can be rampage tanks on some raid mobs, and they save time on raids by making sure the buildup to the raid targets goes smoothly. in the actual raid mob fight, they aren't as good as rogues, but without them you probably didn't get to the raid mob anyhow.

I could go on with other classes. just because some classes excel in some raid areas doesn't mean that the similar, yet not as focused, classes are worthless.

KAS
 
zodium said:
On an average encounter, each class is useful in the following amounts, assuming you are going for maximum efficiency and loot-per-member:

Enchanter: 1 (buff and curse bot)
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Could safely have two or three enchanters, depending on the rowdiness of the mob, and still have all of them land their curses. Other than that and the caveat of "monk as puller"--which can be ignored if we're only talking about the mob itself, not what happens before the mob--I agree with that list.
 
...can we keep this thread about why bards got shaft? i thing this is heading into another subject.
 
iaeolan said:
Talamr said:
i like to have 2 wizards in a group. and i dont complain with 2 mages... basically any dps class is fine to have 2 imo.
back to the point though. bards..
now i dont know much about em. but i have known a few of em. and they can solo better then i can duo... sometimes it gets a little time consuming but usually they can kite 4-5 mobs. making the time consuming battle actually same or quicker then my kills. bards were capable of soloing far to well imo=/ and it appears this fixed that. now i dont know if this went a little to far. but i still see usefulness from bards. and have no problem having a bard in my group.
so, im kind of curious if people are just complaining about it because they cant do what they use to be able to? or if there is an actual problem..
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I *think* you are confusing how we kite. On this server we can not charm kite like we did on live (charm a mob while kiting a lot, mob gets low, break charm and kill old charmed mob easily), and from my experience, ae kiting is fugged. So we are either dot kiting, or charm kiting with the respect to keeping the pet alive. and killing the other mobs.

The 4-5 mobs you see are not all what we are killing, we are killing 1 mob at a time, and the rest are just chasing us.
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no ae dots/dmg spells? i believe ive seen bards kiting and damaging all the mobs...
 
Julon said:
PBAE was limited to 6 mobs a long time ago.
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Indeed, and the point of pbae kiting on live was to get like 30 mobs (not exaggerating) and kite them with our pbaes which do maybe about 30 each on average. This would take a hella-long time, but if you were successful you would get far more xp then you would in the same amount of time kiting any other way.
 
i believe my example was 4-5.. but i also have no clue how much dmg they do. eitherway.. ive seen a bard kite 2 pumas faster and more efficient then i could kill 1.
 
Talamr said:
i believe my example was 4-5.. but i also have no clue how much dmg they do. eitherway.. ive seen a bard kite 2 pumas faster and more efficient then i could kill 1.
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oops, you caught me. I didn't notice the number. :v:

The bard could've been charm kiting. Those pumas make excellent pets. Loads of hps and nice dps.
 
Aye, that bard was most likely charm-aggro kiting. Keep in mind that we are not live and Wiz has always been tinkering with charm. We can no longer have 2 pumas fight to the death then kill our former pet at 1%. Mobs Complete Heal when charm breaks, then resume charmed health if you recharm them. Bard swarm kiting doesn't exist here.

Selo's will affect pets here so please don't think charming is risk-free on SoD. Trust me, a Selo'd pet is big trouble. From levels 27-49, I will make the argument that it's better if a bard isn't keeping Selo's up when charming. From 49+ you have a bit of a safety net as Selo's will last longer, but you will still have times where charm will outlast your Selo's and you will have 3 mobs chasing you while you are at base movement speed.

Charmed mobs also lose substanial mitigation/avoidance compared to an uncharmed mob. If you take 2 identical pumas, charm one, then sic him on his buddy, your pet will get destroyed easily. Between this and the health change, we have turned into a charm-aggro kiting class in order to get good use of charm (which our solo power relies on). We don't want our pet getting beat up anymore. Being reduced to 2 non-beneficial songs really hurts our ability to charm-aggro kite.

Charm-aggro kiting pretty much peaks in power at level 54. It's funny, but at level 60 I'm pretty much killing the same mobs at exactly the same rate at level 60 as I was at level 50. We are (were) a very odd class in that regard. Once you start getting into mobs 55+ our solo ability takes a drastic turn for the worse as we are pretty much restricted to chant kiting. Even before this change, chant kiting took a long time and was not really fun. After this change it's become even longer and more painful. You still are mashing a bunch of keys as you have to run in circles for a long time.

I don't consider bard AE kiting viable on this server as it is limited to a few mobs and even then, server lag/hiccups and mobs warping and their ability to hit you from a seemingly out of range distance pretty much renders this moot. To quote a gm in /ooc:(I think it was Melwin) "You can try AE kiting here, but most of the bards that do end up splattered across the landscape"
 
Wiz was taking questions in /ooc today so I got to ask him about bards:

a quick summary:

Wiz isn't going to change us back. Wiz thinks we're fine the way we are now. (I completely disagree here, but I don't own the server)

Wiz has on his agenda to look at bard soloability

I didn't get a chance to follow up on what Wiz had in mind regarding a bard's soloability as the conversation degenerated (kind of like some of the bard threads have)
 
The topics degenerate because Wiz already has his own answers to the problems we bards come up with, and doenst seem prone to listening to those who have to play the class. Case in point, I have yet to see one bard agree with these changes, yet here they are and wiz thinks its fine now.

I like the way wiz runs the server, but more player input on huge changes like this would be nice. Of course I prolly wouldnt care if it was chanters or clerics that got nerfed. Oh well, at least he's going to look at bard soloability, maybe we'll be able to kill something again on our own in the future :p
 
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