You didn't add the idea of the Random Evac song that quite a few people
liked the idea of:
Niv's Chords of Dispersion
Level: 45th/49th??
Skill: Stringed
Description: This is an evac song that is different to wizard/druid evacs.
The songs only effects party members in the zone and has a 3 second casting
time, once evaced the group will be distributed around Norrath at various
wizard/druid gates. The bard could end up in Gtr Fay and the Warrior in
North Karana. The song also uses 150-200 mana per cast (stops the use of
random porting for solo bards). This would be an nice addition to the bards
songs giving them a personal evac (might reduce bard deaths) aswell as a
group evac for big emergencies (evacer OOM). With only a 3 second casting
time it is better than the wizard/druid line of evacs but the random
dispersion of the group means that it is for serious emergencies only.
* - My original idea was to just teleport the entire group to 1 random
teleporter. Making it disperse the group members individually to random
teleporters may make Verant consider this highly. I also think it will be
great for solo bards that run into trouble (running from a wizard train in
L Guk, down to 1 bub health - EVAC (while on the move). Oh dear, I am in
butcherblock (guess it's better than being dead).
Madagan Songweaver, Bard of 41 Songs <Guardians of Light>
Meklon, Level 14 Cleric of Innoruuk <Guardians of Light>
Veeshan Server
Tork <
tdomeii@...> on 22/03/2000 00:27:34
Please respond to
eqbards@onelist.com
To:
eqbards@onelist.com
cc: (bcc: John Senior/M&G)
Subject: [eqbards] UPDATE 2 - we're getting there!
From: Tork <
tdomeii@...>
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.
My comments are marked with a *.
1. Party Bind
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 with spell
reagent costs and mana tolls, we would certainly welcome it, especially at
higher (51+) levels since expansion zones are rumored to be mammoth in
scale.
2. Upgrade to Clouding (was: Party invis vs undead)
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.
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.
*duplicated and deprecated by 2, I?m going to remove it. -Tork
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?
*More work is needed here. -Tork
7. Upgrade to selo's OR remove hard speed cap.
*I personally want the cap removed vice burning another spell slot on an
upgrade. -Tork
8. Upgrade to clarity.
Cassandra's Clarified Elegy
Provides clarity2 (whatever that might be) + (limited?) elegy effect.
*Is this warranted? -Tork
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?
*I like where this is going, anyone want to help fill in the blanks? -Tork
10. One-way teleport (self only? to bard guild?).
*superseded by Call to Arms, number 17. I will remove this unless there
is debate otherwise. ?Tork
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.
*No further discussion on this? Given how powerful mobs are going to be,
perhaps make it AE and not break mez? -Tork
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.
*Definitely more ideas needed here. We all know we need and deserve a
song like this and we all know we?re gonna get some VoV upgrade. Let?s
help steer GZ and company in the right direction. -Tork
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. :)
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
*Anyone got any better ideas? -Tork
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.
*I love this idea personally, anyone care to add more? I want to flesh it
out and will take action if no one objects. -Tork
16. Serious upgrade to healing. (NB: of all the issues brough up, this
needs the most serious analysis btw.)
*Hopefully I?m on the right path with that I have now, but please correct
me if I?m wrong. -Tork
Currently at 50th with a store bought lute:
Niv?s=15 hp/tick
Hymn=17 hp/tick
Total=roughly 30hp/tick
Typical mobs encountered at that level hit in low 100?s, double hit 100%
of the time and have an approximate delay of 25. As a damage per second
figure, that approaches 80 damage/second, 3 seconds/tick, 240 damage/tick.
Regeneration factor: 12.5%.
Scaling to 60th,
Niv?s=22 hp/tick
Hymn=22 hp/tick
Total=roughly 44 hp/tick
To maintain this balance, a typical L60 encounter mob can have a damage
per second output of 352, 117 damage/sec, or assuming a similar delay of
25 and double hitting 100% of the time, a per blow damage of 146.
We know this not to be the case as plane of sky ?yard trash? easily
eclipses this figure. Therefore, we are in need of an upgrade to healing.
17. Melanie?s Call to Arms
*I removed the nix hate list bit as per some very valid points brought up.
-Tork
Trying to come up with a song that is
1) extremely powerful
2) no other class has
3) makes bards extremely wanted on raids (a la enchanters)
4) and has coding already built into the game
I came up with a song that is the opposite of Melanie's Mellifluous
Motion. A song that teleports all party members in the zone to the bards
location.
Name: Melanie's Call to Arms
This song would be extremely useful in conjunction with a binding group
leader. Imagine doing an Efreeti Raid in SolB and wanting to bring in
other members since some need to leave. Instead of breaking through again
the group leader would be bound at zoneline, group up the bard and gate
back to his bindpoint. The group leader would then group up the 4 new
members and the song would be sung and would teleport everyone back to the
bard. There are a few problems with this that may make it too powerful.
Such as Plane of Sky (never been myself) where this song could not be used
to bypass the teleporters etc This song combined with Selo's would make
the bard extremely wanted in any group, but especially raids. The song may
need to use up mana, although I really don't want all our songs using up
mana.
18. Group damage dispersion/distribution
Name: Song of Solidarity *New name suggestions anyone? -Tork
Function: Whenever a member of the party takes damage, that damage it
distributed among the party members.
For example, a 5 person party: The warrior gets hit for 75 (make this
simple *Smiles*) points of damage. The warrior actually gets hit for 15
points, and all other party members get hit for 15 points of non-melee
damage. Very hard to code (probably a lot of logic changes,) but something
different which would augment the Bard's ability to lessen party downtime.
(Maybe.)
19. On mana regeneration and putting ?no mana? into perspective, by John
H. Kim ;)
Just to clarify what it means to "buff without exceeding your mana regen
rate..."
Say each buff costs you one bubble. Say each buff lasts 60 minutes. Say
you meditate back one bubble a minute. That means you can keep a maximum
of 60 buffs up.
How many buffs you can cast going from FM to OOM is pretty irrelevant
since buffing is almost always done during downtime. What matters is how
many buffs your mana regeneration rate allows you to maintain.
This is the type of analysis Verant failed to do (and is failing to do)
every time they go off on one of their "but bards use no mana!" tangents.
No we don't use mana, but because of the short lifespan of our songs and
the (relatively) long "casting time" for our songs, it's pretty much the
same thing as using mana. In fact, you can think of our songs as spells
that last 12 seconds, require 5 bubbles of mana to cast, and our mana
regen rate gives us back 5 bubbles every 3 seconds.
20. Upgraded mez capabilities.
*I?m at a loss here, given that our existing mez song is hopelessly broken
how can I hope for an upgraded one? At any rate, ideas and suggestions or
just some one logically and polietly stating the facts surrounding Lullaby
would be very helpful.
21. What?d I forget? :)
*Okay, this format looks like crap, but comments none the less. I will
reformat tonight and get it in a revision 0 status for release tomorrow to
the list. Man, this is been a lot of work, but I mean that in the best
possible way! Hopefully by Thursday morning we can have it polished up.
Thanks,
-Tork@Nameless
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