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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Bard Feedback - 100+ hours - Level 25
Ottobot
Member, Intrepid Pack, Alpha Two
Last weekend i hit level 25 and had the chance to pvp in multiple large scale battles on Resna.
My key takeaways from the bard are as follows
Pros -
Melodies are interesting and swapping between them is decently designed.
The stories system is unique and has a lot of potential.
Flourish and wit are excellent abilities
Cons
The class has too many buttons to press i have 26 buttons to press in combat, while other classes like ranger, and fighter only have 15.
Sagas are weak and stories are very boring to use.
The bards abilities in general are boring to use and lean too far into the jack of all trades master of none category.
How would i improve Bard?
First i would revamp melodies to have better scaling. Having to keep Pensive on 90% of the time is terrible design. 60 seconds into any pvp skirmish the whole raid is oom.
Second. I would revamp Stories to be more interactive, and to reduce button bloat. To do this I would reduce stories cooldowns to 2 seconds, reduce their buffs amounts by 80% and let them be stackable in a raid. The combinations of stories would be brought to the center stage and would play songs (Hymm, anthem, lullaby, serenade, lament, and more).
This solves two CORE ISSUES with the class.
1. Not allowing it to fill in the gaps as needed in the party. Master of none.
2. Button bloat.
In its current state bard abilities like hymm, and serenade do not allow you to full time mana battery or full time heal and the class as a whole feels low impact in every way because of it. This leads to deeper issues with group composition that i won't get into here but basically Intrepid has designed themselves into a 3 support requirement hole because 1 cleric and 1 bard cannot properly heal the other 6 members.
By switching stories to create an ability every 6 seconds you are actively deciding which shortfalls you are alleviating in your party at all times. If you want to use serende 6 times in a row you can if you cast 3 instances of the 2 second yellow stories. By having to lock in to a specific combo, it creates player choice and decision making without being overpowered because you must finish a healing combo before you can use a mana combo.
I listed how this could potentially look below.
3 yellows would be Serenade
2 yellow and 1 blue - A mana / health focused song. (Creates a mana barrier that lasts 6 seconds directs 25% of health damage taken to your mana instead. AOE version gives 5% to party
2 yellow and 1 red - Shoots 3 aimed projectiles every 1 second that heals raid members a small amount, and damages all enemies a small amount. Think Full charged Concentrated scatter shot.
3 Blue would be Hymm
2 blue and 1 yellow - Discorance song.
2 blue and 1 red -Lament
3 Red - Anthem
2 red 1 blue - Lullaby
2 red 1 yellow - A damaging / healing style song (AOE or Single Target lifesteal)
After changing this Sagas now do not have a place. To fix this i would add a 4th story that you cast first. A green song (90 sec CD) that tells the game you are wanting your next combo to be a Saga.
By doing all this i believe we have reesolved the following issues:
1. Bard players to feel like they have more control over their classes toolkit
2. Players have more interesting decisions moment to moment
3. Button bloat has been reduced from 26 buttons to 20, while also adding in 3 new abilities in the bards tool kit.
4. The design bottle neck of 3 supports is resolved because a bard can heal much more than before by trading off on other effects.
5. The class is more fun
Edit. After thinking intrepid could simply put hymm, serenade, anthem,lullaby, and lament on a shared 6 second cooldown and achieve an almost as good result.
My key takeaways from the bard are as follows
Pros -
Melodies are interesting and swapping between them is decently designed.
The stories system is unique and has a lot of potential.
Flourish and wit are excellent abilities
Cons
The class has too many buttons to press i have 26 buttons to press in combat, while other classes like ranger, and fighter only have 15.
Sagas are weak and stories are very boring to use.
The bards abilities in general are boring to use and lean too far into the jack of all trades master of none category.
How would i improve Bard?
First i would revamp melodies to have better scaling. Having to keep Pensive on 90% of the time is terrible design. 60 seconds into any pvp skirmish the whole raid is oom.
Second. I would revamp Stories to be more interactive, and to reduce button bloat. To do this I would reduce stories cooldowns to 2 seconds, reduce their buffs amounts by 80% and let them be stackable in a raid. The combinations of stories would be brought to the center stage and would play songs (Hymm, anthem, lullaby, serenade, lament, and more).
This solves two CORE ISSUES with the class.
1. Not allowing it to fill in the gaps as needed in the party. Master of none.
2. Button bloat.
In its current state bard abilities like hymm, and serenade do not allow you to full time mana battery or full time heal and the class as a whole feels low impact in every way because of it. This leads to deeper issues with group composition that i won't get into here but basically Intrepid has designed themselves into a 3 support requirement hole because 1 cleric and 1 bard cannot properly heal the other 6 members.
By switching stories to create an ability every 6 seconds you are actively deciding which shortfalls you are alleviating in your party at all times. If you want to use serende 6 times in a row you can if you cast 3 instances of the 2 second yellow stories. By having to lock in to a specific combo, it creates player choice and decision making without being overpowered because you must finish a healing combo before you can use a mana combo.
I listed how this could potentially look below.
3 yellows would be Serenade
2 yellow and 1 blue - A mana / health focused song. (Creates a mana barrier that lasts 6 seconds directs 25% of health damage taken to your mana instead. AOE version gives 5% to party
2 yellow and 1 red - Shoots 3 aimed projectiles every 1 second that heals raid members a small amount, and damages all enemies a small amount. Think Full charged Concentrated scatter shot.
3 Blue would be Hymm
2 blue and 1 yellow - Discorance song.
2 blue and 1 red -Lament
3 Red - Anthem
2 red 1 blue - Lullaby
2 red 1 yellow - A damaging / healing style song (AOE or Single Target lifesteal)
After changing this Sagas now do not have a place. To fix this i would add a 4th story that you cast first. A green song (90 sec CD) that tells the game you are wanting your next combo to be a Saga.
By doing all this i believe we have reesolved the following issues:
1. Bard players to feel like they have more control over their classes toolkit
2. Players have more interesting decisions moment to moment
3. Button bloat has been reduced from 26 buttons to 20, while also adding in 3 new abilities in the bards tool kit.
4. The design bottle neck of 3 supports is resolved because a bard can heal much more than before by trading off on other effects.
5. The class is more fun
Edit. After thinking intrepid could simply put hymm, serenade, anthem,lullaby, and lament on a shared 6 second cooldown and achieve an almost as good result.
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