Utility through combo finisher is not good (resonance spending)

Spif

TLDR: Only being able to spend resonance with a combo finisher, and being forced to spend most/all of your resonance every combo finisher is not good for the class mechanic.

The more I play bard, the less I like the fact that the only way to get the resonance effect is to finish a combo. There is so little control over when you spend. Not auto-attacking to control resonance is a large DPS loss. Not speccing into the extended finisher can get you more control (only 4 stacks used), but the extended finisher has so much good stuff. Using a skill to clip the combo before the finisher works in some situations to keep resonance, but feels bad. I'm not twapping with my wand to get small auto-attack damage, I want the finishers to fire!

Resonance spending only happening through combo finisher does works ok in some situations: solo grinding and group PvE when doing DPS and mana battery roles. And, since these are the most common bard roles I think the clunkiness of resonance spending isn't noticed as much

However, Cheerful Melody is terrible with the way resonance spending works. Waiting for several auto attacks to finish before getting a heal. Or not attacking so that I don't use all the resonance I have when nobody needs a heal. Again, feels bad.

I have not PvP'd a lot, but the same issues apply, just more so because you are changing melody more often. Also, sometimes you don't have a target to combo (out of range, CC'd, etc)

The new Fortissimo is a step towards helping with that, but it doesn't generate a "resonance spend" effect, rather it spends for an alternate effect. It's a good addition, but doesn't solve the problem.

My main suggestion would be to give us a skill that spends resonance, same as firing a combo (up to 4 stacks). For the damage spenders, have the damage/debuffs be PBAE. 3s cooldown, which is about the length of a combo...or no cooldown since building resonance already has time based limits. Note that this is a downgrade from spending-res-on-combo, because the skill will have cast time, but you don't get the combo effect.

I would also love an option to not spend resonance on combo finisher. Example, some kind of togglable skill on the bar. Right now the only way to not spend resonance is to not have a melody going, or use epic and nobody has a debuff

SmileGurney

I don't mind the resource spender bard loops, but I have to admit that in group setting whatever pve or pvp, you often find yourself unable to spend the stacks. Nerfs to Chilling Lament, and especially Dark Lullaby's extra damage based on number of de-buffs on the target make very little sense.

Spif wrote: »

TLDR: I have not PvP'd a lot, but the same issues apply, just more so because you are changing melody more often

With the recent changes, you have to sweat if you want to squeeze every possible advantage on bard. Counterpoint is an interesting idea, but in my experience you won't see a lot of bards running multiple melodies in pvp. There is already a lot to track on your screen and melody switching takes too long in many pvp situations. Still Counterpoint is nowhere as bad as Song Mastery: Dissonance, which is impossible to use optimally in pvp, or even pve. Probably something which deserves its own topic at this point.

Fortissimo isn't a step in good direction. It's another button on bard you press to obtain a < 10 second long buff and pretty easy to miss out on due to how rapidly pvp can change.
Also I would not be surprised if introduction of Fortissimo is the sole reason why Chilling Lament and Dark Lullaby were over-nerfed, to fit this extremely gimmicky "teamplay" button.

Shortening Fortissimo's cooldown from 60 second to ZERO could make it work better, at least you would have flexibility to use those stacks when you want, instead of a very narrow time window.

Spif

My opinion is that Chill and Lullaby were (wrongly) nerfed because they now grant 2 stacks of resonance instead of 1, and it used to be easy to get 5 debuffs since stacked debuffs like shock are counted.

Since melodies can be cast while doing almost anything else aka off the gcd, I never found changing them a problem at all. Sure, the cast is long enough that you can't use them reactively to heal or remove debuffs, but to keep up cathartic and menacing (for example) is just a matter of remembering to hit the buttons.

Glowies

Talked to Bucky about this. He is thinking about changing the system. He looks at our feedback. We need a dedicated ability to spend resonance on WHO we target. Including Mana Return, CC cleanses, Damage, and Healing. Also cherry on top if the animation uses your INSTRUMENT. Hello we are bards. We barley use our instruments.

SmileGurney

Glowies wrote: »

Talked to Bucky about this. He is thinking about changing the system. He looks at our feedback. We need a dedicated ability to spend resonance on WHO we target. Including Mana Return, CC cleanses, Damage, and Healing.

How is that going to help anything? You are already spending your stacks on your party with pensive, cheerful, and Epic. This would be yet another change which makes the most APM intensive class even MORE APM intensive. Knowing life it would likely result in addition of another button to press to get another few seconds long effect.

Resonance isn't a problem, too many long channel abilities just might be. I suppose we should be grateful we can interrupt the cast time.

Melodies taking 2 seconds to cast is definitely a problem. Make melodies instant cast, instead of 2 seconds or whatever it is atm. Bard melodies should not get interrupted by mounting up or CC. There you go, our ability to spend R-stacks just improved tenfold.

Calibix

Strongly agree that the system is poor. AFAIK bards are the only class whose mechanic depends on auto attacks. It doesn't feel good in group PvP having a bunch of resonance stacks and only having the opportunity to use them during footsies or after all the other useful skills you should be using are on cool down.

Compare trying to use resonance stacks to a mage for example. Mage doesn't need to build stacks, anything with a cast time gets out faster than a full auto combo, and the rotation doesn't have to restart if god forbid you had to flourish or heal or whatever before you got to the finishers.

Furthermore, autos scale with physical attack speed on a magic class. It's not thought out well at all.

SmileGurney

Calibix wrote: »

Strongly agree that the system is poor. AFAIK bards are the only class whose mechanic depends on auto attacks. It doesn't feel good in group PvP having a bunch of resonance stacks and only having the opportunity to use them during footsies or after all the other useful skills you should be using are on cool down.

Compare trying to use resonance stacks to a mage for example. Mage doesn't need to build stacks, anything with a cast time gets out faster than a full auto combo, and the rotation doesn't have to restart if god forbid you had to flourish or heal or whatever before you got to the finishers.

Furthermore, autos scale with physical attack speed on a magic class. It's not thought out well at all.

Sure, but the Resonance mechanics enable Bard's class flexibility. Mage has no reason for that mechanic, because it has a relatively simple dps role. Resonance stacks, through Melodies, allow Bard to play its main support role and switch it's secondary role at will, between heal/mana support and dps. I find this a fairly elegant solution, as in order to build stacks up you have to play your main role first.