Heh, hasn't this thread been Kabong'ed?
In any case, had to chime in here. JS, your point about being
overpowered and underpowered in different aspects of the game is well
taken. However, this is the difficulty in determining what "balance"
really means. The weights you place on the various aspects in
forming an overall balance picture are no more and no less completely
arbitrary than anyone elses. Everyone has their favorite aspect they
want to be good at, and if bards aren't meeting the grade in that
particular aspect, at that particular time, then people get upset and
think they're underpowered. It's as simple as that. Stating that
bards are overpowered "in general" assumes that you have the perfect
set of weights to apply to each aspect that a bard is either good, or
not good at to arrive at an overall value. This basically boils down
to opinion, and your opinion seems to be in the minority amongst most
bards.
For each individual player, it comes to finding out what aspects of
the game bards are good at, and what they are not good at, and
applying that to their respective playing styles. If they like the
fit, then they happily keep playing their bards. If they don't, they
either play a different class, or the complain a lot, and keep
playing their bard. Given the relatively small number of bards, and
the number of bards stop playing at a given level. Apparently many
bards do not find a good fit. I'm not saying this to imply a
definite conclusion, but the data is relevant. Personally, I enjoy
playing my bard very much, but do get frustrated in many situations.
Especially in my current regular adventuring group, which has
warrior, cleric, enchanter, shaman, me, druid. It is VERY difficult
for me to justify my participation in the group. Especially in
places like Howling Stones, where the group would do MUCH better
replacing me with a rogue. But these are my friends, and they enjoy
my company, and I theirs. So I play mana song, and self buffs, and
hope I never have to use my CC, because that means that we're all
likely going to die. I'm not 53 yet, but in a few weeks when I am, I
suspect I'll feel a little more useful again.
In any case, my point is, that the quantification of the power of a
class is very difficult. And I feel it is quite bold of you to state
that we are overpowered. Unfortunately for us, Verant seems to put
the weights in the same places you do. :)
Laluni Songhammer, 52 bard of E'Ci
--- In eqbards@y..., Jeffrey Sue <jsue@r...> wrote:
> At 07:22 PM 2/28/01 -0500, you wrote:
> >reply:
> >
> > > well it started out by someone saying dirge was useless due
> > > to recast time and
> > > resists. i said what resist problem, i never have any, and
> > > it is useful in some
> > > situations including pvp.
> >
> >never huh? i will go with some nevers too. i have never had this
land on
> >an uber mob. i have never had this land on a character i am
dueling who is
> >equal or higher level than me and has any sense to put some MR
gear on. and
> >i will never have this memmed if i am exp'ing or raiding.
>
> well never having a resist problem doesn't mean i have no resists,
just that the
> resists are not excessive. i don't know what you
consider ''ubermob'' being from
> afterlife, but i was able to land this on innothule and maestro. i
don't have the opportunity
> to fight mobs much bigger than that at this time.
>
> > > i pointed out 2 good ways to
> > > get quite a bit of damage
> > > out of this song (one of which was in an enchanter group,
> > > where many people think
> > > they are useless). the song has been compared to harm touch,
> > > and i think it compares
> > > favorably to harmtouch with respect to damage/refresh time.
> >
> >you call good damage 0.20 damage/second? and that's being
conservative,
> >it's actually less. you pointed out ways you can use the song,
they are not
> >good ways they are just ways you used to point out to people that
you do not
> >think it is useless. harm touch doesn't take a spell slot, and
does a lot
> >more damage and is resisted far less with it's recent changes and
i think a
> >new SK discipline, and DDD is a waste of a song slot.
>
> well, for those people who complain that they are useless when
grouped with an
> enchanter, they should have plenty of open spell slots since they
can't figure out
> anything else to sing. harmtouch does a lot more damage on a per
second basis
> than dirge? harmtouch would have to do more than twice as much
damage as dirge
> and you must only get a single target with dirge every time in
order for this to be true.
> i pointed out 2 good ways to get more than 1 target on a regular
basis even when
> grouped with an enchanter.
>
> > > i almost never solo.
> >
> >i am guessing you almost never go up against uber mobs in SoV or
even Kunark
> >either. you would not think bards are overpowered. i think we
kick ass in
> >an exp group, but i don't think that means we need to be extremely
> >unimportant on raids.
>
> how many other classes are not extremely unimportant on raids?
clerics, warriors,
> rogues? any others? balance could mean overpowered in some
instances and
> underpowered in others. clerics for example are very good in
groups and uberraids
> but aren't very good solo. druids are very good solo, pretty good
in groups, and not
> very useful on uberraids either.
>
> like i have said many times prior. the bard's biggest strength is
filling the gaps in a party.
> on a large raids there aren't (or shouldn't) be gaps to fill so we
will be less effective. except
> for the few people in uber guilds who only go on raids, what is the
percentage of raids to
> ''normal'' hunting? maybe 90/10? so if we're overpowered in 90%
of the game and underpowered
> in 10%, doesn't that work out to being overpowered as a class?
>
> >Shada