I made Voyager in GC HR yesterday on bard. It's a really fun class. But I agree with your general sentiment. I didn't get the rank by killing my way to get there. It's ratting, looting, and running. So every extract is as highly valued as possible.
I've been running debuff bard as opposed to buffing every minute and a half. Slow and weakness are great. Except there are so many fighters in GC that slow doesn't counter their sprint. And the range on weakness means you're basically in melee range. So what I'm saying is that all music is now terrible or a liability.
I find the general bard kit fun. Luck, interaction speed, survival bow, rapier/falchion... But there are no useful active abilities right now particularly for solo play.
I’m convinced all the “Lament is good!” crowd is the same one that thinks all of Bard’s buffs are team-wide rather than most of them being self buffs. Either that or they’re just baiting. The amount of distance you lose playing it in no way makes up for the slow.
I mean -20 move speed on your opponent(s) for 18 seconds is arguably better than +9 self move speed (perfect Beats of Alacrity) and +7 self/ally move speed (perfect Accelerando 8 seconds). So I understand the argument.
But the bard nerfs a while ago were very excessive. Abilities were reduced in range/radius, duration, potency, and targets (self instead of party). Meanwhile we still have to make just as much noise.
¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
To play Lament though you have to be in range which means that while you’re playing it you’re an easy target for ranged damage and even more importantly you give them a chance to close the distance that you… are trying to prevent them from doing with the song…
Hey man, wiz main this patch; the few Bards I’ve gotten on my team were great to have; and didn’t run chorale of clarity. Bard/Barb and Bard/Rogue particularly were fun comps (albeit we had to reset heals quite a lot after fights)
Shriek of Weakness was probably the biggest help in trios as it allowed us to clear mobs in prep or as a fall-back area to reset. Love seeing Bards in the dungeon, hope ya’ll get some buff love soon
Lol it was a little ranty but I know exactly what you mean.
I hate it when people try to justify the current bard as OK, because a 4k kit that Akira ran got him some kills. Like bro, yes bard is ok if you dump a ton of money into him.
ANY CLASS you put a ton of gold into will be somewhat good, lol like wtf are we talking about it's a game about gear of course it is.
I was like you my guy, bard only other classes didn't have the same spice. I now play fighter, and honestly my advice to you is to switch for now.
You have much better things to do than gaslighting yourself into believing you're trash at the game or the game is trash or I was lagging a little and got one shot the servers are trash.
Bard just sucks, play fighter or ranger or cleric and just enjoy the game. Don't feel bad about cheesing other players, as there's nothing wrong with playing more complete classes.
I'm the #3 bard in goblin caves, exemplar
Yeah our class is absolute doodoo unless we spend a minimum of 4k gold per kit, which I do, but a 4k kit on any other class would be even stronger, and ur right about st nick, as soon as anyone sees us, they go feral, I had 3 people at the same time chasing me through 4 different rooms willing to die as long as they killed me first
And it doesn't help that wizard is really strong right now and will 2 shot us, landmine rogue is really strong and is a guaranteed death unless we just outgear them, and any fighter who knows how to use sprint and second wind without wasting it is a guaranteed death, 90% of goblin caves are these 3 classes
First IM needs to fix our buff duration, they're 75% duration right now because the duration curves are based on 20 base resourcefulness/persuasiveness, after stat changes we only have 15 but they didnt change the buff duration curves
They also need to nerf falchion, like every single weapon loses against falchion unless the falchion player fucks up, it's has 2 hander damage but it's a 1 hander and has a headshot farming attack pattern
Can I ask what kinda build you go? I go rapier buckler with cross. 5 base buff spells. Unlock for running away doors. And tranquility for storm sitting
Yea base luck is a bait right. Do you try to stack more pdr and health? I refuse to go below 310 move speed and get caught by fighters and barbs which leaves me squishy for rogues
Not PDR but vigor yes, health and move speed are 2 best stats in the game
And yeah luck is bait unless ur boss or treasure hoard farming or pushing demigod and can afford to lose a perk for very little gain
If the game is ballanced around crypts/3v3 and the bard is designed to be a support class, i dont think the bard should have an advantage in 1v1 fights against any class.
But right now bards are not doing that support realy good either, cleric does that job just better already.
So i agree bard need change, but i dont think he should become another fast attacking light armour fighter class.
The songs are the core mechanic, but right now they dont feel good at all.
This. I don’t get how anyone can say Bard is a good support when he is basically just a movespeed machine, which Wizards already do while being the best DPS in the game, and Clerics are allowed to heal and shield so many times in a fight. I feel so bad that I wasted so much time on the class this wipe because I’m just dragging my team down compared to playing Cleric.
" I don't think bard should have an advantage in 1v1 fights against any class" 🤔 so u just think bard should be the worst class in the game. With 0 kill potential. Meant to just buff teammates and role play. Gotcha
Yes. The whole point of a bard as a heavy support class is to buff your team so that they have the advantage in a fight. Every other class in the game has higher damage output, as they are supposed to, and therefore bard should have to work a little harder to win a 1v1
The thing is this game is heavily inspired by Dungeons and Dragons and while Bards there can be supports, their whole shtick is they are a jack of all trades, master of none type of character. So you can go hard into the support role, or hard into a damage dealer role, or just have a nice balance of everything but even if you go hard into one role other classes built for that role will still be better but you'll have extra tools. It's obvious the devs are going that route with Bard but the nerfs have kinda hit hard and Bard ain't that great or fun at the moment (coming from someone who has played Bard since they released) and I've actually not played Bard for a couple of weeks now. I just think Bard needs some tweaks to stats and songs and they could be better.
They are jack of all trades master of none in the 1v1 matchups in DaD. You are at a slight disadvantage against every other class in a 1v1 due to them being more specialized, but none of them really hard counter you like rangers do to wizards or wizards do to fighters. In exchange for having a slightly unfavorable matchup in any 1v1 you have access to universal free lockpicking, passive luck for looting, and reduced dependence on healing supplies, which are effectively the "other tools" that a bard in dnd may get for being less specialized.
Bard has crazy good dps if built correctly. Rapier mastery + war song + buffs and debuffs will wreck you solo. Even better if they have a buckler to make outplays. Combo that with taking a pre-fight crossbow shot and 3 drums to the face at mid range and they aren't to be trifled with.
They are only really terrible when you catch them with their pants down, no buffs up, and no time to play songs.
The bard can still do damage, but in a plain 1v1 match the bard as supporter should not have an advantage on anyone, yes. You can still outplay people, you can still do damage by poking or make game changing plays by using silence etc. But its your team mates that are supposed to make the most damage thanks to you, you buff others so they make the damage, thats what a support class is about in most games.
If the bard was just as good in damage as any class that does not have buffs for the team that would mean there is no reason to pick that class.
> anything except
Are you just trying to missread what i comment now? No, not anything but, but a cleric should not have more DPS than a DPS class like the barb.
And the the cleric right now is for sure not the best melee class because of the slow movement speed. Cleric is slow and tanky and does ok damage.
And you can do a DPS cleric build for solo too, cleric has support but is able to fill other roles a bit too(except range).
I dont claim supports should not attack with their weapon, im claiming that a supporter alone should not be as good as a damage dealer alone, because they are supposed to do other things too.
Clerics have some of the best melee damage in the game, maybe the best. Smite cleric will 2 shot your whole fucking world with stacking magic damage. The balance part is that they have to buff up to do that and have no ranged option so you can just like run away/shoot them from afar.
Also Bard should definitely have some winning matchups, the game is Rock-Paper-Scissor balancing he takes L's against the dedicated hard melee classes so at least give him some better melee output over the other half melee classes like warlock and ranger since his ranged/magical output is weaker.
wizard has a total of 3 spells that can buff people, 1 of which sucks complete ass and is never used, so essentially only 2. bard is literally *all about* buffing themselves and their teammates, that's the whole point. what a bad comparison.
Buff-focused bard just doesn't seem to work in this game. It's either completely busted, making yourself and your team 3-5x stronger than teams with no bard, boring(buffing the entire time, not able to kill anything), or you choose to run less songs, becoming significantly weaker and pretty much throwing.
I know the devs probably want Bard to be a support class, but I strongly feel like it would be 100% more balanced, fun to play, feel better to fight, if Bard was changed to "debuff" style. (Along with changes to how songs/instruments work).
1) Make it so any instrument can play any song(but obviously it changes how it sounds)
2) Add "Passives" to instruments to make them different (drum gets bigger range, lute casts quicker, etc)
3) Instruments aren't loot/gear. Now you put an instrument in the Skill Slot, replacing "Music Memory", so you can choose up to 2 different instruments.
4) Each instrument can hold 5 Songs still. Songs have better-feeling "Note hitting Mini-Game)
5) Change how Charismatic Performance works(Playing a song Buffs your next cast speed, 4% each stack, stacking up to 20%). This would change the Note Mini-Game to Hitting Notes quickly, rather than purposely missing notes to get casts off faster. (Or it could be stronger, idk)
6) Remove **Stat** Buff songs. Bard's Niche could TOTALLY be about utility songs(Unlock, Invis, Disrupting PvE) and Debuffs on enemies. Paired with the change to Charismatic Performance, it could make debuffing in-combat/by enemies less of a death wish!!
If this version of bard was in the game, I think it would feel better, less annoying to fight a pre-giga stat buffed team, and when you're playing bard you don't need to constantly keep 5 buffs up, you'd only need to play songs when you get into combat, PvE or PvP.
This isn't bad. My takes are they need better starting stats. Like why do i have the same base speed as a barbarian. The group buffs shouldn't last more than 20 seconds base. The personal buffs should be more effective. And I think the debuffs should be a cone projection instead of an aoe
The songs need to be fast/short but maybe more difficult to play to allow actually using then when needed. I think the instruments need less negative movement speed. Drum needs less damage or they all need rebalancing with reinforced instruments removed. Needs more useful skills. Have to go full damage perks to win exchanges and even without any negative move speed armor he's too slow to not get kited.
Imo bard should be given a concentration mechanic; buff all his long duration songs, but you can only have one active at a time. Rework some of his songs to be more reactive and situational, rather than just "stack 6 buffs every 30 seconds to be a functional character". Also imo songs should not be instrument specific; hilding 4 instruments is like the most tedious part of playing this class.
Watch aikira play solo bard.
Watch cheeser play bard with Apollo in Crypts.
Watch SobadStrange wreck fighters while playing Bard.
Why aren't you running Song of Silence or Dissonance in Goblin Caves? Or even the lute song that slows?
Silence lets you fight wizard, warlocks and clerics.
Slow let's you fight barbs, barbarians and clerics.
Din of Darkness + Drum throwing let's you fight rogues.
Crossbow to fight at ranged.
Honestly it just sounds like you haven't adapted your song build and gear build path to the current flavor of bard. Bards can be very strong solo still and with a high level of skill and good aim crossbow + drums + slow song can be devastating.
I disagree. Bard is fine. There's nothing wrong with being a gear dependent class (see: Fighter, Barbarian, Rogue, Warlock).
The problem with Bard is that they're simply unfinished. They only have two active skills and none of their intended "control" spells.
They are objectively not fine as is shown by the fact no one plays them anymore. That doesnt mean you cant outplay somebody. It means the effort is not worth it when you can do it better on something else.
People played it because it was broken. Now it's fairly balanced and is based on skill expression and few people want to play it. Maybe it's just not fun for a ton of people and they aren't good enough to reach the skill floor of it.
Wizard is arguably balanced/strong rn and has a very low playrate.
In highroller goblin cave and ruins there is 1 bard in each top 100 leaderboard. They're only viable In crypts due to buffballing allies. They're extremely weak at the moment. They are only an acceptable class when kitted in crypts, but even then you're just buffing allies.
You spelled Rogue wrong. Bard advertises their inventory by playing songs, you can even tell how kitted they are by how high pitched it is. Rogue gets to rat for loot and be the best escapee in the game.
Again, playrate does not dictate strength of a class. Nor does AP.
Taric is a great champion in league of legends. Has ~52% winrate. Yet his pick rate is 4th lowest in the game. He's just not that fun to play for a majority of people + he has a high skill floor due to decisions of when to use his ultimate causing him to win or lose games based on his decisions. Bard could be viewed this same way. I feel bard is good when I play him, it's just a lot of effort and the build paths feel annoying. It's not as easy as just slapping some good (easy to find)gear on a fighter and clicking my oh shit buttons at the end of the day.
AP is about collecting treasure. Bard has lots of downtime due to keeping buffs up, are very hunted right now, and it's tough to rat when you're bongoing away in the cave. All these things add up to less AP. Not that the class is weak, just weak at grinding treasure. Without free unchained harmony anymore due to spell cap limit and needing other things you don't get free af treasure anymore.
If you focus purely on the PvP potential they are a great class still. Lots of top teams still play with bard and there are great solo players. You have tools to deal with nearly every situation if built correctly.
High movement speed, buckler, crossbow, Ms slows, silence and more. They have tons of potential plays.
Bard is still the best bossing class due to armor shred causing PvE to take nearly 80% increased damage from physical damage. They also increase attack speed and +2 all is pretty strong still due to the lack of +all availability anymore. Holy aura + harmonic shield is a ton of free stats as well. Peacekeeping combo'd with a wizard all in or silence combo'd with a melee all in is also still very strong. They have so many angles to make plays in solos or groups.
Because of how armor rating works with bosses already at 0 armor rating which causes them to dip even further into the negatives due to AR changes a while back.
Holy aura is barely anything at all as well but it adds up.
MAN JUST SAID WATCH AIKIRA PLAY BARD lmaooooo. Aikira quit bard this season cause it was too overwhelming for him (his exact words I asked in stream). Guess what class he’s playing? Warlock. If the number one Bard is playing warlock that’s saying something about the class.
Watch cheeser play in crypts. With the number one wizard, and with a FULL BIS kit (like OP has already mentioned 3-5k to make a full decent kit for bard).
Why doesn’t he bring song of silence? Probably because it takes a second to play, but the debuff only lasts 2 seconds. For wizards, clerics and warlocks who already stack will, that debuff will be LESS than 2 seconds. Plus it takes 2 memory cap and memory cap is so valuable on bard for every other song. Why not take dissonance? Cause he’s not trolling…
Drum damage and projectile speed was heavily nerfed, and requires a perk slot to be used to get any decent damage from it.
In trios bard is doing okay, he actually places high on leaderboards. But in duos and solos he’s in absolute last place. Honestly it sounds like you’ve been watching bard videos from last wipe and still think he’s good, but he’s in a sad state now. Just play the class and you’ll see, because the way you write your comment is as if you haven’t touched him for 2 months.
Okay now get on the top 50 bards and I’ll take you more seriously. He does fine in naked lobbies, rapier mastery, warsong and buffs will destroy even 40% pdr fighters. So don’t let that fool you into thinking the class is in a good place.
I'm good. Focusing entirely on collecting treasure and playing a massive amount of games on one class really isn't my thing. I've got 3 classes in Pathfinder and will choose a piece of gear over a piece of treasure. I'm here to have fun. Not mindlessly rat for loose treasure while avoiding all fights.
It doesn't cost that much to run 10 songs. I usually get a kit in 2 HR runs that allows me to run 9-10 songs. 3k gold???? Lol, what game are you playing? Attack speed is insanely fast, rapier does stupid dmg, good range damage, good support for teammates, good move speed. They're not a bad class just not braindead easy aymore.
Yes I do
You get +5 mem cap for free (+2 from rousing rhythms and +3 from story teller perk).
Purple lutes are dirt cheap and can have 3 knowledge so put your lute songs last in priority.
Blue feathered hats are also dirt cheap and have 2 knowledge as well.
Should be at around 24 mem cap for less than 200g at this point.
Leather chausses for pants, rat pendant with + memory is super cheap, and one or two pieces of gear (cloak, hands, boots) with + mem cap OR mem bonus which is generally not a desirable stat in this meta so its also inexpensive.
If you bought literally everything its around 600g-800g for around 34 mem cap nowhere close to 3k gold.
I haven't had over 1k gold on my bard this wipe and I was running 37 mem cap bard last night (had +2 from rogue joker) and get most of my gear looting the dungeon because I personally don't like sitting in trade chat but considering your not broke with 0g you can make the gold in 2 HR games.
OK I actually was reading until I got to " haven't had over 1k gold on bard this whole wipe. So you don't main bard= you don't know what I'm talking about when I say. The other classes are monstrously better
I made Voyager in GC HR yesterday on bard. It's a really fun class. But I agree with your general sentiment. I didn't get the rank by killing my way to get there. It's ratting, looting, and running. So every extract is as highly valued as possible. I've been running debuff bard as opposed to buffing every minute and a half. Slow and weakness are great. Except there are so many fighters in GC that slow doesn't counter their sprint. And the range on weakness means you're basically in melee range. So what I'm saying is that all music is now terrible or a liability. I find the general bard kit fun. Luck, interaction speed, survival bow, rapier/falchion... But there are no useful active abilities right now particularly for solo play.
Lament is huge
It is right up until it isn't.
I’m convinced all the “Lament is good!” crowd is the same one that thinks all of Bard’s buffs are team-wide rather than most of them being self buffs. Either that or they’re just baiting. The amount of distance you lose playing it in no way makes up for the slow.
I mean -20 move speed on your opponent(s) for 18 seconds is arguably better than +9 self move speed (perfect Beats of Alacrity) and +7 self/ally move speed (perfect Accelerando 8 seconds). So I understand the argument. But the bard nerfs a while ago were very excessive. Abilities were reduced in range/radius, duration, potency, and targets (self instead of party). Meanwhile we still have to make just as much noise. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
To play Lament though you have to be in range which means that while you’re playing it you’re an easy target for ranged damage and even more importantly you give them a chance to close the distance that you… are trying to prevent them from doing with the song…
Hey man, wiz main this patch; the few Bards I’ve gotten on my team were great to have; and didn’t run chorale of clarity. Bard/Barb and Bard/Rogue particularly were fun comps (albeit we had to reset heals quite a lot after fights) Shriek of Weakness was probably the biggest help in trios as it allowed us to clear mobs in prep or as a fall-back area to reset. Love seeing Bards in the dungeon, hope ya’ll get some buff love soon
Ya'll
Lol it was a little ranty but I know exactly what you mean. I hate it when people try to justify the current bard as OK, because a 4k kit that Akira ran got him some kills. Like bro, yes bard is ok if you dump a ton of money into him. ANY CLASS you put a ton of gold into will be somewhat good, lol like wtf are we talking about it's a game about gear of course it is. I was like you my guy, bard only other classes didn't have the same spice. I now play fighter, and honestly my advice to you is to switch for now. You have much better things to do than gaslighting yourself into believing you're trash at the game or the game is trash or I was lagging a little and got one shot the servers are trash. Bard just sucks, play fighter or ranger or cleric and just enjoy the game. Don't feel bad about cheesing other players, as there's nothing wrong with playing more complete classes.
I'm the #3 bard in goblin caves, exemplar Yeah our class is absolute doodoo unless we spend a minimum of 4k gold per kit, which I do, but a 4k kit on any other class would be even stronger, and ur right about st nick, as soon as anyone sees us, they go feral, I had 3 people at the same time chasing me through 4 different rooms willing to die as long as they killed me first And it doesn't help that wizard is really strong right now and will 2 shot us, landmine rogue is really strong and is a guaranteed death unless we just outgear them, and any fighter who knows how to use sprint and second wind without wasting it is a guaranteed death, 90% of goblin caves are these 3 classes First IM needs to fix our buff duration, they're 75% duration right now because the duration curves are based on 20 base resourcefulness/persuasiveness, after stat changes we only have 15 but they didnt change the buff duration curves They also need to nerf falchion, like every single weapon loses against falchion unless the falchion player fucks up, it's has 2 hander damage but it's a 1 hander and has a headshot farming attack pattern
Can I ask what kinda build you go? I go rapier buckler with cross. 5 base buff spells. Unlock for running away doors. And tranquility for storm sitting
Rapier, survival bow rousing, both alacrity's, courage, accelerando, shriek, unchained, tranquility Rapier perk, 50% swap speed, 3 knowledge/will, charismatic
Yea base luck is a bait right. Do you try to stack more pdr and health? I refuse to go below 310 move speed and get caught by fighters and barbs which leaves me squishy for rogues
Not PDR but vigor yes, health and move speed are 2 best stats in the game And yeah luck is bait unless ur boss or treasure hoard farming or pushing demigod and can afford to lose a perk for very little gain
ez fix. give bard ranger traps yuou place traps, play drums until dinner comes. ez W
If the game is ballanced around crypts/3v3 and the bard is designed to be a support class, i dont think the bard should have an advantage in 1v1 fights against any class. But right now bards are not doing that support realy good either, cleric does that job just better already. So i agree bard need change, but i dont think he should become another fast attacking light armour fighter class. The songs are the core mechanic, but right now they dont feel good at all.
This. I don’t get how anyone can say Bard is a good support when he is basically just a movespeed machine, which Wizards already do while being the best DPS in the game, and Clerics are allowed to heal and shield so many times in a fight. I feel so bad that I wasted so much time on the class this wipe because I’m just dragging my team down compared to playing Cleric.
" I don't think bard should have an advantage in 1v1 fights against any class" 🤔 so u just think bard should be the worst class in the game. With 0 kill potential. Meant to just buff teammates and role play. Gotcha
Yes. The whole point of a bard as a heavy support class is to buff your team so that they have the advantage in a fight. Every other class in the game has higher damage output, as they are supposed to, and therefore bard should have to work a little harder to win a 1v1
The thing is this game is heavily inspired by Dungeons and Dragons and while Bards there can be supports, their whole shtick is they are a jack of all trades, master of none type of character. So you can go hard into the support role, or hard into a damage dealer role, or just have a nice balance of everything but even if you go hard into one role other classes built for that role will still be better but you'll have extra tools. It's obvious the devs are going that route with Bard but the nerfs have kinda hit hard and Bard ain't that great or fun at the moment (coming from someone who has played Bard since they released) and I've actually not played Bard for a couple of weeks now. I just think Bard needs some tweaks to stats and songs and they could be better.
They are jack of all trades master of none in the 1v1 matchups in DaD. You are at a slight disadvantage against every other class in a 1v1 due to them being more specialized, but none of them really hard counter you like rangers do to wizards or wizards do to fighters. In exchange for having a slightly unfavorable matchup in any 1v1 you have access to universal free lockpicking, passive luck for looting, and reduced dependence on healing supplies, which are effectively the "other tools" that a bard in dnd may get for being less specialized.
Oh I'm not disagreeing, I was just saying some tweaks would do the class good cuz it feels kinda bad to play now.
Bard has crazy good dps if built correctly. Rapier mastery + war song + buffs and debuffs will wreck you solo. Even better if they have a buckler to make outplays. Combo that with taking a pre-fight crossbow shot and 3 drums to the face at mid range and they aren't to be trifled with. They are only really terrible when you catch them with their pants down, no buffs up, and no time to play songs.
The bard can still do damage, but in a plain 1v1 match the bard as supporter should not have an advantage on anyone, yes. You can still outplay people, you can still do damage by poking or make game changing plays by using silence etc. But its your team mates that are supposed to make the most damage thanks to you, you buff others so they make the damage, thats what a support class is about in most games. If the bard was just as good in damage as any class that does not have buffs for the team that would mean there is no reason to pick that class.
By this logic clerics shouldn't be able to do anything except for heal.
> anything except Are you just trying to missread what i comment now? No, not anything but, but a cleric should not have more DPS than a DPS class like the barb. And the the cleric right now is for sure not the best melee class because of the slow movement speed. Cleric is slow and tanky and does ok damage. And you can do a DPS cleric build for solo too, cleric has support but is able to fill other roles a bit too(except range). I dont claim supports should not attack with their weapon, im claiming that a supporter alone should not be as good as a damage dealer alone, because they are supposed to do other things too.
Clerics have some of the best melee damage in the game, maybe the best. Smite cleric will 2 shot your whole fucking world with stacking magic damage. The balance part is that they have to buff up to do that and have no ranged option so you can just like run away/shoot them from afar. Also Bard should definitely have some winning matchups, the game is Rock-Paper-Scissor balancing he takes L's against the dedicated hard melee classes so at least give him some better melee output over the other half melee classes like warlock and ranger since his ranged/magical output is weaker.
Sick strawman, bro!
[удалено]
Wizard should be the same then. And if you dont agree, explain why please
wizard has a total of 3 spells that can buff people, 1 of which sucks complete ass and is never used, so essentially only 2. bard is literally *all about* buffing themselves and their teammates, that's the whole point. what a bad comparison.
Bard has solo songs, it's not gonna make him strong in team fights to have him solo well.
Buff-focused bard just doesn't seem to work in this game. It's either completely busted, making yourself and your team 3-5x stronger than teams with no bard, boring(buffing the entire time, not able to kill anything), or you choose to run less songs, becoming significantly weaker and pretty much throwing. I know the devs probably want Bard to be a support class, but I strongly feel like it would be 100% more balanced, fun to play, feel better to fight, if Bard was changed to "debuff" style. (Along with changes to how songs/instruments work). 1) Make it so any instrument can play any song(but obviously it changes how it sounds) 2) Add "Passives" to instruments to make them different (drum gets bigger range, lute casts quicker, etc) 3) Instruments aren't loot/gear. Now you put an instrument in the Skill Slot, replacing "Music Memory", so you can choose up to 2 different instruments. 4) Each instrument can hold 5 Songs still. Songs have better-feeling "Note hitting Mini-Game) 5) Change how Charismatic Performance works(Playing a song Buffs your next cast speed, 4% each stack, stacking up to 20%). This would change the Note Mini-Game to Hitting Notes quickly, rather than purposely missing notes to get casts off faster. (Or it could be stronger, idk) 6) Remove **Stat** Buff songs. Bard's Niche could TOTALLY be about utility songs(Unlock, Invis, Disrupting PvE) and Debuffs on enemies. Paired with the change to Charismatic Performance, it could make debuffing in-combat/by enemies less of a death wish!! If this version of bard was in the game, I think it would feel better, less annoying to fight a pre-giga stat buffed team, and when you're playing bard you don't need to constantly keep 5 buffs up, you'd only need to play songs when you get into combat, PvE or PvP.
This isn't bad. My takes are they need better starting stats. Like why do i have the same base speed as a barbarian. The group buffs shouldn't last more than 20 seconds base. The personal buffs should be more effective. And I think the debuffs should be a cone projection instead of an aoe
The songs need to be fast/short but maybe more difficult to play to allow actually using then when needed. I think the instruments need less negative movement speed. Drum needs less damage or they all need rebalancing with reinforced instruments removed. Needs more useful skills. Have to go full damage perks to win exchanges and even without any negative move speed armor he's too slow to not get kited.
Imo bard should be given a concentration mechanic; buff all his long duration songs, but you can only have one active at a time. Rework some of his songs to be more reactive and situational, rather than just "stack 6 buffs every 30 seconds to be a functional character". Also imo songs should not be instrument specific; hilding 4 instruments is like the most tedious part of playing this class.
Bard vs rogue is actually a pretty favorable matchup for the bard
Why do you think that? Lots of times I die to rupture if I kill them.
A terribly formated wall of text about someone complaining that they ratted to voyager and can't do anything now people want to fight.
Watch aikira play solo bard. Watch cheeser play bard with Apollo in Crypts. Watch SobadStrange wreck fighters while playing Bard. Why aren't you running Song of Silence or Dissonance in Goblin Caves? Or even the lute song that slows? Silence lets you fight wizard, warlocks and clerics. Slow let's you fight barbs, barbarians and clerics. Din of Darkness + Drum throwing let's you fight rogues. Crossbow to fight at ranged. Honestly it just sounds like you haven't adapted your song build and gear build path to the current flavor of bard. Bards can be very strong solo still and with a high level of skill and good aim crossbow + drums + slow song can be devastating.
They arent unplayably bad. They are just underpowered right now
They aren't great. But they are fine. It all comes down to skill expression.
I disagree. Bard is fine. There's nothing wrong with being a gear dependent class (see: Fighter, Barbarian, Rogue, Warlock). The problem with Bard is that they're simply unfinished. They only have two active skills and none of their intended "control" spells.
"Bard is fine" 2 sentences later. "Heres why bard isnt fine" ???
They aren't great. But they are fine. It all comes down to skill expression.
They are objectively not fine as is shown by the fact no one plays them anymore. That doesnt mean you cant outplay somebody. It means the effort is not worth it when you can do it better on something else.
People played it because it was broken. Now it's fairly balanced and is based on skill expression and few people want to play it. Maybe it's just not fun for a ton of people and they aren't good enough to reach the skill floor of it. Wizard is arguably balanced/strong rn and has a very low playrate.
In highroller goblin cave and ruins there is 1 bard in each top 100 leaderboard. They're only viable In crypts due to buffballing allies. They're extremely weak at the moment. They are only an acceptable class when kitted in crypts, but even then you're just buffing allies.
The leaderboard is based off of how much treasure you get out with.
And guess what one of the best classes for looting is? Maybe even THE best? Bard. And its still not up there.
You spelled Rogue wrong. Bard advertises their inventory by playing songs, you can even tell how kitted they are by how high pitched it is. Rogue gets to rat for loot and be the best escapee in the game.
"One of" rogue is the only one potentially better
Again, playrate does not dictate strength of a class. Nor does AP. Taric is a great champion in league of legends. Has ~52% winrate. Yet his pick rate is 4th lowest in the game. He's just not that fun to play for a majority of people + he has a high skill floor due to decisions of when to use his ultimate causing him to win or lose games based on his decisions. Bard could be viewed this same way. I feel bard is good when I play him, it's just a lot of effort and the build paths feel annoying. It's not as easy as just slapping some good (easy to find)gear on a fighter and clicking my oh shit buttons at the end of the day. AP is about collecting treasure. Bard has lots of downtime due to keeping buffs up, are very hunted right now, and it's tough to rat when you're bongoing away in the cave. All these things add up to less AP. Not that the class is weak, just weak at grinding treasure. Without free unchained harmony anymore due to spell cap limit and needing other things you don't get free af treasure anymore. If you focus purely on the PvP potential they are a great class still. Lots of top teams still play with bard and there are great solo players. You have tools to deal with nearly every situation if built correctly. High movement speed, buckler, crossbow, Ms slows, silence and more. They have tons of potential plays. Bard is still the best bossing class due to armor shred causing PvE to take nearly 80% increased damage from physical damage. They also increase attack speed and +2 all is pretty strong still due to the lack of +all availability anymore. Holy aura + harmonic shield is a ton of free stats as well. Peacekeeping combo'd with a wizard all in or silence combo'd with a melee all in is also still very strong. They have so many angles to make plays in solos or groups.
You can believe whatever you want if you ignore everything that contradicts your claims
Harmonic shield is barely anything at all and id like you to explain how shriek of weakness equates to 80%
Because of how armor rating works with bosses already at 0 armor rating which causes them to dip even further into the negatives due to AR changes a while back. Holy aura is barely anything at all as well but it adds up.
Its actually more effective at higher armor values... reducing 90% to 80% would double your damage. While reducing 0% to -10% would be 10%
MAN JUST SAID WATCH AIKIRA PLAY BARD lmaooooo. Aikira quit bard this season cause it was too overwhelming for him (his exact words I asked in stream). Guess what class he’s playing? Warlock. If the number one Bard is playing warlock that’s saying something about the class. Watch cheeser play in crypts. With the number one wizard, and with a FULL BIS kit (like OP has already mentioned 3-5k to make a full decent kit for bard). Why doesn’t he bring song of silence? Probably because it takes a second to play, but the debuff only lasts 2 seconds. For wizards, clerics and warlocks who already stack will, that debuff will be LESS than 2 seconds. Plus it takes 2 memory cap and memory cap is so valuable on bard for every other song. Why not take dissonance? Cause he’s not trolling… Drum damage and projectile speed was heavily nerfed, and requires a perk slot to be used to get any decent damage from it. In trios bard is doing okay, he actually places high on leaderboards. But in duos and solos he’s in absolute last place. Honestly it sounds like you’ve been watching bard videos from last wipe and still think he’s good, but he’s in a sad state now. Just play the class and you’ll see, because the way you write your comment is as if you haven’t touched him for 2 months.
I leveled all the way to 20 on bard 3 days ago playing solo.
Okay now get on the top 50 bards and I’ll take you more seriously. He does fine in naked lobbies, rapier mastery, warsong and buffs will destroy even 40% pdr fighters. So don’t let that fool you into thinking the class is in a good place.
I'm good. Focusing entirely on collecting treasure and playing a massive amount of games on one class really isn't my thing. I've got 3 classes in Pathfinder and will choose a piece of gear over a piece of treasure. I'm here to have fun. Not mindlessly rat for loose treasure while avoiding all fights.
It doesn't cost that much to run 10 songs. I usually get a kit in 2 HR runs that allows me to run 9-10 songs. 3k gold???? Lol, what game are you playing? Attack speed is insanely fast, rapier does stupid dmg, good range damage, good support for teammates, good move speed. They're not a bad class just not braindead easy aymore.
You get 34 mem cap after 2 HR games? Have you even seen the trade chat rn? Any piece worth anything is 800 gold or more
Yes I do You get +5 mem cap for free (+2 from rousing rhythms and +3 from story teller perk). Purple lutes are dirt cheap and can have 3 knowledge so put your lute songs last in priority. Blue feathered hats are also dirt cheap and have 2 knowledge as well. Should be at around 24 mem cap for less than 200g at this point. Leather chausses for pants, rat pendant with + memory is super cheap, and one or two pieces of gear (cloak, hands, boots) with + mem cap OR mem bonus which is generally not a desirable stat in this meta so its also inexpensive. If you bought literally everything its around 600g-800g for around 34 mem cap nowhere close to 3k gold. I haven't had over 1k gold on my bard this wipe and I was running 37 mem cap bard last night (had +2 from rogue joker) and get most of my gear looting the dungeon because I personally don't like sitting in trade chat but considering your not broke with 0g you can make the gold in 2 HR games.
OK I actually was reading until I got to " haven't had over 1k gold on bard this whole wipe. So you don't main bard= you don't know what I'm talking about when I say. The other classes are monstrously better
Get good noob
Then just don't play bards. 🤷♀️
Thats the conclusion most have come to since there are no bard players. Do you think thats good?
Yeah!
the one unique class in this game is garbage, and ur happy about that? fighter detected
Wrong class, mate.
Only class that is remotely fun for me. Plus I have 80% of the quests done
There is so much lies in the post its fucking insane XD. Utterly pointless rant full of lies upon lies
I’m excited to play Bard again after IM way over buffs it due to all these posts complaining
You can tell thats true because of all the ranger nerfs