Best Of

Hello to whoever reads this! This entire post is just me using the downtime to compile my feedback on the bard class while I can't playtest. Everything is highly subjective, as its all my personal opinions. I've tried to mainly stick to feedback on playstyles and gameplay instead of anything numbers related; turning will come, probably a million times, that'll make any talk of numbers relatively pointless. I've broken everything down into rough sections for whatever people want to pick at. I'm not any sort of dev, so whatever I've recommended after writing this intro is probably the worst fix possible, so anyone with better ideas please share them. I've only listed bugs that I personally encountered and consider major pain points, as minor bugs are just /bug'ed in game. Full disclosure; I play almost entirely solo, no guild, and am currently level 21 and a half. I've been running around the world testing mob abilities (and getting one shot ALOT) for the majority of my playtime. Vyra server.

1 Melodies
1.1 (Bug) Melody cancelled when mounting, combining glint, and equipping gear.
1.2 (Bug) Melody visuals persist even when cancelled, allowing you to have all colors of the melodies orbiting your character at the same time. As a new player this is confusing when combined with other factors.
1.2 Melody cancelled when hitting escape (escape is auto bound to cancel spells, and unchangeable). Request the ability to change the cancel spells keybind. This is being addressed in the PTR notes, but I would still like the keybind ability.
1.3 Melodies are cancelled when stunned. This makes sense gameplay wise as it's a long term channeled cast. It is very unclear from a visual perspective, however. The "cast" bar of the melody only lasts 20 seconds, so intuitively you would think it is only interruptible during that time. My recommendation would just be to add a Bard specific indicator of your active melody to the UI, rather than relying on a cast bar. Maybe have it be an actual bar under your player health/mana/stam indicator that changes color based on melody, and if you are spec'ed into Music Mastery: Crescendo it would fill with more color? Combined melodies with Music Mastery: Counterpoint could be an ebb and flow color gradient?
1.4.1 Request the tooltips for Melodies be changed slightly so that they clarify the player can't cast multiple melodies at once. Currently all of them state “Melodies can be played concurrently with other abilities.” Unless you specifically read the choice node for Music Mastery: Counterpoint, you have no indication that other melodies don’t count as “other abilities”. This confusion is compounded by the visuals for melodies lasting even when canceled, and individual melodies lasting even after the 20s cast visual ends. When I first started Bard blind it took actively looking at my buff bars and experimenting for multiple combats to figure out melodies didn't count as “other abilities”.
1.4.2 Request the tooltip clarifies that Melodies are continuous effects until cancelled. When you initially cast a Melody you receive the 20s cast bar and it is initially unclear that the melody is supposed to continue after that point. This lack of clarity is compounded by other Melody cancelling issues if you are new and don't know about all the ways Melodies cancel.
1.5 Three of the five Melodies have clear situations you want to run and potentially swap them for, but Cheerful (healing) Melody and Cathartic (lifesteal) Melody awkwardly complete for the same situations(healing). Based on however tuning either Cheerful or Cathartic will simply be better than the other and always chosen if the bard is providing healing. This creates a "dead" feeling node very early in the tree, where 4 of 5 melodies could see play and 1 waits for a tuning pass. I don't have a fix for this other than changing one of the "healing" melodies to something different.

2 Themes/Sagas
2.1 (Bug) "The Apocalypse" Saga does no damage when you have a target selected (including yourself). It will deal damage if you have no target selected. Particularly annoying since if you hit escape to clear your target you also cancel your melody.
2.2 I disagree with the design of the red “Tragedy” theme spells and the blue “Mystery” theme spells. All 4 of these spells are damage throughput nodes that are solely determined by if you have more magical or more physical dps in the group. The yellow “Comedy” talents I like significantly more because they are supportive buffs, and you can see based on your encounter if a big heal or shield is better. As a gameplay loop I personally prefer making choices based on the encounter instead of based on group composition. My recommendation is the Tragedy and Mystery spells be moved into supportive party buffs; movement speed, lifesteal, elemental or physical resistances, increased stamina regeneration, etc.
The actual “theme” self buffs (Tragedy, Mystery, Comedy) and their interaction with Saga casts I like. Self buffs that the player uses to clearly play three different styles of gameplay (dps/support/healer). The saga combinations are built to reward both focused gameplay (triple colors) and well planned out gameplay (color matching).
2.3 PTR notes have the themes being reworked to target base stats, but I am unsure if that means that the self buffs (Tragedy/Mystery/Comedy) are being changed or the spells (Conflict/Chaos, Destiny/Wonder, Triumph/Joy) are being changed.
2.4 I would love to see the missing saga combinations be added. Currently Tragedy/Tragedy/Comedy, Mystery/Mystery/Tragedy, Comedy/Comedy/Tragedy, and Comedy/Comedy/Mystery are not added. I expect to see these in levels 26-50, as we've already seen talent points add extra combinations. I like the concept of added combinations being talents, as it lets the player have flexibility based on what encounters they expect to be upcoming.
2.5 The PTR notes have Sagas no longer consuming theme buffs. This note is taking place over the absolute essay I had regarding that previously.

3 Other spells
3.1 (Bug) Get off the stage is extremely inconsistent on the knockback; the damage applies as expected correctly every time. Mobs will often not be knocked back during the course of combat if they are moving when hit, only knocked up. This leads to awkward gameplay where if you want to guarantee the knockback you have to stop kiting, stand still, wait for the mob to stand still while it's beating you, and then cast Get Off the Stage. The knockback seems to always apply correctly if Get Off the Stage is the killing bow, regardless of if the target is moving.
3.2 On the note of 3.1, I would love to see Get Off the Stage become a choice node, with one version having a knockback and one version having a knockup. The inconsistency of the live version is frustrating but I can see situations where either would be preferred.
3.3 Currently only Dances can be interrupted by casting another spell. Request all "channeled" spells be able to be interrupted with casting another spell while spells that activate on a full cast have normal spell queuing, or an option to have spell queuing vs spell interrupting in the settings. Currently with gameplay I specifically would like to be able to interrupt Lovely Serenade (I want to cancel it when at full health) and Chilling Lament (sometimes you cast it for the slow instead of damage); I recognize that a change to just these two spells would be unintuitive which is why I request the other spells that function as a channel are changed as well (Dark Lullaby/Hymn of the Mind).
As a negative to this change I know players would likely spam cast with Serenade/ Chilling/ Lullaby/ Hymn similar to how they do with dances for resonance. I don't know a fix for this, but I think that highlights an already existing problem with resonance stacks and dances.
3.4 Dance Spamming for Resonance Stacks
3.4.1 As noted above, dance gameplay revolves around spamming each dance as fast as possible for resonance stacks. Currently Shielding Dance, Maddening Dance, Nimble Dance, and Mesmerizing Dance all have an effect that happens initially and repeats every 1 second (a shield+heal, aoe+enemy dispel, buff+ally dispel, and stacks of incapacitated). This design means that you can use dances as instant cast spells for resonance stacks while receiving the effects benefit of the dance (benefits applied at first tick), leading to gameplay loops of instant cancelling dances as fast as possible. I actually like that Dances are channeled and you can gain additional benefit from holding the channel exactly as long as you want but I find the interaction with resonance restrictive. I personally feel that anytime resonance stacks are hyper important to Bard gameplay, the "correct" option will be cycling through dances as fast as possible. I don't know the correct fix to this, I just feel the need to bring it up as an issue.
3.4.2 Possible alternatives I've thought of include only applying a stack of resonance at a full channel. This would incentivize using the ability for the ability itself and not the resonance.
3.4.3 Applying two stacks of resonance but only doing so at the halfway mark and the end. This would still give the ability to play the Dance cancel gameplay loop, but also provide higher benefit for full casting. It would overall raise the power of dances which could cause balancing issues. Currently the leaked PTR notes have something similar, with a stack at the beginning (same as current) and at the end.
3.4.4 Give the caster resonance stacks only if the effect of the spell happened, such as Maddening Dance only giving resonance if you dispel an enemy debuff, Nimble Dance if you dispel an ally debuff, ect. This would prevent you from using the dances purely for stacks unless you are in an encounter to actually use them. One issue with this is I don't know how to have Shielding Dance work in this system, as you can always get a shield, so Shielding Dance would still be spamable.
3.5 Resonance Stack Consumption
3.5.1 I would love to see some experimentation with Resonance stacks being shifted away from weapon combo finishers. The current gameplay requires the Bard to complete a weapon combo finisher to interact with resonance stacks. This ties consuming procs for healing (Cheerful Melody), mana (Pensive Melody), and dispels (Epic Melody) directly to being both in combat and able to get a combo off. They also lack control, as you have to be dealing damage while the proc automatically targets whatever it feels like. The damage functions feel smooth with this system as you have direct control over where your procs (Shock stacks/Wounded stacks) go. It also directs the bard into specific weapons, as faster weapons directly result in an easier/quicker ability to proc resonance stacks. While this system works, I believe adding a targeted spell that consumes your stacks instead of weapon procs would provide the player a more elegant solution. This solution:
-Gives players the ability to spend resonance stacks in a consistent manner regardless of weapon speed.
-Gives players more fidelity and targeting for non damage resonance stack spending.
-Gives players flexibility for if they wanted to sit at 10 stacks, waiting for the best time to use them or spend them as fast as they can for sustained output and utility.
-Gives the bard the ability to consume resonance stacks out of direct combat for support usage (healing/mana/dispels).
-Allows swapping Melodies for responsive usage of resonance stacks as a viable playstyle.
3.6 Currently if you jump at the end of a Flourish, while in midair you will instantly slow down to base run speed. It appears Flourish does not add momentum to a player, just temporarily changes it while Flourish is active. You can see Flourish DOES interact with momentum by using it to prevent fall damage. My request is that Flourish interacts with momentum similar to how the Dodge Roll + Jump interaction works.

4 UI/Skill Tree
4.1 Request that all of the choice node spells in the class tree automatically swap on your action bar when changed. When you swap between Chilling Lament and Chilling Lament (AoE) your spell bar automatically just adds the new spell to your next open bar slot. Request that your spell bar auto swapped when the player changed spec between two mutually exclusive abilities.
4.2 Request that the skill tree or spell tooltips be more clear on what constitutes a “song”. The first and only mention of The only place that delineates what a song is are the choice talents Song Mastery: Harmony and Song Mastery: Dissonance. Dances and melodies are clear due to it being in their name, but Songs all have unique names. I think the easiest fix is adding something to the tooltip that just calls the spell as a “Song” type spell. This would get players associating all of the songs together as they start reading the spell tree from the get go.
4.3 Request a search bar function to the skill tree that includes different status effects. Something like if I search "Pep" any talent or ability that interacts with Pep highlights. I enjoy all of the little interactions within the skills but being able to parse how each ability interacts can be daunting. I can only imagine it will become even harder when players start getting the secondary classes.
4.4 Mentioned earlier, request that Bard specific mechanics (Melodies, Resonance, and Theme self buffs) have their own status bar somewhere in the UI instead of the buffs bar. Theme tracking specifically will be more important when Sagas start getting used more often.
4.5 Request that more ability tooltips list durations of their status effects. For example, Mesmerizing Dance directly lists 1 stack of Incapacitated for 10 seconds, and then 1 stack of Stunned for 3 seconds. Very clear and to the point. Shielding Dance says it applies 1 stack of Shield, with no mention of how long that shield lasts. Pretty minor complaint.

5 The section no one adds: The Good things!
5.1 Bard flexibility I believe is the best in the game. Themes and Melodies really direct the player to look at different abilities and skill loadouts in the tree based on the situation. Even though I harped on Cheerful and Cathartic melodies being in the same slot, I'm sure there is some situation where the "bad" one is going to shine and force you to consider different play lines.
5.2 I like how many of your talent points are an either/or for AoE vs single target. It helps prevent what I could envision as significant button bloat in the long term. Maybe I'll like it less when it takes more than a single click to respec, but for now I'm happy.
5.3 Whatever dev made the ability to spec Jest and Mock as separate keybinds despite them sharing a cooldown deserves a raise.
5.4 The concept of Sagas is sick. Numbers tuning, bugs, and usage can all be adjusted; the raw concept of building up to a massive spell that changes based on what you've done over time is a great concept that will reward high level gameplay without being too hard on all skill levels.
5.5 I like that there is only 1 "movement" ability in Flourish. Bard does have some movement speed buffs, but the identity would feel overloaded with you having all the party buffs + even more mobility. Even though more movement means the class is stronger I enjoy how it's not overdone.
5.6 The "identity" of the bard is established instantly when you start playing. The choice of having different instruments and your first talent going into a song really sets the idea of what the bard is about.
5.7 Waiting until level 5 for Resonance is really good in my opinion, maybe even getting it later than that would be better. The delay lets players have some time getting the initial ideas about melodies and spell interactions, combat, etc all down before introducing the next complex mechanic. This might not matter for established players, but the new player gets introduced more smoothly into the Bard mechanics.
5.8 Every spell being castable while moving is amazing. I know that's a theme among all the classes, but I want to have it said anyway. It allows room for massive casts that require you to plant your character with a sense of gravitas.