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Resonate Weapon

bropocalypsebropocalypse Member, Alpha Two
in Bard Archetype
I want to begin with saying I played the Alpha 2 for the first time last weekend and absolutely loved it. I played a Bard up to level 12 and it just felt unstoppable. I played mostIy solo/duo with my brother exploring and grinding. I ended up wielding the spell book and a 2-H Spellcaster Greatsword. The amount of sustain I had from Cheerful Melody rolling and Resonate Weapon passively proc'ing from every 3rd auto attack felt amazing. On top of Mana Regen from auto attacks. When I'd go melee I'd weave in a quick wits. Add with Anthem of Alacrity increasing my attack speed by 25% my Resonate Weapon Heals were through the roof. I loved it and started to imagine myself as a Tellsword in the future Bard/Fighter in melee. Especially with the 2h talent that increases your melee attack speed by 15% for x amount of time. But now after reading the upcoming patch notes with Resonate Weapon I'm not sure how it's going to work. I guess we'll see come this weekend how the new Resonate Weapon feels, relying on casting abilities and gaining stacks. I suppose Bards were/are OP and needed some tough love but I am a little bummed/slightly bothered from it. Anyways, I know there will be plenty more changes to come in the future and it was fun while it lasted. This game is lovely and I look forward to diving more into it.

Comments

  • ShivaFangShivaFang Member, Alpha Two
    edited November 13
    I have concerns about the changes to resonant weapon, as it changes the playstyle I gravitated to. but I get the reason for the change.
    The bard playstyle has gravitated to auto-attacking for most of the fight and using the abilities as a situational toolkit. I really enjoyed playing frontline support with a Great Spellsword and applying shielding dance, conflict, and Alacrity to my front line with menacing melody up.

    I hope that this change opens the door for this playstyle to be on the Bard/Fighter spec - perhaps an augment for Resonant Weapon that has a chance to proc Resonance whenever you make a basic attack to allow the bard to be more melee than typical.

    The other concern I have is if we are getting fewer Resonant weapon procs in Pensive Melody, then the party will get less mana. This will make it more necessary to have 2 bards in Pensive melody than it currently is - meaning the other melodies may as well not exist. The base passive tick of pensive melody may need to be increasaed to compensate (which both reduces effectiveness of stacking and offsets the amount of mana loss from the resonant weapon changes)

    On the other hand I like that this change makes attack speed less neccessary. Short Spellbow was pretty much mandatory on Bard and it often felt bad to be in melee when I was responsible for Pensive Melody in my party since the great spellsword procs finishers less frequently. Now this no longer matters and I have more flexibility in which weapon I choose to use when I have resonance stacks.

    but these are observations only from the patch notes, and it'll be hard to determine until I actually get to try it out.

    I was thinking on Monday that there's a 60% chance that bard will be my main (even though I was originally going to go roughe) but now that the class has become much more busy, I think that's dropped down to 40% pending how much I may or may not like Rogue.
  • ThevoicestHeVoIcEsThevoicestHeVoIcEs Member, Alpha Two
    I have similar impressions. The change undermines my idea of melee / frontline support, which I imagined the Tellsword "might" end up being. A lot of Bard abilities are channelled, not a greatest synergy for a frontliner.
    My lungs taste the air of Time,
    Blown past falling sands…
  • AndiAndi Member, Alpha Two
    edited November 17
    You're supposed to stand there now, next to the cleric, and feed them mana by running the song while doing any cast.

    That's the thing: Before the change, you were active. You did damage, paid attention to the party and reacted flexibly. Tank HP looked bad, drop a heal. Big pull incoming, drop a shield. Pull goes bad, AOE mez. Tank mana down, feed them some. And so on. Bard had a great toolkit and the flexibility to use it intelligently. Now, though, your playstyle is prescribed, and spells don't exist for their effects anymore - they exist to build stacks, so you can feed mana.

    They took a dynamic class and turned it into a second monitor box.
  • ShivaFangShivaFang Member, Alpha Two
    ThevoicestHeVoIcEs wrote: »
    I have similar impressions. The change undermines my idea of melee / frontline support, which I imagined the Tellsword "might" end up being. A lot of Bard abilities are channelled, not a greatest synergy for a frontliner.

    No, it's fine now. I'm still the front line support with a melee weapon (how I expect a tellsword to play). And yeah you don't want to use too many channeled spells. I keep shielding dance and lullaby on my bar, but remember quick wit generates resonance too.

    A significant amount of my gameplay is on the front shielding and countering spells while whacking enemies with my mace (I just got a carphen mace so I'm using it instead of a greatsword)
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