Suggestion Bard Changes

[LordZelkova]

Song of Respiration: Range up to 12, CD up to 12
Warsong: CD Up to 15
Manasong: CD up to 16
HealingChours: Self Heal rate up 5% (70 -> 75%, Will help improve survivability)

All Damage skills lower by 50 stamina (Bard has really bad stamina problems even with Battlesong).

With the current armor changes in place and the ones coming, I feel bard is gonna be a little too squishy.

A Bard has to stand in the middle of a fight if it wants to use all its skills successfully. To make the most of the Stam/Mana costs a bard needs to hit as many people as it can. It can't do that if it can't survive at all.

The only 2 buffs that are actually in this post are one for healing chorus (Get an extra 9HP to self when using healing chorus) and to lower the 3 attack skills by 50 stam. Any 2 of the attack skills and you cant risk using another skill for fear of running too low on stam to sprint, which then just means youre doomed since you cant run out of the way).

Even if the buffs are ignored, can the CD's please be changed? Those are less of a nerf/buff and more of helping a bard not waste their songs (Mainly Mana or Respiration)

 

[LordZelkova]

Bumpity bump.

 

[Glacial_Reign]

The problem with bard is horrible Stam problems and healing chorus is a joke of a skill. I mean it would be okay if it would take off the fire ticks as it heals but with it costing so much Stam and mana it's not even worth using honestly.

Work on the Stam problem before working on it's survivability.

 

[LordZelkova]

The problem with bard is horrible Stam problems and healing chorus is a joke of a skill. I mean it would be okay if it would take off the fire ticks as it heals but with it costing so much Stam and mana it's not even worth using honestly.

Work on the Stam problem before working on it's survivability.

I figured addressing the Cd changes and the survivability would be more likely to be aggred and pushed than Stam reduction.

Personally I think Healing should go back to being similar to Charkra (Low HP heal that removes 1 debuff) and all the stam costs need to be reduced
(I suggest this in the OP but I wanted to keep them minor)

Accelerando is essentially the only good skill atm (Voidsong is good but the silence doesn't last for crap)

 

[Glacial_Reign]

Every skill is vital but healing chorus and song of respiration(I never have used this skill). Void song is really good for being an aoe plus you have kick so you can silence someone for at least 5 seconds and that is alot. You can def shutdown a caster and a healer for most of the fight.

Now melodic binding is a meh skill. I feel like it doesn't do enough damage or doesn't slow enough.

I think the skills cds are fine but some of the Stam costs are insane(I'll start playing with numbers when I'm not at work). As long as they fix the Stam costs I'll be fine with bard being that squishy. With it being squishy it has a big weakness and that's fine. There always needs to be a downside to a class.

 

[LordZelkova]

Every skill is vital but healing chorus and song of respiration(I never have used this skill). Void song is really good for being an aoe plus you have kick so you can silence someone for at least 5 seconds and that is alot. You can def shutdown a caster and a healer for most of the fight.

Now melodic binding is a meh skill. I feel like it doesn't do enough damage or doesn't slow enough.

I think the skills cds are fine but some of the Stam costs are insane(I'll start playing with numbers when I'm not at work). As long as they fix the Stam costs I'll be fine with bard being that squishy. With it being squishy it has a big weakness and that's fine. There always needs to be a downside to a class.

I agree. If the skills felt like they actually did stuff the squishyness would be fine.

Song of Resp I've used a few times but that was just so I could mine on the bottom of the ocean.
Healing is so worthless (I only use it to try and make me die slower)
Melodic binding seems like it doesnt even slow when I use it (The damage is also pitiful)

Also, Void + kick gives just arbout 4 seconds of silence, but then you'd be out of stam.
And trying to keep Battle, War, and Mana songs up will destroy any opportunity to use your attack skills.

 

[Glacial_Reign]

HealingChorus takes 4 stam bars and does 136 worth of healing (not even instant). /unbind healingchorus

 

[LordZelkova]

Bump. @MalaWolf I saw your post in the balance section, any opinions on changing bard as a whole?
MelodicBinding is crud (Damage is pitiful and the slow doesn't work)
HealingChorus is worthless (Too little HP, too slow, too much stam)
It's stam costs are too high (Although Mala's proposed change to Battle song would lessen the Stam problems, maybe remove them for the most part)
It also cannot survive a fight. Small fights sure, but anything more than a 3v3 (Especially if there's lost of AoE's going off) a bard can't be effective. He wont be able to hit people with his skills due being smacked around/focused, he wont be able to buff his teammates, and will probably just die and not do much (Every time we PvP I usually end up just spamming Mana, War, Void, and Accelerando, with the occasional Battle song. But trying to hit someone or use Bellow/Binding is a deaths sentience).

Maybe I'm too out of touch with balance, but I think bard needs a few changes.

 

[MalaWolf]

Bard has pretty bad stamina problems, but damage and survivability aren't major problems imo.

It dies in teamfights because it gets focused, and it should get focused because of the strength of it's manasong/warsong ( and hopefully my proposed battle song) - yes it is relatively weak and cannot stand up without good healing, if it was tanky it would be a requirement to team fight, instead of a somewhat risky, but still viable option to provide endless mana/damage boost to the team. (Also if healers are good they can keep a bard up a long time, especially with paladins using taunt/holyaura ect.

Secondly regarding damage, bard is a support and realistically shouldn't have high damage. Skills like melodic binding are still viable, 140 damage over 12 seconds to an entire enemy party is a decent amount, and if you have the mana/stamina you should be using it. (hopefully i've fixed mana problems) Bard has low/medium damage, because of all the utility it provides, not because it is a bad class.

 

[LordZelkova]

Bard has pretty bad stamina problems, but damage and survivability aren't major problems imo.

It dies in teamfights because it gets focused, and it should get focused because of the strength of it's manasong/warsong ( and hopefully my proposed battle song) - yes it is relatively weak and cannot stand up without good healing, if it was tanky it would be a requirement to team fight, instead of a somewhat risky, but still viable option to provide endless mana/damage boost to the team. (Also if healers are good they can keep a bard up a long time, especially with paladins using taunt/holyaura ect.

Secondly regarding damage, bard is a support and realistically shouldn't have high damage. Skills like melodic binding are still viable, 140 damage over 12 seconds to an entire enemy party is a decent amount, and if you have the mana/stamina you should be using it. (hopefully i've fixed mana problems) Bard has low/medium damage, because of all the utility it provides, not because it is a bad class.

The problem with melodic is it's worthless. The damage is so slow to tick and the slow doesn't exist. You hardly get the damage off.

 

[Glacial_Reign]

Bring back slowness 3 on melodic binding

 

[Ice_Burner]

I feel survivability shouldn't be increased on a Bard since it gives incredibly good buffs. If it was hard to kill when focused down, people could easily peel attackers off and the Bard could continue buffing until one side runs out of mana. No, Bards should be squishy as when a Bard is killed it's pretty much game over for the opponents or you, depending on the situation.

 

[LordZelkova]

I feel survivability shouldn't be increased on a Bard since it gives incredibly good buffs. If it was hard to kill when focused down, people could easily peel attackers off and the Bard could continue buffing until one side runs out of mana. No, Bards should be squishy as when a Bard is killed it's pretty much game over for the opponents or you, depending on the situation.

If melodic binding worked then honestly I'd just like to see Healing Chorus not murder your stamina.

The stam problems are the biggest problem bard has. Getting focused is a problem, but thats just cause it makes sense to focus a bard, its no something you balance out/around.

Bard needs either a little more tankyness or Melodic & Healing to be changes. One or the other.

 

[Ice_Burner]

If melodic binding worked then honestly I'd just like to see Healing Chorus not murder your stamina.

The stam problems are the biggest problem bard has. Getting focused is a problem, but thats just cause it makes sense to focus a bard, its no something you balance out/around.

Bard needs either a little more tankyness or Melodic & Healing to be changes. One or the other.

What I'd like to see is Bard moved to the Support path...

We need to see this on a larger scale; In a 10v10 with a typical comp, you have tons of heals and such rolling along with buffs and on top of all that AoE damage. If HealingChorus' power were buffed we'd end up just buffing survivability of the Bard along with increasing heals on one side which is not needed in my opinion. As with MelodicBinding, an AoE slow along with damage would be too great. I say remove the damage on Melodic, but instead give it a 4 second slow, have it cost 100 stamina, 165 mana, and give it a 20 second CD.

 

[LordZelkova]

What I'd like to see is Bard moved to the Support path...

We need to see this on a larger scale; In a 10v10 with a typical comp, you have tons of heals and such rolling along with buffs and on top of all that AoE damage. If HealingChorus' power were buffed we'd end up just buffing survivability of the Bard along with increasing heals on one side which is not needed in my opinion. As with MelodicBinding, an AoE slow along with damage would be too great. I say remove the damage on Melodic, but instead give it a 4 second slow, have it cost 100 stamina, 165 mana, and give it a 20 second CD.

The damage is garbage. 134 is ok but it ticks so slow that you usually wont hit a lot of people, it also used to have the slow and claims to still have it in game.

You also cannot balance off of just 10v10's or 1v1's. I'm not asking for Healing to get more healing, just not take 4 freaking bars of stam, it is literally worthless, 96 hp is nothing, it takes too much stam, and is generally isn't useful.

 

[Ice_Burner]

The damage is garbage. 134 is ok but it ticks so slow that you usually wont hit a lot of people, it also used to have the slow and claims to still have it in game.

You also cannot balance off of just 10v10's or 1v1's. I'm not asking for Healing to get more healing, just not take 4 freaking bars of stam, it is literally worthless, 96 hp is nothing, it takes too much stam, and is generally isn't useful.

If it isn't useful why use it? I don't think it should have a healing skill at all.

 

[LordZelkova]

If it isn't useful why use it? I don't think it should have a healing skill at all.

The point of bard is to be able ti supply every kind of support (CC, Melodic and Void, Healing, HealingChorus, Damage, Boastful and kick, and buff, the regular songs) but almost always be outlcassed in them (It's CC is outmatched by a lot of classes, It's AoE damage is outclasses, It's damage is outclassed, and Healing is outclassed. The only thing that really stays strong are the regular Buff Songs). But that's okay cause bard can do them all (I mean, sorta. Healing is crap and Melodic doesnt slow)

Bard has almost always has a AoE heal skill. It used to be chakra, a really low HP heal that would remove 1 debuff from the party. Why it was changed into the garbage it is now, I'll never know.

 

[Glacial_Reign]

Yeah if it cured 1 debuff it would be good again otherwise fuck healingchorus

 

[ShadowRavynn]

Every skill is vital but healing chorus and song of respiration(I never have used this skill). Void song is really good for being an aoe plus you have kick so you can silence someone for at least 5 seconds and that is alot. You can def shutdown a caster and a healer for most of the fight.

Now melodic binding is a meh skill. I feel like it doesn't do enough damage or doesn't slow enough.

I think the skills cds are fine but some of the Stam costs are insane(I'll start playing with numbers when I'm not at work). As long as they fix the Stam costs I'll be fine with bard being that squishy. With it being squishy it has a big weakness and that's fine. There always needs to be a downside to a class.

Song of Respiration, in my opinion, sucks. It is easier to use a bucket under water to renew your air.

Melodic Binding is an OK skill but was much better on Bastion when it actually worked decent. On Haven, I quit Bard - alot of the reason was due to warm-ups and changes to melodic binding.

I think Healing Chorus should take go back to how it was with the Chakra type skill...

all in all, I go bard when I do not plant to fight, but instead plan on building and want safe fall and run speed with a miniscule amount of healing - which is at such a late level....

I still think giving bard a port on a long cooldown to spawn would be awesome. doesnt even have to be a group port...

 

[JacobBurkey]

Idk how you guys always have stam probs, I've never had stam probs as bard. Just have to manage your skills right

all in all, I go bard when I do not plant to fight, but instead plan on building and want safe fall and run speed with a miniscule amount of healing - which is at such a late level....

I still think giving bard a port on a long cooldown to spawn would be awesome. doesnt even have to be a group port...

yeah...no.