Bard Specific Feedback

Ghostgg

I did this in P1 for the fighter, but I've been a bard main for P2 so I figured I'd go ahead and leave my thoughts for the devs as someone who has played bard for >100h at this point in pvp/pve large scale to solo.

• Make Melodies persist through CC: Make a change where the song is "paused" during CC so you don't have to constantly reapply them. There is no challenge in pressing a button each time you get CC'd but there is a lot of annoyance. This is the biggest QoL feature for me as it actively angers me fighting say a fighter with lots of trips/sleeps.
• Nimble Dance: This ability is the most powerful ability in the game by miles. This ability is unacceptably powerful. Right now it may be going a bit under the radar since we are in a 1 shot fest but it's absolutely a problem. Other, similar games, have similar abilities, I'll compare this to Black Deserts Protected Area. PA lasts 6 I think seconds (been a while) and has a 10 minute cooldown. Battles are decided by this ability that also provides 50% damage reduction. Nimble dance is PA on a 25s cd, 50% more duration (with first/last application), reapplies constantly so you can hit more people, gives a speed boost, and peels debuffs and most importantly CC off targets hit. Like anyone who's played large scale PVP games should recognize what an absolutely overloaded ability this is. What to do? Leave it as is for PVE, I think it's fine for that. For PVP this needs a massive nerf. I'd nerf the PVP evasion to 20%, with the dispels and movement speed it will still be strong with 20% DR, 50% is a joke. If this remains large scale will turn into rotating nimble dances forever and no one will enjoy unkillable enemies. This is only less of an issue now because we can crit for thousands of damage.
• Read the above bullet again
• Get Off The Stage: Unsure if this is a bug but the knockback is extremely weak in pvp, it would be nice if it moved enemy players a meaningful distance so a clever bard can boop enemies into bad spots.
• Dark Lulluby/Chilling Lement Nerf: Revert the Chilling Lement nerf, the damage was never impressive in the first place. Dark Lulluby could be moved to somewhere between where it is now and where it was. Dark Lulluby should be a good burst option on a medium cooldown.
• Resonant Weapon: The nerfs are fine and warranted on this ability, I think having the shock stack be 2 if it only hits a single target could be explored. My main issue is "twisting" with Music Mastery: Counterpoint, Resonant weapon isn't consistent since you expend your stacks and only one song's proc activates. I think it would be much better if a slightly weaker version of both activated or just both as is. I could even see exploring a space where you can just play 2 songs without having to swap back and forth since bard is already IMO the highest APM class, it would just make the class feel like less work and more fun.
• Discordance: The bounces are better than they used to be, but can we just make it so they won't hit something not actively in combat? I feel like every bard has a love hate relationship with this ability. Also make it so it can't hit CC'd targets please please please.
• ST and AOE options on every spell: I think this is okay... I'd really rather new spells take the place for AoE scenarios but it's not the worst having to choose, though I could see this being really annoying when we can't respec at will. The main issue is constantly having to rearrange my bar and swap the spells. For all classes if they have a ST/AoE variant option make the AoE/ST variant swap on your bar when respeccing to the other. Save us some clicks.
• Sagas: They just aren't fun, powerful, or interesting. The old pantheon buffs were actually decent but they are gone. I'd be way more into having a super cooldown that activates all songs/themes for a short duration on a similar cd. You could also make the buffs from the themes apply party wide when activated. I just don't think any of the current effects are worth even using aside from Heroes of Ages Past.
• Heroes of Ages Past: Can we decouple this from Sagas and make this a key bard ability? It's actually really useful but it's too point intensive IMO. Having this as a separate button would be nice.

The fun part of bard for me is in the dances, boops, CC, spot heals, and damage; it's the flexibility. I think the class is really fun it just needs some QoL, most of the points above are really just QoL changes.

Spif

Yeah, I saw nimble dance and had the same reaction. I'd suggest that nimble dance go to 20% evasion for PvP and PvE. It's plenty good even at that level. Now add a large DR option to a defensive saga. A longer cooldown and proper theme setup sounds like the correct requirement for something that powerful.

Note that attacker accuracy cancels out defender evasion, same as penetration cancels out damage reduction. We don't know the full story of player accuracy buffs, or mob/boss accuracy stats yet.

I very much dislike Discordance for the reasons you mention, and the fact that counterpoint is tied to it makes it even worse. I really want to use counterpoint as a DPS gain for the party, but it's FAR to risky. Can we get a single target vs bounce CHOICE when taking Discordance?

SmileGurney

Nimble dance utility will drop off on higher level as people's accuracy increases. I'm not sure if you know what you wish for.

Ghostgg

SmileGurney wrote: »

Nimble dance utility will drop off on higher level as people's accuracy increases. I'm not sure if you know what you wish for.

Will people's accuracy increase? I assume higher level means more stats to get the same benefit, ie if 100 rating is ~12% accuracy right now it would take >100 accuracy to get that same 12% at level 50. If that's the case I'd argue accuracy will be lower since stats are hugely inflated by the enchanting main stat meta, at least by a % ratio.