> Basically, until someone takes the time to quantify melee damage done
> through parsed logs with similar weapons, I'll never subscribe to the "bards
> do nominal melee damage" line. I'll accept the fact that we do the least.
>
> Raiel
Other than the four skills that you mentioned (Dual Wield, Double Attack, Kick, Bash), there are a large
number of other factors that affect melee damage that Bards do not get: STR-based damage increase,
critical hits, that new thingie that Warriors get (crippling damage?), Monk special attacks, Backstabs.
The fact that we get Dual Wield and that other hybrids get Dual Wield/Double Attack (plus Kick, Bash,
Slam, whatever) means that they ALL do significantly more damage than we do. And don't even begin to talk
about the three pure melee classes.
I logged some fights between level 43 and 45 just to get a feel for things, and I estimated that Bards do
about 50% of the melee damage that other hybrids do, and about 25% of the melee damage of the three pure
melee characters. That was including my dual Ykesha procs. Btw, using "similar weapons" is not really a
good measure; weapon selection is part of the ability to do damage, and the fact that weapons are
class-limited gives advantages to classes with good class-specific weapons. Oh yeah, Bards don't GET
any... The amount that a Bard contributes to melee shrinks drastically as he and his groupmates go up in
level.
If high-level Bards had magic that made them roughly 75% as powerful as pure caster classes, I might not
mind. I'm not convinced that they do.
Part of the problem is Verant's extreme paranoia regarding our "manaless" casting. But our casting is
only "manaless" because of the way they chose to write their code. In reality, you can think of Bard
"mana" use this way:
1. A standing caster can regen X mana per second.
2. A Bard song takes 3 seconds to cast ==> they cost 3X mana to cast.
3. A song lasts 9 seconds. If it can be twisted, it costs X/3 mana per second of effect. If it cannot
be twisted (Lullaby, for instance), it cost X mana per second.
Since X is pretty low (mana regen for standing casters), even this analysis looks like a great deal, but
there are two other considerations:
1. We can't "bank" mana, e.g. we cannot burn mana any faster than this, unlike all other classes who can
buff between fights and still enter a fight with full mana.
2. Casting classes get Meditate, which, as they level up, permits them to regain Mana at ever-increasing
rates. So for casters, X increases vastly with level, while it does not increase at all for us. X limits
casters during a long combat, but it is not their average limit.
The result is that our higher-level songs just aren't strong enough to measure up. Some of our low-level
songs are very powerful relative to the level, which makes Bards quite good at an early age. But at level
47, none of my current song lists includes more than 2 of the last 10 songs I've received. That's pretty
pathetic.
I know that there are a lot of clever things we can do with our songs, I've even figured one or two of
them out myself (the rest I got from here!), and I still have fun playing. But to those of you who will
write back telling me that Bards are just fine, I can only say: there are always people who will take
great pleasure and pride in building a piano from scratch using a nail file, a penknife and a big rock.
That doesn't mean that it wouldn't be nicer to have adequate tools. Bards get weaker with age.
Kenross Cantoforjado, 47 songs, Innoruuk
PS - Given that Verant's design intent re: Bards was to make a class that significantly augmented groups,
and that they balance this by making them weak soloers, one would like to think that Bards would be one of
the first classes that a large (4-6) group would look for. We're way down on any list that I've seen.
What does that tell you?