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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Bard Augments, thoughts?
nanfoodle
Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
We saw skills from I think it was two Augments. They were centered around support. What would you like to see for the other two Augments the Bard class will be getting? I have two suggestions.
DPS: I would love to see a mix of AoE dots and ST ranged attacks that are centered around 20% doing less damage then other DPS specs that also do debuffs. Slow attack speed and casting speed. Snares and roots. Crippling effects that lower melee damages and other skills that will debuff spells damage.
Main Healer spec: This would not do that same volume of damage as a Cleric but would have solid ST heals but their skills would be more about HOT songs that also add better damage buffers, also increasing things like Stats like Str, Sta, Dex and other things like that. Maybe even a song that helps with mitigation of damage. With a raid, such a bard would be needed along with a cleric.
DPS: I would love to see a mix of AoE dots and ST ranged attacks that are centered around 20% doing less damage then other DPS specs that also do debuffs. Slow attack speed and casting speed. Snares and roots. Crippling effects that lower melee damages and other skills that will debuff spells damage.
Main Healer spec: This would not do that same volume of damage as a Cleric but would have solid ST heals but their skills would be more about HOT songs that also add better damage buffers, also increasing things like Stats like Str, Sta, Dex and other things like that. Maybe even a song that helps with mitigation of damage. With a raid, such a bard would be needed along with a cleric.
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Comments
Rhythm Emotion - Increases damage of combo attacks for a period after a skill.
Enchanting Voice - Various smaller debuffs based on the ability attached
Rallying Call - Various small buffs based on the ability attached.
Tale Weaving - Weird custom stuff based on how long something is held or channeled
The issue is that a lot of things bards do are nightmares to balance when given to another Archetype, so unfortunately, I figure they're going to keep it really simple, if 'Regeneration' is a whole Augment type (even if it doesn't mean only health) I have to assume they're kinda 'stuck', and if they want to 'keep' debuffing for another Archetype, or avoid too much complexity, there's not much to do.
Hopefully we'll get something like the more complex Augments from some of TL's Longbow or Wand skills, but Ashes is a very different type of balance, so I don't know if they can afford to use such things.
I don't think I'd find either of your suggestions interesting, which might be a really good sign because I'm absolutely not a Bard.
At this point I'm basically expecting 'movespeed' and if we're really lucky, some watered down 'Encore' type Augment.
We were shown two skill options from the bard tree, but I don't think we were shown any augments.
There were actually some other Bard skills that we weren't shown in full detail, etc.
So it's moreso the concept, I think. We saw regen skills and buff skills, we know about a probable Regen augment and probable Buff augment.
Steven talked about it at the end of the stream. They are the skill and skill trees that you will see. Each class will have 4 of them. Much like a Mage: One Augment line could me Ice, another Fire, 3rd Arcane. Or maybe I have it 100% wrong lol
Oh, schools of augmentation. Yeah, he mentioned buffs and regeneration as two of the schools.
The schools keep within the themes of the archetype's kit, so I think it's possible a 3rd one might center around debuffing enemies, unless that would fall under the buff school. Hard to say what a 4th one might be, just because the kit we were shown mainly centered around buffs, regen, and debuffs.
I think a more heal-centric build would fall under the regeneration school.
I think it would be nice if least one was a DPS spec. Just for two reasons. One, so Bards players don't get burn out. Two, so that guildies can play together. Two Bards on duty that night. Would be nice if they could do a dungeon with his friends. One Bard DPS and one plays support.
If a bard wants to be more DPS, they can take a different secondary archetype. Support secondary archetypes are little more scare, so I think bard's should be reserved for support.
Don't agree with that at all. 4 Augments all centered around support? Even the Cleric has a DPS augment.
Your idea of DPS school of augmentation is totally my kind of gameplay. I used to play support on other MMO, but offensive support.
Moreover, it would be interesting to choose a way to be more physical or magical for the damage part.
But as you state, it's really important to keep the support side by debuffing ennemies or buffing our allies through our damage skill.
Ultimately, if this is something Intrepid Studio doesn't want to do because they want to keep the bard a "pure" support, I'm really hoping the second archetype can provide those kind of thing. (Even if I know second archetype augment is something still in reflexion and a mid/long term feature)
So far I liked the buffs and debuffs but I really think there wasn't enough dps and overall the number of active spells wasn't satisfying to me.
I have played support mostly in my 20+ years of MMOing. Support players get burn out for a few reasons. One: always being stuck in the same roll with the high pressure to stick to that support roll. Two: when it comes to solo play. Level grinding, killing mobs to harvest simple things like crafting supplies. Pure support classes are stuck needing help for everything. Lastly is support players never get to play with other friends who play support. So for instance, two clerics late at night, could not team up as a duo or a full team because their roles overlap. One Cleric being able to play DPS means they can join the team and have fun.
Fact, people who play DPS mostly, don't get support burnout. Games that require support and heals. End up losing these type of gamers from that high pressure role. Support players need to swap out and take turns.
I think this would be a moot point if there were actually 64 classes, or at least 8+8 Hybrids. It seems more like 8 classes, but different flavors.
My original hope was that when you pick the secondary archetype, you get to pick one of the defining characteristics of that second archetype. If you are a Fighter primary, and mage secondary, maybe you get a mage lighting ball spell. If you are a Fighter primary, and Rogue secondary, you get Stealth. This is way, way more interesting to me.
Balancing would be simple (but take time). You can just nerf that ability until it is reasonable. Maybe your Fighter/Mage lightning bolt does 80% of the damage of a Mage/Fighter Lightning bolt.
In your example with the Cleric. If one cleric was worried about leveling, the second archetype could be a melee or ranged dps. That would give enough DPS to be able to grind. Though you would be limited to maybe 1 spell. That would be ok in my book.
I am really hopeful that in A2 we really get to have true Hybrids, and an actual 64 classes, instead of 8. As it is now, the secondary archetype does not create enough of an impact on the Primary to consider it a different "class".
Hopefully, this is all subject to change
Like a Mage that uses Lightning Bolt and gives everyone a little bit of mana regen etc.
In the steam they said two things that were telling. One: The Bard skills shown where from two Augments. Two: We will be seeing more skills after all the classes get their other two Augments. They are focusing on just two Augments for now. From that my guess that would be a Mage switching between: Fire, Ice, Arcane and something else. Or a Cleric switching between Heals or DPS spec.
The bard skills in the showcase were not augmented by secondary archetypes. If you're talking about the skill tree we saw, that's the primary archetype tree, and I don't believe it's correct to call them augments. Unless I'm mistaken, the secondary archetype tree (augments) will be a totally separate thing.
But I have never felt that it made sense for each of the secondary archetypes to bring the same 4 augments to be applicable for all Primary archetypes. Rather that it makes more sense for each Class (aka primary and secondary archetype combo) to have a set of 4 augments which are thematically and logically appropriate for it. It's still the same total number of augment/skill tree effects 64*4 be it makes the design a lot more flexible if they don't have to be so universally applicable.
The Mage augments being element based for example, thouse sound fine for the augments that other primary archetypes get from a Mage secondary, they get to add element damage to their skills which is what folks would expect. But they have never made sense to me for the Mage itself. Sure a Fire augment on a FireBall spell could just make a bigger Fireball, but Ice Fireballs and Firey Ice Storm that all seems like a mess elemental confusion, nor dose it look like it changes the gameplay much to just change damage types, so why not just have a general 'Empowred' augment for the Mage/Mage (Archwizard) to do 'big slow nukes', a 'Quickened' augment for rapid casting etc. That kind of design feels a lot more effective at creating the diverse styles of play that span risk-reward spectrums and prefered playstyles.
I am doubtful that any Bard secondary archetype augments will involve Healing because that would be redundant with the Augments from Cleric secondary archetypes. If you want your Bard to heal more, then you take a Cleric secondary and become a SoulWeaver, which will certainly contain the 'life' augment to buff healing. The more 'creative' and outside the box type of effects should be what Bard secondary augments provide.
In thinking of what a Mage/Bard (Sorcerer) augment might be I had the idea of 'Juggling' spell casting. The mage can cast spells a kind of 'stack' of insert-element balls without realeasing them up to a stack limit of some kind and which juggle in the air above one hand (so other players can see how many stacks you have) and then they can be released individually or in rapid succession. This gives you an interesting alternative kind of mage play that is breaking the normal rules of casting time by shifting it around.