Okay, here's compendium of ideas. Please comment,
refine, etc. First issue however is a RFC:
When Nameless went down (again :P) GM-Hideaki
(Nameless GM boss) was in channel Wazzap Hideaki! and
asked if anyone was a bard, I piped up and he said he
and GZ were brainstorming (who was immediately
upstairs from Hideaki) on bard song ideas for
expansion. He for my input on the following:
1. How would we feel about a PARTY BIND song, using a
very expensive reagent and mana cost.
--I told him that we did not want a bind song if it
was identical to casters, however if the song allowed
you to bind anyone anyplace (melees included) then we
would certainly welcome it, especially at higher (51+)
levels since expansion zones are rumored to be mammoth
in scale.
2. How would we feel about party invis vs undead.
--I asked, "doesn't clouding provided limited invis vs
undead?" His unequivocal answer was "no." Feel free
to inject more impolite comments here
firehawk@... but I'm trying very hard to help
since I really care about bards. I told GM-Hideaki
we'd like an upgrade to Clouding that combined invis,
invis vs undead and sneak (meaning no spell graphic)
since this would give us an ability no single caster
can provide (both invis types) and the no spell
graphic would be a boon to +PvP servers.
Now, on to a compendium of ideas. I am not making any
judgements on them, but I did take the liberty of
combining similar ideas and/or taking the most well
written version of an idea and posting that. I will
attribute all song ideas to
eqbards@onelist.com unless
you explicitly email me (privately if you want,
gww6e@...) to say otherwise.
3. Upgraded charm. Everyone and his brother (over 35
responses) wanted this and hey, I do too. :)
4. Upgrade to clouding. Nuff said, and I think I
summed it up that we'd like a song that can provide
both types of invis.
5. An improved damage shield. This appears to be
drawing interest:
Denon's Sonic Reflection
Brass
Gives all party members a damage reflection shield.
Causing a portion of the damage done to them in combat
(melee & non-melee) to be reflected back at the
attacker).
6. An improved AE DoT with added effect (stamina drain
being a common thread, the other was a lifetap
affect). Question at large: do mobs have stamina and
if so, does it impact their ability to fight?
7. Upgrade to selo's OR remove hard speed cap. I
personally want the cap removed vice burning another
spell slot on an upgrade.
8. Upgrade to clarity.
Cassandra's Clarified Elegy
Provides clarity2 (whatever that might be) +
(limited?) elegy effect.
9. Upgrade to MR debuffing abilities.
Denon's Fog of War. AE snare. AE slow attack speed. AE
Dot. AE magic debuff (30 pts at least). effect of fog?
10. One-way teleport (self only? to bard guild?).
(Please no flames on this, I can already see it
coming)
11. Mem blur song.
Fitful's Forgetful Improv
Voice
Causes the target to become so fixated on the improv
that it forgets whatever else it was dong. Drawback:
Bard possibly left on hate list.
12. Upgraded Atk Song
Since we are out speed buffed by enchanters, a
straight addition to Atk with an added component.
Most commonly heard suggestion: rune type shielding.
Other suggestions: massive ac bonus, massive
regeneration effect, massive MR buff.
13. A proc song
The Chromatic Scale
Level: 36th
Skill: Singing
Description: A chromatic scale is all the notes an
instrument is capable of producing, generally played
starting from the lowest to the highest and then back
down; slurred up (ligato), tongued down (staccato).
The Chromatic Scale when song by the bard would act
much as the Vampiric Embrace necro spell in that it
imparts a proc to melee attacks however the twist is
that there would be 5 different types which randomly
kick off: magic, fire, cold, disease and poison based
attacks. These would be DD's - there by filling in our
missing DD ability, but in a uniquely bard fashion
(group based, becomes more powerful as you add members
and err... randomly good -- maybe. hehe). Verant of
course would come up with some cute little chromatic
sparkles to surround us and multi colored blasts as
the proc goes off. :)
PS: For those D&D fans, recall the Chromatic* line of
spells.
14. A bard additive song
Cinda's Companion Cantata
Level: 49th+
Skill: Variable (see below)
Description: A cantata is a composition scored for
many parts at once, incorporating both voice and
instrumental accompaniment, hence this song would
allow bards in the same group to ally their voices in
song to intensify the effects of a common song - to
"stack" the same song, perhaps with at
100*(2-((6-n)^(1/6)))% effectiveness, where n is the
number of bards playing cantata. Yes, this could be
exceptionally powerful, what with twisting and all,
but this could easily be limited to only effect the
"top" bard song in the spell list of the lead singer,
whilst the "recovery" period of stopping the song
would be such that twisting wouldn't be possible if
you were a cantata player.
Example: A group composed of 1 warrior and 2 bards
stops to rest. Bard 1
begins to sing Hymn, only to be joined in song by bard
2 with Cinda's
Cantata - boosting regeneration by their now intensity
music (by the SWAG
formula above that would be a +69%).
Full stacking numbers would be:
n +%
--- -----
1 69
2 74
3 80
4 88
5 100
15. Song of Silence
Solon's Song of Silence
Effect: NON-PARTY: Silence.
PBAE, fixed radius, 2 tick negate casting.
NPC has one chance to resist intial and to break free
each tick there after. Lute for enhanced effects. Save
versus Magic.
Comments? I pulled a few of these from the eqbards
archives (btw the onelist search facilities need some
serious help). Please no flames on this and I thank
everyone for the mountain of responses. If I missed
your email, I apologize.
Thanks,
-Tork@Nameless
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