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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 feedback post
Crimsonyoshi
Member, Alpha Two
I've had a chance to play about 15 hours into the Bard class this past weekend. My experience is therefore only on the first 9 levels.
Being an Alpha, I also recognize there may be some unexpected behaviours present, as well as potential tutorials and other content missing for the class. That said, here are my thoughts and impressions so far.
Preamble
Right out of the starting gate, the class tree presents some powerful talent choices, and the first two levels are quick to obtain to unlock those choice nodes. There are five Melodies to choose from of which do one of the following to you and your party:
• Damage multiplier increase
• Chance to heal on damage done
• Passive healing and healing received boosted
• Passive mana regeneration
• Movement speed increase and stamina restoration
You may only have one active Melody at a time. Subsequentially, your base combo attack will trigger an extra Melody effect once the finisher (third spell in the rotation) finishes. For example, the passive mana regeneration Melody pulsates about 3 mana per second, but on every combo finishing move restores a lot more dependant on your level. At character level 9, it restores 47 mana. If you just chain your combo attack over and over, this procs about every 2-3ish seconds over and over, using a spell book weapon.
Next in the talent tree are a more widened selection of abilities such as an aoe heal and shield (in a circle radius around your character), damage and dispel, a knockback, Discordance which flings notes around and bounces off of nearby enemies (great for pulling a group of enemies, but also not great if you only want to try and pull only one mob), further mana restoration (channeled ability), channeled healing, and channeled ice spell which slows enemies as well as damages them.
All the above are available presently in any order right out of the gate (gaining one new talent point per level).
At level 5, the next row unlocks which require the first 4 points to be placed into the above-mentioned talent points in any order. The next row focuses a lot on cc abilities. There’re a few talents which focus on applying debuffs to your enemies such as silence, incapacitate, or stun, and another which cleanses debuffs on your party while also applying movement speed buffs. There’s a life transfer spell, attack and casting speed increase, aoe damage spell based on number of debuffs your target(s) have, and finally a couple of spell modifiers to existing spells you have making them more powerful or apply more buffs / debuffs.
Looking further in the tree and assuming the next row unlocks at level 10, there’s more skill modifiers which increase party stats, or increase the effectiveness of your baseline Melodies. The tooltips suggest a fairly modest increase (from 10-30%) of existing ability boosts and Melodies, or a crescendo which increases melody effects by ramping up to 50% over 20 seconds.
Overall feel of the class
The class really shines as a support class. There was about 15 minutes worth of quests in the first town to get you acquainted with the game and give you a horse (mount). No sooner did I hit level 3 and take my first foray outside the town to start using my abilities, the feel comes through perfectly that you are a support class. To clarify, it is challenging but far from impossible to farm monster’s solo (more so as you level up and face higher level mosnters). I fortunately came into Alpha with a small group of friends, and this class really shines in group play.
That said, there are what I feel to be rough edges. In group play with a tank, healer (cleric) and a dps, my job is to be the mana battery, and basically nothing more. 85-90% of the time, I am holding the combo attack button down and ensuring I have Pensive Melody (mana regen) running. As a quick side note, in my “old” age, I find holding a button down to be discomforting over repeatedly pressing a button every second or two. It would be nicer if the combo button had that option without going into the alternative attack mode (the “z” button).
I find I don’t really get to use any of my other skills in group play, as when the other characters run out of mana, the overall speed and effectiveness of our progress is significantly blunted. And they will run out of mana after a small handful of pulls!
Granted, this will likely lessen once the level 10 talent row unlocks, and I can boost the effectiveness of my mana restores. I am also using a spell book for damage, where as a wand and catalyst offhand afford quicker cast times, for lower damage done per hit. The wand may be able to afford me time to use my other skills more. If so, having the option to use a wand at the start of the game rather than farming for silver to buy it would be beneficial for new characters.
However, to have put this many hours in and have it reinforced early on to spend so much of your time holding down your basic combo attack doesn’t -feel- good, especially if you need to unlearn this behaviour later through more skills modifying your rotation later on.
Talents, a deeper dive
In my opinion, Melodies are an excellent base to start this class with. As mentioned above, the mana one is critical to have with the current tuning. Without a cleric in the party, I can alternate between Pensive (mana) and Cheerful (healing) Melodies, but I can’t say I’ve found a use for the other three to ever use (Menacing – damage multiplier increase, Cathartic – chance to heal on damage done, Epic – 10% movement speed increase and stamina regeneration increased by 1). Again, I’m still early game and these may have much higher value in later game content, but for this point in the game, they are inferior choices to the other two.
As I see a lot of talents regarding cc, and dispelling, I assume mobs later in game apply affix statues (or pvp content). Again, for the time being, I have avoided taking these talents in favour of Gambit (health transfer), Anthem of Alacrity (physical and magical attack speed increase buff), and Hymn of the Mind (channeled mana restore). These talents seem to have more impact to early group content, and I really enjoy buffing the group. I will note that Hymn of the Mind seems lacklustre. My base combo attack which pulsates for 3 mana a second, and then hits 47 mana at the end of the combo cast restores more mana than Hymn of the Mind does over a three second cast, and then add a 25 second cooldown to that! In my opinion, Hymn of the Mind needs to be increased by nearly a factor of 10 to be at par with Pensive melody + base combo attacking, and even then, I’d only use Hymn of the Mind between pulls.
I’m also not sure if the Melodies are bugged or not with their duration. My expectation was they would need to be cast every 30 seconds, but they seem to last in perpetuity unless you get on your mount, modify your talent tree, cast a different Melody, or otherwise are out of combat for over a few minutes. Truthfully, I’m happy that they are working in perpetuity, as if I had to cast the same Melody every 30 seconds for the hours of gameplay I’ve done, having to press the same button over and over and over again in such a short cycle is not engaging. This also ties into the base combo spell to force mana regen 85-90% of the time as mentioned earlier as not being engaging.
Miscellaneous
I agree with other comments regarding our base combo attack should fling out notes instead of the purple balls of energy. Again, this may be an Alpha thing and not the final design.
I enjoyed the boosts crafted gear gave me. I could feel the power increase to my abilities with the additional gear. It’s super interesting to see set bonuses on crafted gear, as well as that set bonus upgrading with higher quality gear of the same set, but this is getting a little off topic of the class feedback. The takeaway from this though is gear feels incredibly important to a good chunk of my abilities as well as the mana battery that I am.
I wear cloth gear and nothing yet has one shot me. Though, two is close from some of the elite mobs.
I’d like to see our weapon visual be our instrument rather than a wand or a spell book (or bow, etc.).
I’d like to have a little more soloing options in game from level 7-9 for when my friend’s group isn’t online. Filling this time with crafting and gathering seems to be a focus, but there’s other times I just want to go and smash a highway bandit without having to worry about not being able to kill him before he kills me (or he invites some friends along to smash my face) and blowing nearly all my skills to accomplish this each time.
Conclusion
Even with the rough edges I’ve mentioned above, I still thoroughly enjoy this class with the group content gameplay available to me. I would like some versatility to being a mana battery rather than being forced to hold down my base combo ability for 85% of my gameplay. Perhaps having other spells and talents tie into your current Melody would allow for this?
I also think some extra tutorials in the first city regarding your class would be welcome, but again, this is Alpha!
Finally, having more buff and debuff options would really solidify this class type for me, but perhaps this will come with cross classing. I'd like to see debuffs that allow your party to do more damage to your targets, and buffs which further augment your party's abilities to deal more damage / status effects rather than just utility type buffs and debuffs (excluding cc from this statement).
As to the base feel of the class, it’s there. Support classes have always been my class of choice, and this hits that mark for me in so many ways.
Overall, I am more positive in feeling towards the Bard class in the early game and want to give kudos to the developers for what I’ve seen so far. The foundation of the class seems to be there, and I look forward to see future iterations of this class, as well as getting myself to higher levels to really see this open up more.
Being an Alpha, I also recognize there may be some unexpected behaviours present, as well as potential tutorials and other content missing for the class. That said, here are my thoughts and impressions so far.
Preamble
Right out of the starting gate, the class tree presents some powerful talent choices, and the first two levels are quick to obtain to unlock those choice nodes. There are five Melodies to choose from of which do one of the following to you and your party:
• Damage multiplier increase
• Chance to heal on damage done
• Passive healing and healing received boosted
• Passive mana regeneration
• Movement speed increase and stamina restoration
You may only have one active Melody at a time. Subsequentially, your base combo attack will trigger an extra Melody effect once the finisher (third spell in the rotation) finishes. For example, the passive mana regeneration Melody pulsates about 3 mana per second, but on every combo finishing move restores a lot more dependant on your level. At character level 9, it restores 47 mana. If you just chain your combo attack over and over, this procs about every 2-3ish seconds over and over, using a spell book weapon.
Next in the talent tree are a more widened selection of abilities such as an aoe heal and shield (in a circle radius around your character), damage and dispel, a knockback, Discordance which flings notes around and bounces off of nearby enemies (great for pulling a group of enemies, but also not great if you only want to try and pull only one mob), further mana restoration (channeled ability), channeled healing, and channeled ice spell which slows enemies as well as damages them.
All the above are available presently in any order right out of the gate (gaining one new talent point per level).
At level 5, the next row unlocks which require the first 4 points to be placed into the above-mentioned talent points in any order. The next row focuses a lot on cc abilities. There’re a few talents which focus on applying debuffs to your enemies such as silence, incapacitate, or stun, and another which cleanses debuffs on your party while also applying movement speed buffs. There’s a life transfer spell, attack and casting speed increase, aoe damage spell based on number of debuffs your target(s) have, and finally a couple of spell modifiers to existing spells you have making them more powerful or apply more buffs / debuffs.
Looking further in the tree and assuming the next row unlocks at level 10, there’s more skill modifiers which increase party stats, or increase the effectiveness of your baseline Melodies. The tooltips suggest a fairly modest increase (from 10-30%) of existing ability boosts and Melodies, or a crescendo which increases melody effects by ramping up to 50% over 20 seconds.
Overall feel of the class
The class really shines as a support class. There was about 15 minutes worth of quests in the first town to get you acquainted with the game and give you a horse (mount). No sooner did I hit level 3 and take my first foray outside the town to start using my abilities, the feel comes through perfectly that you are a support class. To clarify, it is challenging but far from impossible to farm monster’s solo (more so as you level up and face higher level mosnters). I fortunately came into Alpha with a small group of friends, and this class really shines in group play.
That said, there are what I feel to be rough edges. In group play with a tank, healer (cleric) and a dps, my job is to be the mana battery, and basically nothing more. 85-90% of the time, I am holding the combo attack button down and ensuring I have Pensive Melody (mana regen) running. As a quick side note, in my “old” age, I find holding a button down to be discomforting over repeatedly pressing a button every second or two. It would be nicer if the combo button had that option without going into the alternative attack mode (the “z” button).
I find I don’t really get to use any of my other skills in group play, as when the other characters run out of mana, the overall speed and effectiveness of our progress is significantly blunted. And they will run out of mana after a small handful of pulls!
Granted, this will likely lessen once the level 10 talent row unlocks, and I can boost the effectiveness of my mana restores. I am also using a spell book for damage, where as a wand and catalyst offhand afford quicker cast times, for lower damage done per hit. The wand may be able to afford me time to use my other skills more. If so, having the option to use a wand at the start of the game rather than farming for silver to buy it would be beneficial for new characters.
However, to have put this many hours in and have it reinforced early on to spend so much of your time holding down your basic combo attack doesn’t -feel- good, especially if you need to unlearn this behaviour later through more skills modifying your rotation later on.
Talents, a deeper dive
In my opinion, Melodies are an excellent base to start this class with. As mentioned above, the mana one is critical to have with the current tuning. Without a cleric in the party, I can alternate between Pensive (mana) and Cheerful (healing) Melodies, but I can’t say I’ve found a use for the other three to ever use (Menacing – damage multiplier increase, Cathartic – chance to heal on damage done, Epic – 10% movement speed increase and stamina regeneration increased by 1). Again, I’m still early game and these may have much higher value in later game content, but for this point in the game, they are inferior choices to the other two.
As I see a lot of talents regarding cc, and dispelling, I assume mobs later in game apply affix statues (or pvp content). Again, for the time being, I have avoided taking these talents in favour of Gambit (health transfer), Anthem of Alacrity (physical and magical attack speed increase buff), and Hymn of the Mind (channeled mana restore). These talents seem to have more impact to early group content, and I really enjoy buffing the group. I will note that Hymn of the Mind seems lacklustre. My base combo attack which pulsates for 3 mana a second, and then hits 47 mana at the end of the combo cast restores more mana than Hymn of the Mind does over a three second cast, and then add a 25 second cooldown to that! In my opinion, Hymn of the Mind needs to be increased by nearly a factor of 10 to be at par with Pensive melody + base combo attacking, and even then, I’d only use Hymn of the Mind between pulls.
I’m also not sure if the Melodies are bugged or not with their duration. My expectation was they would need to be cast every 30 seconds, but they seem to last in perpetuity unless you get on your mount, modify your talent tree, cast a different Melody, or otherwise are out of combat for over a few minutes. Truthfully, I’m happy that they are working in perpetuity, as if I had to cast the same Melody every 30 seconds for the hours of gameplay I’ve done, having to press the same button over and over and over again in such a short cycle is not engaging. This also ties into the base combo spell to force mana regen 85-90% of the time as mentioned earlier as not being engaging.
Miscellaneous
I agree with other comments regarding our base combo attack should fling out notes instead of the purple balls of energy. Again, this may be an Alpha thing and not the final design.
I enjoyed the boosts crafted gear gave me. I could feel the power increase to my abilities with the additional gear. It’s super interesting to see set bonuses on crafted gear, as well as that set bonus upgrading with higher quality gear of the same set, but this is getting a little off topic of the class feedback. The takeaway from this though is gear feels incredibly important to a good chunk of my abilities as well as the mana battery that I am.
I wear cloth gear and nothing yet has one shot me. Though, two is close from some of the elite mobs.
I’d like to see our weapon visual be our instrument rather than a wand or a spell book (or bow, etc.).
I’d like to have a little more soloing options in game from level 7-9 for when my friend’s group isn’t online. Filling this time with crafting and gathering seems to be a focus, but there’s other times I just want to go and smash a highway bandit without having to worry about not being able to kill him before he kills me (or he invites some friends along to smash my face) and blowing nearly all my skills to accomplish this each time.
Conclusion
Even with the rough edges I’ve mentioned above, I still thoroughly enjoy this class with the group content gameplay available to me. I would like some versatility to being a mana battery rather than being forced to hold down my base combo ability for 85% of my gameplay. Perhaps having other spells and talents tie into your current Melody would allow for this?
I also think some extra tutorials in the first city regarding your class would be welcome, but again, this is Alpha!
Finally, having more buff and debuff options would really solidify this class type for me, but perhaps this will come with cross classing. I'd like to see debuffs that allow your party to do more damage to your targets, and buffs which further augment your party's abilities to deal more damage / status effects rather than just utility type buffs and debuffs (excluding cc from this statement).
As to the base feel of the class, it’s there. Support classes have always been my class of choice, and this hits that mark for me in so many ways.
Overall, I am more positive in feeling towards the Bard class in the early game and want to give kudos to the developers for what I’ve seen so far. The foundation of the class seems to be there, and I look forward to see future iterations of this class, as well as getting myself to higher levels to really see this open up more.
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