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Odinar
05-03-2017, 07:20 AM
I think it's my first feedback at new forum.
After Bard came most of old players started power leveling it, but i havent see anyone at top lvls who really play it with top gears. And most of the sets with it are nice only for solo and rather useless for a team... And for those who seen me and my survival it's 80% from ment and 20% from bard.

I tried some sets:

DPS set as fire/necro with core/nice mods for both fire and bard (staff/horn). And it's rather nice as dps but dont have survival skills at all (that's for me only coz i push for only dps mods). Both of skills have 1 core and 1 nice, to the total of 4 abilities with ~1.3-2.5k of dmg each, and with cd o 8 to 15 sec. This set is nice for killing anything in game. While there is 2 different type of dmg - fire/sonic. That helps for the time when we have monster with fire immunity or fire ineffective.

Support set with bard/mentalism - i choose ment only coz it has HOTs (heal over time), and as i tested hots are really better than any huge healing even if delayed here. I've played as psy, and for teal psy has healing too, but when team is healing per each 4 sec (even if healing is weaker) it's more important then healing each 30 sec with delayed healing after 15 and 25 sec. With that set i can do solo/and a team. That's set is nice as farming lab entrance/or panthers in kur. And been as support i have ~ 1100 of armor and ~900of hp. But i'll write some comments about it a bit later.

Healer set with bard/ment. This set is playable too but more weaker then any other healing skills with ment, like psy/ment, or pig/ment, or druid/ment. As i calculated other skills have move healing potential then bard as for healing or even support team.

So what i tested (all mods are 70 lvl):

1. Songs.

The main problem for all of the songs is there is a bug when from time to time u cant start song, while not moving, or even cant stop it (that happens too and i see aoe hits while running). I hope it will be fixed soon, as for now to fix it i have to relog. Only relog helps or waiting for 1-3 mins.

1.1. Song of Discord. I use it for my support build. It's the best for solo, when i got hit, with some mods, i can reach nice aoe dps. But the best dmg i reached at mants with 2.6k of dmg per hit or even per 2 sec. That time i got reflected really fast and i couldnt outheal reflect/mant hits/mant poison dot.

One of bugs of it it's bug in description. It said that it's range 30m but in fact it's 20m. IDK about range of healing song.

First of all about some mods:
1.1.1. "<icon=108>Whenever you take damage from an enemy, you gain Bard Base Damage +7% for 15 seconds"
"<icon=3663><icon=3665>Whenever you take damage from an enemy, you gain Song of Discord Damage +7% and Song of Resurgence Healing +5 for 20 seconds"
They do stack with themselves. And idk if it's a bug but they activate even from poison/fire/trauma dots/fall dmg/ and even reflect from monsters. But only from outside dmg (except fall dmg).
1.1.2. "<icon=3665>Song of Discord reduces targets' Rage by -130 every 2 seconds"
That one mod dosent work at all atm. And even if it starts working it will be useless. At top lvls most of elites have 2-5k of rage. And they can reach full rage bar for around 4-5 sec. Even if i have 2 mods 130*2=260 i can do much 2*260=520. If elites has 3-4k of rage it's nothing and not worth taking mod. I think it should be x2 or even x3 to be worth in fights.
1.1.3. "<icon=3665>Song of Discord deals +15 damage and has a 10% chance to stun each target every 2 seconds"
That one is the great mod for solo or for teaming. It trigger each ~10 sec or each ~5 hit. That one mod worth more then some healing from time to time. In a team it let us a bit of time (3-4) to regroup or even heal team if it's a hard battle. But as for me it's a bit OP and i think it should be ~ 7% at 70 lvl.

As for now (when aggro is bugged) it's working fine - while been as support(or even as tank) i can pull a lot of monsters, take a lot of hits and raise aoe hits up to 700-900 per 2 sec. When aggro will be fixed it will be too weak dmg....

1.2. Song of Resurgence. I used it with my healing set(for healing team) and stopped using it coz it's toooooo weak as healing for now. If we compare with ments healing wave, bard healing song is nothing.
Healing waves(i calculate only aoe healing) can do at 70lvl: 29*3(3 waves can be at the same time)*15(per 1 min)=1305 of healing only with wave. +28*2*3(as insta healing) and + 66*2*3(as delayed healing) to the total of 168+396. And per 1 min we get 1869 of healing. Or 31 per sec
Inspire Confidence (psy healing) it's the same aoe healing and useful too. At 70 lvl it can heal: (100+59*2+113*2+155*2)*2 per min = 1508 of healing per min, or 25 per sec.
Song of resurgence. With 70 mods: 19+16+16=51 per 4 sec. Or ~12 per 1 sec. It only works when i got hit a lot but it's useless in solo and too weak for a team. Playing with a team i get rarely hit for max 2 times so i get 4 effects ("<icon=3663><icon=3665>Whenever you take damage from an enemy, you gain Song of Discord Damage +7% and Song of Resurgence Healing +5 for 20 seconds). To the total of +20 per 4 sec or +5 of healing per 1 sec. But for killing mant in solo it's nice. Max i got it at +450 of healing per 4 sec and it could easy outheal mant hits.
Even if i compare it's useful with Song of Discord for a team play it's crap. Let's calculate. If we kill 1 mant with ~ 250 of dmg per hit or ~125 per 1 sec, Song of resurgence lowers hits to 74 or 740 dmg per 10 sec. But if we fight with Song of Discord we have aoe stun which stuns each 10 sec for 4 sec or makes mants hits lower for -40% : 250*5-40%=750 of dmg. But Song of discord can dmg monsters. It makes dmg song more useful in a team. Btw i calculated only 1 mant but if we have 2 mants fightings one tank? The effect will be x2 from dmg song, then from healing song. It's better have now more stuns then healing. While we can keep all elites stunned all of the time and we dont need healing at all.

For making it more important to the team there is should be some mode mods for it:
1.2.1 Mods for making some mitigations like pig has atm "<icon=2250>Grunt of Abeyance grants all targets 18% mitigation from attacks, up to a maximum of 180 total mitigated damage. At 70 lvl it can be for example *while u hear song u have 20% mitigation from any direct hit* or *while u hear song u have20% mitigation from any direct hits or 50 total dmg mitigation(this effect refreshes each 4 sec)
1.2.2. Mods for dispelling debuffs, like stuns/disable/knocks/slow effects, or even some dots, like poison/trauma/fire. For example: *each 4 sec there is 20% chance of dispelling all negative effects. Or even having it spitted to different mods. 2 mods are for debuffs and 2 for dots.
1.2.3. *Song of Discord deals +15 damage and has a 10% chance to stun each target every 2 seconds*, that one mod should be for all of the song.
1.2.4. Mods for regaining armor, at 70 lvl it should be ~50 of armor per 4 sec.
1.2.5. Mods for Max Health buff, those mods could be really usefull for any team. For example at 70 lvl they should be like ment mods for +50-54 hp per mod.


But as a positive thing of that healing song it's a aoe resurrection. It's nice when the half of the team is dead and u cant reach them in the fight. 1 button hit and all are with will of hp and become fightings again. But it has and negative effect.... it's cd ...1800 sec or 30 mins. 30 mins cd makes it total useless. To fix the situation u can lower cd of it to 5-7mins. Atm there's not much of bard with that song. And it's too rare who wanna use lute with healing sond and rez ppl.
If we have nice healer in a team we dont need all of the resurrections. And some of nice puller like niph:). But as for me i personally love rushing into the group of monsters and start fightings with the rest of the team. With that tactics there is a lot of work for healers and CCs. But it's faster and more fun.

1.3. Song of Bravery. I havent tested this song at all. Lowers Power Costs -10 For All Nearby Allies - it's nothing for a team with 5 sec fights, then waiting for another pulling(with that time all power is full to the next one monster)
but some mods could be usefeul:
Tier 14 - Song of Bravery boosts allies' Basic Attack and Core Attack damage +57 It force use to use only core attacks and makes forget about epic attacks at all.
Tier 2 - Song of Bravery has a 15% chance every 4 seconds to grant listeners a Moment of Bravery, during which all attacks deal +25% damage - I havent seen it in game at all. May be i'm not lucky. That's the main reason why i couldnt test it, only coz i havent seen that one mod. + there is no info about duration of it.

1.4. Anthem of Avoidance. It's one of the best thing of bard. It saves us a lot of times. Nothing could be changed here.

1.5. Moment of Resolve. It's one of the useless for now. I personally use to it regain armor. With that CD (60 sec) and duration (5 sec) it's useless. To fix it it should be like Anthem of avoidance with 30 sec cd and 8 sec effect time.

1.6. Virtuoso's Ballad. It's like Moment of resolve. Cd 60 sec and 5 sec makes it useless. It should be 30 sec cd and with 10 sec effect time.

1.7. Thunderous Note it's nice one if i use fire-core dps set. And it's already nice

1.8. Rally. It's the bards main healing thing. It's like all other healer (pig/ment/psy) have. It's the same with Heal Over Time (per sec). And nothing to change here needs

1.9. Blast of Defiance it's only works when i have *core set*. And *Reaps 0.2 of the Health damage done* makes not understandable. I think it's should change to *Reaps 20% of the Health damage done*. But better make a script to calculate exactly dmg which reaps.

1.10. Disharmony - as most of the basic attacks i use it only for regain armor/power from combat refresh.
But it has 1 mod: Tier 7 - Disharmony causes target to deal -7 damage with their next attack. At top lvls it's totally useless while -14 for the 1 mant hit....250-14=236....but it's one hit for 10 sec. it's better make it as debuff for -7% for each hit for 10 sec. With -7% it's will be useful (but it shouldnt stack with itself)

1.11.Entrancing Lullaby - Thats one is nice, and dosent need any changes in it

Others i have tested: Blast of Despair, Blast of Fury


P.S. Some other words about healing/support build.
I've notice that ment/bard/druid have Max Health mods. But why? Do healers need more hp then tankers? I made a healing set with 800hp! And it's not the max.
But i could hardly reach 600 hp with my main tank build. But i think it must be change for like this:
Tier 7 - Max Health +35 when Bard is active and your attacks seems taunting +35% more
Tier 7 - Max Health +35 when Druid is active and your attacks seems taunting +35% more
Tier 7 - Max Health +54 when Mentalism is active and your attacks seems taunting +54% more
If we get more Max HP we must taunt more and keep aggro away of more weaker teammates. And If we choose HP we are a tanks. But if we shoose dmg mods then we are DDs

P.S.1. About tanking/aggro. Everyone knows that it's bugged atm. But for now we can hardly, but still we can choose someone from a team to make as tanker, by relogging or rezonning (i bet there is a lot of reports about bags in aggro/taunting). But with current bugged system i'm fine with getting all aggro. Only having all aggro my build works fine, and i can heal enough or even make enough dps. If u fix aggro system to something like it was a bit ago, it will kill more then half of bards effectiveness. As for now i can do ~ half of dps or main DDs in a team (like our wolfy Sassy:). But with working aggro system i'll do ~ 1/5 or even 1/7 of main DDs. I still think that we need more gears for taunting. Like the belt with +100% of taunting and + 100 of Max Health. As for my pure tank set with Unarmed/Staff with all mods for taunting i could keep aggro away from the rest of the team. While i still see hits for 6k+ from the rest of the team it's impossible to keep aggro for tankers, while have to make gears mostly for taunting/mitigation dmg/healing, but not for dps. With 2 skill system we have to shoose only 1 line for build. Or dps or tank or healer. It's hard to make something average, and sometimes that average cant do anything at all, for both solo/and a team.

Best regards Odinar.

Khaylara
05-03-2017, 02:47 PM
I haven't properly tested bard (leveled till 60 and no dedicated gear except a horn) but from my very limited experience+grouping with Odinar I fully agree that the mezz is really nice to have and Anthem of Avoidance is imo the best thing about bard. With 3 evasion leather pieces+18% dodging belt+anthem from Odinar I hardly get hit by infiltrators in GK. Modded mentalism heals are a nice addition.