Why did you pick being a Bard?

How does being a Bard impact your character's identity?

What do you like about being a Bard?

How were your experiences leveling a Bard? Please compare to other professions if you have leveled multiple.

What are your thoughts on Bards AS and DS though the level ranges you've played?

What are you thoughts on the Bard Profession Services, Loresinging and Recall Unlocking?

What are your thoughts on Bard Combat Maneuvers? Which do you use often, what would you like to see?

Do you have any quality-of-life painpoints associated with playing a Bard?

If Naijin was forced to Nerf 3 things, what Bard things are broken that you wouldn't mind being corrected?

If Mestys was appointed Bard Savior and granted 3 wishes that would make you the happiest Bard ever, what would you ask for?

Viduus had an open question the other day on converting Bards to MnM and aligning Bards purely to mental lores. What are your thoughts on this topic?

What are your thoughts on how the elemental hybrid approach aids bards functionality and identity?

What are your specific thoughts on 1001: Holding Song (attack spell)

What are your specific thoughts on 1002: Vibration Chant (attack spell)

What are your specific thoughts on 1003: Fortitude Song (defensive spell)

What are your specific thoughts on 1004: Purification Song (utility spell)

What are your specific thoughts on 1005: Lullabye (attack spell)

What are your specific thoughts on 1006: Song of Luck (utility spell)

What are your specific thoughts on 1007: Kai's Triumph Song (attack spell)

What are your specific thoughts on 1008: Stunning Shout (attack spell)

What are your specific thoughts on 1009: Sonic Shield Song (utility spell)

What are your specific thoughts on 1010: Song of Valor (defensive spell)

What are your specific thoughts on 1011: Song of Peace (utility spell)

What are your specific thoughts on 1012: Sonic Weapon Song (utility spell)

What are your specific thoughts on 1013: Song of Unravelling (utility spell)

What are your specific thoughts on 1014: Sonic Armor (utility spell)

What are your specific thoughts on 1015: Song of Depression (attack spell)

What are your specific thoughts on 1016: Song of Rage (attack spell)

What are your specific thoughts on 1017: Song of Noise (utility spell)

What are your specific thoughts on 1018: Song of Power (utility spell)

What are your specific thoughts on 1019: Song of Mirrors (defensive spell)

What are your specific thoughts on 1020: Traveler's Song (utility spell)

What are your specific thoughts on 1025: Singing Sword Song (utility spell)

What are your specific thoughts on 1030: Song of Sonic Disruption (attack spell)

What are your specific thoughts on 1035: Song of Tonis (defensive spell)

What are your specific thoughts on 1040: Troubadour's Rally (utility spell)

Please share any other thoughts you have on the Bard spell circle as a whole

What are some of the things about the Bard spell circle that you wish would just go away?

Please provide any additional thoughts/concerns/comments that were not captured in this survey

My original vision was a bard who had no spellsongs and relied purely on elemental magic, specifically ice spells. I stuck with that through level 40 or so and then departed from that approach.

The profession is only a small part of his persona. He's much more identified with his race and culture.

The flexibility. You can basically do anything you want and it'll work - more or less.

Pretty easy. I hunted self-spelled in Icemule Trace from 0 to 100. The toughest slog was between level 90 and 100 since Plane 5 was too hard and Plane 4 had stuff that could wreck me.

Bard DS is a problem if you're not using a shield. Bard AS is never really an issue.

Loresinging is a great talent, although there are some quality of life improvements that could still be had. One particular annoyance is a lack of any specificity for WPS amounts. Recall unlocking is pretty garbage - the fast recall feature is nice, but everything else about it is just poorly constructed. The difficulty also feels arbitrary, as do the resource amounts needed to unlock.

I think bards have a wonderful assortment of maneuvers to choose from. My bard uses Shield Bash, Charge, and Sweep along with Combat Focus, Combat Movement, and Weapon Precision. Bards, however, need some Shield Specializations.

Not really. There are some weird spellsong nuances - and Song of Power is a nightmare sometimes - but it's overall a pretty fun experience.

(1) Cap the critical damage on 1030; (2) Increase the roundtime floor for 1035 to 2 seconds; (3) Ensure that bard spellsong failure due to armor hindrance deducts the mana and delivers soft roundtime

(1) Improve sonic weapons; (2) Improve sonic shields; (3) Improve sonic armor; (4) Improve Singing Sword; (5) Improve Song of Power to not be so frustratingly murderous

Bards should 100% get Minor Mental in place of Minor Elemental. Kill off the idiotic Air Lore tie-in and allow bards to double-train mental lore. Alternatively, make bards the mental/elemental hybrid pure.

It doesn't, really. Bards should be mentalists.

It's a decent spell, but once you get to the point where you can either kill with 1030 or bap in one or two seconds with a weapon, it's not very helpful.

Amazing spell. I use it for setup as a melee bard. Very good results against armed foes, but totally pointless against unarmed foes.

Dumb. Takes forever and just feels like a source of scripting. Should be totally reworked to not be so damn monotonous.

Great spell! My only critique is the hidden roll. I want to see that info!

Pretty pointless. The nausea effect is delayed - you're better off using 1002, 1005, or 1030.

Not so great. The shields have no flares, no spikes, no extra features. You simply get the extra DS from the reduced size profile. Smart bards pick up a real shield.

Meh. The double flares are nice, but you get to a point where you're better off with a real weapon that can take WPS, scripts, flares, banes, etc... You also can't hit demons, so there's that, too.

Never use it, but I'm told it can be useful?

Awful. While I love armor resistance, the impact vulnerability is no joke. You also get no flares, no spikes, no WPS, etc... And as with other sonic stuff, you can only buff with a 150K bloodscrip item.

Used it once or twice. Feels pretty pointless when you can already ward with 1002 or 1030.

Never use it. It breaks all your other spellsongs, most notably Tonis, with no way to train off the penalty.

Use it all the time, but it's crazy deadly. This spell needs more safeguards - right now you can get punished for things entirely out of your control.

Needs work. I use it, but it's SO hard to get your weapon AS anywhere near your normal melee AS. It also doesn't seem to contribute to Force on Force pushdown on enemies. It also causes problems in places like the reim throne room. And, lastly, it has the same lack-of-buffs that other sonic items have - it doesn't even get flares!

Totally broken. Uncapped critical damage and cheap cost makes this completely overpowered.

Pretty dang broken, but in a wonderful way. Reducing hard RT by 3 is no joke, and applying it to your group, too? Yikes! I don't see how this survives a review without getting nerfed.

Amazing spell. DO NOT TOUCH!

Fun, thematic circle. Has a bunch of stuff that needs more development and stuff that clearly needs nerfing.

Song of Power deaths; Singing Sword annoyances and more bases to choose from; no 50th level spell.

Music is intrinsic to Luxie's entire being. So ... so is the bard.

Music, loresinging, being helpful (finally), and the flexibility offered to (again, finally) be able to make her any sort of hunting build I want to, or feel like I need to at the moment.

I have zero experience outside of Bardhood. But it was REALLY ROUGH being sword/board bard til like level 40ish. Then I could finally hunt at level, if I was very very careful. There was a golden period in the Black Forest, and Minos, then it was all really difficult again. Switching to Pure Bard Build at 77 was probably too early, but I learned a lot. Mana ... was a problem even on a regular hunt until mid 90's. The Arena? Hah, I burned deeds like they were candy for two Duskruin Arenas with symbol of mana. I think my record was 8 deeds for one Arena run, Now that I have some training past cap under my belt, I finally felt like I could experience the fun that everyone else seems to have hunting in GS. Until last week when maneuvers and spells somehow became so powerful in the Sanctum that I question my willingness to ever hunt again.

Bard AS seemed a tad underwhelming compared to people I hunted with when I could find someone. Defenses for both DS and TD, though ... simply sucked for way too long. And now, they suck again. DEAD> is simply not fun.

I love loresinging. I note that over the past 2 years, more and more people now have pocket bards do their loresinging for them. :( Recall unlocking ... FINALLY got achievable and then last week, hunting got too difficult, so I may be out of that business. Unlocking things for many people requires more bard mojo than I can muster. Roblar keeps asking if I can do his gear yet. Sadly, I think i will NEVER be able to touch gear that good with an unlock. :(

I use cdefense and cfocus. If I had the points, I would probably learn something else, but don't ask me what right now, because I don't understand what I need to do to survive combat anymore. :(

Being a sitting duck defensively is no fun. Being a flashing target for any critter that comes along with a maneuver or a spell is even LESS fun. Loresong results on items with temp properties, we sometimes have to GUESS at which is temp and which is not. I'm still not clear if bards are considered combo mana users. And there's not enough room to train critical lores to bard-defining things!

I'd like a viable build, at cap, for a pure bard. One that makes sense with the amount of training points we have, the amount of mana we have, etc. Sure, if I am lucky and fast, and have enough mana, 1 or 2 Sonic Disruptions will kill a thing. But it's not like we have any other options for a song, and if it took more than 3 songs, I'd be dead in any encounter. And I have good gear!

Naming weapons for people. A book-making and papermaking crafting skill. Songs of amazing combat worthiness. Some benefit to a master instrument. Ability to instill a loresong in an item. There you go. Happiest Bard Ever.

I don't know enough about the minor mental spells to have an opinion. I use Guards to help protect myself ... elemental detect sometimes and ... every once in a while, I remember I can cast major ewave, unlock, and whatever that spell is that lets you see inside a locked box. I went all in on mental mana control and have ZERO regrets there. But if we are going to need more mental lores, we are going to need more potential to train them. Mine are maxed already.

I love being able to sing up a node for a hunting party. After that ... see above?

Combat has become so instantly deadly that I only use this in a group. And since it is a debuff, one gets no tag credit for it anyway. I used it a good deal in lower levels.

I wish it would vibrate armor off, too! BAM! I do use this as an attack, but not solo.

I'm taking any and all defensive songs. All the way

Gem purification is tedious and boring. Maybe with enough levels/lore, it could be made less so. i do enjoy being able to help people with this song.

I have not lullabyed anything in ages. I stopped using it because I could never really get things to sleep which were at my level. symbol of sleep ... always worked. I have since come to learn I did not have the CS to make it work until I was well beyond the critter. Conceptually, it's spot on for bards. Realistically? What bard has the points to boost their CS below level 70 or 80?

Never leave home without it. Sometimes I think it does not quite work well enough! This last change to manevers and spells ... are one of those times.

Kaisong is a solid, inspiring song for combat. Wish it worked on song attacks, too.

Ho hum. I use it to kill roltons wandering in town.

I love my sonic shield. But it does not keep pace with a physical shield because it cannot hold TD, Ensorcelling, Resistances, Flares, or stuffs. People have been telling me this week I need to ditch it. I'm not ditching it until I see that GS is not going to fix them.

Never leave home without it! Wish it extended to the group.

Such a handy thing in emergencies.

I only used a sonic weapon for a short time, because ... who wants to be stunned and have your songs renew in the middle of it and lose your gear?

This is a very frustrating spell. Even with 100 mental mana control, it's expensive, and rarely rewards me with enough mana or effects to be worth the mana or the time.

Who REALLY wants to be caught in a stun when a renewal hits and have your armor vanish?

I use this in the Arena, because I know people cannot wander into it by mistake. I don't believe it was part of the area spell updates, so ... I will continue not to use it.

I've never understood when you would want to use this.

Song of noise was very effective, but using it is so tricky to do when it blocks your own songs. Even as a sword/board bardess, you had to use it and time it around your songs being used in an attack and the renewals. Which makes it nowhere near very effective.

Aside from the utter danger of the spell .. it is very handy. I do feel it is way too dangerous for the lower level bards, and there's not real clue that anyone could ever give me when it would stop being so dangerous. I don't think training anything helped, just eventually getting enough circles to outwit it more times than it outwitted you.

This is another spell that you learn and cannot use effectively for 40-50+ more levels. But nobody tells you that.

I wish it were MORE useful. I loved having it when I was OHE, it was like having a hunting buddy with me. I think I may be an outlier on this, too. But once I figured out all the training it took to make it work, I loved using it. IT's a boatload of extra training early on.

You know, this is all I use now. It was amazing after 77 levels of hunting to have an attack that killed things dead that well. I felt like I was watching a wizard hunt! But .. it was me. It's so much mana, and I just endured the lack of mana to make it work until the mid 90's. A bounty would take me two trips. But it seemed worth the sacrifice. Now, mana is not the problem for me, and I do so enjoy the brevity of hunts with it. I have no idea how I would survive in capped hunting areas if I had to plink away at an opponnent with a weapon.

It has two completely unrelated uses, and the cost is high for both of them. If you don't need the one ... you get it anyway. So ... I dunno. I don't have THAT much extra mana yet to use this while hunting. alas.

This is a terrific emergency song!

I wish bard songs were more direct and less "help the group". I say that and realize I really like to help a group. Still ... it seems the songs could be better for doing what a bard needs to accomplish to get to the next level.

Requirements for CS, Lores, etc that you cannot possibly be able to train for when you learn the song. I'll have to think more about this.

I'll have to think more about this one, too. I saved the answers, feel free to blow them away, Lord Whirlin.

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

fairly slow early on until i found a set of weapons i liked

loresong unlocking isn't bad, but it's not one of those services where i feel bad not capping each week

songs require third party script to manage; purifying gems is too cumbersome

1030....what else is broken?

an additional service than lore unlocking; a way to benefit from sonic weapon/armor/shield even if you have real weapons/shields/armor; a way to upgrade sonic weapon/armor/shield

i guess it's useful for stuff 1005 doesn't work on?, should be able to train off instrument requirement

annoying having to drop and re-sing it to save mana early on

need a way to be useful even if holding a physical shield

need a way to be useful even with physical weapons

kind of cumbersome to use

needs a way to be useful even with physical armor

having to drink sucks, blowing myself up sucks

need more weapon types, needs to auto-wait when a target is asleep from 1005

instruments should be a bard-specific weapon (at a minimum, be a re-skinned runestaff), and bard songs should benefit from using them instead of a runestaff/weapon/shield.

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

Music - singing spell slinger

Diversity - Archer/locksmith - speed brawling

combat (physical) awesomeness

AS is great, DS could use some work

Has better options compares to pures. ok

Sonic bows (gimmie), Sonic Bows (no love for archers), did I mention sonic Bows?

Sonic Bows, sonic Bows and Sonic bows

useless up to level 50 (so far)

great to make your oppenant to drop a weapon (if you can ward'em)

was a great suppliment for living hunting (bows)

not sure, not sure how lucky or unlucky I am

Archer or brawler bard (no use)

good spell for Oops! Oh %$#, moments

Undead brawling weapons cap at +10, is the suck, Where is my sonic bow?!

I wear real armor, saves on mana

since I sing tonis, don't use it

Exploding bards?! helllll no

Where is my sonic floating bow?!

CS sucks at level 49, don't use it

Rt reducer = awesomeness squared

No clue, not old enough to have it

decent, except for the lack of sonic bow love

I've stated my wish for sonic bows

the variety of things he can do, the flavor of his abilities and the tons and tons of ways he can be played

Dosent have to be as serious as id think a warrior or paladin type

the variety of things he can do, the flavor of his abilities and the tons and tons of ways he can be played

Love it, it was slower at first than say a ST ranger or monk, but once i got 30ish its just been rolling

im UAC so i cant speak on AS, DS seems low compared to my monk but is offset by the tons of flexibility i have

seems ok so far, i think its going to be hard to find anything thats as valuable as enchanting because of the need/volume it gets used

not really, wish i could go pure a little earlier other than that, its been the best leveling experiance outside of a monk but they are very one dimensional

this is trash, why NERF anything? Bring other classes up? Obviously the 800# gorilla in the room is going to be 1030, and what this question was directed at. Nothing. Every class should have something amazing, and considering 1030 takes 75 ranks to be even all that great, the level needed to use it is teh gatekeeper for it

im happy with bards now, some more cman would be great, maybe some armor skills?

flexibilty as well as helping with bards worst issue, TD

great low level spell and still useable at much higher levels

great and still gets useable on and off depending on what im fighting

the benefits are nice, and the flavor of the spell is cool

ive been using this along with tonis alwasy up since i got this spell, and then along with tonis

when you need it, youre glad you have it

love it even thought it explodes my head multiple times a week

its amazing, and likely the reason bards are being looked at to begin with because apparently instead of making everyone better, people feel everything has to be nerfed

love it, keep it up alwasy, UAC and tonis are one reason i stopped playing other characters i enjoy the screen scroll

seems great, well rounded, has lots of utility

Unfortunately i hope bards dont get nerfed, this game isnt some MMO that takes a few days or weeks to get to max level so its more an inconvenience if it gets nerfed, it takes years and a lot of money with sub prices, nerfing or drastically changing something that youve played for years for certain reasons then changing it is very disheartening.

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

To play a more 'support' type character.

I'm used to playing 'killer' type characters that don't offer much to a group.

Definitely a lot easier than the slog that is early level warrior. They have a lot of tools and they're fun to use, without having to unlock them at a guild. 10m warrior, 73 warrior, 61 wizard, this bard. Wizard was the easiest, bard the next. By easy I mean hunting safely with little chance of dying self-spelled and alone.

It was really bad until I got 414/1035. Now (self-spelled), it's pretty decent. I'm a little behind square classes (as I should be) in AS but I have DS to spare.

They're really bad. I don't use any of them because.. they're really bad. For defense I could see picking up feint, gambits, whatever you're hunting most uses against you.

Edge cases for spin attack, if I wasn't UAC. That leaves a bunch of lackluster options, so I went with passives -- focus, sidebyside. That said, I think it's fine -- bards aren't squares.

I think they're pretty great, but I'm only level 48.

I was going to say infinite targets on stuff like 1030, but the I think the AOE change (requiring mana share) is a nice compromise. So --

1. Sonic flares
2. Tonis UAC
3. Tonis archery

I don't think any of them are particularly 'broken,' though.

1. Sonic archery (bow or ammunition)
2. Better maneuvers (CMANS)
3. Cheaper perception/ambush (see 1)

I'd hate to lose the tertiary benefits of air lore with the 400's circle. Especially 402.

I'm not sure I completely understand the question. I like bards because they're a hybrid martial/magic class that focuses on supporting.

Cheap DS penalty. Works as advertised.

Great spell, cheap and powerful, but limited by the gear component.

Bread and butter bard disabler? No comment really, it definitely works.

Only use it when a second bard's around.

Niche uses for knocking down stuff in trees. Can't say I've used it for much besides that (prep 1030)

Really nice, defining feature imo.

Keystone ability right? I personally think it's great.

I liked it a lot more before the AOE change. +RT, -25 (for me) TD. Great debuff that helps my group; love it, use it a lot.

Neuters spellcasters, and lets you solo them safely without something like CMAN FEINT (assuming 1005 is useless).

I almost always have it up. I like the drawbacks to it, too.

Awesome. Defensive spell? The dodge DS is nice but this spell basically triples my DPS.

Absolutely my favorite spell, by far.

I like their spells, a lot of tools, some very specific, but not so many I feel overwhelmed by them.

I think bards are pretty neat, geared towards a supportive role. It's fun to switch it up.

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

I wanted to have gem purifying, both for the silver benefit and to be able to make more chrisms with my cleric, and more importantly I wanted to share 1035 with my other characters.

Before deciding my character would even be a bard, I had a general concept that she would be powerful, yet elegant, prim, graceful, and collected--the sort of character who would usually walk out of a battle without being bloodied, and who fights with fairly minimal, measured movements, keeping a distance until it was time for an opportune strike.

The only professions that seemed viable for portraying that were a bard or a cleric and I already had a cleric, so bard it was. Warriors were too intense, monks too energetic, rangers too wild, empaths too bloody, sorcerers too vicious, and wizards a bit too uncontrolled. Rogues were a runner-up, but I just didn't envision a stealth character. Spells like Lullabye or Vibration Chant were perfect fits for depicting a cautious, strategic, and beautiful adventurer.

Being one of the only three professions--the other two being wizards and empaths--that actually feels as powerful at several times post-cap as I think a profession should feel. (Put another way, their power ceiling just keeps meaninggfully growing until 3.5x cap or so while others are basically peaking at 10m-15m and then twiddling their thumbs earning marginal gains. At least, that's how it was pre-ascension; the elite/legendary skills might shake things up.)

It can't be overstated how big of a draw bards' versatility is--not just in the broadest sense that they can viably use magic and weapons, but also that A) they're excellent at both, B) they're excellent at both offensive and disabling magic, and C) they don't need blessings and arguably don't even need gear due to sonic equipment.

Other than that, bards are easily the best partner anyone can have in a group setting--which is a classical truth of bards in many RPGs.

Easily, without question, leveling a bard from about 0 to 73 is the worst time I had with any profession. Let me add that that's true despite the fact that I always dragged my wizard along to be her mana battery so she could run 1035 infinitely as soon as level 35. (Only my bard attacked; I didn't want to take a hit on loot quality.)

Their physical offensive prowess is poor prior to the huge AS bump from 425 at high levels, even with the lower level -2 second Tonis. Their magical offensive prowess isn't so hot either prior to 425, as the CS isn't there quite yet and their only good cheap offensive spell only works against enemies with weapons and shields. Their defensive prowess only exacerbates the problem, to the point of there being situations where they had trouble warding off spells even with a full outside spellup. (This is still true at high levels, but they eventually become so offensively supreme that it more or less doesn't matter.)

With all that said, I want to stress something:

I think it's far, far better to have a profession that sucks at low levels and is amazing at high levels than the other way around. Low levels are a phase, no matter how tough and discouraging they can be, but high level characters will be high level forever and it's absolutely crucial that they enjoy them.

I feel like the cleric mini-review, ranger review, and most of all the paladin review were heavily focused on making the experience better for lower levels. By necessity, I'm guessing this will be true of the bard review too (because the experience really *can't* get any better for the high level ones)--and, of course, it's understandable to focus on lower levels since that's probably a majority of players.

Still, I hope there are a lot of ascension plans for bards (and every profession) since, ideally, post-cap would be a crowning achievement that makes people look even more forward to playing and growing their character rather than wanting to start a new one (as it so often happens now).

Until they learn 425, their AS is pretty underwhelming, and until they learn 430, their DS is severely underwhelming. Even those spells only bring them up to par until post-cap, when they can finally pick up things like 2x CM and 2x Dodging to go over the top on power level.

Recall unlocking is perfectly, well, serviceable. I realize it's nowhere near even ensorcelling, never mind enchanting, but it's still a very nice ability (especially after recent changes) that makes keeping track of project pieces and enhancives so much more convenient. I'm very glad it's in the game!

I'm actually surprised that Estild's mentioned dev having an idea for another bard service. Bards also have gem purifying to generate silver, and it's a really top tier (albeit really tedious) way to do just that. If I hunt heavily enough in a given week, my bard can definitely make more than my wizard's enchanting.

So I feel like either A) the new service will be intentionally another lower tier one in the vein of loresong unlocking or B) the new service will be great and bards will rocket to the top of silver generation... but we'll see. Not like I have a complaint since I benefit either way!

Trip and Feint were decent at lower levels, but at higher levels they're unnecessary as magical disablers win out handily. After the max mana formula changes, I'm guessing even lower level bards don't need combat maneuvers as much now when 1005 is right there. I don't feel like any additional maneuvers are needed, especially since bards are supposed to be the most magical semi and the bard review will hopefully reflect that with solid new spells.

None that come to mind. Purifying gems is tedious, like I said, but the payoff is absolutely worth it. If there were a branching ascension path that could speed up purifying at the expense of sacrificing progress on another path that improves combat, I'd probably take it. (Well, I say that assuming 1035 remains strong, anyway. If it doesn't, then all bets are off.)

Sonic gear potentially disappearing while stunned is a little inopportune at times, but, again, seems appropriate. On-demand weightless flaring gear is a strong enough ability that the downside of having to pay attention to renew cycles is perfectly reasonable.

The lethality of 1002 despite being so low-level, the lack of RT or mana loss on hindered casts in Bard Base, and 410 being so incredibly powerful for a minor circle spell.

Leaving 1035 alone, leaving 1030 alone, and Light Armor Mastery.

Assuming the AS/DS/TD from 425 and 430 got rolled into Bard Base somehow, I'd be fine with it. (The CS wouldn't even be necessary at that point since enemies have lower mental TD than elemental+mental TD.) 1219 is a suitable replacement for 410 and bards can't really make use of 420, so the only major hit would be to locksmith bards. There was a time when I aspired to eventually do that, but now that ascension's happened, I have no interest in picking boxes as a bard. That said, I know at least a couple bards to whom lockpicking is very important, so I'm not sure I could support such a change.

I don't think it does, to be honest. Nothing in Bard Base even comes across as elemental in flavor to me when I see it in-game.

Classic low-level spell that's pretty decent early on, but you quickly grow out of. I don't have a problem with it, as others like 701 or 901 are in the same boat.

Probably the most powerful spell in the game relative to mana cost--and yes, I know 1030 exists, but as strong as 1030 is, I don't think it's five times as strong as 1002. 1002 is just so lethal so often against enemies with a weapon in one hand and a shield in the other. It demonstrates the best case of a low level attack spell that's good through post-cap while also arguably simultaneously demonstrating why maybe, just maybe, there shouldn't be too many of those after all.

Possibly the best silver generator in the game. I have absolutely no idea how to write a Lich script from scratch, but still ended up heavily editing someone's purification script for a few weeks until it was basically my own--all because gem purifying is so valuable to me. An absolutely pivotal part of being a bard.

Fantastic disabler that seems to nearly always hit and has a powerful effect. Far more disablers should be like this in terms of mana to strength.

One of the most unique defensive buffs in the game. I love it.

In a vacuum, I kind of wish the ranks and/or lore made it scale better, but since bards have 425, that's definitely unnecessary and would be way over the top.

Needs to be either lower level or get a massive power increase. There's no time I can ever justify casting this.

Generic buffs are what they are. I kind of feel like this should buff the group, though.

Fantastic spell in the arsenal that improves bard versatility for search heirloom bounties, foraging bounties, and escort bounties.

Excellent spell that helps bard self-sufficiency and cuts down on gear costs. It even aids with society synergy in Voln.

Almost as excellent as 1012. There's no need for it to work against undead, and it doesn't save quite as much on gear cost since solid armor is usually cheaper than solid weapons, but still a great spell.

Much like 217, I don't know what the use case is where I'd rather cast this than 1030. I guess from level 15-29 it's better? But even then it's competing with 1002. Maybe others have better experience with it, though; the effect is strong enough that I could imagine that being the case, especially for bards who stopped at 1019 or 1020 and went to 425 before 1030 and 1035, but to me it was just a frivolous spell.

I mean, it's better than 216 since it both stances and has an additional effect. That's not saying much, though. Maybe fuse this and 1008 together into Shout of Rage in the 1008 slot.

Now here's a disabler I can get behind! Moving along with you makes it one of the most interestingly designed and mana-efficient disablers in the game, with only the minor upkeep of having to stop it before buff songs renew. I love this spell.

The semi-redundancy with 418 is very odd to me, especially since they're the same spell level, but I like the power of the effect a lot, I like how it moves with the bard, and I'd even go so far as to say it very much contributes to bard identity as very helpful group members. Just, please, ditch the aspect of two bards blowing one another up. It's really unnecessary!

I really love the flavor of anchoring this spell specifically to an inn and think this is overall a great group teleportation spell. The parched throat mechanics can be a bit too punishing in my opinion, though, especially when you get the most severe result where no amount of water will prevent your inevitable death. I think it should always be possible to drink your way out of it, or if not that then it should be possible to train enough lores and/or spell ranks and/or other skills to prevent thirst.

Seems too slow to justify its cost in the context of how much mana it takes.

As much as I'd like it to be otherwise, we all know this is getting nerfed in some form or fashion.

So, if it has to happen, here's my suggestion: make it always cost 30 mana for the AoE version, always 15 for the targeted version, and add a cooldown of X seconds (15-25?) that can be attributed to the song being especially straining on the bard's voice. Done.

There's nothing wrong with an expensive high level spell being very powerful (even to the point of 101 endrolls getting rank 9 crits like 1030 does), which I assume is part of why 950 has remained in its current form--so, just like 950, simply making 1030 more expensive and not spammable should be fine.

If 1030 gets nerfed into oblivion, I'll be sad.

If 1035 gets nerfed into oblivion, I'll be mad.

A) 35 mana every minute or so is a hard enough ask to absolutely justify the powerful effect, B) weapons could use all the help they can get when compared to the overwhelming power of magic, and C) bards should by all rights be the definitive best group member, which requires something near this power level when they're competing with other things like +45 AS from paladins or 40% stamina reduction from monks.

Leave this spell as it is. The only nerf I might accept is to have it be double cost when in a group, since that can be offset by others sending mana and would promote teamwork and coordination.

Best emergency button spell in the game, at least after enough ranks of Mental Mana Control. Slightly more expensive than paladins' beseech, sure, but can also shake off a wider variety of effects. Bards are quite a bit on the glass cannon side, so this spell is crucial to their survivability.

It needs a TD booster, and now that bards can 2x Spell Aiming for some reason, it needs an SMR spell that incorporates Spell Aiming. Other than that, I'm actually happy with it as it is. I guess a 1050 would be nice, but poor sorcerers have been waiting for one just as long and don't even have spells on the power level of 1030, 1035, or arguably even 1040, so it's fine.

I'll admit there are some underwhelming spells, but Bard Base is honestly one of the only circles in the game where I can say there's nothing I outright dislike or wish would go away.

I love bards more than any profession besides wizards. I hope I still love them after the review, but we'll see.

I'm very pleased with the ranger review and I assume I'll be just as pleased with the paladin review after the Smite/Strike abilities are implemented, but it does worry me when dev draws comparisons to those in an effort to assure that the bard review will be to our liking.

Paladins were in a bad spot, so the review was needed and helped out a lot. Rangers weren't in a bad spot, exactly, but they were very dated and stagnant, so the review was needed and helped out a lot.

Bards are in a bad spot at lower levels, even up as high as 72, but afterward are in a better spot than anyone except maybe wizards. It's not without reason that so many players actively wanted this review not to happen.

Yes, I believe it's entirely possible that the bard review will make bards exactly as awesome as rangers. Problem is that that's still a downgrade since right now bards are more awesome than rangers.

I'll reiterate one last time that, since I think the nerfs will mostly affect high level bards, I recognize that ascension might be able to salvage the wreckage. I know I said more or less the same in my cleric survey (and still stand behind that), and I wouldn't be surprised if I said it in my paladin survey too, so at this point I'm pinning a lot of hopes on ascension, clinging on to scraps of dreams. I doubt I'm alone, though I don't know for sure.

I remember a post from Contemplar at, I think, the end of 2018 raising the possibility of removing some power from the top end and then having a way to gain it back via the (at the time) unknown post-cap system, and I'm beginning to wonder if that's exactly what's happening. If it is, then so be it. I'll grind out another 15m exp to get my post-review bard's power back up to where my pre-review bard's power is. I'm honestly not even sure I mind anymore, despite how opposed I was at the time. What I do mind is the seeming direction that, no matter what, we can't actually feel powerful at post-cap or else it's OP.

It's okay if there's a best profession. It's okay if there's a trio of best professions. Most of all, it's okay if a character with 45m exp feels like a god or goddess. They should. They need to. That's the driving force behind continuing to play for years.

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

The concept of singing up your own weapon/shield/armor was really cool to my 15yr old self.

I really liked being able to (only as I got higher level) to effectively use magic and melee together.

Amazingly frustrating. We have this fantastic toolkit that is basically unavailable to us until level 60+ (if you go up to Tonis first, then 425) when our CS on 1002/1008 becomes reliable.

I think, for most of my experience, my DS was a bit lower than the other classes I chose to level. Mostly because I couldn't stand the one-handed weapon/shield style of combat on the bard. So I had to do TWC or Voln-Fu then UCS. As I got past the bowels and into OTF I switched to pure and so my guarded DS was always good enough.

I never had any issues with my AS. 1002/1005 were useful enough in lowering DS that I never felt "weak".

Loresinging is fine. I think at this point they need to remove the "creativity" portion for those that use the same reliable script over and over and over and over again. Just use more of the warrior ASSESS system to get the information unless you want to RP it out and use loresing with actual verses.

Recall unlocking...I mean I'm glad to sell it to people at inflated prices but I don't get the appeal for most items.

Feint is, of course, good. Everyone knows this. The only other worthwhile one, for my play style, is combat focus for extra TD.

I'm not sure I understand the question so these answers may be way off. 1. Song of Noise blocking your own/group members (I'm more OK with this) spells. 2. 1025 - the AS is so ridiculously low that no one bothers. Plus it has to be a weapon you already know so if you're brawling...that weapon is doing barely no damage and it is just draining your mana dry. I get that it is supposed to be being controlled by the bard's mind but it just isn't practical. 3. Low level play is so unbelievably stale. CM is expensive and manuevers are expensive for semis. They also (haven't tried after update) require many ranks before being useful. So that leaves us with our magical side...except the only spellsong (it is a really good one though) that works is 1005. We can't 1001, 1002 or 1008, 1013, 1015, 1016 anything because our CS is so low against almost everything for the first half of their life. The one shining ray in my memory of being able to do something more than just use UCS at low level was against the sprites from Sorcerer's Isle near Ta'Vaalor. My 1002 was actually useful there 85% of the time. Amazing how just a little something extra spiced up my hunting.

Obviously it'd be the armor hindrance on spellsongs taking 0 mana and 0RT. The absurdity that is 1030. I don't think 1035 is broken but if they wanted to make the floor for haste-related combat 2 seconds I wouldn't complain.

1012 - allowing sonic bows and allowing TWC (I'd even take a lessening of our sonic flares otherwise I could see the argument for OPness).

1009 - Sonic shields - reactive flares. Some shield mans.

Some kind of charm monster spellsong - no components. Last 10 minutes - can be recast as soon as yours is killed.

As a huge fan of UCS on bards I'm very pro this. I also would have no problem using 1202 and 1014 for some sonic robes. I think if they made our CS spellsongs useable without the 425 boost then we'd lose nothing much by taking away the 400s.

Well - right now it is the fact that 1035 requires an elemental lore to really shine. I would never do Melee on a bard longer than I had to (so level 30) if they didn't find a way to transfer this haste effect over to mental lores. Same with the air flares from sonic weapons.

Honestly one of my favorite spells in the entire game.

Fine but too easy to cheese due to MSP

Like it - swimming in orb gems.

Love it - honestly maybe too powerful. The full on sleep effect might not have a duration limit. I've left things in a hunting grounds sleeping for 5+ minutes on one cast.

Cool for what it does. Wish it was expanded to all things that received rolls.

Awesome - wish it enhanced CS spellsongs (or gave an inherent TD push down for critters)

Very neat spellsong to tie up a critter. But...not many things I've seen are immune to 1005 but susceptible to 1008's effects. Damage is only worth mentioning because it is so poor you forget that it can, in fact, do damage.

Very cool. Wish they had reactive/offensive flares.

The fact that bards are the only class outside of Empaths/Clerics to get a sanctuary spell is beyond cool.

Amazingly powerful spellsong even from the start. Only gets more powerful with lores and additional spellsong training. Starts to lose its luster when you can start to afford 50+ million items.

I have fond memories of using it to unravel wands for mana in the past. I also like that you can target specific spells to unravel.

Fantastic. Used all the way up until Cap before I realized I needed to get more TD (like a lot more).

Open 1015 was one of my most cast spellsongs. I partnered with another caster so this really beefed up their spell damage. It also works to bring bandits out of hiding which was very useful since I couldn't reliably cast 410.

Never used it. I had feint or 1005 if I needed to put something in offensive stance.

For awhile I was making good use of this in arch wights or on any other critter that casted boil earth. But too many times I'd get the renew wrong and all my spellsongs would drop (including my armor/weapon) and that was just a recipe for disaster.

Great song - hate that you see so many bards killing others with it in town.

Useless. Also frustrating that 1025 can form a bow but 1012 can't.

Broken. But really cool that it can be enhanced (prior to lore) with the playing of an instrument. Wish we had more spellsongs that did that.

I find it funny that this is classified as a defensive spell. You almost forget that it boosts your DS a bit when its main focus is to really boost combat effectiveness. For a pretty minimal lore investment (which I'd be doing anyways for 1012 sonic flares) you get -2 sec RT which is enough to make my UCS punches 1 second. It is an expensive spell to keep up though such that on my younger bard I really pick and choose when to deploy it.

I really like that our spell circle can mimic other spells/abilities in uniquely bard ways. I wouldn't mind more of that.

3 spellsongs for sonic equipment. I think this could be condensed to 1 slot.

As Bards are supposed to be the most magical of the semis - I am concerned that this this (sometime in the future) review is not going to make them MORE magical than Rangers now. Because of Ranger's being rewarded for attacking with the ability to cast in 1 second or the strength to their attacks from casting...they really are weaving magic and physical combat (and I think I have a standard open ranged build) as evenly as you can. How do you shift bards more on the magical side while still considering them semis unless they are given better/more useful magical attacks but still keep them physically attacking?

It's quite the problem as I see it.

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

It was my first character. (I have both a 44 bard and a 10m bard) plus a ton of other professions from young to capped

Funny, flirty, swashbuckling

The allure of a cool guy with a song on his lips that help a group while being able to hunt independently

Wizards, Sorcerers, Monks are a lot easier to level than bards. The first 70 levels are torturous no matter if using UAC or sword and board. Pure bard are fun and not as OP as they look from the outside.

DS universally is pretty poor. You are forced to wear chain for survivability. AS is good, UAC isn't great (gave up around 45)

They are pretty much useless as one can see by how much money bard make from it: zero

I use cdefense on my capped bard. Nothing else

You are dirt poor compared to other professions and you have a high cost outfitting your character. Stuggling pretty hard for the first 70 or so levels, being a pure bard is the reward at a long and arduous road. Without being able to go pure, I'd strongly advise people not to play a bard. Even with being able to be pure, being a bard is not that great.

Bards are mana constraint. Making mana sharing even more difficult would be less than productive. Get mana from a monk? Really funny.

reasonable opener for young bards

Takes a LONG time and tempramental without a real warning when things blow up

bread and butter for a young bard

never use - you really need your DS when you are stunned. When you are stunned you can't renew the song and then your DS gets even worse. Congratulations to getting another deed

helpful when rescuing folks

never use - you really need your DS when you are stunned. When you are stunned you can't renew the song and then your DS gets even worse. Congratulations to getting another deed

helpful for young pure bards to solve their mana problems

never use - you really need your DS when you are stunned. When you are stunned you can't renew the song and then your DS gets even worse. Congratulations to getting another deed

If you need 1015 to hit something you have done something wrong

The nature of combat in Gemstone is so quick that critters don't have time to turtle up unless you are bad a Gemstone

Very tempramental, works only for large moving groups, otherwise mana focus is superior due to the mana cost

wish I could aim better where I was going, high failure rate ending up in bad places being injured... better than having no travel spell by a small margin

Never use... by the time you can use that spell with shitty AS you are better off with 1030

Too mana intensive when you could use it. Would be much better in the teens

I use it so often that I actually forget I actually have it

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

They’re fun. And they don’t need a review.

It’s fine and bards don’t need a review unless they want nerfs because that’s what “review” means to Simu.

No. Quit fucking nerfing shit and quit encouraging GMs to keep nerfing shit.

Keep Estild & Naijin away from bards for the first 2 wishes, and leave bards alone for the 3rd wish

No. Leave bards alone. Simu is just going to nerf and the same people encouraging this will be the ones crying the loudest.

Great spell. Leave it alone

Leave bards alone ffs. Quit asking for reviews unless you want to be needed into boredom.

The GMs who are wanting to nerf it

Leave bards alone. Quit asking these idiot GMs for reviews. Anytime they review anything it’s a net nerf. This won’t be any different.

I like the lore song mechanic

It doesn't yet, but if I can help she's going to play a didgeridoo because it already sounds like a dying cow. She's enjoys being a bard. Doesn't mean she's good at it.

Lore song and singing to rocks. There are other things I like as well, but those are the things I really enjoy

This is the second time I've played the game, but I've only just come back. It was a long time ago that I played before and I never got passed level 20. Hoping to change that this time around.

A didgeridoo
More options to craft songs
Lower cost to learn polearms

I enjoy being able to use fisty cuffs with my bard. I've never played a pure... in any game.

No clue. I didn't know it did.

I haven't used it enough to say

I haven't used it enough to say

I haven't used it enough to say

I love it! I can't remember much about other than it used to be one of my favorite things to do.

I haven't used it enough to say

I haven't used it enough to say

I haven't used it enough to say

I haven't used it enough to say

I haven't used it enough to say

I haven't used it enough to say

I haven't used it enough to say

I haven't used it enough to say

I haven't used it enough to say

I haven't used it enough to say

I haven't used it enough to say

I haven't used it enough to say

I haven't used it enough to say

I haven't used it enough to say

I haven't used it enough to say

I haven't used it enough to say, but I remember this one well enough to say that I like the song crafting mechanic tied to it.

I haven't used it enough to say

I haven't used it enough to say

I haven't used it enough to say

I haven't used it enough to say

I mostly use my utility spells out of combat because I don't really understand how the combat/offensive spells work. I'm going to learn, I just haven't gotten that far yet

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

getting to cap sucked, but it was worth it once I got there (which is why it's gonna be lame to have my bard nerfed out from under me by this review)

recall is better now, but still lame compared to other services

bards should get shield maneuvers

the propsect of impending nerfs

He isn't forced to nerf three things. Nobody is forcing nerfs. Nobody likes nerfs. Nobody wants them. Leave bards alone.

Don't nerf bards. Don't nerf bards. Don't nerf bards.

I have no thoughts. Don't mess with my bard.

I use it every day. It's good.

It's good, but I wish it'd do something against creatures that don't hold things.

it's fine, don't mess with it

it's fine, don't mess with it

it's fine, don't mess with it

it's fine, don't mess with it

it's fine, don't mess with it

it's fine, don't mess with it

it's fine, don't mess with it

it's fine, don't mess with it

it's fine, don't mess with it

it's fine, don't mess with it

make it stop blowing stuff up, but otherwise don't mess with it

it's fine, don't mess with it

it's fine, don't mess with it

add useful weapon bases

it's fine, don't mess with it. Seroiusly, don't mess with it.

it's fine, don't mess with it. Seriously, don't mess with it or i'll ragequit.

it's fine, don't mess with it

nothing, leave bards alone

Leave bards alone. Go nerf wizards or something if you're bored.

For ability to purify gems and hunt with songs and melee

I like the feel of melee combat using a few songs to enhance that

Leveling a bard was harder than other professions, he was not strong in any specific area

The bard had plenty of DS but was not able to generate very strong offense

Bard manuevers are not very interesting

Just keeping mana for song renews

I did not see anything broken

For more interesting combat manuevers, and better ability to deal swarms with weapons

I like the bards elemental side

The hybrid elemental aids with combat flares, and could be more interesting approaches

It was hard to use while leveling

This song also was hard to ward with so I didn't use it

I used this the most since I didn't need to ward anything

Did not find any use of this

Very good song, enjoy the group boosting vibe

Did not use, hard to ward with

did not use, but like the idea

usefull utility only for certain situations like recovering weapons, or forage

this is great, but needs to add all weapon options including UAC handwraps/gloves

I like this utiility to stance down opponents

versatility, love of the arts (singing)

I have only ever been a bard. I do not have any profession to compare it to. Having said that, the profession is near and dear to my heart and I think this comes has come through during my years spent in the lands.

I can be so many things at one time, I can lend my skills to others in a way that promotes more RP than any other profession. I can make Elanthia my stage.

Ive become adept in many styles of hunting and can be independent when I need to be. The road to becoming a capped bard is long and arduous but the rewards have truly compensated. There is not much I would change.

As a Melee Bard, I have never experienced much trouble with AS throughout leveling, there is nothing a good weapon or improving other skills cannot fix. I found my CS (AEO) songs to be weak of course, but this improved as I aged, I am thrilled to be able to sing them in a friendly manner at last! DS is a problem at lower levels, I think many young bards find themselves hunting lower level creatures then their friends of other professions, but this is only at lower levels.

The recent improvements to both skills have made being a bard even more pleasurable.

I would like to see Combat maneuvers that are more aligned to actually singing. I use faint, charge and the defensive maneuvers. I find faint and charge to be lacking, they really don't do much for me while hunting.

not since I can sing sonic disruption without killing innocent people

less cost to song of disruption, making other bard songs like depression, rage and noise more useful or changing them to something else altogether.

Bards are as close as you can get to being able to do it all, though the struggle to actually achieve this is real and takes years of dedication. It would be sad to see this unique and endeared quality to the profession be put on a track that would abandon the many choices available that bards have in fine tuning and personalizing a character

I find it to be the weakest spell, I never use it

fine, but as a melee bard, Id like it to be more effective somehow

injuries at lower levels, but this soon fades as you age

only used this song at very low levels

I find song of peace works well, but always has the chance of dropping and therefore is not totally dependable in hunting areas during emergengies

sonic weapon can suffice as an ordinary weapon until higher levels

I have always used my sonic armor, though it can become less useful at higher levels against creatures who can penetrate

its ok, but hate that it can backfire and hurt people

totally fine now that I can sing it friendy

On a whole, I've always taken the good with the bad, and have always enjoyed playing a bard. I like the changes so far and am hoping the profession remains intact for years to come.

maybe song renewal cost can be lowered

sing to items for my other characters

he is able to sing to items

1035. I love the ideas of sonic weapons/armor and the singing sword and using them with a haste effect is fun.

I felt the same until the 30's. It felt more challenging to hunt without a group than the other professions

I like the perm unlock ability, but compared to other player services it is MUCH less valuable or able to turn a profit.

I would like to see access to cman expanded across all classes.

TPs feel tight, and I'm leveling feels like I'm lack luster at everything other prof do well.

expand sonic weapons a bit more, either through cman, a tiered bonding/affinity process or access to adding services/weighting.

I like the idea, I'm not familiar enough with MnM to fully understand how drastic that shift is. Losing 425 AS and the 400's for +DS leaves a gap I would hope MnM and the review would address.

I use it when group hunting. I wish the % reduction scaled with lore or spell ranks

A spell based disarm. I like it when I'm able to use it on a critter carrying a bigger stick than I like

hey, it's DS. Doesn't suck I guess. Boring but always up

I enjoy that we can sing to gems to improve value/orb. Wouldn't be against some QoL improvements to the process, but I still use it all the time in its current state. Time consuming when done in bulk.

I like the idea, in practice I haven't had to use it much at low levels

I like this song. I'm generally against RNG defense skills, but this one I do enjoy for some reason.

AS booster with lore boost. Always up and needed but that's about it.

Cheap 7x shield. Fantastic when starting out. Usable later, but not able to work on it at all so it eventually gets replaced. Specifically, Bards seem to lack TD and if I'm using a shield finding one with +TD or ensorc is more valuable.

I really find this spell useful. This makes foraging and recovering items much easier. It's helped me save friends a few times too. Great utility

Same as shield, fantastic starting out. "free" 7x weapon with flares but lacks options to add to it. Would really like to see ranged options.

i like having a dispel, but I don't use it all that often

one of the few TD reducers in the game, it's a nice to have

I don't use this one personally

i don't really use this one. I can see how preventing casting is useful, but don't make use of it myself

I like this and use it when I can. Could use some QoL updates so I don't blow myself up if someone nodes a room etc

I like this spell a lot, it opens the door for some interesting melee/ranged setups.

Works well enough as a panic button

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

Shared roleplay with a group, selection of spells, interesting interactions with chosen race.

Very much... race (dwarf) and being a bard, and their background, is integral to my bard's identity.

I love the spellsong mechanic, and how bards can have a whole host/range of builds, and how all those builds can/do work.

Decent, though the whole spellsongs adding additional renew-mana after a certain number can definitely cause troubles at the lower levels. (I'm looking at you, 1003 + 1007 + 1009/1012/1214.)

Average on both, if you take the general given build of a bard. Good if you go hybrid-ish. (Again, looking at the lower-level mana problems, and going more physical-build at first, with less spells trained.)

Love them, though I do wish loresinging was more usable at the lower levels. In my experience (dwarven bard, more physical, less bardic spells), loresinging is very hit-or-miss, with mostly misses.

Bard CMans are certainly better than that offered to pures, but definitely not anything to write home about. Given that, I have my favorite cmans that I try to train on all my characters that can afford them: c-focus, cmovement, cdefense (which bards have).. on top of those, I'd consider cheapshots, feint, and unarmedspec as good choices for bards as well.

I'd LOVELOVELOVE to see the Block/Evade/Parry masteries opened to bards (also paladins and rangers, and rogues+monks for block+parry).

Lower-level things: multiple spellsong penalties (aka, I have to choose which songs I want to sing, and can't have 'em all, all the time), (non)ability to loresing to items.

1030. 1030 is disgustingly powerful. Bards may hate me for this, but I'd remove the ML:Manipulation effect of instruments (keep the focused version and damage increase)... alternatively, remove the instrument-playing, and make ML:Manipulation a requirement for the more powerful versions of 1030, with increased lore ranks needed for each breakpoint that it currently has.

1012. 1012 is broken, in the fact that it's bonus is NOT capped by level, yet it's limited to a +10 weapon when hitting undead. I'd suggest making it actually capped to level, but also make it's bonus when hitting undead the same as it's bonus when hitting living things.... or, adding a lore component to be able to increase the bonus against undead, so that, with enough training, the sonic weapon could be the same +35 when hitting undead, at level 35, as it would be when hitting living things. (Okay, this may be considered more of a buff than a nerf, but hey, gotta say it when I can! :P )

Make loresinging more viable at lower levels!!! Give us little bards a chance to actually prod the loreknowledge of items we're handed, instead of sadly shrugging, knowing it'd take us upwards of fifteen different tries, just to get the basics of the item!

1002. Make it easier to cause damage on successful endrolls! Perhaps, since we're wrenching things out of creatures hands, add a bit of minor damage, and a minor hand wound, to successful wards (101+)... on the larger (150+) enrolls, make the critical damage hit the hand/arm that was holding the item that exploded (making this a non-lethal, but definitely dangerous, low level damaging spell for bards).

On a mechanical level, no. On a roleplay level, yes.

There are quite a few spells on the MnM list (1201, 1205, 1212, 1235, etc.) that I can see bards excelling at, and absolutely would fit in for the archetypal bard. However, other spells just don't make sense for the archetypal bard (namely, those related to UAC combat). I've always thought of the bardic archetype as more mental, and so, on a roleplay level, having bards have MnM, versus MnE, would make quite a bit of sense.

On a mechanical level, I think losing MnE, in favor of MnM, would enrage most of the bardic population. Given that MnE has 425, and there's no analogous spell in MnM, 1030-using bards would see a huge hit to their CS (whinewhinewhine). However, having MnM, compared to MnE, would open up (more) the UAC route to bards.

405 and 425 (not to mention 401, 406, 414/419, + 430). 405 is, if known, a perfect companion to loresinging, for those items that have unique loresongs. 425, as mentioned previously, is a great boon to 1030-using bards. On both a mechanical, and roleplay, level, the elemental side of bards makes sense, given 1009, 1012, 1014, and 1025... bards are, literally, manipulating air with their voices, singing them into the shapes they want. (1004 manipulates the elemental-earth-things in gems, too...)

Oooh!! Make this do damage on a successful endroll (101+) to the hand the item is being wrenched out of... doesn't need to be anything more than minor damage (maybe giving a level 1 wound, on 130+ endrolls?). Make the 150+ endrolls target the hand that was holding the item, giving that hand a level 3 wound. This would make 1002 a low-level damaging spell for bards.

Decent, for a low-level defense spell. Add in a bit of UDF, assuming there isn't already some, and it'd be perfect.

Good utility, good for gathering up those silvers!

Pretty good... not much to say, otherwise.

Love all but the increasing renew costs.. for lower level bards, this song makes for horrible competition, in having to chose between it, and 1003, 1009, 1012, 1014, etc...

Increased renewal mana cost for multi-spellsongs.

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

Group buffs, interesting, RP flavor.

More colorful identity, extroverted, offer loresinging.

The group benefits when hunting, loresinging, purifying gems, ability to wear chain, sonic weapons.

Leveling has been fun in my multiaccount party. He makes the whole group better with Kai, Luck and Tonis. I feel like he's the strongest group benefits of all my characters. Sonic weapon is effective. Sonic lance/pike hits hard and works well against enemies.

It has felt pretty decent. I'm a halfling bard so there are some AS considerations there. DS isn't bad with 1003, 1010, 1019, 401,406,414 and 430. Plus society abilities. I can do fairly well.

I haven't utilized these yet but would like to look into it more. Not really sure there is a great benefit at this point.

Bard combat manuevers should be expanded. Beyond feint and maybe charge I feel like the other options are kind of boring. Maybe some unique bard manuevers.

Loresinging needs to be simplified and made more interesting. Sonic weapon should be able to be stowed without disappearing. Maybe make song duration formula a little friendlier but the mana changes really helped with this.

I don't use 1030 much so I don't mind it being nerfed. I don't feel like there are any other "broken" bard spells.

More group benefits. Buff sonic weapon. A new fancy ability that everyone envies.

I'm not sure about this. The loss of 425 and 430 would be really bad.

I don't really see bards as elementalists. I understand that's where they sit right now. I'm not sure mental sphere while maybe better for identity would mechanically enhance bards.

Good spell. Don't use much as there are better things to do with that cast time.

Really fun spell and great disabler.

Good spell. Could use some more flavor.

Awesome. Please leave it. I love being able to get Chrisms and orbs.

Rarely used. Better disablers. Mana intensive.

Could be more interesting. I see it take effect frequently.

Awesome group buff. Mainstay of bard circle.

Never use it. Seems like there are better options.

I use pole arms so I don't use it.

Good defensive spell. Use it all the time.

Useful when your escorting a child to town.

I use it. Wish it extended past +35. Sonic pike is awesome.

I don't use it, better benefits from bought armor.

Don't use this spell currently. I see it's usefulness though

Never use. Useful in some circumstances.

Has killed me accidentally a few times. Sucks when you fail to keep track of it.

Very useful spell defensively.

Better return to town options when in a group.

Don't utilize. Seems fairly weak.

Awesome spell that most bards get manipulation lore for. Really powerful.

One of my favorite songs. Turns my melee partners into a wrecking squad. Love this song.

Don't have yet. But it's really cool.

I think most of it is very serviceable. The CS TD formula for most of our offensive songs is kinda boring.

Noise, Power, Rage, Singing Sword. Sonic Armor, shield and weapon should be combined to sonic arsenal where you can get all 3 from one song. Probably hard to pull off though.

Bards are still a great class all around. A bard guild would be cool. I don't think a lot needs to be done to fix or improve them. They do need some looking at since they haven't been reviewed in a LONG time.

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

nerf bards and i cancel my account

I couldn't see my self as a sorcerer/.wizard or fighter or rogue. I wanted a profession that allowed for more varied things and couldn't see my self as a ranger

what I enjoy most is the interaction a bard can have with any class and people.

Just about everything. Coming back from GSIII I was pleasantly surprised with instruments and more songs being implemented.

I've only been a Bard so I can't tell you.

I can usually hold my own with other classes. In some cases better.

I'd like to see a few other verbs added such as History, curse things of that nature. Recall and unlocking are dependent on the bard, if they are serious about their skill. Perhaps bonuses for really inventive loresongs. One service you ignored, instruments. Being a Bard should require or at least reward those who are serious about instruments. Perhaps tie in instrument skills with a few more songs, song of piece for instance, or song of power, two bards playing instruments could combine songs of power to make a super node?

Well Bards per-say are mostly performers and cman tends towards fighting skills, beef up with a few hand to hand maneuvers or weapons skills perhaps tied in with instrument learning.

I see fighters and rouges and other professions having such thing as stun maneuvers or tricks that theifs do. What do bards have. Nothing.

Song renewal costs, length of songs making Lullaby able to be area of affect.

A guild that worked. A guild that worked. A guild that worked!

Toss it out the window, Bards sing, that would just make them hedge wizards.

I think the idea of a bard is a wanderer, story teller, singer. I can imagine Bards learning Mne as they have traveled around. Minor spells that they would pick up in a tavern after getting a wizard drunk or something, not their bread and butter so the approach is just fine with me.

works well if you know how it works and how to use it.

It goes with experience, I've blown off enough hands to be careful when purifying. don''t want to make it to easy. Than all you would see are bards purifying gems just to get rich.

should have the ability to make it area of affect, after all your singing is heard by everyone in the room.

I have no issues with it, perhaps more indication that your luck song was helpful so that it would be appreciated more.

I use it all the time and I'm not sure about this but if you train in cman shield bash, could a sonic shield have flares?

It woks as advertised, I wouldn't change it.

Nice utility, good for when things get real tough.

I'e used it here and there, good for higher levels and for when you loose a weapon or need one for undead. Might add a few AS points for undead thou.

I've not used it that much as I have sufficient mana to carry most of my songs with out issue.

Would be nice if you could allow for some inventiveness in it's description like with sonic sword.

It seems to little of a duration and the effects are hard to see sometimes.

Nice for when you get a critter that turtles up.

I haven't yet come upon an instance to use it.

Kind of dangerous but hey that's what the fun is all about. Can't have yor hands held all the time.

Would be kind of neat to see a message like something attacks one of your mirror images and misses. Something like that.

I've tried it, works well and it's not meant to be a teleportation spell really. One of those spells when you need to get out in a hurry or are thirsty. Grin

Love it. I think as I get older it will be a constant companion. By the way. There seems to be some issues with detecting it. I'll dismiss the sword after a hunt and Uberbar will show it being active for the whole RT.

Looking forward to using it.

It can be a life saver, I think that's what it's made for I look forward to using it as well.

As you gain levels and experience all in all I think it is fair and only minor adjustments are needed. Mostly showing how your songs are helping you. Not just as you sing them initially.

Not go away but a small reduction in multi song penalty.

As I mentioned earlier. We have a guild but do you ever see a bard their? No training, no gains or advantages of being a member. I can see things like having an improve night, bards tell jokes and get exp from others laughter. A stage in the bar. Bards could join up like a band. I've seen where two bards playing instruments together can cause unexpected results. Go to the Bar at the Bards Guild drink, get silly, listen to music, laugh, interact. Perhaps RPA's for good performances.

Playing instruments, loresinging, Roleplay

She is a wanderer, and loves her housemates

Much much more difficult to level, I feel they do not have the needed defense spells that rangers and paladins have. I love sonic weapon, but since stun can stop singing shield/armor are quite useless.

I find the AS quite right as a sword and board bard, I find defense lacking. I don't remember early bard, but I think it was a hassle. Since coming back after 10 years last spring, I feel bards just are not quite up to rangers/paladins even before their recent change. Now they are way below !

I like the new changes, and so far it feels right that I can unlock/recall some items but not others. I do have several items, I can get the story on(and beautiful story it is ) but not the stats of the item lore singing. I would like to be able somehow to get both on them.

Right now at 42 I don't really use them much.

I think bards need to get a boost to instrument playing. My other pain point is the poor defense/td of a bard. at mid level. Having to train up elemental leaving bard spell level lower isn't helpful for a mid level bard. Also. I feel a bard should be able to be a pure at a much lower level. Definitely purifying gems. I can understand failure at lower levels, but I have see high level bard house mates bust gems purifying them.

Instruments, sonic armor, Purifying gems.

Allowing everyone in my group to see my loresong. Make sonic weap/shield/armor remain while stunned webbed etc even if they renew, Allowing instrument mastery to raise your attack/defense bard spells for a set time. ie 5 min playtime/5 boost to bard spells. (ok one more lower failure rate on purification of gems)

I might be great, it would add more useful attack spells along with defense. Minor ele is nice but it lacks attack spells.

I feel the only functionality elemental brings is opening boxes, and mana control, I don't see much of an identity of minor elemental -

Useful at low levels not so much higher.

Seems to work well enough when I have used it, but not useful for critters that don't carry weapons/shields. notably undead.

It is a nice spell generally for 3 mana. and renewal.

PLease.. lower the failure rate more. or instead of blowing the gem to pieces, let it crack but still be sold at a lower amount ?

Seems to work well! Even on undead.

There is probably a hidden roll, but I am unsure if it really helps all that much. A very few times i see thank your lucky stars.

I the Kai's is in a great spot

I think it is a good spell for the amount of mana.

Useless at high levels, the chance of being stunned by maneuvers/spells and losing your shield are awful consequence

I think it is in a good place, but could add more defense.

Works great. don't change it.

I like this song and use it all the time. I wish the sonic flares worked on undead also. I don't mind losing the AS on undead, but I think flares should remain.

I really haven't had to use this all that much. My mana with the bard songs I am using never seems a problem.

AWFUL. totally unused spell. Who can take a chance on having no armor ???

I haven't used it since the AOE changes - How do you incant a song anyway ?

Kind of useless for me at my level and what I fight.

again like song of depression..

Love, but why on earth does it kill other bards ??? why not just shut both off if 2 are playing ?

arrgh. again. the failure maims or kills you, while using 130 a higher spell just makes you vomit. Why can't that be done for travelers. ???? Considering we have to anchor the spell to use it.

Love this song. leave it as it is !!

I don't have this yet, because for defense I had to go Minor Ele

I don't have it, but been in a group with it being used. and like.

Why do bards have to renew while all other spell circles do cumulative defense spells, We are the only Prof to have to constantly recast our defense spells during a hunt.

I think costs for some skills could be lowered so bards could have tps to train MIU and scrolls earlier, or other magical skills. It seems bards are forced into a sword/board existence until higher levels. A true semi should be able to have more options to level. Rangers can do archery/sword/ambush/and now magical. Paladins have tons of warrior options in CM, shield/armor. Bards are forced into a weapon training path until higher levels.

Have always enjoyed playing Bards and my soul loves music. Good fit.

Being that in RL music is important to me, it makes a big difference.

Using song to please and destroy

Very hard at low levels. It got better as I got into higher levels.

DS suffers do to training points. So much to shuffle to make the bard effective

It got better around level 50. Very rough before then.

I don't see 1 thing that could be nerfed without destroying the class

The ability to actually hold instruments at higher levels and no need for weapons or shields. In other words, DS bonuses from Instruments. The ability to siren mezz "pets" to fight for the bard. Kind of like necromancy is to the sorcerer, bardic mind control over mobs of equal or lower level. With that would come the necessity to be able to play a healing song and twist them

What the hell?? Just remove Bards and bring out the Savants. Makes no sense.

It is what it is in Gemstone. Changes would need to be big.

Good for it's purpose. Depends on bard build

Haven't really used it yet. I don't see the benefit of singing armors, shields, etc. Yes they weigh less, but I really never have enjoyed that aspect. One of the draws of Gemstone is the merchanting that goes on in the game. That is what has always brought me back. Juggy, Spitfire, Ebons, Dusk. That removes the most important part of the game for me gear wise. Remove singing of the gear and replace with songs that are truly bardic in nature.

Not a big fan of singing up gear, never heard of it until Gemstone

Not a big fan of singing up gear

Needs some improvement and more thought.

The singing of armor and weapons

Do some research about bards. Build around old lores of old

Elemental magic and melee combination

Using loresinging to essentially CSI crime scenes

425, 430 plus other beneficial spells from the bard circle

Bard is the profession I have leveled the most

Pretty adequate more issues to TD and SMR really

Not very valuable, but very useful. Recent improvements make this less of a headache for the bard.

They are absolutely trash and if I didn’t need the skill to defend against Maneuvers I’d never train in it. Since I’m primarily a bard, I don’t know what good CMANs look like.

Spell songs are aggravating. It’s neat to have some low level songs that can go on forever, unless you wander into one of the many anti-magic or silence zones in Elanthia. Spells at the other end of the spectrum are too expensive to use. The middle of the spectrum is not worth the mana to try to keep up. It’s incredibly aggravating to be spelled up, need to stop by the bank, and then all your spells fail.

Bards get changed from a hybrid to a pure with MnE and MnM. Bards losing minor elemental in exchange for minor mental. Bards just having to spell up like normal people because spell songs are terrifying code.

Bards again access to both MnM and MnE as some kind of martial based pure. Bard magic represents music instead by having synergy rather than upkeep. A lower level bard spell that just flat out does damage from CS and/or spell aiming.

It makes complete sense thematically. And there should be a magical class with access to MnM.

It really only aids mechanically with 425/430

Could mak3 a good attack spell but requires the enemy has a weapon in hand making it niche

Decent, low effort to keep up

Handy unique thing bards can do. Though if we can explode a diamond, we can explode a skull at this level. Something to think about.

Works decently, but how?

When it works its pretty nice. Once again I have no idea how or why it works when it does. So I can’t do anything to make it work better.

This is a pretty good spell.

This is getting close to an attack spell, but it doesn’t hit like the minor elemental spells of a similar level.

If you don’t care about shields with cool scripts. This is good.

An excellent defense spell.

See sonic shield, but apply what I said to weapons.

I don’t use this. It’s too hard keeping a few bards songs up and using spells.

See sonic weapon, but apply this to armor.

Sometimes gets thrown in the mix for dealing with creatures that have annoying spells, but seems kind of easier to just avoid those creatures.

The last useful bard spell until the 30’s

Too expensive and requires too much lore to make useful. This spell is overrated.

Too expensive and requires too much lore to make useful. This spell is overrated.

I can’t afford the other spells what makes you think I’ve going to try this

Half of it is useless. Though I’m not sure that any of profession spell list says the same.

Rage and depression and renewing can definitely go away.

Even with the mana changes you have to pretty much be at cap to really have the mana to use the Bardic circle.

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

wanted to see what singing while fighting was like

she is happy and full of life

singing to items to see their hidden properties

seems about the same as the other professions, she may die just a bit more often

wish she had better attack spells, her AS and DS seem alright

I like being able to do this!

my bard is an unarmed brawler and she does enjoy it very much! MORE CM is always a plus!

not really, she is doing very well in that aspect

make song of holding stronger...course I probably dont have everything needed to do the best at it. Lores and such, not sure exactly which I need to do things better.

a song at low level that can be sung and stun all foes in a room...just make them smile and swoon...lol then I can kick em to death!

no idea....what would be different?

she can help folks with her songs which I enjoy other than that ...no idea

make it stronger and hit all foes with one song

it is ok...no idea if it works or not

unarmed...no shield...so no idea

never tried...I am a terrible bard...dont even try my songs! lol

Love it! but can only use a Sai for some reason...the rest dont hit hard...

cost is a bit high compared to others

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

I like playing bards in games. Thought I'd give it a try in GS.

Don't care about identity. I like the mechanics of the class.

I did a UCS bard up until level 96. I then changed over to pure. I played around with other specs such as lance builds and I 100$ disagree that bards have a hard time leveling up. Outside of my monk and ranger (new changes), the bard was one of the easiest leveling experiences I had.

They are fine. I had no issues.

I don't like locking item stats only to one class. I'd rather see loresinging as an enhancement rather than a hurdle for other professions to find out what an item is. Recall unlocking doesn't provide enough benefit for the service to be widely wanted/paid for by the other professions. It's not a silver maker like an ensorcell or enchant is.

CM for bards are boring. All I really did was CDEF, feint, combat toughness, etc. Would be nice if there were specific bard ones to spice things up.

Bards are boring because 1030 has ruined everything. The best spec is pure bard.

1) 1030 needs to be thrown out/revised, etc. 2) It's game breaking. 1035 and all haste spells are OP. 3) Loresinging for item stats is annoying especially when so many enhancives drop.

1) A loresinging/recall service that would have high demand from the players for. 2) A spell list that actually incorporates more musical instruments/singing aspects that should be the hallmark of Bards. 3) Actually make having a master instrument mean something mechanically.

No. The MnM is an incomplete and largely broken spell circle that is heavily weighted to monks/savants.

I think it is fine as is. I think the spell list needs to be revised like was done with Rangers/Paladins. Keep bards with MnE.

Was alright but didn't find that it was needed in my combat routine.

I like it but it was too situational. With 1030 there was largely no need for this.

I never used this. I know a lot of people do but the gems blowing up aspect in my opinion is overdone. I didn't want to deal with it.

Very good. I used this all the time leveling up.

Never used it. It's a wasted spell slot.

Good but don't like that sonic items take up so many spell slots.

Good. Helpful with bounties.

Good but don't like that sonic items take up so many spell slots.

Never used. Good concept but never had the need for it.

Good but don't like that sonic items take up so many spell slots.

Very good. Used primarily at DR during arena runs.

My bard was in Voln. I think there are too many restrictions on this spell to make it worthwhile. I think bards should be able to travel across the world to inns (similar to how sorcerers can travel across realms). Opening this up, in my opinion, fits the profession of bards being storytellers/traveler's.

Horrible spell. Never used it. Love the concept but it needs to actually be useful.

Please destroy this spell. I hate it. It's game breaking and single handedly destroyed this profession. Remove it. Get rid of it. Let the 1030 days be officially over. Replace with something more game balancing.

OP. People abuse this spell with MA groups. I think haste in general should be nerfed. Make this self-cast. Move 2-3 sec base rt or something.

As mentioned previously, I think what is primarily missing is the integration of instruments in the spell circle. You have some benefits to this but I think this is a missed opportunity. Outside of that, 1030 has destroyed this spell circle and I hope it gets replaced with a good alternative that puts this profession back into perspective.

I think the spell list has become so dysfunctional due to 1030 that people are scared about being nerfed. I think it's important to implement those needed nerfs but to offset them with good alternatives to put this profession back in balance. I think there is a huge opportunity here to make bards more dimensional than before. With the positive changes to Rangers/Paladins, I have full confidence the team can do this.

Versatility--ability to mix melee with magic (bard songs); utility to group (hunting with friends, using Tonis, Kai's, gem purifying, and loresinging)

A lot of her RP is centered around being a bard. she uses spell songs every time she hunts and she often plays her instrument in common areas and has even performed spontaneously several times.

I enjoy the mix of magic and melee power. I really enjoy the group support offerings. It's a big part of my bard's role in her friend group. I probably wouldn't be interested in playing a bard that doesn't offer group support.

It has been challenging but fun. She is not the killer some of her like-level friends are (sorcerer, wizard) and she doesn't have a super high DS (like my ranger) or many good cman options (warrior, rogue). She is the highest level character I have right now and I really enjoy playing her, regardless.

My bard struggles with DS and her TD is starting to become more of a problem. She uses a sonic lance and AS is not a huge issue, though it is lower than her melee (square) friends (rogues and warriors).

I think these are great skills and I really appreciate the thought that has gone into improving them recently. It would be nice if Bards could determine the level of padding/weighting via loresinging.

It would be nice to see a wider variety of cmans available to Bards. I use side-by-side (which is great) and spin attack (which is pretty good). Historically, I was not impressed with Charge but I have not tried it again recently.

1018 is so useful but incredibly volatile! I don't love to use scripts but song renewal and 1018 without a managing script would be an enormous pain.

1. I think the recent AoE changes addressed some concerns with some spellsongs being overpowered at relatively lower levels. For me, this was a big challenge to my ability to attempt to crowd control a swarm of 3+ in a reasonable amount of time with a reasonable amount of mana. Before the AoE changes, I would have said 1030 open cast probably needed some sort of cap.
2. 1002 is very strong for a 2 mana point spell.
3. It is a little off to me that Bards can sing to items and more or just as accurately determine properties of an item than the respective professional who handles the items, ie locks on boxes or enchant/ensorcell difficulty levels.

1. Sonic weapon updating, including the addition of more sonic weapon types (such as sonic bows)
2. Some other direct attack spell song options (other than 1002, 1008, 1025, 1030--it would be cool to have an instrument familiar (elemental instrument?) type spell that a bard can play and do more damage with/confer some utility based on respective instrument playing ranks, rather than a singing sword (1025), which in my experience is not super useful--this would also incentivize Bards to master instruments and it could be a fun way to add some extra spellsong flair to the class).
3. A TD boosting spell song

I'd rather see MnM updated.

This is a very strong opener, especially for the mana cost.

This is a great utility song. I wish there was a way to combine all the casts into a single (longer RT) cast. This would deter scripting.

This is very useful opener.

I always use this song on hunts.

I don't find this spellsong to be very useful but I have used it in a pinch.

This is a super useful utility spell. I have no complaints with it.

I use a sonic lance on my Bard. I think overall this spell is good but there is room for improvements, especially since it is fairly easy to add flares/weighting/enchant/ensorcell/lightening to weapons now.

I never use this spell. See thoughts on 1012--I'd rather use armor that has padding and/or other benefits.

This is a useful utility spell. I use this spell often as an opener.

I have never used this spell other than testing it out once. I don't see the utility outweighing the cost.

I rarely use this spell but it can be very useful in certain circumstances.

I always use this spell. This spell has probably killed me more than anything else in the game. I still use it because I need the mana regen properties to be able to hunt with magic and not die.

This is a great spell in theory; however, even at almost level 70, this spell is so unpredictable for me. It would be nice to either have more official information on success factors and/or make it less likely to go poorly.

I don't find this spell useful. I think it would be cool to have an instrument familiar (elemental instrument?) type spell that a bard can play and do more damage with/confer some utility based on respective instrument playing ranks, rather than a singing sword (1025), which in my experience is not super useful--this would also incentivize Bards to master instruments and it could be a fun way to add some extra spellsong flair to the class).

This spell is intense; however, given the high mana cost, the AoE target limits, and the lack of any other serious damage-inflicting spellsongs, I don't think it is inappropriately strong. I very much appreciate how it can be focused or cast in the open as an AoE spell. I think this spell was given a probably deserved cap with the recent AoE changes so that now it is not overpowered at a relatively low level.

I use this spell all the time. I think it's a very useful spell that encourages group hunting and it is an important part of the Bard class as a whole. It's a big support my Bard can offer to the group when we hunt. If this spell gets nerfed, it will make me re-evaluate how I play my Bard and if I'll continue playing her.

This is a very useful spell in a pinch.

More damange-inflicting spellsongs and a TD boosting spellsong would be nice.

I can't think of anything off the top of my head.

I'm excited and apprehensive for this review. I love playing my Bard and I'm concerned that some of the things that I love about her will be taken away. I love that she is a great boon to her hunting companions. I love that I have the option to be a capable lancer or, later if I choose, I can take a more magically-inclined direction while mostly hunting with 1002/1030. I hope that any review keeps these options open, maintaining the spirit of the class while adding extra flavor to the spellsongs. I don't think that the class could handle major nerfs to 1002/1005/1030/1035 without correspondingly major buffs/opener/attack options being added.

I Had one other thought, a new verb, chorus. Allows bards to sing together . It might work as a GROUP. SING chorus. I'm not sure but it would allow bards (and others) to act, recite, sing together. I know it would be difficult but think of the RP that it would allow.

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

Loresinging, Elemental-circle to capitalize on Wizard, AoE group buffs

Instruments, singing, Vaalorian Elf

They're more magical than other semis, while still being incredibly potent. High skill and XP cap for effectiveness.

1-40 was very rough while dealing with the multi-song penalty, and still learning vital skills for 425/1020. 40-70 were absolutely ideal and I felt... not powerful, but comfortable. 80+ I was obligated to go pure to hunt in the OTF Aqueducts... Otherwise I was simply too hittable and defenses were terrible.

AS were generally on par for the later portion of leveling, but DS just absolutely tanked in the 80s with the near capped hunting grounds. I absolutely loathe going pure bard, but after attempting about a dozen various itterations of builds going every melee build imaginable, I simply found the DS was not competitive at that level range self skill. This is mainly due the compiling negatives associated with granting + dodge ranks on 1019 just falling behind a lighter armored ranger in offensive.

I don't love difficulty in the recall unlocking. I get it, and it incentivizes older bards... it just feels a little misplaced? Probably just because it's new.

I honestly never use them, even in the slightest. I think charge is good now. But honestly, our setup spells of 1001, 1002, and 1005 are amazing for initial setup. CMANs are just purely passives. I wish we had SMans though.

1020 anchoring mechanics are annoying... I understand they served a purpose for RP early on, but they just seem annoying now.

1035 potency should probably be reduced to 2.
1030 critical tables are too high
Spell hindrance lack of penalty

1012 should be more like 1625 and augment a physical weapon... the air lore flares simply aren't holding up a a worthwhile spell in today's gear inflated world.
Spell Hindrance on bard songs is simply too high. I realize it's broken, but it's wayyyy too high to be fixed and not down tweaked.
Shield Maneuvers and worthwhile combat maneuvers.
AI of 1025 to actually do things or followup attacks without commands

I identify my bard as being elemental adjacent. I really don't consider them mentalist so much as I consider them mentally adept elementalist. The Air Lores, the sonic disruption, the haste, it's all aligned to air and time. I realize it makes sense to align lores/etc, but I choose this class as the most magic of the semis to act alongside my wizard and sorcerer pures and capitalize on common mana. This is a fairly big disruption and counter to my perspective of the build of the class.

It is their identity. I can't imagine a bard without that air lore perspective. The winds are how they're protecting themselves with 1012/1014 alterations, and their sonically ripping folks apart with their vast air waves. Sure, they're enriching it with some mental stuff, but they're fairly magely.

An absolutely great opener. Definitely underappreciated

The rapidly diminishing returns on lore is a bit strange. I can't recommend more than a single rank in lore to support this skill.

Takes FOREVER. It's really inviting scripting. I'd rather it just invoke hard RT for a longer duration rather than the tedium of casting 8 times individually per gem. I've spent 16 hours purifying gems from a 2 hour HoA Reim run (of course, that's when we started and there was still good loot!!)

A great opener... I wish 501 didn't have the stupid mana considerations

It's hard to consistently tell when it's doing stuff, but it's nice when it does. Kind of like a lowkey 319 or 540.

The original group AoE AS buff. I love it...

Amazing, but it points out the lack of shield maneuvers... likely due to the variable sizing adjustments based on air lore. Given the built in swiftness, I can ignore the shield maneuver implications, but with the new SMR rollout, absolutely feels like I'm missing out.
However, it does fade out in effectiveness without receiving Ensorcell, scripts, etc... I'd rather see this augment existing equipment as a buff rather than creating an item from scratch, augmenting the flare and/or maybe bane slot, especially with all of the gear inflation nowadays.

It's good to have. It may be a bit too low level for it's effect. It's probably the best of these songs we have.

Amazing... but also, lacking relevance in today's gear inflated world. I'd much rather see this augment an existing equipment piece more like 1625, even if it meant moving this to a higher slot. It may be a 1% perspective, but 7x perfects are more obtainable than ever before, the capping of the effectiveness, lack of ability to add weighting and ensorcelling just trail off in today's age.

It's ok... but it's kind of like a less consistent 516... I don't really love it or use it as much as I would like to just given the uncertainy in if it's going to take a spell, etc. I'd rather see this reduced down to occupy the 1008 slot.

Love this spell, especially when leveling to determine which level of armor to use. I also love how it reduces your hindrance's impact, which is necessary for a class that seems predisposed to ASG15. However, similar to my other sonic equipment critique, it does fall off in effectiveness at higher end.

I never use it, because I'm honestly not sure about how it applies the effects to targets. It's not something I actively want to cast, and it doesn't look like it's applied immediate. I think spells like this (and the next) can use some work just in assisting their effectiveness and utility.

I never use it. Same reasons as 1015

I don't use it because it impacts your own spell casting. I'd rather it be something more like 703 or 1608 where it's a check when being attacked to interrupt it. Just in it's current form, it's way too restrictive to the bard or hunting partners

You mean the randomly explode spell? I love the concept for an AoE Mana regen buff, but this is terribly implemented. The random conflicts with a node, the conflicts with 418, the INSANE criticals when failure occurs. I understand how scarce mana was in the past, but these conditions just make this completely unusable. I'd rather just offer a 5% group Mana Regen buff or something like that, stack with nodes because why not.

I love the spell, but I hate the fact that it's EVADE ranks. I realize we need some SMR defense in there, but stacking the evade ranks just hurts in lower stances and incentivizes pure builds. the 75% evade - 8% Aug Chain AP... it just causes fairly rough scaling against a bard.

Anchoring is a pain in the ass mechanic for this and 1613.

Commanding them is wasted time. I'd like better AI along with it. It also doesn't seem to scale too tell at higher ends.

Currently overpowered and an unfortunate crutch we need due to DS issues post 80. It's not as ridiculous as people seem to always make it out to be. It is incredibly effective, it's also incredibly mana intensive. It's iffy if I can complete a hunt without properly preemptively planning my hunt around the pulse timer, and capitalizing on GOS sigils to bandaid the additional mana I need to actually fry.

I hate the evade ranks part of this spell... We really need that DS, but we're incredibly DS starved to the point we need to full time this for defensive reasons. I really wish that the evade was integrated into 1003, 1010, or 1019, and we can focus on RT reduction with this. Even then, -3s is a bit much, -2 would be ok.

Incredibly good. One time I accidentally AoE'ed someone with 1030, and I 1040'ed them to feel better... I just imagine someone singing and ripping someone's face off, and then yelling at them until they get better.

I can't think of any time I've cast 1015/1016/1017. I understand they're super situational, but their application is strange

I also don't really like the renewing offensive songs on folks...that entire mechanic feels weird to me... I understand the intent... but I'm kinda over it.

We need DS help.. I really don't want to lose 425 without another AS buff in it's place for MnM... I'm going to be incredibly bummed out to lose EMC for only MMC when there are so many more EMC classes out there. Combat is generally static due to lackluster CMANs, no SMANs, and typically, training points are the tightest of any semi, so we're fairly locked into cookie cutters until any discretionary points become available post-60.
Leveling a bard was probably the worst experience I've had, I just really hope we get more of a paladin treatment than a ranger treatment.

The music, the songs, I always play a bard.

It is absolutely everything to her backstory, her inner being, her very life.

The music, the songs, loresinging, pure bard, the flexibility.

I have zero experience outside of Bardhood. But it was REALLY ROUGH being sword/board bard til like level 40ish. Then I could finally hunt at level, if I was very very careful. There was a golden period in the Black Forest, and Minos, then it was all really difficult again. Switching to Pure Bard Build at 77 was probably too early, but I learned a lot. Mana ... was a problem even on a regular hunt until mid 90's. The Arena? Hah, I burned deeds like they were candy for two Duskruin Arenas with symbol of mana. I think my record was 8 deeds for one Arena run, Now that I have some training past cap under my belt, I finally felt like I could experience the fun that everyone else seems to have hunting in GS. Until last week when maneuvers and spells somehow became so powerful in the Sanctum that I question my willingness to ever hunt again.

Bard attacks, defenses, TD, and CS, were all lacking, compared to what I could see in my companions. Even past cap, I am now ONCE AGAIN, a sitting duck for spells and maneuvers. It was very difficult from mid 20's to mid 30's, then started getting a little better. By 50-70, I hunted at level successfully. After that, it got dicey again, mana and CS was a problem at the switch from sword/board to pure; see everything I wrote above.

I love loresinging. I note that over the past 2 years, more and more people now have pocket bards do their loresinging for them. :( Recall unlocking ... FINALLY got achievable and then last week, hunting got too difficult, so I may be out of that business. Unlocking things for many people requires more bard mojo than I can muster. Roblar keeps asking if I can do his gear yet. Sadly, I think i will NEVER be able to touch gear that good with an unlock. :(

I use cdefense and cfocus. If I had the points, I would probably learn something else, but don't ask me what right now, because I don't understand what I need to do to survive combat anymore. :(

Being a sitting duck defensively is no fun. Being a flashing target for any critter that comes along with a maneuver or a spell is even LESS fun. Loresong results on items with temp properties, we sometimes have to GUESS at which is temp and which is not. I'm still not clear if bards are considered combo mana users. And there's not enough room to train critical lores to bard-defining things!

I can't even think of three things that are broken! But I'm still the new bardess on the block, I guess. Nerf the harm/deadliness of songspells like Travelling Song, Song of Power, and even Purification Song.

Naming weapons for people. A book-making and papermaking crafting skill. Songs of amazing combat worthiness. Some benefit to a master instrument. Ability to instill a loresong in an item. There you go. Happiest Bard Ever.

I don't know enough about the minor mental spells to have an opinion. I use Guards to help protect myself, elemental targeting and elemental defending, ... elemental detect sometimes and ... every once in a while, I remember I can cast major ewave, unlock, and whatever that spell is that lets you see inside a locked box. I went all in on mental mana control and have ZERO regrets there. But if we are going to need more mental lores, we are going to need more potential to train them. Mine are maxed already.

I love being able to sing up a node for a hunting party. After that ... see above?

Combat has become so instantly deadly that I only use this in a group. And since it is a debuff, one gets no tag credit for it anyway. I used it a good deal in lower levels.

I wish it would vibrate armor off, too! BAM! I do use this as an attack, but not solo.

I'm taking any and all defensive songs. All the way. More TD, please?

Gem purification is tedious and boring. Maybe with enough levels/lore, it could be made less so. i do enjoy being able to help people with this song.

I have not lullabyed anything in ages. I stopped using it because I could never really get things to sleep which were at my level. Symbol of sleep ... always worked. I have since come to learn I did not have the CS to make it work until I was well beyond the critter. Conceptually, it's spot on for bards. Realistically? What bard has the points to boost their CS below level 70 or 80?

Never leave home without it. Sometimes I think it does not quite work well enough! This last change to manevers and spells ... are one of those times.

Kaisong is a solid, inspiring song for combat. Wish it worked on song attacks, too.

Ho hum. I use it to kill roltons wandering in town. It's pretty lack luster, or I do not understand it's purpose. Beyond level 28ish, it's been kill the thing fast so it does not kill you. A lackluster attack does not help with this critical timing.

I love my sonic shield. But it does not keep pace with a physical shield because it cannot hold TD, Ensorcelling, Resistances, Flares, or stuffs. People have been telling me this week I need to ditch it. I'm not ditching it until I see that GS is not going to fix them.

Never leave home without it! Wish it extended to the group. More TD song spell defenses, too, please

Such a handy thing in emergencies.

I only used a sonic weapon for a short time, because ... who wants to be stunned and have your songs renew in the middle of it and lose your gear? It is handy for emergencies, painful silver-saving for your good weapon to get worked on, and disarm avoidance. That it has such a huge penalty vs. undead never made any sense to me.

This is a very frustrating spell. Even with 100 mental mana control, it's expensive, and rarely rewards me with enough mana or effects to be worth the mana or the time. With less than 60 or 70 mental mana, it was not ever worth even attempting.

Who REALLY wants to be caught in a stun when a renewal hits and have your armor vanish? Again, I used this during a training-points scarcity period, and a time when my good armor was being enchanted, but would not want to risk it during smaller renewal times than 8 minutes.

I use this in the Arena, because I know people cannot wander into it by mistake. I don't believe it was part of the area spell updates, so ... I will continue not to use it out in the public.

I've never understood when you would want to use this. I haven't fought anything one could parry tag timing wise in many, many, many levels.

Song of noise was very effective, but using it is so tricky to do when it blocks your own songs. Even as a sword/board bardess, you had to use it and time it around your songs being used in an attack and the renewals. Which makes it nowhere near effective. That it prevents your companions from making spells, too - let alone you, relegates this song to emergencies only in my world.

Aside from the utter danger of the spell .. it is very handy. I do feel it is way too dangerous for the lower level bards, and there's not real clue that anyone could ever give me when it would stop being so dangerous. I don't think training anything helped, just eventually getting enough circles to outwit it more times than it outwitted you. 18th circle spells should not require you to be level 60+ to use.

All defenses. All the time. More TD!

This is another spell that you learn and cannot use effectively for 40-50+ more levels. But nobody tells you that. Even at cap now, it still has fails. Additionally, while I read the new rules that it could be used cross-realms with a gold ring, I don't understand HOW. That was never explained. No bard I have asked knows either.

I wish it were MORE useful. I loved having it when I was OHE, it was like having a hunting buddy with me. I think I may be an outlier on this, too. But once I figured out all the training it took to make it work, I loved using it. It was a boatload of extra training early on.

You know, this is all I use now. It was amazing after 77 levels of hunting to have an attack that killed things dead. I felt like I was watching a wizard hunt! But .. it was me. It's so much mana, and I just endured the lack of mana to make it work until the mid 90's. A bounty would take me two trips. But it seemed worth the sacrifice. Now, mana is not the problem for me, and I do so enjoy the brevity of hunts with it. I have no idea how I would survive in capped hunting areas if I had to plink away at an opponent with a weapon. I know we are the butt of many OP and NERF THE BARDS comments from others, but getting to where you can use this song after all the heartache, lacklustre, down-hunting of so many levels, seemed to me like it all finally paid off. It took 90 levels for this bardess to feel competent.

It has two completely unrelated uses, and the cost is high for both of them. If you don't need the one ... you get it anyway. So ... I dunno. I don't have THAT much extra mana yet to use this while hunting. alas. I use it from time to time to assist hunting buddies when I have mana to blow.

This is a terrific emergency song!

I wish bard songs were more direct and less "help the group". I say that and realize I really like to help a group. Still ... it seems the songs could be better for doing what a bard needs to accomplish to get to the next level, or survive the one you are in. I really hope that BOTH things can happen in the review.

Requirements for CS, Lores, etc that you cannot possibly be able to train for when you learn the song. Its disheartening. There are 3 defensive songs, yet we still suffer for defenses. There are area songs which cause negative effects, but they are not considered worth adding to the player-friendly status, and they are not considered credit-able in group combat with your buddies. I may also be really weary of bard unknowns.

I lived through nerf after nerf, re-imagining after re-imagining of bards in DragonRealms ... until I quit. Please do not devalue, re-define, or devastate bards in GS.

Loresinging and my only melee character

I like to take a break from spells and swing that heavy polearm

fast swinger with many disables and cool swinging swords hunting buddy

Melee hunting in certain level bands sucks because i needed specialized weapons for some hunting areas. Using hand of tonis, charge, and lullabye make hunting fun as I can quickly switch between disable types (phys vs cs)

My AS growth seems to be slowing down and my adv over critters is narrowing which is where disablers are a huge help, also i worry about singing sword's AS being so much lower than mine.

Loresinging is super helpful, recall unlocking is useless to me... i keep spreadsheets of items

I use charge and it is awesome at the lower RT

Song of Power exploding and killing ppl when i am resting

Make singing sword's gain AS more on pair with the bards (90-100% vs. 75%), Give singing sword the potential for flares based on lores or other cool abilities, like unlocking extra parry defense, or an enhanced Force on Force against the critter.
SWINGING SWORD COMBO ATTACKS Plzzzzzz (Bard + Singing Sword do a 5 sec RT pincer move with X cooldown)

Not idea about MnM spells but I do not think MnE is great for bards, I hardly ever use any of the MnE spells besides ele def and targeting/barrier. I feel forced to spell all these points for targeting just to get that extra 25ish AS

As mentioned above, i think elemental spells are forced on bards with limited value add

I really like it but hidden rolls always suck

Alot of utility but might use another attack spell, the whole renewing songs can be intense since i feel the need to stock up on mana recovery enhancives to even be able to use core songs

scaling renewal costs and penalties

It is a key component in my characters identity

The bard songs are unique to the profession and performing is fun

Its been easier with young bards now that mana is scaled.

AS is harder at lower levels.

I rarely use recall. It's not gonna make me rich, that's for sure and doesn't come close to enchanting and ensorcelling as far as professional services go. Loresinging changes have been really good. The more info and details the better.

I use all the automatic DS cmans and side by side all the time. We should have shield maneuvers and acrobatics. Bards were historically acrobats as well.

No guild. We should get more benefits from mastering instruments than other professions.

Nerf denotes lessening or eliminating. I don't want anything to be "nerfed". We need a level 50 song.

I think master level instruments should be more readily accessible and do more than just add one additional type of tune for bards. A master instrument could be tied more to playing an instrument with attack song benefits.

Add guild tasks that would have some acrobatic/stance/slight of hand benefits (performance moves).

Finish the bard spell circle! We need a level 50 spell. I think it should be something that would add defense for playing an instrument while singing and increase song potency if the instrument has been mastered.

I haven't studied the mental lore/spells much, being a bard, but it seems that they are very geared to monks and unarmed combat. Would you be willing to change up the circle to allow for bards playing instruments/ using weapons instead of being unarmed? Is this to align us to savants? Minor mental doesn't have a higher level offensive spell similar to elemental targeting, that would be a huge loss for bards. The lower level defensive spells lack TD. Vision is too similar to voln's symbol of sight. Iron skin 1202: is negated by armor which most bards use and really I don't want my skin being like thick hide (yuck). Brace 1214: I sure don't want plates if thick bone growing on my arms (ew). It seems like leaving bards aligned to air lore is spot on with singing.

Bard guards are an integral part of being a bard as well as lock picking skills. Using ewave and dispell are keys to how I fight. Elemental targeting and barrier are indispensable. I don't think I've used eblade since I've been able to touch vultite, however.

love it use it all the time when helping younger players in a group.

My go to disarming method.

great but could use a little more definition as to when it would explode a gem.

I use it all time when helping younger players while in a group.

Don't know how much it effects but never stop singing it.

Love it. I don't hunt without it.

Love the messaging when something turns green and gets vertigo.

Don't use it as I don't trust it if I get stunned.

Great for use in a group especially. Use it very often

I do use it but even with the tuner I won its under powered.

I don't use it ever. I don't trust it if I get stunned.

Great until it blows your head off and kills your group. heh

It's great especially with more training to make it stronger. I'm disappointed that it can't be used in dusk ruin arena as its part of how I hunt as a bard.

Especially nice for a large group when you have enough training to make it more effective.

I use it a lot when a large group is poisoned or falls while hunting grims or if I'm stunned. The problem is that it takes so much mana.

no I think its pretty balanced.

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

Always been my favorite class in any game, spellsongs were a fun mechanic even when they weren't fully implemented when I started.

My Bard has always been very slow to level. I started sword/board, went to polearms for a long time, tried pure briefly, and went back to lances. The early levels especially (sub 40/50) were very challenging.

I've played off and on over the years but I recall dying a lot more leveling as a Bard than any other profession. AS never seemed to be a huge issue, especially with lances. Sword/board took forever to kill anything.

Loresinging is amazing, one of the best ways to find an item's properties and very useful. I'm not sure how comparable recall unlocking is to other profession services.

I used Trip a lot before it became a CMAN years ago and loved it. I use Charge a fair amount now that I'm back using a lance. Feint is also handy. Other than that there aren't a lot of CMANs that seem useful for a Bard, their list is pretty short to begin with.

More hybrid spell/melee interaction as seen with the recent Ranger/Paladin updates. Make some of the lower level attack spells more useful (Stunning Shout) or swap something in to a lower level. A little more TP flexibility for different training paths, there could be some very interesting builds for Bard but most of the really interesting ones have training costs that make them impractical before cap.

While I think it would be interesting to see more use of the MnM list I think Bards would take a large AS/DS hit by losing MnE. MnM currently seems designed almost exclusively for Monks (lots of UAC stuff) since Savants were never released.

Great set-up spell for swinging.

Amazing if you train heavily in the lore, not bad otherwise.

This was my go-to at low levels to keep from getting overwhelmed and killed with more than 1 critter in the room. I almost never use it at higher levels.

Doesn't seem terribly useful to me most of the time. I tend to mostly not sing it because it doesn't seem worth the multi-song penalty. There are things I need more.

Seems underpowered, especially for the mana cost. I don't think I've ever used it other than to play around with it.

Sonic equipment is awesome. I haven't used it as much as I wanted to over the years because having all 3 on plus other support songs was impossible with the multi-song penalty.

Sonic equipment is awesome. I haven't used it as much as I wanted to over the years because having all 3 on plus other support songs was impossible with the multi-song penalty.

I tried using this for mana as suggested when I was a pure for a while but even with the necessary skills trained up I never seemed to get more mana out of wands than the spell cost. I could also never drain mana from critters because they always had spells in the way. Mostly ended up being a waste of mana.

Sonic equipment is awesome. I haven't used it as much as I wanted to over the years because having all 3 on plus other support songs was impossible with the multi-song penalty.

Never use, debuff never seemed worth the mana.

Never use, debuff never seemed worth the mana.

Tried using with casting critters a few times but it didn't work out half the time. It either kept me from singing something I needed or caused my songs to drop on renew. Wasn't worth the hassle.

I feel like this could be good if I could use it properly but since all I ever do with it is explode myself I never use it.

Took many levels/Bard ranks to actually work but now that I'm in my 60s I use it pretty often.

The few times I tried to use it with a build it seemed like even with all the appropriate skills trained I couldn't get the AS high enough to effectively hit what I was hunting.

Great song, especially trained into it. Obviously does tons of damage. High mana cost and training requirement. Other than the mana management problems it was actually so strong/easy I fixskilled back out of pure because it got boring after a few levels. Still handy for getting out of a bind when you just need to smash everything in the room.

Just got to where I could use it as a lance bard. It is everything that's awesome for melee. Hefty mana requirement makes it hard to use much before cap.

I think some of the debuff songs could use a rework to make them more worth the mana cost. Their effects never seem worth it when I'm trying to watch my mana (which is always).

Multi-song penalty. I feel like I could be more dynamic and try out different songs without the penalty. As it is I sing the same 4 or so constantly and have since level 20 with almost no variation.

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

Back in GS3, I thought it would give me the most opportunity for creativity in game.

Being a bard is who she is.

I have had a very difficult time leveling her in the past, as her stats are poor.

Both are pretty weak at 0-39 trainings, even after revising her training several times.

Honestly, I dislike the revisions to Loresinging, as she's had a lot more difficulty doing it since then. As for Recall, it's absolutely useless unless you hunt a bard a LOT. I don't think Recall should be dependent on level or on hunting skill. I think that all bards should be able to do Recall.

There AREN'T any Bard Combat Maneuvers--at least, there aren't any that are just for bards. Charge is for warriors, bards, monks and paladins. Cheapshots is for rogues, bards and monks--and rogues learn it as a guild skill, not as a cman. Garrote and sweep are for rogues, rangers, bards and monks (and again, sweep is a guild skill for rogues). Hamstring is for warriors, rogues, rangers and bards. Spin attack is for warriors, rogues, bards and monks (and doesn't work most of the time). Shield bash is for warriors, rogues, rangers, bards, and paladins. Combat focus, dislodge, and true strike are for warriors, rogues, rangers, bards, monks, and paladins. All professions can learn combat mastery, combat movement, cunning defense, dirtkick, disarm, feint, precision, side by side, subdual strike, and trip. Unarmed specialist is available to everyone but monks. Dirtkick and feint are sometimes useful, though not always.

I can't think of anything mechanically beneficial about being a bard. The only thing I really want fixed is the dependency of Recall on hunting.

That bards be left alone. We're already broken beyond repair and any attempt to fix bards will just make everything worse. I'm tired of things being made worse for bards under the guise of making things better. Just leave us be.

I'd be furious! It would hurt my bard to the point of unplayability because the CS basis for Minor Mental is logic, and she has a very low logic stat. I am sick and tired of my character being stuck with stuff that sucks just because she's a bard. I want to keep Minor Elemental because it actually WORKS.

Minor Elemental works and it isn't dependent on not being stunned. I want to keep one set of spells that works all the time.

It's pretty useless. It barely worked when I was at low levels and it does nothing now.

Utterly useless. Most of the time it doesn't work. When it does, I get caught in RT before I can take advantage of the creature's weapon dropping. Then they grab their weapon back and attack doubly hard because they're mad.

Great spell. Love it. First bardsong that's actually effective.

It's pretty good. Don't like the song making gems explode, though, or getting hauled off to jail when it happens.

Everyone tells me that Lullabye is great for bardic hunting and I keep not seeing it. Yeah, I can put critters to sleep--sometimes. And then I attack them and they wake up instantly, twice as angry and twice as powerful. Not only that, but the more I level, the more resistant creatures seem to be to sleep spells.

Great spell. Actually effective.

Wonderful spell. Raises AS. I love it.

No opinion. I've never used it.

A shield that drops when you get stunned isn't much use, is it?

Again, great spell. I love it.

It's pretty good at stopping swarms and letting you get out of an area. Not 100% since there's a tiny gap between the creatures' last attack and the moment when it registers with them that you're singing. You can be attacked even after the song starts. But it's an okay spell.

Not bad, but again, you get stunned, your weapon vanishes. What good is a weapon that vanishes when you most need it?

Same problem with Sonic Shield and Sonic Armor--it disappears in a crisis. What's the point?

I've never used it because, until December 2020, it affected anyone you weren't joined to, subtracting 20 DS and adding RT. I didn't want to hurt someone unfortunate enough to pass through a room when I was using it.

Why would I want a spell that makes creatures attack me MORE? This spell is pointless.

This spell prevents everyone in the room from casting spells, not just every creature. It wasn't altered in December, either. Why would I want to do that to other players? Not to mention that even the singer can have trouble renewing or singing other spellsongs. Because I would really want to lose all my spellsongs when in a battle with a magic-casting creature.

Oh, great---a spellsong that creates a mana node but that becomes explosive if you sing it too long. Or if it fails when you cast it the first time. Or if it fails when you try to renew it. Or if you or someone in the room is casting mana focus. And it's not even useful. You can just go to an actual earthnode instead of singing something that can blow you and everyone else up.

It works, but the increased mana cost makes it far less valuable than it might be.

It's okay, but having to anchor the spell is an annoyance. Why doesn't the spell just automatically take the bard (and party, if any) to a town tavern that has tables?

Honestly, I think it's pretty poor. There are too many spellsongs with the capacity to hurt the singer, hurt someone else, or strip the singer and/or someone else of spells.

If it were up to me, the first thing I'd eliminate would be all the explosiveness. No more gems exploding. No exploding when trying to create a mana node. No exploding when Song of Power interacts with Mana Focus. Second--Sonic Shield, Sonic Weapon and Sonic Armor do not drop on renewal if the bard is stunned; the acoustics of the room keep the song(s) going for three to five minutes...long enough for the bard to recover and escape. Third--make the low-level spellsongs more effective at all levels. Fourth--fix Song of Noise, as it's potentially an AoE spell. Fifth--eliminate the increased cost for Song of Mirrors and keep the spell working as is. The increased spell cost isn't necessary. Sixth--replace Song of Rage with Countersong (a song that allows the bard to counter the effects of any spells with a verbal component).

Please don't make things worse. PLEASE.

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

1030, lore singing, purfiy gems

utility, ability to be effective as a pure caster

I would say nothing really stood out versus other classes - from a mechanical standpoint.

DS is low. I felt almost forced to go pure casting at higher levels. I'm sitting on a really nice lance because I can't produce enough self-cast DS to survive a hunt without multiple wounds that require healing.

To be honest, the real culprit is all the script hunters in OTF, and other places, that are running monks who are causing massive swarms. A bard, as designed now, could probable handle 2 or 3 fairly easily, but the hunting grounds now are swarming and you get easily overrun. With all these folks scripting it is rare that anyone bothers to stop and help, or even save you if you've died. It's frustrating and taking away from the joy of the game.

It's a nice novelty but fails in comparison to other professional abilities. Players really don't need recal. If a bard can temporarily unlock it for me then I can just record it on paper - I have the info for ever. This ability is honestly useless in my opinion.

A better serves would be that a bard could add an air-like flare to weapons and armor. Tier like the other services. Tier 1 a 10% chance for an extra strike of your weapon, tier 2 a 12% chance, tier 3 adds the possibility of a second strike, tier 4 increase the chance to 15%, and tier 5 a third strike. To armor/shield it could be reactive flares.

Call the spell Evogen's Revenge.

Currently not using at all as I'm pure casting. However, I've always liked shield bash. Which I don't believe they have access to, but if your going to tweak thier magical abilities I'd suggest opening a few of these up.

And I love charge. If I ever get this bard to the point where I take him back to pole arms I will certainly train in that. I also use movement and focus. Movement to address the lack of DS and focus for TD

It's just the lack of DS if you are not carrying around a shield.

I'm a bard and even I know Disruption is over powered. The problem is that if you tweak it I fear a lot of folks will stop playing bards. I know I will unless there is some serious efforts made to keep them viable as pure casters or punch up melee abilities.

Unlocking a lore song, It's a nice novelty but fails in comparison to other professional abilities. Players really don't need recall. If a bard can temporarily unlock it for me then I can just record it on paper - I have the info forever. This ability is honestly useless in my opinion.

A better serves would be that a bard could add an air-like flare to weapons and armor. Tier it like the other services. Tier 1 a 10% chance for an extra strike of your weapon, tier 2 a 12% chance, tier 3 adds the possibility of a second strike, tier 4 increase the chance to 15%, and tier 5 a third strike. To armor/shield it could be reactive flares.

Call the spell Evogen's Revenge.

as long as you keep their elemental mana control cost the same. I don't have the data (i know you do) but it feels like there isn't a lot of folks out there with mental mana to share.

I don't have any immediate thoughts on this.

I never use it. It has always seemed week and a waste.

I use this often. With enough training in manipulation it can kill outright. Outside of that it is a great way to lower an ememies defensive ability. It would be nice that with lore training I could shatter runestaves (non magical type of course) and with further training in lores both the weapon and the shield at the same time.

I would be stupid not to ask for more DS - MORE DS!

Good utility spell. I should use it more but it is cumbersome to sing to a gem multiple times - some gems I have to sing to like a dozen times - BORING! How about link it to lores so I only have to sing to it once and it's at full value and/or an orb gem.

I would be stupid not to ask for more AS - MORE AS!

For all sonic weapons I don't like the 6x cap. What's the purpose of this? You force us into buying armor and investing in getting enchant pass 6x or spending real cash to get certificates in DR to up our sonics - that's lame and we all know it's a money grab on your end - shameful really. But I get it, it's a business.

Or, you could just let it continue to scale to say 8x and then use lores for us to get to 10x. This would certainly go a long way particularly if you nerve disruption.

I don't use it much. Maybe I'm doing it wrong but it seems like it doesn't activate immediately upon cast? if I'm not doing it wrong and that's how it functions please change

For all sonic weapons I don't like the 6x cap. What's the purpose of this? You force us into buying armor and investing in getting enchant pass 6x or spending real cash to get certificates in DR to up our sonics - that's lame and we all know it's a money grab on your end - shameful really. But I get it, it's a business.

Or, you could just let it continue to scale to say 8x and then use lores for us to get to 10x. This would certainly go a long way particularly if you nerve disruption.

For all sonic weapons I don't like the 6x cap. What's the purpose of this? You force us into buying armor and investing in getting enchant pass 6x or spending real cash to get certificates in DR to up our sonics - that's lame and we all know it's a money grab on your end - shameful really. But I get it, it's a business.

Or, you could just let it continue to scale to say 8x and then use lores for us to get to 10x. This would certainly go a long way particularly if you nerve disruption.

The blowing up thing needs to go.

I don't like that it makes your voice whack out and you need to rush to find something to drink but I get it.

Even when I have trained as a melee I found this to be of little help. It's small damage and critters in this game rarely have the amount of health required to sustain a long 1 to 1 fight that would make the small damage add up and be meaningful over time.

It would be better served as crowd control spell. Cast it and everything in the room take a stun for a number of seconds based on lore training - like a flash bang (breech, bang and clear!)

Call it Evogen's Shout

Defensive spell. I thought this was a hast like effect. It's a great spell for melee users. I wouldn't change it.

The previous questions about moving to the mental sphere is intriguing. If there is no intent to get savants up and going why not give us major mental or the arcane circle. With the caveat that there is a similar AS/DS boosts available in those spheres (401,406,414,425,430).

I don't like that I have to sing songs every 7 to 9 minutes. I mean I get it and it makes sense but it's a pain in the ass. It also sucks when you are stunned and they trigger to refresh because, yeah...you know.

Something popped into my head. I feel like it's inevitable that 1030 gets nerfed but I do want a pre casting build viable. Is it realistic that there is a bolt spell maid available.

"Tonis can slay an army in a few moments by rushing among them and snatching the breath from their mouths." What about a bolt that slams into them and does this very thing. The mechanics might already by there with 702 or 720. Maybe have the bolt take the the form of something like this from the documentaion. "Tonis takes on the form of a golden pegasus whose hooves strike flames from the sky."

In case I did not write this yesterday, I REALLY wish this were more useful. It comes at a very dear investment of time and resources (no pun intended) and does not even begin to compare to what ensorcelling, enchanting, tattoos, etc can do for gear/characters.

I picked a bard because it let me be creative (songs), and a good hunting partner (group spells) and have a balance between weapons and magic. I really liked the idea of having a dancing weapon fighting beside me, granted in my mind it was a real weapon I had supped up, not the flareless wonder I have currently.

I feel being a bard impacts my bards ability to speak the truth in a crowd, or crash a ball at court, or get wrapped up in an assassination plot, all of my most memorable experiences have happened as a result of my being a bard. Either being able to sense the history in something, or pacify an area long enough to save or find someone, or learning about elanthia so I could have an answer just at the right time. Playing an instrument at a friends wedding, or funeral, or just entertaining others in general through songs and deed.

I like being a jack of all trades, I love watching my 1025 cut something down, I love purifying gems and making the most of my trading skills. I like having multiple tricks up my sleeve b/c I use weapons and magic equally well.

I found that the first 30 levels as a bard were painful, we half to fight like squares, in lighter armor, with basically no offensive combat manuever ability, and a CS too low to hit anything like level unless it has a built in TD push down. I spent alot of time using lullabye as a physical bard which limited my hunting to mainly living things as undead were too difficult to get on the ground magically. As I got more spells I was able to bring things down more reliably to start the fight and made faster progress from level 30+.

I have levelled up a rogue, a warrior, and a sorcerer and all of them made much faster progress with fewer deaths than my bard who had to stance dance often in the open and rely on 1x dodge and shield use. The others all had the ability to comfortably 2x in dodge. or stealth, or the magic skills needed for a runestaff.

There is a big lag on bard skills since we can really only afford to 1x most things pre cap. I felt it the most right at cap, before I gained enough exp to learn over 1x in things like spells and combat maneuvers even with outside spells it was always lower than everyone else in the group. DS similarly felt very low right at cap and I had to learn 2x dodge to really get to a point where I could hunt without spells and have a DS over 400 in offensive stance. Our real weak point is our TD, I have never been able to ward off pretty much any like level caster, I'm not saying make us immune, but give me at least a fighting chance. As it stands currently if something I am hunting gets a cast off, there is no chance of me warding it off.

Loresongs give too much RT and people don't want to wait for you to write up fresh verses so you get lots of scripts doing the bare minimum (see not being creative) which kind of defeats the charm of the skill. Loresong unlocking seems to be one profession service no one is buying, you can barely give it away despite my best efforts to sell it like ensorcelling or enchanting it just doesn't offer any real benefit, if people want to remember their item info they've had 20 years to figure out work arounds and post it note systems. I like the thought, but the skill was obsolete when they rolled it out.

Our cmans are decent depending on your weapon skill, if you use a polearm they are great, if you do not, they are all really middle of the road/vanilla.
I use charge because I use a polearm, I also know feint and shield bash, almost exclusively for defensive purposes, I use dirtkick, cheapshots, unarmed combat speicalist so my cheapshots get flares, and garrote so I can kill grimswarm shaman/warchief w/o raising the alarm. We should be able to learn any shield cman we want, we are already paying 2x the cman points and cannot get them for free w/ shield skills. I think as lore masters we should be able to learn some sort of martial stance, make it require us unlocking the loresong in a hunting ground or something before we can use it, Idk but its a skill that fits us better than anyone else. along with all the mental cmans that help defend against magical attacks, no square should have those abilities if bards cannot. Looking at you slippery mind.

Let us command 1025 from hiding/invisibilty

Increase the number of anchors you can set for 1020 to 1 for each region
Increase the range of 1020 that doesn't require a gold ring.
Remove any DS penalties to holding an instrument in combat as a bard

I have very little to do now that I have all the combat skills I want, mastering an instruments takes some time, but I'm done with that, I've mastered my artisan skills, we don't have a guild or anything we can make to fill my time.

Also please fix the nightmare gorge, and the Rift so it stops stripping bard songs or just make it so 1014 sonic armor cannot be dispelled without some sort of skills check against bard's level/lore training.

I would very very much like merchants to stop making shops, offices, and events in rooms that prevent you from renewing your songs, super annoying.

songs that don't work due to armor failure not costing mana, song of rage and song of depression should both work as intended and properly account for telepathy lore training. One doesn't prone targets like it promises, and the other doesn't seem to add enough RT. I hear people complain about 1030 but I'm not sure you could reduce the DF bonus from manipulation lore any more and still have it be a relevant factor for the song, which is our flagship and one of the few that takes instrument skill into account. You would need to give alot to justify that nerf, like a second viable attack spell lot.

I wish for complete spell lists 440/450 utility spell (encumbrance reduction would be nice) and 1050, it needs to be nuanced multi-tiered and professional capstone achievement. Summon a mythical beast to ride on, learn a new language, project and echo of yourself as a mirror image someplace else something big/amazing because we had to wait so long.

I wish bards could learn more magic than other semis since we can't hide, or use shields and armor as well as they do. Let us 2x lores and/or learn up to 1x in MnE/MnM, and up to 2x in songs.

I think it offers a lot of potential particularly with some of the telepathic attack spells, and disguise one's self magically. But I would be concerned about losing the elemental spells bonus to AS/CS/DS/and TD that I just do not think the mental circle provides.

it gives us enough magical AS/CS to use our songs against like level foes, and is a requirement if you want to make ranged or thrown combat viable as a bard given our limitations on perception and ambush training. its just a bandaid, we need more TD and alot of AS boosts to be able to keep up with other professions i don't think there is much else that makes us feel elemental. Look at the lore review they made it so we couldn't use any of the updates and keep the air lore bonuses to our sonic equipment.

this song is a fun idea that makes you want to try using an instrument in combat, but it neither slows down, or injures the target so you almost always get hit. In capped hunting areas, it is a questionable gamble of 3 seconds RT that will not make you safer.

This is probably the greatest attack spell in the game, I kill far more things using it than I ever have using 1030, and so little mana to use it ... 5 stars

I use it because I am in chain armor and I don't have redux I need any DS I can get, especially DS that the confluence/rift won't strip off me.

I really love the idea of purifying gems, but after 20 years the RT and inability to infuse more mana into the attempt to purify them in one go is almost annoying enough to make me not want to bother. A skills that requires me to sing to each gem in my pocket 10 times is just encouraging a script

Good spell, it makes no sense that it is single target though, anything that hears the lullabye should be affected. and it should make undead have a chance to be released cause they are sent back to a peaceful everlasting slumber. As it stands I give it 4 stars... reliable go to set up spell.

it should help with more than just with lockpicking not just disarming, it should help with foraging but also fishing and darts, finding more treasure and your odds of winning during minigames. I chose to believe it does all these wonderful things and more sans any evidence 5 stars

A very necessary boon to bards who use physical attacks, I don't think the AS boost should be capped. I miss eonake's glory I think it gave TD too, anywho 4 stars would be 5 if it gave AS +CS or TD

the DF bonus from air lore should be increased, and there should be a multi-target option or a chance to hit other creatures based on warding level, and lore training. under appreciated spell song, 5 stars

It would be alot better if bards could do more than shield bash, also it doesn't flare and can't be blessed, or have spikes added so its pretty underwhelming compared to many shields out there. 3 stars/ a song I never have a reason to use

see my answer for 1003, I am in chain armor, and this gives me some DS that won't get stripped in the Rift/Confluence, I can't be picky an not use it.

Has saved my life many times, should not be so difficult to use in combat situations, should prevent 1018 or 1020 from failing while its being sung at the same time. 5 stars

best bard song double flares yes please, let us ensorcel. add weighting and padding to our weapons like everyone else out here making god killer weapons. 5 stars

If any spell should, it should be able to unravel curses. it should do more than let you drain wands and remove sounds/412. let us use it on stationary objects in hunting environments to recharge our mana pools. In closing...it should work against curses. 2 stars

I want to use this but it can be literally blown off of you. That does not say security and safety to me, the elemental absorbing properties are nice, but the impact vulnerability that cannot be trained away is not. The armor cannot flare, or be padded does it really need a vulnerability that no amount of lore or training can remove? I mean you can't even added armor fittings. Its a great idea, but I've had it dispelled, or go poof when I get a poorly timed stun enough times to make me swear off using it. Also it sucks having to get armor support after swimming to the sands, or when you cannot renew your armor due to stun, etc. 5 star idea... 3 stars as implemented

This song seems like it should be overpowered but it doesn't seem to add as much RT as it should with lots of telepathy training. I use it alot because my CS isn't great and I can't reliably ward things without it. I use it every hunt, because then I only need to do half as many casts of 1030 or 1002 to kill stuff and in theory it makes my disablers like 1005/1008 last longer. 5 stars

This song is hot garbage, and I mean that with love, but it doesn't prone things, it requires an absurd amount of telepathy lore to use and then it doesn't even guarantee a target will be max enraged. its single target, and unless you are leading a hunt of people 20 trains under you against a boss critter why would you use it?? Solo hunters get this same effect without spending mana or RT.... just a real head scratcher about what the point of the song was supposed to be. 1 star

Song of noise is unreliable and unwieldy. If bards didn't rely on magic so much to set up combat this song would make more sense, if it didn't stop the bard from casting so consistently it would make more sense, if like level critters didn't cast right through it with seemingly no rhyme or reason I would use it. but this song lets spells from critters through, stops my 1035 at the worst possible time, and makes unstunning myself impossible ;( I wish this song could be focused to prevent a single target from casting, or the bard received what ever bonus to skills allows like level foes to cast through song of noise. 3 stars

I love using this song, I don't understand why it has a chance to kill the bard, I would like it more if I could some how control the suicide powers it imparts. Make it song of power/sacrifice where the bard can self destruct setting the mana around them ablaze if they become overwhelmed. but since it doesn't do that currently.... 4stars.

I can't not use this song, essential to me living through a hunt, my mirror images should have a chance to get hit by spells instead of me cause no or some fractional amount of damage. 5 stars but could still be even better

I love traveler's song I wish it worked better cross realms, I don't see why it has lethal side effects, but I guess having to keep a drink handy is kind of charming and a professional quirk. Playing an instrument should guarantee success/prevent any fumbles. 5 stars

Great song, the biggest reason I became a bard, I don't know why it has to be so slow to follow and get started, why there are almost no ways for the bard to interact with it. Or why it has no flares and cannot be worked on by merchants to have ensorcelling or other abilities added, if its because it is a song and made of air, then I don't understand why we can't make a physical weapon animated using this song. I wish there were more than 2 weapon base choices for each weapon type when you use 1025.

1030 gets called OP but I don't see myself killing any more things with a cast than a wizard, or a sorc, or even a ranger using nature's fury. I think its absurd to call a profession OP based on the possibility of one mutant build jacking the DF of A spell way up. For most bards that use weapons and magic the spell is not especially powerful, and certainly not over powered. It casts a long shadow over the profession and those who aren't focused on manipulation lore are likely to be most negatively impacted by any nerf. Anywho 4 stars

really good song, takes forever to get enough air lore and mana to use it consistently but its worth every bit of effort. For me its more about the magic dodge ranks than the RT reduction. I don't know that my DS is good enough to hunt like level without running it near constantly. 5 stars

The song is great for group hunts, warcamps and invasions, but it costs too much mana to use for just me and not be certain it will unstun me. Should be swapped into the 1016 slot, so we can have a TD spellsong. 3 stars

it lacks the necessary CS and TD boosters to allow a bard to specialize in just songs and be viable. and does not provide any means of compensating for encumbrance issues that come from carrying around instruments and other prop items needed to perform.

1016 song of rage,
lethal side effects 1018/1020
the need for everything to have some draw back. See sonic armor vulnerability, the inability for sonic armor/shield to have flares or weighting or ensorcelling. not being able to control 1025 from hiding/invisibilty

multi-song penalty,
open hand penalty for holding something besides a weapon in combat (apply to instruments only)

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

I think I liked the jack of all trades aspect of the profession. It was in 2009 or something so i'm not sure....

She is flamboyant and gregarious, and likes being the center of attention!

The variation and utility in the spellsongs makes her a perfect hunting partner, assisting in setups and group buffs

My first 20 levels took forever because I was lazy. The road to cap after that was much faster because I was more motivated to play. As long as i had hunting partners, i had little trouble. My other characters leveled much faster also due to motivation.

As a melee bard, I find her to be somewhat underpowered compared to other professions and feel she dies pretty easily.

I really enjoy loresinging and the RP aspects of it when people aren't just looking for a quickie service. I have only been asked for LKP's once, ever. I personally think it's neat but more of a novelty than a really desirable service.

I'd like to get more access to combat maneuvers or even see some bard-only maneuvers that capitalize on the showmanship aspect of being a bard. The ones we have access to are good utilitywise but generally lack flavor.

The main one that springs to mind is the one where i accidentally kill people with Song of Power. I never use that song because it's more of a liability than it is useful.

I have never tried the pure bard route because it doesn't fit with my RP so I personally wouldn't care if that were nerfed (aside from feeling bad about the massive outcry that would surely follow). I suppose I could live with the no mana loss on failure being corrected too, that always felt OP to be honest. Those two are huge so I will leave it there.

I'd love to see the Sonic gear spellsongs condensed into one to free up spell slots for cool new spells. There are some songs I never use such as aforementioned Power, but I also never use Unravelling or Noise either, would be happy to see those replaced as well.

I do like some of the glamor/deception aspects of MnM but it seems like a lot of those spells are tailored for UAC which I would not like to become the typical bard build (though I love UAC).

I find the 400s to be very useful - if we were changed over to MnM (which i know next to nothing about), we would definitely need some comparable AS and DS buffs to the guards spells and 425.

Seldom used at higher levels.

Love this spell and wouldn't want it changed much. Customizations or updated messaging might be cool though.

I'd like the number of times i have to cast this to be reduced in a perfect world :) it's very spammy.

Great spell, i love the long duration of effect, very useful for controlling a room

I like the tuning fork item that was recently released, but it's a bit demoralizing to have to spend lots of time/money on an item to buff sonic gear. Would like to see unlockable buffs we can get through training.

Largely useless because it impedes pure hunting partners.

Useless due to being a time bomb.

Love the expanded usefulness with the teleportation review.

As a melee bard, i love this spell :)

Saved my butt countless times

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

Bard weapons and loresinging items

Being in voln and the usefulness of sung weapons

Nerfing things doesn't fix them? But i'd like bard weapons to be more effective on undead.

To have no reduction on the power of my sung weapons on undead and the flare to work on them or make them blessable. As of now if something doesn't change ill probably leave voln on my Bard for one of the others.

i use it but dont really know if it does much

be better if it worked on undead better

would be more useful if it wasn't so weak

its okay take a lot of mana

its helped me a few times ina group

wish song were on and just on until you turn them off. Like how they did paladin spells

They seemed/seem to me like the one profession that truly blends spellcasting and weapon swinging, something that's always appealed to me.

For me, being a bard transforms him from something like a Fighter/Mage into a character with more depth beyond his means of combat. He's a troubadour, a Gurney Halleck, someone that values wit and artistry. All of that is tied into being a bard.

I like the unique spell list, first and foremost. Some people have suggested taking away spellsong. Doing this would be a catastrophic move. Gemstone is in a death-spiral of design right now on account of its homogenization of systems. It's early in this death spiral, and it's not something that can be avoided, but it *is* a death-spiral from a design POV. LACK OF HOMEGENIZATION is why this game has lasted 35 years. Do not throw spellsongs on that chopping-block.

I have leveled every profession except rogue and warrior to 40+. Bards can be really tough to level early on, depending on training path. I think some sort of tweak to the song renewal costs to make them more forgiving to lower level characters might be in order. At the same time, the ability to slowly make use of more and more spellsongs is part of the reward of leveling a bard, so it's a tough call. Compared to other professions, I would say that bards are pretty easy to level if you know how to design an effective swinger. I suspect for a new player, however, there is a high risk of making a bard concept that is unfeasible at low levels (TWC, sword and board). But if you make a polearm bard, for example, it's pretty smooth sailing assuming you know how to choose the right weapon/race/agidex etc.

My bard's AS is far lower than comprable semis. My friend's empath - yes empath - has about the same AS as my bard did at his train. Same friend's paladin has 40, yes 40, more AS than my bard does at 10, yes 10, trains lower. My bard's AS doesn't feel ineffectively low, and I'm able to hunt pretty well, but I'm somewhat reliant on 1005 as a setup for the DS reduction. Overall I'd say my bard's AS seems fine, but given the monstrous amounts of power-creep that have been put in the game in the last 15 years, bard's AS definitely seems low to me, especially when compared to Paladins, who seem to have been lavished with absolutely and utterly everything and anything they could possibly want. Comparison of bard/paladin training costs is a laughable exercise.

As for DS, my bard's DS seems excellent. I am TWC and generally hunt with outside spells, but I think that self-spelled I would be fine, I'd just die to swarms more easily and would have to be more careful. To put a number to it, my bard's DS at 62 fully spelled (including outside spells) is in the high 500s with 1035 up, which is higher than any other character of mine at that train. In offensive stance DS is similarly high (upper mid 300s) due to that massive dodge DS from phantom dodge ranks. Self-spelled it's still around 300. I've heard a lot about bards having DS problems, but frankly I don't see it.

Loresinging is what it is, and it's cool that bards have it. I am sure it could be tweaked. Recall is a cool service, but it's too hard, and it makes no sense for an item to get harder and harder to unlock when you could unlock it and THEN get tons of services done to it. I don't think it should be so hard to do, when it has no tangible impact on game balance.

Bards need more combat maneuvers, particularly given the fact that Paladin's have an absolutely massive TP cost advantage over bards now, and somehow have all their previous benefits of being 'almost' squares. In particular, bards should get all but the most specialized 'rogue' like CMANs that are appropriate, just as Rangers get many of the S&H ones and Paladins get many of the Warrior ones. Specifically, bards should have, in no particular order:

Acrobat's Leap (every semi should have this by the way, quit screwing small races)
Coup de Grace
Duck and Weave (to encourage using lighter armor)
Slippery Mind (fits perfectly with the whole mental semi thing)
Whirling Dervish (TWC bard is a thing, and this fits because dancing)

I also think there should be serious thought given to bard specific maneuvers, or possibly give them access to some warrior cries via the CMAN list, because again it makes sense.

So, spelling up *while* singing spellsongs is annoying for obvious reasons. It would be cool if spellsong renewal became free after 60 seconds in a safe room, or something to that effect, just so we can spellup without dropping songs, spelling up, resinging songs, wait for mana, etc etc.

1030 has to change. I play pures, and in particular my oldest character is a sorcerer. It rankles me that my MUTANT BARD that is .75X IN BARD SPELLS has an open attack spell that makes anything my sorcerer has look pathetic in comparison. How this spell made it into the game as-is just reeks of GM corruption or abject incompetence (take your pick, they are both pretty bad options). If you want bards to have a powerful single target spell, roll some more skill benefits into 1008 or something, but focused 1030 should just be removed. I know the current devs won't do it because the dev philosophy is clearly to give players what they want, but 1030 is ridiculous and you know it.

The rest is hard to answer. 10-15 years ago, I would have admitted that 1035 and 1005 were OP, but today? Not so much. The game's power creep has been so insane since I started playing in 1994, especially in the last 15 years, that I can't call these abilities OP anymore, PARTICULARLY in light of the Paladin review. With abilities like Onslaught in the game, which my hunting partner uses regularly, I can't say 1035 is broken anymore. The truth is, bards are one of the most well-designed classes, and aside from 1030, they aren't really broken.

1.) Re-evaluate the training costs. If Paladins are going to get everything and anything, which they did with the last review, then bard's training costs should come down. It's ridiculous. Take the two most common training paths for each profession and look at them side-by-side, it's absurd. If we're in the new Gemstone era of dev, where the guiding light is 'Screw it, give them everything' then you have to include bards in that too.

2.) Make a bard's guild with skills like: luthier, battle cries, hypnotism, a few CMANs like sweep.

3.) More systems revolving around bard-stuff. Glamours and illusion, music, song, charm monster, etc.

Eh, it's the same as the issue with moving Empaths to being real hybrids - the 1200s would have to be completely redesigned, since it's currently Monk Base (and you know it). I also don't see what there is to be gained by doing this. Bards are already wholly defined by their profession list, not their minor list, so switching them to the 1200s is really just an emperor's new clothes move at best. I'd rather see the 1200s re-vamped for migrating empaths to it. Also, if bards are mental/elemental hybrids, they can't have BOTH minor lists, and they already have the mental part covered pretty well with the 1000s.

Eh. I think the whole 'air' thing on the bard list is impactful in this regard, and I like it. I think this could be fleshed out a little bit to try to tie other elements into 'bard-like' things, e.g. fire + passion, water + inebriation.

Like it. Small, useful, not OP.

Also like it. Feels powerful, but not immensely so. When it's useful it's very useful.

I purify all my gems. I both love and hate this spell, which probably means it's in a good spot.

Amazing, one of the cornerstones of hunting for me. I feel like it could be a little OP, but as stated earlier, given the game's power creep, I'm not sure that's true anymore. I think it could stand to be fleshed out a bit.

Stupid and ineffectual. Put something else here and take these asinine open rolls out of the game.

Cool spell. Seems to fall by the wayside for me because of 1005. I think this spell has some potential to be a cornerstone for a casting bard after alteration of 1030 and re-balancing.

Give it sonic flares. They don't have to be as gnarly as the weapon ones, that might be too much, but still it should have them.

Awesome. I use it all the time for bounties etc. There's probably room to work in some kind of other utility with lores.

Great spell. My bard is TWC and this is the cornerstone of my build.

Rarely use it. Seems very niche, but it might be a training thing for my bard.

Cool spell, but I just find it's always just the best candidate for not using in order to save on renewals, and I don't see that changing.

Never use it. Maybe I should. Who knows.

Cool spell, has niche uses, but overall not that useful.

Been too scared to experiment with it.

Pretty awesome spell, feels very impactful.

Love it. I like its flavor, I like the anchoring to a bar. I love little cool stuff like, how it backfired and dropped me in the ghost tavern in darkenmist outside TI.

Um. I like the spell in theory, but my god I can never afford it and I'm level 62.

I don't think I need to say anything about this spell that hasn't been said. It's ludicrously OP, probably the single most OP spell in the entire game. I will never forgive the Devs for butchering my sorcerer's 702/719 and leaving this in the game. Never.

I love it. As a TWC bard, it's a lot of fun, and it's very impactful. From my POV however, it feels balanced? I can't keep it up constantly, so it's a choice to pop it and go ham for a minute. I could see it being OP post-cap, but isn't getting OP post-cap kinda the point? I think a nerf to 1035 is what I'm most worried about in the review.

Still don't have it at level 62. Getting 430 was too important.

I love the unique spellsong aspect of it, and I think it's a really solid list overall but that it just shows its age from lack of lore interactions and depth. Compare it to the Cleric or Sorcerer or Ranger circle for example, and it's pretty stark. So I would love to see it remain generally the same, but trim some of the fat and bring in new and interesting spells, add lore interactions and alternate uses. I think there is a lot of room for creativity on the list still.

Just combine 1003/1010. Maybe combine ALL the sonic equipment into one spell that is just cast with arguments.

Don't go too far. Paladins (and wizards) have been buffed to the point of absurdity, and I don't want to see that happen to bards. I want to see depth, utility, and good UNIQUE design, not homogenization and grotesquely overpowered abilities. That's what made Gemstone great, and to be totally blunt, I think the current dev team has occasionally lost sight of that lately (but don't get me wrong, you guys have done a lot of phenomenal dev lately too).

Because I love utilities like singing to items to know their worth and use. I also thought that singing to gems would help me make silvers for shopping.

My char loves to help people out. Being a Chairwoman of both a CHE and an MHO, helping people is in my nature. I don't ask for tips when singing to items and if I see a friend or house member fall, I run to rescue them.

I love being able to rescue people and using bard travel to help get them back to town. I love the fact that with the bardsongs, my armor and weapon grew in strength as I did and weighed nothing. I tend to be a hoarder so the weightless gear was a big help. I like to help younger adventurers hunt and my song raises their AS and they're glad to have me along.

Being a young bard was difficult when I started out, trying to calculate mana and song renewal. My bard is my only magical character I've gotten past 35, but the complexities of the profession kept me interested and I still continue to learn how to be better at it.

Being a bard made me look more deeply into DS and TD. I had to learn more mechanics in order to be successful when hunting, especially alone. I was hesitant to go pure but when I finally did I loved it so much. I enjoy being a pure powerful caster. I hope the 'bard review' doesn't nix that too much.

I love to loresing for anyone that needs it. I'm listed in the services so that anyone nearby that might need a song will know I'm on duty. Loresong unlocking was a great idea. So much thought and creativity goes into loresongs, it's nice that owners of special items can recall them any time they wish.

When I used a lance I trained in cman trip, but I rarely remembered to use it. Now I train in cman abilities that help me counteract the creatures in the area I frequent.

Back again to being a young bard I had some difficulties, but bard was really the first even semi profession that I took seriously. Once I got past 20-30 levels, I couldn't bring myself to play any other profession.

I honestly can't think of anything that I wouldn't mind being corrected. Again, I'm not the best bard but it is the profession that has kept me as a customer this long. Even though I recently capped, I still can't bring myself to play as any of my other characters.

In my personal experience I found bard TD to be extremely low. It may have been my lack of experience in the area, but I did the best I could. I wouldn't mind seeing this go up a bit. I would also wish that bard travel not be nerfed. It's one of the utilities I use as a bard a lot. The last time we had a bard review something went wrong, and I'll admit that I did almost rage quit.

Bards losing elementals would be disastrous, possibly not so much for pures, but swingers need ewave plus guards.

Firstly, it gives us another spell circle that I use a lot. Ewaving throughout my training has kept me alive on more than one occasion. Without elemental spells, I really feel less useful because bard spells can't be shared. Also, with the option of training in elemental and/or mental mana it opens up avenues for others to share mana with me because bards are mana hogs.

I use this spell mostly when I'm hunting creatures that are really hard for me to hit. It is also useful when I am helping younger adventurers hunt so they can attack better as well.

This is one of my favorite spells. Creatures are much easier to hit when you can disarm them and as an older bard it can kill a creature outright. It's nice to have this utility that uses so little mana yet is so helpful.

I'm not sure I noticed much of a difference.

Without this song would we even have chrisms?!!

This spellsong is another of my favorites because once a creature is laying or sitting down, even if not asleep, it lowers their DS and is useful when hunting something that is particularly hard to hit.

I haven't really noticed that it does much.

Truly one of my top three favorite spells. Any AS advantage is a bonus in my opinion.

I use this spell when trying to conserve mana. It doesn't hit as hard as sonic disruption but truly a nice offensive spell.

Personally, I've never been a fan of shields so I've never used it.

I haven't really noticed much difference. I've just always sung it.

This song has saved my hide on more than one occasion, and the hides of my companions. I would be lost (and dead a lot more) without this saving grace.

This particular song is one of the reasons I chose to learn to be a bard. Having a weightless enchanted weapon at a song's notice is without question one of the best things about being a bard. Plus, it grows as the character grows and I wasn't trying to save up so many silvers to purchase one. I've been a bard for ten years and I know 4x gear doesn't cost much these days, but when I was a young bard this song really saved me.

I really only use this song if I'm having a particularly difficult time hitting a creature after I've used song of holding, vibration, lullabye, etc.

This again is one of the reasons I became a bard. Same as sonic weapon.

Again, this song was more of a last resort in my hunting style.

Again, this song was more of a last resort in my hunting style, especially after going pure.

I love this song and it's extremely useful, but being a bard for ten years I've honestly lost count in how many times it's killed myself or others. I know it has been recently updated and I'm looking forward to not murdering innocent bystanders.

I just always sung this song due to the fact that it was a defensive spell and bards are a little squishy and need all the defense they can get.

This song is among my top three favorite songs. It's extremely useful in situations where I have over estimated my ability to withstand the hunting area chosen.

I used this song a lot as a young bard. It was like having a handy friend with you to give a little hit while in rt.

This is my #1 favorite song and I'll be really upset if it gets nerfed. On the flip side, if someone has walked into the room just as I casted it, there was going to be trouble. I understand this has been updated as well and I really appreciate it.

This song requires a lot of mana for one minute of haste. I was rarely able to use it in conjunction with all of my other songs.

This song has saved myself and my hunting companions on more than one occasion. I like to hunt in large groups and it's extremely helpful when hunting creatures that ewave or tremor. Being flat out on the ground isn't great for defenses.

I have played every profession available and bardsongs are what has kept me interested in playing long enough to cap for the first time in 25 years.

You know, honestly nothing but if I had to pick I'd say song of luck because I didn't notice that it did anything at all. Song of noise hasn't been particularly useful either.

I do hope anyone looking to review the bard profession has spent a long time playing it. It's difficult to know just how endearing being a bard can be if you haven't walked the miles in their shoes. I do also hope that none of the changes lessen the bard's power when hunting. Bards are squishy and need all the help they can get.

That was 25 years ago and a lot has changed, but I can tell you I still don’t regret it. :)

I enjoy the concept of using sound as a magical foci and having the ability to suss secrets out of inanimate objects as a result. Bards in my mind do not have to be the stereotypical poor minstrel, merely scrounging for coins for his next drink, and I appreciate that the gamut of spells and abilities we have do not pigeonhole us to that extremely lame construct.

Loresinging, being a jack of all trades (good enough at many, master of none!), screaming my brains out like a banshee.

Being a bard in GSIII was hard; the only viable build was Sword/Board+Ambush. GSIV was actually harder yet, because the power of mid-range spells was not great enough to offset the loss of ambush on a traditional sword/board setup -- without significant pain or a radical change in training. I was accustomed to being a jack of all trades in GSIII and that approach has not worked as well under GSIV. I slogged through the pain of being just good enough at swinging and casting, rather than min-maxing my way to cap and beyond. The cost of diversity was painful until about 12 million experience, when I could really max out enough of one skill to be great, without losing the versatility of other builds.

Comparing this to a wizard, which I have gotten to 12m exp: there are truly very few ways to screw it up. Every lore is good, every spell ratio works just fine, you blast everything and only die in cheap ways to things like FoF/Ambush. It’s fun, but it’s easy. There’s no challenge or problem solving and few tactical considerations.

Comparing this to an empath, which I have gotten up to 17m exp: Hunting was fun, though my character had defensive deficits that made cheap death easy and mostly unavoidable. I had plenty of spell options for casting and bolting. Though similar to a bard I did have to pick and choose hunting grounds based on the spells I had in my arsenal at the time, which ultimately led me to add bolting just past cap. The ability to pick up a second hunting method so easily was only possible because lores are not nearly as obligatory to be successful, as they are with bards.

AS has been fine. DS and TD were really pitiful from about level 80 to 12m exp. I died sooo soo much. It was painful and I wanted to quit.

I like the concept of loresong unlocking but unfortunately it doesn’t provide enough oomph to make it hotly desirable, especially with free temp unlocking being a thing. I posted some suggestions on the bard boards recently including:
* Boost to "luck" in the form of a dice modifier, like truestrike or surita, tiered from 5-25% on weapons. Shield and Armor offer the same but for defensive reactions in the form of EBP, Dodge, CvA, or TD.
* Periodic boost to efficacy of existing flares, padding, and weighting.
* Temp bonus to enhancives and enhanced items, similar to supercharging but at no increased depletion
* Issues a pause on enhancive/temp enhancement degradation
* Periodic experience modifiers
* Ability to give reactive sonic air flares to people's shields and armor
* Ability for someone to "self-knowledge" a bard song on their own once a day from an item
* Ability to craft instruments for people that yield enhanced absorption rates, which count toward profession service juice absorption as well
* Trading bonus modification

Although I am 2x CM for the AS boost and defensive benefits, I don’t use them actively at all. It would take a pretty big overhaul to get me to use offensive CMANs. That said, Shield Specs would be nice so we could get reactive flares from shields. My bard isy trained in: Combat Focus (2), Disarm Weapon (5), Feint (5), Garrote (5, just for style points), Cheap Shots (5), Cunning Defense (5).

TD and offensive DS are low. Honestly, other than that, not really. At 25m exp, it’s hard to complain about anything.

That Free Spell Hindrance: Just fix it. I don’t even care anymore. 1030: Cap it a little. Just a little. 1035: If -3 sec RT is too OP, make -3 possible on a roll basis and have the max be -2 otherwise (I’m going to write about this at length in the 1035/Tonis spellsong detail section.

I don't really even know how to answer this question come to think of it? Good luck :)

Two things: Allow Sonics to be improved with enchanting, ensorceling, and WPS; and also give us a profession service that is super desirable so I have something to strive toward every week and can turn a profit comparable to Enchant and Ensorcel.

Wait no, make that THREE Things: If Bards were given something like Shroud of Deception and monks handed something else for the 1212 slot, I would LOVE YOU FOREVER. LONG TIME. PROMISE. XO XO XO XO XD <3 <3!!!1one!! This is my One Great Wish for bards. :):):):):):)

The focus of Minor sphere spells are a combination of buff and utility and less focus on attacks, in my opinion. A lot of work would have to be done to diversify the MnM circle to make it interesting. MnM has little utility, because it was designed to act as the sole buffing agent for Monks. As it stands now, the only thing I want out of MnM is 1212, Shroud of Deception, which has not been implemented yet. 1205, Glamour, has a bit more appeal for money making, but it would likely be nerfed as well if bards were moved to MnM due to their cheaper trading costs anyway There are also no buffs great enough in MnM to outweigh what MnE currently offers, though it’s worthwhile to consider how the actual attack spells in MnM might be more viable for a bard over a monk.

MnM uses 4 of 5 Mental Lores, and as such would require a bit of retooling of both MnM and Bard sphere to ensure bards could be viable in more than one training path, due to current lore thresholds being so high for ML: Telepathy and ML:Manip under the 1x lores restriction.

Make MnM tasty, and I’ll submit. Can’t believe I am even saying this.

There’s something still missing in the elemental-mental hybrid approach that bards take, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. The element of Air, as a requirement for and byproduct of sound, feels like a natural fit. Yet, how does the element of Air play into the emotional ties of a mental spell beside the obvious tugging of heartstrings? It doesn’t really.

I can’t believe I am saying this, but my main reasons for not wanting to lose Elemental vs shifting to MnM are: 403, 404, 407, 408, and the myriad of offensive and defensive buffs. Nearly all utility and attacks available in MnE are replicated within bard intrinsic abilities or existing spellsongs, and that’s a poor justification to keep MnE.

Alright, you broke me. Make MnM tasty, and I’ll forgo 403, 404, 407, and 408. But I must have that sweet, sweet 1212 for roleplay purposes.

Neat idea, never use it. I am glad Mass Holding and 1001 were combined eons ago, but it didn’t make the spell more desirable. Don’t got time for it when 1005 is way more effective on a single critter. This one might benefit from a TD reduction approach in lieu of 1015, like Song of Crushing Apathy, or something? I dunno… Good luck finding something fun in here.

Love it. Please don’t touch it unless you are adding an AoE aspect (which would be **awesome** by the way).

No complaints, but if it gave TD it’d be handier, or combined with 1010 and 1019 to make room for something neater, that would be fine (might require a de-buff on existing 1019, if that spell was moved down to 1010 though).

This is such a slog. Total time sink. I spend over two hours on a full 200-gem bag, due to the number of casts it takes to purify to max quality (25m exp here). It’s not worth using. Time is money after all, but I am a glutton for punishment and it feels like sacrilege to not utilize my character’s hard-earned skill. If there was a way to multicast this N times to simply speed up the process I’d be a happier camper.

It does what it does. Might make a neat AoE candidate, if its efficacy must ever be reduced.

No complaints. Might be worthwhile to consider consolidating with other buffs if that ever comes about though.

No complaints I guess. It makes my AS bigger. Hard not to love.

Nice idea, but I never use it. Needs a boost in damage to be viable for the cost.

I want to love 1009 as much as I love 1014 and 1012, but it’s hard to justify. Reactive sonic flares would go a long way toward me picking and choosing to use this songspell over another in my existing repertoire.

No complaints, but if it gave TD it’d be handier, or combined with 1003 and 1019 to make room for something neater, that would be fine (might require a de-buff on existing 1019, if that spell was moved down to 1010 though).

Zero complaints. It does what it needs to do.

Juicy sonic flares. Juicy double flares. Love this spell! Being able to further improve Sonic Weapon with enchant, ensorcel, WPS, etc., or even buff it past +10 against undead would go a long way toward making it desirable though.

I want to love the mana-stealing portion of this spell but it has never been successful at grabbing enough mana to be worthwhile (signals a CS problem, really). The spell stripping could be enhanced by adding a feature to steal a spell from a target and either buff yourself or cast back on an opponent though. That’d really make it shine.

I love this spell. Absolutely adore the elemental resists 1014 affords and my bard might be the only person in the game that uses it. I even got a sonic tuning fork when they came out (may never buff it more, due to cost however). The opportunity to improve 1014 through training and the ability to add enchant, ensorcel, and padding, would go a long way toward making 1014 desirable to the masses. Please make it so!

This needs help with syntax and a single target option too. At present, if the song is going the use of incant, sing, and renew are super fussy and instead of simply re-casting, it will tell you the song is already going. But it doesn’t do anything. It’s been janky basically forever. With regard to sing target, it should follow the same approach as 1030; half for single target.

I also wonder whether there would be any way to combine 1015 and 1016 for an all-out Song of Psychopathy, which stacks reduction of TD and DS while incurring RT and limit of stance.

I use it only for style points or against players to be a jerk. If not combined with 1015, Song of Rage needs an AoE effect. Maybe cause 1st critter at full effect, but additional targets receive N % less deleterious effect as a result of them being “too far away” to get super angry.

This is a great spell in concept but the only time I use it is to prevent other people from casting. It has no practical application for me while hunting because even when I am using melee, I am swinging *and* casting, and 1017 prevents the casting part. If there was a way for the bard to supersede the noise and affect critters with 1017 up, I might use it.

Please remove or lessen the 1018 multi bard explosion. It is a needless penalty with inadequate messaging to allow the bard to even know they are in danger. Consider allowing it to function similar to 418 and 1011, whereby the secondary cast simply does nothing.

Zero complaints, but it might be a good candidate for consolidation with 1003 and 1010, or even simply add a TD buff. It carried me having less than 1x Dodge. Or maybe that's why I died so much between level 90 and 12m exp. Hm.

No major complaints, but I would like to be able to move cross-realm to non-adjacent areas like sorcerers can. Also, please consider making the barrier or Nezzri’s cottage in OTF a drop point for this spell even if it doesn’t fit thematically (might help with rescues).

I love this spell. It’s a free hunting buddy. When I bother hunting melee, 1025 is always up. Would be nice if there was a way to get them to employ sonic flares however.

Having used this in the new player-friendly method, I submit that 1030 is too OP. It needs to get dialed back a bit. Not a lot, but a bit. Maybe leave 1st critter at current damage, but additional targets receive 10% less damage as a result of them being “too far away” to take the full brunt of the sonic force.

Ok, ok, fine. Tonis is too good they say! If you have to nerf it, then Bard lores associated with Tonis would benefit by being more front loaded, with extremely diminishing returns past the desired RT point. Such as, -1s base, with a 25% chance to reduce it to -2 at base for the duration. The chance to go -3 increases in 5% increments for each 10 ranks of applicable lore. That would max out at 55% chance to have -3s reduction in RT at 100 lore. If the roll failed, the bard would have a secondary roll using the same math to receive -2s (my math might be wrong but you get the gist I hope). It might be a resource hog to force a roll on every eligible action that is subject to RT however. Some people might hate the concept, but it seems the fairest approach to sometimes be super fast. Maybe it’s not good enough though. I like my Tonis the way it is. :(

Zero complaints. This spell saves my butt on the reg and it seems priced appropriately.

Honestly, I am pretty happy with being a bard now that I am 3x capped, despite the very few number of spells from the sphere I use while hunting. The road to 3x was not so easy and level 80 to about 12m was very rough due to lack of offensive DS and TD.

1001 and 1008. They are just too under-powered to be worthwhile.

I love playing a bard. Please do not nerf us entirely.

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

Making my own orbs originally, now I just love demolishing stuff with a lance.

It's pretty weird not being able to use many bard spells because they are just... worse, at low level than climbing MnE. It wasn't hard though. Only Qizard and Ranger were easier

AS seems nuts, DS seems good.

Literally never use anything but passives.

1004 x7 for one gem is ugh.

1030, 1035.... uh.. I think that's it?

Multicast purify, Multicast purify, and Multicast purify

I'm all in on this. I think each semi should access a different Mn Circle. Of course, this still leaves Pallies and Rangers on 100s, but ... eh?

I love blowing limbs off with this

Multicast Multicast Multicast Multicast Multicast Multicast Multicast Multicast

Primary opener, I love the impact it has in combat

Nice, kinda meaningless for CS based bards.

Polearm bard - but I don't think I'd use this anyways if I wasn't. Getting stunned on a bad renewal timing is death

Nice for search heirlooms? That's about it

Seems very useful, just not practical for my current hunting (CS is too low)

Don't use - but I don't think I'd use this anyways if I wasn't. Getting stunned on a bad renewal timing is death

Fantastic to keep from getting Earthen Fury'd

Don't use but I can see the benefits

Nice that it gives dodge, which it had a SMR component as well.

Very nice get out of trouble song

I wish (like I wish AC did) this would stay in attack mode so I don't have to command it every time I move for effect

Don't know. Seems way too strong. Don't know this spell.

what I know is 1 second longbow shots are amazing.

Don't know. Seems way too strong. Don't know this spell.

Loresinging, 24/7 group haste, OP 1030

Before Tonis, it was the most tedious I've done in game to date

Not great. DS was REALLY bad

Recall unlocking needs work. Useful, but as a service it's bad

Bards have CMs that aren't charge?

Levels 1-35 are terribly boring. Like playing a bad warrior in light armor

1030 - but only if the class is better overall before that. 1035 shouldnt be a group buff

More DS, better CMs, Sonic gear more viable long term

MnM would be fine if the Ironskin angle was considered thoughtfully.

Not at all. 400s is for AS/DS and pretty much nothing else unless you pick locks (fix locksmithing plz)

Renewing songs for DS is cancer. I am stunned, that's why it dropped...

Generally useless until WAY higher levels. It can barely be used, with great effort, at level 30

Hard to tell how much it helps. In theory it seems fine

Useless. Stuns have been made unreliable to the point of obsolescence when hunting past level 40

Capped at +35, needs to be renewed a lot, air lore requirements are too high. Needs work. Also, Renewing songs for DS is cancer.

Renewing songs for DS is cancer.

+35 cap is obnoxious. Add sonic arrows and let be use a bow. Or a sonic bow and arrows...?

Meh, seems like a bandaid for bigger issues

I'd tell you more if I actually used it more than the 1 time I cast it for fun. Armor that disappears when I am stunned hard? No thanks

Aptly named. Depressing spell

It's useful, but the drawbacks are obnoxious

Renewing songs for DS is cancer.

I'll let you know what I think of this one the day I get it to work properly.

Cool idea. Less cool implementation. The sword can steal the kills on bandits - why don't I get credit for that?

The crumbling tape holding the class together with how overpowered it is

Never used it or seen it used, potentially useful though...

Renewing songs for DS. Renewing Sonic armor/weapons.

Bards need a class identity that isn't just "I sing loud and things die" or "I'm an alt that provides -3 RT for this guy' over here"

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

I like to tell stories and perform. When I started, that was about all Bards were good for.

Ummm she IS the Purple Bard. It is who she is. It effects what she does in all aspects.

Being needed in a group. Being able to help in multiple ways.

Bards seem to have trouble in their 50's. Either that, or I just don't know what I'm doing any more. (Too much time away)

Given that I've been playing her off and on since 96, or so, I"d have to say it fluctuated over the years. Right now, it seems ok. So long as I've got all my songs going, and my special stuff from that place you can't mention.

Haven't used much of them lately. So I really can't say for sure.

Forgetting to stop and restart Song of Power.

A reason to use the Guild Halls. Beautiful buildings sitting empty and wasted. Bard-only performance verbs.

I don't handle change very well.

It's nice to be able to cast spells to help others. Also very nice having the offensive elementals! Has saved my back many times!

It's a help, but I think it could be just a touch stronger.

Mmmm... haven't used it much.

Like it, but don't use it much.

Haven't used it much. No opinion.

Love it... except when it blows my head off.

Fought too hard to get them, I hesitate to speak against them.

Versatility. I like the multiple play styles of a semi.

Not much. I tend to enjoy the mechanics and options associated with professions more so than any given identity that a profession could provide.

Overwhelming power? Seriously though, I like knowing that I can be an effective hunter using weapons or spells. That if I hit a rough patch where one of the paths is sub optimal, I can switch and continue progressing quickly. Only rangers (now) seem to offer that.

Bard is probably one of the easiest to level. 1030 is obviously ridiculous in it's power. Once you reach the stage where 1030 is an option to use in leveling, there has been little to no looking back. I also enjoy being able to use sonic weapons, and my goal is that at a significant post cap point, I can go between using spells and weapons to prolong hunts and increase loots.

DS is a limitation. Any AS deficiencies is offset by 1035 and air lore. Being able to quickly attack is an unbelievable boon.

Loresinging is great. I love knowing what I'm working with. The unlocking service is not exciting. In general, if I have a premium piece, I'll likely write down the stats or at some point simply remember them myself. If there's a story associated with it, then I'd write it down.

Trip was nice with a polearm bard, but outside of that - I have only the basic passives.

The multi song penalty begins to get stupid. Especially if I can just stop a song , wait for the refresh of others and then restart.

1030 and 1035 are somewhat broken in their ability to destroy swathes of creatures. 1030 is perhaps the best pure spell in the game in terms of its ability to damage and kill. That seems...wrong?

Maintained overwhelming power.

Conceptually, it fits. I see the MnM sphere as the Monk Professional circle. I would absolutely miss 401/6/14 and 425/430. I think MnM may have to be reworked a bit to add in more bard beneficial items, and then bard defense would absolutely need to be reviewed due to the huge loss of DS.

I think the elemental hybrid identity hinders bards. When I think of what a bard would be, absolutely nothing elemental comes to mind. It's focused around song, lore/mythos, tradition, morale, and history. The mental circle does seem far better conceptually suited to a bard; however, the spells in the circle don't really seem to fit a bard.

This is a great set up spell for the swinging bard. The downside here is that you have to be able to ward a creature in order for it to work. I would likely not have the TD to ward a creature consistently until later in my bard's life if I'm a swinging bard.

Good situationally to reduce the over all threat that a creature provides. Solid ability to lower defense for a martial bard. I don't know that I'd ever spend the 3 seconds it takes to cast this on a pure bard...and even though it is a solid option, I don't always find it's needed for a martial bard and likely wouldn't be used (unless I was getting shield maneuvered frequently)

I like defense, but when you have to consider this in conjunction with every other spell we're keeping up - it tends to not hold up over time.

Takes too long to purify gems. Of dubious value based on the loot cap discussions that have occurred recently. Not entirely sure the loot cap discussions are accurate, but it seems like this would cause you to waste time to hit the loot cap if it is true.

This is a great set up spell for the martial bard. The downside here is that you have to be able to ward a creature in order for it to work. I would likely not have the TD to ward a creature consistently until later in my bard's life if I'm a martial bard.

Too much mana to make a low level pure bard viable. Only 2 mana less than an individual 1030...why would I ever want to use it?

Blessing and a curse. If I get stunned and miss a refresh, I'm screwed. It also adds to the maintenance penalty for keeping spells up. Most often for shields, I'd rather just have a physical one, since they rarely drop/get disarmed any way. Also, downsides to lower enchant/services vs physical items.

Protects against sheer fear and adds defense? Sold!

Blessing and a curse. If I get stunned and miss a refresh, I'm screwed. It also adds to the maintenance penalty for keeping spells up. I do tend to use this to protect against disarm on both pure/martial bards.

I'd rather the defensive spells upscale instead of stack.

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

Songs, RP, the ability to Kill stuff with Lances

Not really, its fun to be quirky though

I think they are a very flexible character, and it would be nicer if they unlocked the AS bonus from 1007. I think it would drive more players to group. We should focus and increase the benefit for people to group. EXP bonus + power bonus's.

Bards seem to be average overall. Compared to pures they are difficult to level until they go a Pure build.

DS is lacking, AS is fairly decent.

Loresinging is too weak. WHen unlocked it should add 1-5 bonus to the item

nope, they are not elementalists.

underpowered lack of transparency.

Needs a boost to 30. Paladins can add 30 to their group

needs not to fade on stun / stay up for same duration as 1007

needs to refresh per room

needs not to fade on stun / stay up for same duration as 1007

needs not to fade on stun / stay up for same duration as 1007 - needs padding

Under powered, should add more.

Should be group, and add more.

needs a rethink. Maybe singing with 1012 it adds further bonus's and flares

overpowered. Needs to be single target only.

no opinion. Isn't this haste?

bards are supposed to augment their groups, I think they need some increases.

I would answer but I'm strangely thirsty.... no other class has this.

I started a bard for the potential in group hunting (MA with my main or other players)

The singing/performing part does not really. He is RPed as a landsknecht, so the wide range of battlefield control mechanics like noise and peace interplay well with that.

Being able to loresing items.

An absolute nightmare. I gave up on at least half a dozen serious attempts at bards in the 20-40 level range out of raw frustration. No class has been more difficult for me to level and I have reached high level with most and capped many.

DS was a constant problem for me at low and mid levels. Particularly ranged DS where it seemed like any bolt or arrow would either kill me or quickly lead to my death through stuns.

Loresinging and unlock, which I consider just an outgrowth of loresongs is fine. Neither represents a good or valuable long term service to match the modern ones. Something giving a mechanical effect would be a huge boon.

I have not tested enough post move to SMR2 to be sure. In general before that I found 410 or 1006 to be significantly better setup and control options. At level 99, the points are just not there to go much above 1x CM.

Not really QOL issues. I actually never had a serious issue with song management. I think probably the one that is most important to fix (even if it doesn't impact me much) is powersong deaths.

Tonis going down to 1 second, zero armor hinderance, and 1035 top end crits being so crazy high. I mean, they are the big three and I think everyone knows it. I would happily trade the ability to use those three broken mechanics to make the class overall more fun and especially resilient in combat. Fear of changing them has stopped so much modernization that I think the class needs.

Physical damage reduction for sonic armor, hands down. All my problems end up going through the physical damage stage and it is the greatest shortfall in bard combat (assuming you are not a guarded casting bard, which I am not). This would make me actually want sonic armor vs using real armor with padding and resists. Beyond that... anything to add depth and diversity to combat. More CMLs (for post cap learning), asymmetric ways to use song of peace and song of noise (meaning they hurt the mobs more than the group), that sort of thing.

If it came with adjustments for AS/DS from the loss of 425/430 and some sort of alternative to 410 for crowd control, I think it is an excellent idea. MnM has alot of diversity that would fit well with bards and the style seems more suited.

To me the tonis-vibe-air elemental connection always felt like a bit of a stretch. Thematically I think mental is much better. In terms of mechanics, having the ability to train two lores that both help spells and are not mutually exclusive is a boon post cap. At just hitting the cap, it is of limited aid.

I never use this. It is never the best option for single or group setup/control and the mana costs are not low enough compared to something like 1006 or 410 to be worth it.

I like this spell in concept, but with my limited training ranks available (and the fact that I am not aiming for a pure build), it is far too hard pre-cap to reach the good effects. I expect to use it more once I have the ability to ward things more strongly post cap. While that makes it not horrible, it is also a bad dynamic for a low level spell. I would love to see this as the low level impact damage spell with added weapon blowing up abilities, instead of 1008. It would help low level pure builds that way.

This spell is unfortunately well tailored to bots purifying large numbers of gems (where they can auto move them from bag to bag and stop when they should). It annoying to the point that I rarely bother to use this spell as a non-lich user. I suppose I should have put that in the QOL section but I forgot about it then. It would be so wonderful to have a channel option like charge item that just maxed a gem out (with some sort of penalty) in a single go. That would get me to use it much more. I'd take 75% increase and not needing lich over the current version.

Perfectly balanced spell. A high point in our current selection. Good single target setup, better than most other spells of this kind/level, but with the tradeoff of not being able to recast on a single target. Would be nice to see the roll.

Pretty bog standard buff, no problems with it.

Not a spell that fits into my build very well, being a non-pure caster. Watching others use it, seems acceptable but not cool or effective enough to push me towards more magic ranks at the cost of physicals. Expect I would use it when much more post cap.

Good for what it does. I wish it was a sonic-left hand item song though. TWC is so bardic in GS lore and history that if this could make a main gauche to go with my sonic broadsword, it would get way more use.

Like the other straight number buffs, I think it is find if maybe a little boring. Some more flavor or minor effects would be nice.

Great spell, adds greatly to my "control of the battlefield mercenary" RP. It would be nice to have an asymetric version that had a chance to prevent mobs from attacking while didn't impact the group. Even if it was like 10%, it would give it real potential for group hunting.

The updates to this some years back were a big boon. I mostly use a physical weapon for RP reasons, but when I use sonic weapon it feels like a good power level and nice style.

Not something I use much. I don't find the extra time to do it worth the small bit of mana that can be recovered. Might be better in a spell heavy build but I do not know.

This is the least effective of the sonic gear spells to my mind. The diversity of boosts (particularly crit padding and physical resistance) in physical armor is much better at answering the problems my bard has in combat. Having different flavors of sonic armor or just giving it general crush/slash/puncture resist would get me to use it.

Much better suited as a creature cast spell to annoy PCs, not really useful as a player. I'd be perfectly happy to dump this to the 1700's circle and get a new concept in it's place

Niche application, but I don't mind having one or two of those in the circle. Would be great to have a few more effects seeing as it is a high cost single target setup.

Even as is, I like it alot. The addition of an asymmetric version that hindered (or gave a % failure) on mobs with no impact on the group would make it a class defining spell for me.

Never use it because of the danger of blowing up. This spell needs an updating to 2021 game theory.

This should be changed to raw DS and not dodge ranks so that the defense is not penalized for specific combat styles or gear choices. Would also help with the ranged/bolt DS issues.

This could use an update to make it more in line with the ease of modern teleport/transport.

This could really use a "help me out" setting where it would be autoset to whatever I am swinging at to minimize micromanagement.

I would love to see this more in the style of 1630. Lower overall crit ability but also lower creature TDs. Effectively a more consistent hit chance with fewer spells known but a damage range that allows that without making pure bards 100% OP.

Like mirrors, this should provide straight DS and not dodge ranks to avoid favoring gear selection so much. The RT reduction should really be more weapon base specific (like celerity/qstrike) and not flat rate. The flat rate and low RT floor (1 second) leads to many unintended combat methods.

Seems fine, I have trouble remembering to do it in an emergency. Probably would be less of a problem if I mained the bard all the time.

The spell circle is mostly underwhelming and old style designs with two totally broken overpowered spells holding it up. It is in severe need of modernization. If you are not using 1035 as a pure build or tonis to generate 1 second swings, bard life is a hardship, if you are using one of those broken spells it is boring.

Overall I like the concepts of the circle and don't hate any one part. It just needs to be modernized and fit into the current GS world.

I do not fully grasp all the causes, but bards are horribly squishy for a semi. I realize they are the most magical of the semis, but they are far far behind in survivability. My ranger and paladin come out of dangerous situations (being caught in offensive, taking a nasty stun or maneuver) orders of magnitude better than any of the many bards I tried could. Ranged attacks were particularly bad. Bards need something to greatly improve survivability in the level 20-50 range.

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

Loresinging is tiresome in general. I would rather bards lose this profession service and all items simply reveal their properties via analyze or inspect.

I do not use any bard CMANs because CMANs required 2x training to be of any use. I have not used CMANs since their conversion to SMR, but I still can't imagine using them unless 2x trained.

Add mana loss and RT for song casting spell hindrance/failure. Add a crit crap for 1030. Get rid of 1035.

Delete paladins. Remove 200s from empaths and give empaths 1200s. Remove 400s from bards and give bards 1200s.

If all things stayed the same, bards don't need +25 - +50 CS from 425. It is pretty much the spell for the 400s.

I loved the concept of the profession, and the ability to be a physical character with some substantial use of magic.

The spellsongs are more of a utilitarian thing for him, but loresinging is a integral part of his life. It's something he takes pride in, and its the closest thing he has to a public performance.

Loresinging. It feels unique among the profession-specific abilities in that there's substantial space for you to add your own creativity/style. Being able to strike my own balance on the physical vs. magical scale.

Slow at the lower levels, rapid in the middle to upper levels, then slower again post cap.

AS and DS most of the time isn't an issue, with a couple exceptions. Turtled opponents can be painful (1001 is not really effective/reliable enough to compensate for this).

Loresinging is my favorite part of being a Bard. I wish it wasn't as scriptable, but I don't think that's avoidable.

My most used maneuvers are feint, feint, feint, and feint. I would love to have access to shield/armor maneuvers, given how much I've trained in both.

Dealing with non-corporeal undead as a swinger.

The ability to hit large swarms of enemies with a single 1030 cast. Sonic weapons flaring to their full extent even when Tonis is active.

More benefits to mastering instruments. For a physical bard, its a huge amount of time spent for very little benefit. Also, some way of training to be able to keep spellsongs up through stuns.

I don't like the idea. Sonic gear in particular feels much more closely tied to the elements than to anything related to mental lore.

It's in a weird place with regards to renewal/medleys. It only costs 3 mana to sing, but typically adds much more than 3 mana to your renewal cost. Most bards who use 1003 end up resorting to a script to start/stop the song every time they renew their songs, which feels wrong.

This was my bard's main way of getting through the lower levels. Fantastically useful even at cap.

I've pretty much never used this spell.

I like the utilitarian aspect of it. Most of the time I don't use it, but when I do it's fantastic.

Love the idea of sonic armor. But in practice the risk of losing my armor when my spellsongs fail to renew is too high for me to even consider using it.

I pretty much never use this one, but I'm a physical bard.

I pretty much never use this one. The cost just seems too high relative to what you get from it.

Because sonic weapons seemed awesome. Free 7x gear for everyone!

The variety of hunting styles and the trade offs to them that are more interesting then other professions.

20-60 was a righteous pain, otherwise no complaints.

At 30 I swapped to pure (not my best choice) so I don’t feel qualified to answer.

Is sure isn’t ensorcelling or enchanting but to me it’s more engaging and complex.

All of my CM points (103 ranks) are in skills I’ve chosen for the defensive reasons.

Awkward mid levels, too heavy a reliance on 1030 (pure) and 1035 (physical) to be viable.

1030’s crit system (make it a bolt spell???)

1035’s lore bonus (cannot physically type fast enough to take advantage of 1-2 second RT)

425 probably should be half CS for our sphere? (Less broken, but still could use looked at).

A reason to train an elemental lore other then air

An SMR attack

Song of power only being a danger to ourselves (not even other bards, killing other folks with buff spells really kinda sucks)

I’d worry about the loss of AS / DS / TD from the 400’s but outside of buff spells and 410 I don’t personally use anything in MnE.

I dislike the fact that every bard ever will always eventually shoot for 101 air lore, it feels overly cookie cutter. Other then that? Meh.

Use it with my physical hunting partner, good for the cost.

Awesome 2 mana spell with horrendously limited uses (max 2 per target) I like it.

This is the most expensive +10 DS spell in the game due to the renew system and it has no redeeming qualities. Boo.

Great except for the time it takes. If I could channel it for double the effect + double the mana cost would do it all day long.

Great. Awesome vs living and meh vs undead, I like trade offs.

Super neat concept that’s been used for other stuff too, I like it.

Nothing special but still good at what it should do.

Very meh, I almost never have a real reason to use this.

Use it daily, free weightless 7x, no ensorcell when we are already weak on TD, good for me!

Generic DS booster powers activate!

See 1009, minus the daily part as I don’t use swing.

Mmmmmm, mana. Do wish it would auto stop when cast at a new target though

-impact resist makes this a no go for me, but still neat concept with unique trade offs.

More useful then most people think.

Good for helping younger folks, like level hunting lacks purpose. If you can ward a target there are better options.

As a casting bard I don’t feel qualified to answer this.

Killing random people with buff spells sucks. But I am good with killing myself for the perks.

Do you want me to compare this to mobility in a vacuum? Because I can, and it won’t be pretty.

More interesting then average teleport spell powers activate!

Seems like a thing 2x post cap people cast simply because they can. Haven’t seen anyone leveling seriously use it.

I know it’s too strong. My only request here is to make sure to undo creature specific resistances to it when the spell changes. There are a good deal more then what some people realize.

I dislike the lore bonus, I can type well, but I can’t type well enough to use 1 second RT. I feel like this and 1030 are the physical and magical crutches keeping bards going.

Honestly I like the implementation. Sure I’d like to use it in RT but it’s strong as it is.

Most unique mechanics in the game, decent balance between lack of TD and buffs / effect spells.

1004 being cast 100 times a hunt. 1003 being miserably weak. 1019 not doing half what mobiles do at 5-10 times the mana cost over the course of an hour. 1018 causing me to be a threat to my fellow bards.

Wanted to play an elemental semi back in the day

Talk fast, Move fast, hit faster

Bards are a glass cannon semi class. It’s high risk- high reward

Painful, glass cannons start off as just glass. Pitiful warding td’s

Depending on build, DS was always a concern. Without ambush mechanics, bards win with raw AS and speed

Lore singing is a much needed routine service. Recall unlocking is not a frequently requested service

I use feint and charge. Bards have limited access to cmans

Spiritual TD is a pain point for life

Song of Tonis. It’s what distinguishes bards.

Not much, I like bards the way they are.

No thanks. The class has been there for decades. Why do something like this now that no one wants ?

For the power and less reliance on gear.

honestly my own OPness bleeds into my character’s ability to RP a wandering minstrel. It just doesn’t make sense from his RP point of view:

The enormous power and ability to increase gem values.

Difficult but after leveling another newbie bard recently not as difficult as before due to access to outside spells and general changes with the game that makes it much easier to level for lowbies.

Too high, rather see Bards as the jack of all trades. Right now with 1030 it’s like a super one -trick pony. Kinda stupid.

My instrument turns into a sonic machine-gun, mass charm ability to charm my own little army, bardic lores.

Yes. They don’t make a bit of sense aligning them to elemental sphere. They should most definitely be MnM.

MnE is more useful. But Bards are way to useful as is, and I’d rather trade power for uniqueness.

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

Couldn't lose armor and weapons back when item loss on decay was a thing.

Strongly influenced his back story and overall personality as a result.

Versatility to switch between magic and physical. Diversity of skills even if not quite a master of any of them.

Up until about 20, I'd say a bard was a harder. Not quite physical enough to get by without magic but didn't quite have the mana to keep spell songs up constantly, either. (The recent-ish mana changes have resolved this). By 60, bards really start to shine and, by 80, a pure bard is best-in-class.

About on par with other classes.

Lore singing is a nice service to be able to offer. Recall is lackluster. I feel that should almost be built-in to loresinging at higher levels - at level 20, I could sing to most items reliably... why seek out a high level bard when a pocket bard and a spreadsheet do just as well.

I chose my cmans entirely based on what would benefit him most defensively against bandits and in warcamps. I occassionly use cheap shots offensively for flavor, but they're worse than just casting in most scenarios.

The hardest part is deciding what trade-offs to make while leveling. As jack-of-all-trades, bards can dabble in anything be being good can get expensive. Post cap, however, I think they really shine due to that versatility and wouldn't want to give it up for lower costs initially.

1030 is overly strong normally, but, in a warcamp, it isn't worth the 30 mana. It should (sadly) be down tweaked but it needs to land somewhere above the strength it has in warcamps.

At higher levels, 1002 crits are OP for a 2nd level spell.

Lack of mana loss on fumble is a considerable advantage that maybe we shouldn't have.

I'd love to see Singing Sword be more useful. I don't think I've sung one up since initially learning it.

A better class service than recall.

????

Conceptually, it makes perfect sense. In practice, I would would be terrible for how I see my bard. He's been casting MnE for 23 years and abrutly changing that feels wrong. Why not add MnM so bards have 3 circles but can still only 2x in spells giving another trade-off they need to consider.

405 meshes well with loresinging in making bards the masters of knowing what treasure is. 403, 404, and 416 (and to a lesser degree 407 and 408) contribute to the rogue-ish feel of a bard.

Covered under things-that-could-be-nerfed. Maybe the best opener in the game against anything holding a weapon and subject to crits.

Nice early DS boost that gets use even in postcap.

A bards real money maker.

Great song for improving cman survivability.

For a physical or grouped bard, this is a great song. It is useful when it is first learned and continues to get sung from then on.

The only sonic equipment song I still sing due to the lore benefits of getting larger shield protection with smaller shield penalties.

Another song that's not only useful when first learned but which also continues to be good for the rest of a bard's career.

My favorite sanctuary spell due to the mobility of it.

I don't sing this song. It was handy early on when silvers were tight, but losing additional DS when stunned or otherwise unable made me switch to a physical weaopn even before changing to a pure bard.

Useful from the 60s until early post cap. Eventually a bard outgrows this, but it does see a good stretch of usefulness.

I don't sing this. I prefer physical armor to not worry about protection loss under circumstances that prevent song renewal.

I use ths a little but the previous lack of being group friendly and the low thresholds needed for 1030 kept it off my lips. I haven't tried it much since the player-friendly changes went into effect but intend to.

I don't think I've ever used this.

This was excellent when I was still physical and wanted to keep casters from casting. Since going pure, I no longer use this.

The opposite of 1017 - I didn't really use this at all before becoming a pure bard. Since going pure, though, it is a regularly used song.

Funish song I use irregularly. Compare to other teleport spells, the chance for failure early on seems high and the penalties harsh.

Before going pure, the benefit didn't feel worth the spell cost. Since going pure, I only recently picked up enough weapon skill to make it worth trying again (but haven't done so yet).

Great for a physical bard. Not so useful to a pure though I have been known to sing it to reduce search and forage times.

I don't use this often. Handy during invasions.

Previously, I'd have liked to see the group-friendly offensive spells made player-friendly, but that's been recently addressed.

As mentioned earlier, I'd like to see a re-work of 1025, but most of the songs seem to have a use to either physical or casting bards (or both).

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

2005 Hot Summer Nights improvements (LORE effects!) rocked.

I rolled the character for the name; chose Bard because I didn't have one yet.

Multiple capabilities. Heavy armor if needed, light if don't care; Haste-effect for safety & convenience; find out items' abilities by myself.

Essentially a cake-walk. SorcerBard--so Disruption on whole room, if swarmed--and semi-permanent Haste from Tonis to mitigate CMan RTs.

Stopped swinging a weapon at 30, unlearned all weapon ranks by 46th. Kept shield until Runestaff+Shield changes took that away; no re-learning Shield ranks to help mitigate against Shield Bash & Charge. Since "get magical ranks" to help runestaff defense also means "cheap Item/Scroll ranks"... cast up extra spells from those as needed. Spellcasting Bard is simple.

There are times (certain items) that I would like the ability NOT TO SEE the pretty LoreSong of history and story that has been put onto the item, but rather the actual technical info normally revealed in the first four verses of a regular item. A verb flag for "loresing story"/(storysing?) or "loresing stats"/(statsing?) would be handy.

It never occurred to me to sell the Recall unlocks until I saw Board posts about it. I do not; sitting at 200k and 0/50k accumulated weekly for several weeks, now.

Would like to see Bards--who can double in Shields--gain access to ShieldMans, to take advantage of THAT pool of points (even at the higher Semi cost) rather than being forced to a) pay more FOR the CMan points and then b) pay more OF the CMan points, just to c) get something from the CMan list... which is a ShieldMan.

One-trick pony. Disruption is TOO effective, particularly single-target (10 mana) compared to Banshee's Wail/1008 (a mere 2 mana less). Disruption should be a 40th level spell (40 mana to start 'mass', -10 == 30 mana to start 'single'; halved to 20/mass, and 15/single) and then the power level would be about right. Mass to smoke the whole room (similar to Implosion, or Cone), single about twice as good as 1008.

See consolidated post of "Krakii's Big Long List of Crap To Be Done For Bards", still in the read-only archive on the Boards.

1a) Unravel should--like the Dispels--be smart enough NOT TO REMOVE THE BARD'S OWN FRICKING DEPRESSION, or Lullabye. Cannot count the number of times I have managed to do nothing to a creature other than Unravel my own Depression.

1b) Also, since Unravel has ITS OWN (very short) timer, it SHOULD NOT END when the medley renewal comes around, and force you to re-do it. (Except it doesn't actually 'end', because you have to 'stop' it first, because if you DO just prep/cast it, it says you are already singing it, except you're not, because you cannot renew it.)

1sum) Unravel needs a lot of love.

2) BardSongs should apply immediately to the group, similar to Clerics, rather than forcing the Bard to renew & spend a crap-ton of mana.

3) Weapon/Shield/Armor Songs SHOULD NOT COUNT towards MSP calculations.
Basic Adventuring Needs, Definitely == Shield + Armor + Weapon.
BANDSAW, just like a Bard in combat.

Bards should never have been a Hybrid Semi. Flippin' stupid. That said, I would hate to lose Tonis + Air Lore for speed. (Maybe that would change to Transformation, for more effect, and Telepathy, for sharing with the group?)

Implementation of Lore ranks for Bard is the level of power that all other professions strive to equal. (And, Lore re-writes or not, typically fail to meet.) Sadly, Bards--as "the most magical of the Semis"--have to use Ascension & Enhancives to go over singled in Lore ranks, while Paladins--arguably the "most physical of the Semis"--get to double. Feel free to explain that.

If--as so often stated by GMs--"all Lore ranks will help" then Tonis should get another step of benefit (-4s net) at 135 Air ranks (next logical progression). Since a SK Tonis item just went out at an Auction recently, that would enable some doubling Pure to reach it without Enhancives/Ascension, and the NEXT benefit above that (-5s net) would be in the low-200s, easily reachable with one or both of those branches.

(All comments are pre-AOE changes that happened recently. Have not used it since.) I think we LOST the ability to have it truly be single-target. However, if you just cast it to start, it will by default hit ONLY the single target that you have (like "the creature you just did a Lullabye onto"), until you 'target clear'; THEN you hit the whole room.

Would LOVE to be able to hit armor. Would really, really, really truly appreciate the ability to CHOOSE "go for the weapon" or "go for the shield". (Lore unlock?)

Seriously, for a 1-mana renewal? Stop us having to play the start/stop game to take it out of medley and avoid MSP.

If you get the 'green'/safe step, there should be LITTLE OR NO chance of the very next cast blowing up the gem. I routinely destroy diamonds--and my hand--two verses (both green) in.

Too many Bards ignore the advice of "do NOT tank your CHA!" Pure Elf with high CHA routinely puts damn near everything to sleep.

Mass version--Lore unlock?--would be sweet... but probably WAY too powerful.

Useless at 6th level when you get it. Crank it up to around 16th or higher, give it a bit of a power boost to account for being bigger, and call it done.

Why are Lore benefits capped? GMs keep saying that all Lore ranks count...

At least RAISE the cap, maybe even to "+50", similar to Targeting?

Useless as-is. Far too weak, especially compared to single-target Disruption. Also, too many creatures have auto-break-stun, or auto-stand-and-also-attack, for most "disablers" to really be any good as they are written.

SHOULD NOT COUNT IN MSP.

Useful. Runs all the time as a result of 'mana spellup'.

This exists? (I can think of maybe 5 times I've ever used it.)

SHOULD NOT COUNT IN MSP.

SHOULD *NOT* END AT MEDLEY RENEWAL, since it has its own--incredibly short--timer to hamper it already.

SHOULD NOT COUNT IN MSP.

Awesome. Standard opening, to slow entire room.

HOWEVER... Why did the ELR give the *PALADIN* spell the "now you get free RT when I cast!" effect that Slow got... and this--MUCH higher level than either of those spells; hell, even the Renew is 2x the mana cost of Slow!--did NOT?!?

This exists? (The *ONLY* times I have cast this spell, I was on the Test server checking the wording.)

However, if a MASS version of this were to happen (Lore unlock?), I would be all over that to apply RT to everything in the room. (See also "rant about Depression," above.)

This exists? (I have *NEVER* used this, being a spellcaster.) Even in the levels from 17-30, when I actually swung a weapon, I was far too busy using Holding, Lullabye, VibeChant, and Depression--more for the RT adder than for the TD pushdown, at that point--to want to hinder my own casting.

Why is this still able to potentially kill us? Cone got made player-friendly decades ago, so that Starsnuffer would stop racking up millions of town debt for smoking the entire Town Square.

Always on from 'mana spellup'.

See also continuing rant about "Why do Rangers get +1 rank/spell, from a LOWER level spell, with a MUCH longer duration, that can be cast on OTHER character also?"

Handy when I don't want to burn an enruned ring charge.

If it could be set to "defend me", it would be a LOT more useful. If it would mitigate FvF headcount, it would be a lot more useful. If it would swing normally--because it is a MAGICALLY ANIMATED WEAPON DANCING IN MID-AIR, even though the caster has been forced prone--it would make a LOT MORE SENSE.

Entirely too powerful. See above.

Should allow for additional steps' benefit from Lore (next is at 135 Air, and the one after that is 210, I think).

Situationally useful. Since essentially everything that stuns/damages/makes you prone nowadays ALSO has built-in RT... it is not nearly as useful as it could be. If the same "train to offset remaining duration" could be used DURING the RT, it would be a hell of a lot better.

On the whole, very strong. Disruption is TOO strong, and 1008 (by comparison) WAY too weak. Mass-effects of more spells (like Rage, for RT) or single-target effects (like Noise... *JUST* on that one annoying caster over there) should be easy to implement, since we now have verbs specifically for single- and mass-cast versions.

Unravel timer stupidity at Medley renewal. MSP in its entirety. (I don't see Wizards being charged a crap-ton more mana for casting ninety eight spells on themselves.) At the very least, Sonic Shield/Weapon/Armor not counting towards MSP.

Read my Board posts. Nothing new here.

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

Hybrid/semi (magic/physical combat). Loresinging, 1030 and 1035.

Strongly. My character is very curious about the world and items around them but being able to use both magic and physical combat equally well is a key identity.

Tough in the earlier levels, a bit easier mid way, and tough again due to mana. More magical build later on

Never felt lacking in the AS department but UCS DS build can be lackluster self spelled, even as you creep towards cap.

Happy with current development. Wouldn't say no to more info added to recall(full CER info after warrior assessment, ensorcell level, etc)

Please open UCS masteries to bards!

None that I can really highlight.

Honestly, I'm happy with things. I can't even think of one thing I'd want fixed.

UCS masteries, more info added via recall, add combat mechanics to master quality instruments

I prefer having access to elemental spells

As a hybrid pure build, I strongly take advantage of MnE spells.

I haven't ever used it. If i was looking for an opener I would use 1002/1005 first.

Could use a bit more DS, maybe more specifically bolt DS.

Nothing I can complain about.

Would be nice to see an actual roll (like SmRv2)

nothing, happy with current

Another song I rarely use, I'm more likely to use 1002/1005 or focused 1030 for 2 more mana.

faster room renewal would be nice.

Allow worn UCS item(s). Gloves or boots.

Don't utilize due to risk associated with stuns, and overall mana cost

Very helpful during certain mana intense activities.

Can't complain, nothing stands out.

Allow brawling weapons to use UAF/UCS

happy with current development

happy with current development

happy with current development

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

Versatility - I love that bards are far less cookie-cutter than most other classes. There are many viable and fun builds to try.

Makes everything fabulous

Versatility and being able to make my own orbs and do my own loresinging, which is especially helpful during DR.

For me, the bard is far from the easiest profession to cap, in fact, they are pretty average even after hitting 100. However, once well past post-cap, they REALLY become formidable. My bard just hit 2x cap and he is extremely potent.

DS can be iffy during the early game, before you obtain 430. Past that, it isn't too bad considering you have access to the 400s plus bard songs. TD is kinda lacking at the end game.

I feel they could use a boost. I liked the idea of enhancive permanence.

As a pure Bard, I do not use them currently. However, I'd love to see some UAC mastery available to Bards.

My only real gripe is that my TD is lower than I'd like it and that we cannot instantly RECALL our own loresongs.

moar bard CMANs, better weekly resource service, access to MM circle

I don't think the bard "identifies" with elemental at all, but we've all come to rely on the DS/AS boosts from that circle. I would love to see bards switch to minor mental or get access to some of the mm spells.

this is actually a fairly potent opener for critters carrying weapons. I use this when I group hunt. It will even kill them a fair amount of the time.

One of the early staples of DS improvement

Personally, I use this all of the time. You get out of it what you put in.

This is a great spellsong for leveling up and crowd control.

I know for a fact this spellsong has saved my butt A LOT.

Much loved by melee bards across Elanthia

I don't ever use this spellsong, it just seems....boring?

I use sonic tower shield all of the time! Sonic armaments are where combat bards truly shine. (can we get reactive sonic shield flares?!)

Highly useful for rescues, foraging, heirlooms, and a ton more.

Sonic armaments are where combat bards truly shine.

I don't use it but its good at what it does.

Weightless armor? Yes please.

Never use it - could use rework

Never use it - could use rework

Never use it - could use rework

Marginal use cases - could use rework

I never use this, but many others do. It's fine but could use a tune up

This is pretty nice for getting out of a for-sure-death situation. My only complaint is that it fails A LOT. Maybe more RT reduction to make it more useful without burning 160+ mana to get out of a web.

The bard circle is dated. Several spellsongs could use some revamping. There are other spellsongs that, for me, have defined bards for the last 25 years. These include 1004, 1030, and 1035. Any significant nerfing to these core spellsongs would be a big mistake IMO.

low defensive spellsong duration and high mana renewal costs on defensive spellsongs!

I like the idea of a wandering minstrel, magic user

Being able to do what no others can.

Never played anything but a bard

I found the changes to be beneficial

I'm nt sure what nerf means

As I said, being a hybrid is much more in line with what a bard is.

tone down song penalties.

Skill based titles. There were three blank. they were
Musician
Virtuoso
Muse
You could make it so 2 instrument classes Musician, 4 Virtuoso, all 6 a Muse.

I get REPORTed for being OP

make bards get exp for roleplaying

a game where people play and aren't zombies

sure, why not make some changes instead of being lazy

.......................this seems like a loaded question......................

powerful, gives a reason to overtrain Bard sphere I think

underrated but mysterious

great for groups, but who group hunts? oh, MAers

good, especially with Elemental Air? underrated.

under-utilized by most, very good spellsong.

good with ;manasong script

Dodge ranks are nice, but many Bards use heavy armor and tower shields, so not much synergy

Why is Spell Hindrance so special with Bard, no RT

it's pretty obvious you are going to nerf Bards.

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

Roleplay. There was a great group of bardesses in RR in the late 90s.

Less so now than back in the day. After returning, I'm much more focused on mechanics and hunting than before.

Tonis + Brawling. It's fast paced and exciting. I do like helping other players by assessing their gear with loresong.

I was a sword and bored bardess for around 40 levels. She was fun to play but not particularly to hunt or chase levels with. I've had much more fun with her since retraining for speed kicking -- and leveled much more quickly. I like the combination of physical and magical skills on the bard.

I tried hunting with the sword after returning, and I couldn't do much damage with my AS (note: halfling). Brawling is a much better fit, and she's well able to damage critters at and even above level. DS is more of a challenge. Even with 10x armor and all her spells up, she gets mauled without outside spells. Of course, that assumes standup swapping blows with multiple critters. 1 on 1 she generally kills the critters before they have a chance to mount much of an attack. So all in all, she is pretty well balanced against like level critters.

They're useful. They can't compare to enchant or ensorcell as money makers.

I'd like to have access to punch mastery and kick mastery. I only use the passive boosts to DS and TD.

Easier progress through instrument mastery.

As long as lores continue to contribute to sonic weapons, it doesn't matter to me whether those lores are elemental (air) or mental.

It comes with some pretty kick-ass DS, AS, and general attack spells.

Never use it. Used it against claidhmore weilding krolvin back in the day.

Useful. I like making the extra coin.

Use once in a while. My songs aren't that powerful due to stat placement.

Always up. Seems to help against bandits?

Never used. Not relevant to character build.

I sing up a cestus to work with brawling.

Too afraid of the spell dropping on stun. Never use. (also see: 10x chain)

Never use -- not a group hunting type.

Haven't used since switching over to Voln.

Never use -- don't know much about it.

LOVE -- use as much as mana permits.

I like what I use, but I don't really think of magic as a go-to function on this character. I sing up my spell base and forget about it, except for refreshing Tonis.

Need to refresh / not stacking. It makes the sonic stuff much less dependable. Nobody else has to put themselves at such risk to use distinctive elements of their character class.

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

Originally I chose the Bard because our group needed better access to Loresinging, and I also wanted to help the group with Song of Tonis, and the more I played him the more I enjoyed the playstyle up until around cap.

It impacts it a lot. I like to play around with the different singing tones and roleplay as a Bard who fancies himself smarter than everyone else, when he is in fact the opposite. He sings in a mocking tone and his loresongs are insulting to the pieces he's singing to, for example.

Up until cap (or mid 80's even) I really enjoyed the flexibility with their playstyle. Keeping songs up and using others situationally (Vibration Chant, Sonic Gear, Peace, Power and Traveler's) were my go-to.

I also really like being able to be the go-to for revealing loresongs of items, and generally it gives a great opportunity to show off a bit. So overall, their low to mid level flexibility was great, great fun.

I really enjoyed leveling my bard compared to any other class (primary class before was Wizard & Warrior). Being able to use polearms, and singing whatever ASG armor / weapon type I wanted was great fun, and when physical damage wasn't working, utilizing some Songs helped round it out (Vibration Chant, is limited if the creatures weren't holding anything... of course).

The sonic flares were a delight during my leveling. Low to Mid leveling was more interesting as a Bard compared to my Wizard, because again of the flexibility. My wizard was just "rapid fire / 903 evoke" from 20 -> Cap which got boring real fast. There wasn't really ever a reason to do anything else, although 505 evoke was useful and fun for a while before Steam was the primary.

Having a higher ASG Armor on my Bard also meant I died less frequently from stupid maneuvers (with the help of 1019, blurs and mobility), and I took far fewer headshots. It felt like I was a true hybrid warrior,

While leveling my polearm Bard the AS and DS ranges seemed pretty acceptable. I can't recall very many times where I felt I was too under/over powered in either category.

Being able to unlock the items is awesome, and the latest recall changes are fantastic. It does feel way less sought after than other professional services (Mystic Tattoos, Enchanting, Ensorcells...) and I mainly use it on project items that I want to invest in.

One major complaint I have though is that some items feel way too expensive to unlock compared to others. I accidentally unlocked a +4 Max Mana torc which cost me 100,000 Lore Knowledge for some reason... that was FAR too expensive given what the item was. I accidentally unlocked it because I was trying to 'Recall' to see what the song was before the Recall Quick version was implemented.

Loresinging in general is great, although I wish it were a little faster especially at Cap to get through a full song. I also wouldn't mind a song type that would unlock the entire song without having to sing all 4 verses constantly. It becomes quite tedious after a while when you're singing to items especially after DR or another event that yields a bunch of items.

Meh - I only use Cunning Defense at the moment (will need to retrain now that the SMRv2 changes have come out). Since I'm still early cap, it doesn't make sense to NOT use 1030 -- and unfortunately that's all I do now because it's wildly efficient. There's virtually no reason to take any other cmans other than to boost my defense. They offer nothing otherwise.

Purifying gems even with 75 Manipulation ranks still takes FOREVER. I understand that it's more about less chance for failure, but it takes soooo long to get through a hunt's worth of gems, and the majority of gems aren't even worth singing to when the time cost / value is calculated.

1030 is broken and boring. It's the only spell I use for hunting now, and has been the case since mid 80's. I would sacrifice the absurd potency of 1030 in a heartbeat if it meant a more dynamic playstyle were a better option & available. It's crazy efficient right now to just blast rooms with 1030 (especially with the AOE changes).

Maybe 1002 (Vibration Chant) is a little overpowered? I was critting creatures pretty frequently with it, which meant an extremely cheap cost per kill. The only downside is that it's so situational, since the creature needs to be actively holding a weapon or shield so it wasn't like it can be used all the time.

The sonic gear benefits at lower levels might stand to be nerfed a little bit? Although it's extremely useful for inexperienced (non-geared) players to have more powerful versions of weapons & armor that are self-made. But this is if i HAD to choose 3.

Honestly, 1030 is far too powerful, and other Songs / abilities could use some love or enhancement.

1. Reduced singing times for purification & loresongs.
2. More versatility / consistency with other utility / attack / defense songs. I honestly virtually NEVER use the following at cap: 1001, 1002, 1005, 1008, 1013, 1016, 1017, 1018, 1025 (complete garbage).

To be fair, a lot of this is due to 1030 being way OP... but:
1002 is very situational and doesn't have any benefit over 1030 at the moment... 1001 is useless since I don't swing,
1005 is useless since I don't swing,
1008 is useless because 1002 & 1030 exist,
1013 takes far too much management to get a net benefit (especially compared to mana leech),
1016 who cares because they're dead by 1030 and I don't swing
1017 is useless because I don't swing and I need to be able to cast
1025 I haven't tried in a long, long time but it was weak as hell when I tried it in my 30's & 40's and virtually NEVER had enough AS to hit the creature despite full training in Polearm at the time. It's also annoying to have to manage it by telling it to attack -- I'd imagine this weapon would be almost sentient and be assisting me automatically.

3. LOWER HINDRANCE for Elemental Sphere while in Augmented Chain. It's practically useless to cast any Elemental Sphere spells while outside of a room that doesn't lower hindrance.

No clue because I don't know what they do or what they are. Wizards & Bards don't have them so I don't know about them lol.

Outside of the benefits of 401, 406, 414, 425 and 430... there's nothing about the Elemental Sphere that I care about or feel aids in my identity as a Bard. 405 is nice, but Wizards are better suited for that in my opinion.

I honestly never use any 400 spells outside of buffing up for hunting. Ewave was useful in the 50's - 80's for some crowd control, but became too much of a wildcard while in Augmented Chain. Beyond that, the mana heavy renewal while leveling made all the other utility spells far too expensive to use consistently while hunting.

Song of Power > Mana Focus too... I've also never used Magic Item Creation (as I'm looking at the list) and why would I? No Bard spell songs can be used so what benefit does it possibly provide?

It's nice when I was hunting with a group or when swinging on my way up to ~85. After that I had no use for it (and group hunting is rare for some reason -- except for Bandits which get decimated as a capped group). No need for openers or crowd control in my experience.

I also found it to be very inconsistent when open casting (sometimes it would hit everything in the room and other times it would only target the same creature over and over).

It was a staple spell early in life, from 0-50 for sure.

A GREAT opener when the creature is actually holding a weapon or shield. Useless otherwise, which was frustrating when encountering a creature that was not holding anything, especially when the creature being hunted typically would and for some reason didn't). It's not worth constantly looking at the creature to see whether they are or not, then singing, then going about your business.

I like it. It's always up, so... must be working haha.

Very useful for the right type of gem. I still feel like it takes far too long to fully purify gems though, and that means the time investment on a majority of gems simply isn't worth the effort to work on.

I go back and forth with being diligent about purifying gems vs not giving 2 craps about it. Plus, I have over 300 orb gems on me at any given time without much of a market for them which is sad (other than giving them to my Wizard or Cleric).

I've heard some people say it's useful on their way to cap -- but I never used it. It was always more prudent for me to 1001, 1002 and swing away rather than use additional mana (especially at the time when Mana was at a premium).

At cap I've never used it a single time for anything, and also don't swing. If I'm going to ward something, it's going to be blasted by 1030 anyway, so why bother?

Sure.. .it's always up because why not. Passive song for me though, so I don't care too much. I'm sure it's useful lol

I never use it anymore because I don't swing. It's great for my level 33 Bard though and his group, and therefore always up. But otherwise, whoopdie ding dong as a pure warding Bard.

I use it in Reim to not blow up the entire room. That's literally the only time I've ever had use for it. 8 mana for HP damage or 10 mana (1030 renwed) for pure obliteration? Hmmmmm I wonder.

Otherwise it was never used since 1001, 1002, Polearm swing was always pretty reliable.

All the sonic gear is great until you outgrow it. The Sonic Shield i never had any use for until ~85 when I swapped over to a pure warding Bard. Now using Pageant shields as my primary shield with 50 ranks of Air Lore.

I love the general benefit of the air gear, being lighter etc, and the benefit of Air Lores with the shield is fantastic if not a bit expensive (but 1st world problems)

I would love if you can set a default shield type, so I could just incant 1009 and get a Pageant (or whatever I chose). If there's a way to do that, and I don't know please tell me!

Sure, it's fine. Again, it's a passive defensive song that's always up. Not much to say about additional DS.

It's great situationally, when I'm trying to get something done and don't want to deal with any riffraff. I find it a little frustrating that I can be broken out of it is so easily sometimes (anecdotal though).

The renewal cost is a great value. So, it's nice -- but I rarely use it.

This was my go-to song when I was leveling up to ~85. I would love if you can set a default weapon type, so I could just incant 1012 and get a polearm (or whatever I chose). If there's a way to do that, and I don't know please tell me!

The flares were amazing, and it really lifted a burden on the need to item chase as I leveled up, since it leveled up with me and became stronger with lores etc.

I also loved the ability for it to be used on undead and not have to deal with getting a bless, and dealing with the bullshit of "well is it a magical metal or does it have XYZ on it? Oh you can't bless it only a super Cleric can and they don't want to help."

I tried using it for a while when first swapping over to a warding bard at around ~85 and tried to keep a few blue wands handy... but the maintenance of that was too annoying and inconsistent. Using it on creatures was a roll of the dice (yeah pun intended) and often left me with less mana overall. The benefit almost never outweighed the cons.

Loved it when I used it. Bought a better set of armor a while back and am working on getting it padded. It would be great if Sonic Armor could be padded additionally in some way outside of elemental resistances.

Sadly don't use it anymore on my 100 Bard or even my 33 Bard because of the upkeep. Again, would also be nice to set a default type and always re-use that when incanting.

This was extremely useful when trying to lower the TD of certain creatures when I first swapped to a warding bard, especially when my CS wasn't quite high enough. The renewal cost for it was very nice and meant more opportunities to try using it without feeling like you were going to lose out on 10-15 minutes recovery and end a hunt early.

I don't use it much at all anymore (can't remember the last time I did) because my CS is high enough and everything dies quick enough, so the RT and TD doesn't matter.

Never used it. I'm sure some other experienced bards are probably yelling at their screen right now but 16 mana for what? To force a single creature to offensive? The renewal cost is nice at least.

This spell has never been used by me even when swinging a polearm. It has no place in my rotation, and feels useless to me. Also one of the benefits is drawing aggro? GREAT! That's especially useful when hunting solo /s -- but honestly even when hunting in a group, there's never been a cause to draw aggro. Is this World of Warcraft?

This was extremely useful when I was still swinging, and helped me through a few levels getting through some creatures that were hurting me real bad with their spells. I wish it prevented Earthen Fury and other spells like that (because I don't believe it does?)

It was tough when I failed at managing the songs and it would prevent me from renewing my other songs and got me killed a few times. It was also annoying (and embarrassing) when I kept it running on accident in town and prevented everyone from casting spells.

This was nice occasionally when a hunt was going on for a while and I needed a boost of Mana. I feel like the adverse effect of BLOWING UP PEOPLE when sung in a node is a little extreme and stupid... if not pretty funny haha.

I don't have much use for it in my typical hunts today which last around 1-2 minutes... the mana refresh doesn't "proc" often enough to make it useful.

It's always up because of how annoying creature maneuvers were... I dislike how expensive it is but other than that... passive defensive spell <shrug> Whoopdie ding dong.

I love it. I never stop using it to return to town. It's SUPER useful in a group too. The recall penalties suck sometimes but worth it for how useful it is overall. I love the idea of being brought to the local tavern, too. It could be made better by having an option to get a drink automatically ;)

Total garbage, useless song. I found it to be more detrimental to my hunting experience than anything else. It's one of the least useful spells in the game in my opinion. It would be nice if the AS was anywhere close to something that can hit a like-level creature, and even better if it would attack automatically rather than always needing to be directed.

I hate the idea that one has to have trained in the weapon usage for a floating weapon to be effective, too. Because even when I did have full weapon ranks, it was just a pain in the ass doing nothing. Might be nice if it didn't require ranks in any weapon to use (where you can get a benefit of different attack damage types).

Overpowered glory. I use it gladly nonstop today, but that's because it's simply the most efficient attack to use as a capped bard, hands down. It obliterates rooms for a respectable (maybe even too cheap) mana cost. I still occasionally run out of mana during hunts, but it's supidly powerful. I would be 100% okay with a nerf of it's critical damage, if that was balanced out with a cheaper cost to run / renew.

Not much else to say about it, but it's head and shoulders above everything else in the arsenal for getting the job done, which has the side effect of making me a one-trick pony.

I'm not specc'ed for it, but it was great when I was swinging, and the group benefits are great. I'm currently targeting to get it over 425/430 on my level 33 Bard for the group benefits, where he will spec for it.

I feel like it could use a little love to make it a little more appealing for non-swingers, although the +dodge benefit is admittedly nice. Too expensive though for a 1minute +20 dodge at the moment.

I honestly forget I have this spell have the time, and when I do remember I have it, I can never remember the damn mechanic to use it properly. It would be nice if it wasn't a flat 40 cost when not in a group though. Maybe 20 mana for self-non-grouped... and for god sake just let incant 1040 work.

I really like the concept of singing songs as the way to cast spells. It might be interesting to have some augmentations with song / verse combos, to encourage more singing perhaps, or even weakening other songs if there are too many being sung at once.

I can't imagine what the "Song" of Fortitude, Luck, Triumph, Shield, Valor, Weapon Depression, Armor, Power, Disruption, Tonis must sound like all at once...

Off the top of my head, not sure -- but contact me with thoughts on Discord I would be HIGHLY invested in helping to make Bards more balanced, dynamic and interesting rather than 1030 machines.

More opportunities for Bards to upgrade their Sonic Gear or make it more appealing to invest in Sonic Gear post-cap would be awesome... also more opportunity outside of roleplay to use instruments and maybe have master quality instruments do something than give an additional verse.

Also, Bard Guild would be amazing someday, eh?

hard early (pre mana changes). very easy now

as is great! ds sucks. need more both

need cheaper cm. options are too few. i use feint/disarm

too easy. people slow me down so i solo

don't you touch 1035, or 1030. yes theyre overpowered, but so what. other classes have op things. go nerf wizards

paladin zealot, a mana-return attack cm, and cheaper cm/dodge cost

i'm not giving up 425/430 for nothing. mnm better have more as/cs/ds/td

it would hurt it. keep them elemental alone.

i haven't used it since learning 1005

it runs in the back.. what does it do again?

worthless now with loot caps

awesome spell. lower the mana cost for high level

I don't even know if this works

never use it. things die too quick

runs iwth 1003 in the bckground

needs more than 7x, and have bonding stuff like warriors and paladins

make it not hurt my own songs

needs to cost less. mobility is only 18. divine shield is only 9

i don't use it when I can script

boring pet. never gets an attack in

perfect as is. don't touch it.

perfect as is. don't touch it

a lot of songs become outgrown.

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

Originally to sing at my own items.

I don't RP him much because he was a table character before a loot hunter.

It's very easy to get into an area, blow it up, and get out with the loot.

He was easily scriptable up to and post cap using first a lance, then UAC, and then 1030.

Their DS is fine where it is. Their AS "might" be a little high if we're comparing them to rangers and paladins, and being the most magical. tweaks to 1007 or 425 can balance this.

I love recall now since the changes, and loresinging is a very identifying skill.

Bards get combat maneuvers? No, seriously. I train in it to dodge attacks and that's it. I use some of the passives, but even trip is worthless.

it takes a very long time to purify my sacks of gems. We should have the song be able to target a container and hit all the gems in it at once.

1030 is way overpowered and can probably mitigate "some" nerfing while still being a great hunting song. 1035 is also way overpowered and can probably survive restrictions similar to 506 - if not change entirely. My AS is quite a bit higher than I need, so 425 or 1007 might be able to live with some downtweak. Don't nerf DS as it's already pretty low though, and our reliance on heavier armors is pretty high. Also, not being really affected by armor hinderance since I can just renew my songs is pretty strong.

I want to be able to give "inspiration points" like DnD to help bonus individuals rolls when they're not grouped. I want bard specific CMans - but we should already have these for all semis (which we don't). If I could compose my own songs like an "oblivion" style point/spell system ---- now we're talkin!

I think bards are more mental than elemental. But I don't think MnM list suits them as it wasn't designed with them in mind. Making a change like this alters their inherent access to lockpicking skills (ala DnD) through 403-404-407-408, and doesn't offer enough "mentally" based attack options to mitigate loss of 425 AS/CS and 430 DS/TD. If those two aspects were made available in MnM, I'd give a big thumbs up.

I think an elemental hybrid approach does NOT aid identity... but access to some spells in the MnE circle helps enforce the cliche DnD bard concept. 403, 404, 407, and 408 link bards to the MnE by identity and this might be incorrect. Bards are not elemental, they're entirely mental when you consider what a "song" does. Fortify the cliches in the MnM, and you have all the ceiling you need to make bards the "mental" semi without having to make them "hybrids" of mental and elemental.

very good spell for early rat hunting all the way up through the 20s. It's like a mini 117.

It was good before I got disarm Cman. Now I never use it.

It could use a DS boost based on lore or ranks - our DS is borderline and bumping this could help the loss of 430.

It's amazing. This is how I hit loot cap so quickly.

Another excellent hunting option that makes non-volners capable of really putting out the hurt. It replaces 1001 when the mana allows as the mini 117.

I love the concept, I just wish it helped more often, and was a more visible benefit so I'd notice it.

An excellent song. This can be made to have a boost to CS and a slight bump to AS - and would allow for losing 425 pretty well.

While i like 1008, I don't find I use it much. If I want something stunned, I just 1030 it and for 7 more mana get a high chance of a kill on top.

This was a really good bread and butter song in the lower 20s to 40s. A little more block would help, and it's another place we can bump DS to ditch the MnE 430.

Another avenue to bump DS and lose 430.

This song is really great and nobody ever uses it. When I hunt with my paladin (which BTW makes a stupidly strong AS pair), 1011 is how we can get someone back on their feet from dead and completely recovered while in the hunting ground.

Free permabless, or free end game weapon - you can't go wrong with this. If you choose to buy a better weapon, that's your choice. But it's unnecessary to do so.

I like getting mana back, but it doesn't do enough per cast, and has limited strong targets. COLer bards never use it. Voln bards do a little. Make it so if I unravel something and then kill it in X seconds, I get a big flood back from it's escaping soul.

This is like 1012. It's free end-game armor. I like mana armor more from duskruin, but if you can't afford it you can always sing a suit and be awesome. It could use a boost maybe to padding or reactive flaring.

I don't find myself using this. 1005 does wonders.

Song of noise is fun if you play like Ryjex with high level gear. That way you can just pretend you're a warrior and keep noise up and completely break the system.

This spell is scary. I won't use it because it can kill me from just someone walking in the room.

It's perfect. It's a lot like mobility or divine shield from the other semis, cost is appropriate after the initial, and it provides some great defense.

Ha ha, I can fog and you can't!

I like the thought of illusioning my singing sword into something that's not a weapon. At least then I could use it to pretend to be a ranger, or a sorcerer.

I understand it's way too strong with it's current uncapped critical potential. It can be brought down to about 616 level and I'd notice, but I'd still use it as my main hunting tactic. Of course, I'd complain a little bit in order to try to get a free buff elsewhere out of the deal.

This is also way too strong, but not so much as 1030 in breaking the game. The real culprit is not having song recast time, and hinderance. So I can keep it up pretty much indefinitely. I like the ability to swing in 1 second when I choose to swing - but if it was capped higher like 3 seconds I'd not notice. I usually 1030 anyway. If it didn't provide a haste effect and instead lowered stamina costs I'd be okay with that too... but I'd want more cman options.

This saves me favor. Poofing back to the table is a handy little thing, but with scripting is unnecessary. Maybe if after I used it, I got an increased xp absorption rate for a little bit?

The bard spell circle can be used to make up for the loss of 403, 404, 407, 408, 425, and 430. Then we'd be able to be 10s and 12s and be a minor mental class. There's a LOT of places this can happen and I hope it does. Crunch sonic shield, weapon, and armor into a single song and just have it a "type" of singing it. Crunch 403, and 404 into one song and replace 1003 with it while adding 1003 to 1010. Crunch 407 and 408 into one song.

Not having a scriptless way of knowing what my renew costs will be kind of bothers me. I either use lich, or risk blowing my nerves.1040 is way too expensive for what it does.

Bards are op? Yeah maybe. but aside from 1030 and 1035, we're actually just really really versatile and well balanced. Maybe instead of nerfing more than those two, we should focus on making the other classes better. And by the way - We need lots more combat maneuvers.

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

because i heard they were OP

it makes them very confident

power, gem purification, can be best pure and best semi if i want

it was more difficult than most until mid 70s

they have been improved recently, and seems adequate relative to their other skills

1030, tonis, full CS for 425, hindrance fail bug,

good, it would align with them better

it is pretty unfair that they get full benefits despite being hybrid

make more like ranger ACs

its been a nice run, but its time for game to get balanced

Faster, versatile combat, not sitting in RT waiting to do things

AS was workable, TD seems to be a concern

not in particularly high demand as it doesn't aid in combat

spirit TD is insanely low, but not everyone can be good at everything

1030, 1030, and 1030. We all know this is the case; I was able to uphunt 20+ levels using it on a different bard years ago.

1035 seems fairly well balanced with the attendant mana costs and lore requirements, so leave it alone. #2 Ability to use shield maneuvers, and 3# , give us an armor skill.

Losing 425 and to a lesser extent, 430 would be a massive QoL hit. If we could get some AS on MnM, may be more manageable.

Positively. The versatility is what drew me to the profession. Want to cast? There's a path. Want to swing and wear heavy armor? There's a path.

Introduce a lore (ML: telepathy?) threshold where it doesn't affect the bard's spells or does so at reduced rates. This would give us an option to mitigate our weak TD.

Anchoring requirement is annoying. Just give us some drunkenness at the end and call it a day.

This is the primary nerf candidate if I had to choose one.

As stated before, with the mana cost and lore requirement, this seems to be mostly balanced. As a possible down tweak, perhaps require a lore threshhold to receive the base 20 dodge ranks.

Anchoring requirement of 1020.

It's embedded in every aspect of what she does

The freedom it allows in roleplay and how it shaped her personality years ago

My bard was one of the first few to go TWC as a build. It was hell until the upper levels, but worth it.

"Back in the day" it was incredibly difficult and she was not able to hunt solo for a very long time. Things shifted after 50.

I love loresinging. I do not use recall or unlocking.

They're meh. It would be rad if they could somehow utilize a weapon bond, especially since my build is more a warrior bard versus pure.

Not anymore. See previous answers about earlier levels.

If Naijin was forced to NERF 3 things; bards shouldn't be one of those three. But if he could take a solid look at mana costs, that would be rad.

A GUILD. Lower mana costs. I don't really have a third.

No. I play a warrior bard build, there needs to be room for that. This would remove or severely limit that option. Bards are NOT just mentalists. Singing sword, sonic weapon, shield, armor, all manipulate air. Semi in the elemental sphere makes sense to me.

I have no issues with the way the elemental hybrid works with bards. It makes sense to me, from an identity standpoint and the functionality at the capped level made it worth the struggle in the lower levels, for me. But again I know my training path is tight on points, yet I've had few issues in training lores in a way that makes her functional and fun.

It was useful in lower levels. I do not use it now.

It was useful in lower levels, it gets used VERY rarely now.

I use it consistently, it helps keep her from being dead.

This is the most fun in CvC situations. Rarely used for combat.

I use it consistently. No idea what it really does though.

I use it consistently. It's difficult without it.

I never use this, past or present.

I never use this as a TWC bard.

I use this consistently; and I can tell a difference when I do not, it makes it difficult to not be dead.

Eh. I use this once in a blue moon.

I love this. Please don't touch it. But do make them hit demons kthx.

This is something that is a very interesting song and can be useful especially for areas like SoS. I have rarely used it in combat, but i use it against other characters (when asked) and my bard (when needed) to pull off specific spells. But it's used very rarely.

I don't use this. It can die in a fire. When I did use it, I died (but not in a fire) because ..stunned and armor falls away. Because you always get stunned right before a song renewal. ALWAYS. It is the way.

Also another one I never use.

Nope. Don't use this either.

Hahaha. Fun if you like your head blowing up, randomly.

I use this consistently. It helps my bard not end up dead. She normally ends up dead without it. Please keep.

This is a great song that I use quite a bit. I'm thankful for it, and it's the one utility spell I would argue strongly to keep.

It can be fun. It's not the best--but it's kinda cool and can be helpful.

Yes. this thing. As a non-pure I don't use it much. I also don't like to kill people accidentally.

My favorite bard song. It's fantastic.

Another favorite. High mana cost but it's worth it!

I don't use a lot of what is there, but I do love what I use consistently.

High mana costs. If you calculate out what a bard uses in mana over an hour versus any other class; it's laughable for the return on investment. I think some of the single shot spells (Tonis) make sense, but some of the others/renewal costs--eh. Not sure they do.

Overall my toon's build is part of what keeps me playing 2 decades later. There are still areas that are challenging, and I have to approach hunting differently in, and there are areas where she's a complete failure..and there are areas she excels in. I personally think this is how hunting in a game like GS SHOULD be. Every character/every build shouldn't excel in every area.

great polearm builds, fast attacking, lullabye

Fairly easy after early levels; more fun

Polearm bard: decent AS, mediocre DS

Loresinging has been greatly expanded lately, and it is amazing. Recall unlocking, while a neat addition, is nowhere near a profession-defining service. Something further needs to be developed.

Charge and feint are great. Combat focus addresses a need. I'd love to see more passives added.

Low TD requires good-to-great gear to circumvent.

1030. 1030. 1030. So sick of hearing how it is OP. Granted, I've always disliked the idea of a "pure" bard. If Tonis needs to be nerfed, heavier lore requirements to gain the same RT reduction is acceptable and understood. Heavier lore to make Noise as powerful is understood also.

1025 improvements. AS way too low, using feint or trip/charge with it.
1030 moved to 1050, kept same power-level.
1030 becomes a CHARM spell.
1018's character-killing backlash tuned down a LOT.

Don't agree with it if forced. If allowed to choose a Minor circle, that might provide a huge, and awesome, variation swing. Spiritual bards, Mental bards, Elemental bards. Think of the possibilities.

I like the flavor of an elemental bard. 407, 408, EWave, great boosters with guards and 425/430.

Never use. Don't even remember what it does.

Great spell. Use it very often. Not sure how to improve it.

Great utility. A multi-cast variation to cut down on repetition would be great: prep 1004, channel [gem] [level] would instantly cast until the gem either reaches the target level or explodes.

Amazing as-is. Use it very often.

Polearm-user. Never used.

Use it often when overwhelmed. Perhaps combine it with Song of Depression and Song of Rage to create a multi-faceted "Emotions" spellsong to free up spell-slots.

Great spellsong. Very much looking forward to it expanding with Ascension.

Never use it. An expansion to provide a new service to strip items of enhancives and/or boost other enhancives on the same item would make this a home-run.

Never use it. Combine with Song of Peace and Song of Rage would be awesome.

Very, very rarely used. Cool idea, but combined with Song of Peace and Song of Depression for a single slot would free up 2 slots.

Great spell to take out casters. An Ascension skill to perhaps renew spellsongs mentally (circumventing Noise) would prove to be incredibly dynamic.

Great utility, but very, very risky. Can cause some extremely high fines due to forgetfulness or having to go AFK suddenly.

Great spellsong. A high lore requirement chance to reflect spells would be amazing.

Decent teleporter. Cross-realms would be a game-changer.

Great idea. Never use in current form. More weapon bases, higher AS.

Amazing spell. Use it almost all of my hunt. Likely OP.

Some spellsongs could be combined to free up slots. Gear slots all in one, Song of Emotions (Rage, Depression, Peace). Overall, very unique and appreciated.

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

Loresongs, and roleplaying

Allows opportunity to roleplay using song and dance.

Being able to detect unknown items using loresong and detect magic. Also, playing instruments.

Easier hunting with a group at all levels, but especially at early trains.

I prefer the sonic armor and weapons. However, more maneuvers would be desired (possibly dance maneuvers).

Bjornsong utilizes loresinging and gem purifying often. Recall is great, but permanent Unlocking is difficult (expensive in experience).

Some dance specific maneuvers would be good. Also perhaps charming via song.

The Noise anti-magic song interferes with my sonic armor and weapons, wish it wouldn't. I would use it if it only affected enemy magic (Area of Effect magic)

We really need guild masters to teach bard skills, the bard guild is pretty useless currently.

Wardrums. We have fifes and horns, but really need a martial percussion instrument, finger cymbals and tamborines just don't say military percussion instrument.

They seem more to me like paladins, a cross between squares and spiritual magic. Music and arts inspire via moving the heart or spirit. Though their magic currently is elemental. Perhaps a magic circle of chants shared by bards, clerics and monks would be possible?

Bjornsong is known mostly through song and some dance. The sonic stuff is wonderful, except perhaps the Noise spell.

In early trains, you cannot defeat an enemy with magic alone. (I suppose you could use it with Arcane magic). In higher trains, I use it mostly to distract/delay foes for the group to attack. It could be replaced by a more potent attack song that does damage.

A great spell against elemental foes. Especially at higher levels when shattering their weapons.

Decent defensive spell for young bards. About right for the mana cost.

Great for purifying orb gems. About the right mana cost.

Useful to subdue enemies. Bjornsong uses it mostly to target individual foes.

Bjornsong uses this always. Great for lockpicking/disarming traps. Also used with 1004 when purifying gems, and also when foraging or searching for heirlooms

Great group song to help with attack. Perhaps should reduce fear effectrs of undead more.

I love the unbalancing effects. A great attack spell, perhaps should be switched with 1001 so that young bards can utilize it for damage. The amount of damage could increase with training. Song of Holding could be made more powerful as a bind or web spell.

Bjornsong uses armor and weapon songs, so has a permanent shield due to mana costs. Perhaps mana costs could be reduced when used in combination.

Another good song to help DS. Bjornsong always uses this. Maybe could help defend against combat maneuvers as well.

Bjornsong uses this when foraging, searching for heirlooms, and also for escort guild tasks (sometimes). He would use it more when wounded if the mana costs were lower, often when in trouble, there's not enough mana.

Bjornsong loves the double flares, and the fact the weapon can be used against undead. Why he always uses this when not brawling bare fisted.

Bjornsong probably should use this more to steal mana, but he's not very familiar with this spell due to lack of use. It's ability to dispell magic I suppose could be useful in specific situations.

Bjornsong uses this exclusively for armor, though he keeps a spare set of armor in his locker. The fact that he can stop singing when lockpicking and have no encumberance is a great advantage. Also he likes the added protection from heat/cold. There is a great risk of lingering in anti-magic areas too long (e.g. Bonespear, some shops, etc.) and losing your armor (and weapon) completely!!! Not to mention getting stunned for multiple rounds, and being immoble and prone when you lose your armor (wails!!)

Bjornsong uses this mostly to aid others when hunting in groups. The mana cost is high when hunting alone.

Bjornsong uses this infrequently as well. Probably one he should learn to use better.

Since this affects the group, it is not very useful, as it dispells any magic the group of friendlies is using as well. When using sonic armor and weapon, along with singing sword, it's pretty useless to Bjornsong. Perhaps it should only block new casts of magic, and not the current bard songs.

Bjornsong now uses this often, especially in a group. It complements Song of Tonis well, to restore mana in the wilds. The stopping/starting to avoid losing control is a pain, however. Bjornsong has been killed a few times by the blowback when forgetting. Also, the music instrument benefit he uses, but this means he must forgo his shield to play.

Good defense. Bjornsong always uses this song.

Love this! Bjornsong wrote a scripted song (macro) specific to Wayside Inn to sing this until he lost his scripting ability. Great for allowing roleplay. Also good to use generally when near other towns. The range should be longer, so it's more like a nexus gem rather than fogging.

Bjornsong uses often both in group hunts and when hunting alone. The attack strength seems to be less than the held weapon however, not sure why.

Another song Bjornsong should use more. When hunting in groups, there is a risk affecting those who drop from the group (or neighboring friendlies). Without this risk, he would use it more.

Impressive group Haste magic. Bjornsong has focused his training in lore to enhance this spell. Love it!

Also impressive group spell. Bjornsong often uses this to unstun and bring prone group members to their feet when under attack by ewaves, bandit traps and other nasty stunning or binding attacks.

Some ability to chant perhaps could be shared by clerics and monks. As I stated earlier, this to me seems a more spirit based magic rather than elemental.

Song of Noise. Or change it to only affect enemy magic or newly cast spells, not all magic.

Still waiting on the Bard Guild to become worthy of the profession. (The gods should do this soon rather than changing systems which already exist and work). Also, perhaps each town or region which has a banner or sigil should also have an Anthem or battle song associated with the region. Perhaps a loresong at the town square or city hall would reveal it. Also, I would very much like to see wardrums, or some sort of martial percussion to accompany bagpipes, fifes, and horns.

Wanted to play a semi and have some versatility

Fast moving combat, the prototypical glass cannon you’d find in other games

Leveling any character is a pain, but bards hit their stride much later than other classes, particularly when compared with pures .

Bards will have many DS problems even at cap forcing different decisions. Bard AS is never the problem. The prototypical glass cannon that Separates from other classes. Can’t let a caster get a spell off because it will auto ward your bard

Bard services are pretty lacking in terms of generating value like enchanting or endorcelling

Charge, feint I use the most. Bards whether by design or happenstance meld great with pole arms. Would like to see more polearm cmans that are competitive. Trip just sucks

TD pain throughout life. Juggling song renewals and the like. Truth be told, class differences are not a bad thing.

The direction and updates to the classes are making the game interesting to some but less palatable to most. Most people won’t jump on the message boards to complain, they just stop playing or play less. Bard haste mechanics counterbalance TD issues and Low DS for most of leveling and even while under 15m exp. making combat slower would effectively change why many chose to play a bard to begin with. you tell me - Why bother playing ?

I chose to level a bard all the way to 25m exp because I enjoy it the class and mechanics. Wouldn’t like to see anything changed. The class is versatile with strengths and weaknesses

Terrible idea. A read through the MnM list shows how many spells there are for uac and further compound DS and TD issues for bards. It would also spread mental lore training too thin. Too many people have spent countless hours and a lot of money building their characters. A change like this would upend their efforts. And for what ?

Works fine, minor buff. All classes have one

I rarely see this fire off, even 2x spells

Great group buff, try to keep it on

Don’t use a shield. If I did, I’d love it

Being a bard is mana intensive. Used it all the time while leveling

Don’t use it. Risk of dispel makes the bard too vulnerable

One of our best group buffs, love it

The failure rate, even at 2x spells is insane. I try not to use it

Pretty buggy, but great when it does work.

Our capstone attack spell.

Capstone utility spell. This is why people choose to play a bard and spent a decade building their characters around it

Great situational utility. Fantastic for group bandit hunting

Two bards singing song of power blowing each other up. You can just be passing by a room for one second in a hunting ground and wind up killing everyone else around

Please keep in mind people have spent over a decade building their characters.

He drinks and plays bagpipes

Loresinging is fine for myself, but people expect it for free. Recall is less than desirable. It's fluff.

I think that makes complete sense theme-wise

Can this upgraded with lores to do a group of gems together? Doing a bag of 200 gems takes hours.

Because they are the best, obviously. I picked a bard because they seemed to have the best balance of hunting skills and magic, with the uniqueness of songs. I honestly have never really played any other type.

I sing and clown around with friends and foes. I also use my instrument in battle from time to time.

Pretty much everything is likeable about being a Bard. You can be helpful or hurtful with your words and tone. Lovely. Being a bit faster than the rest is also rather handy.

Nothing to compare it to. Hunting in groups helped me through rough patches.

There were pinch-points, of course, but overall I never felt I could *not* get something done because of a lack of defense or offense.

I'd like to see something a bit more 'useful' happen with bard services. unlocking items is cool in theory, but I've honestly unlocked maybe 4 things. The ability to loresing is helpful - a potential change would be if we could increase our abilities to know more about W\P\S and other things currently hidden from us. Doesn't make a ton of sense that I can see who ensorcelled or enchanted an item by name, but not how much temporary damage weighting it has.

I argue with Archales about this often. He uses cheapshots, charge, feint and others. I train in them, because I can, but I rarely use anything other than feint. And that's only when my manna is low and/or I am just feeling frisky. I've noticed a significant increase in shield bashes (at least with pirates) that have been fairly devastating. I would like to see Tonis or a true CM that might offset that.

takes too long to sing to all the gems I find. I guess that is a painpoint.

1) song of noise
2) song armor failures don't use manna
3) wind can blow your sonic gear away (thinking of wind wraiths on Teras)

1) inter-realm travel song
2) additional master instrument opportunities
3) something besides dues in the Guild

we are jacks of all trades and masters of none (except singing, of course)

pretty good - would like to see it do a bit more as more songs are learned. I use it against the boss critters, but is rather ineffective honestly.

this is a staple song and should under no circumstances be altered! A critical spellsong that I use against anything that is holding anything.

good I suppose, I use it because it is there.

critical for me. I'd like to perhaps see a way of batch singing up say, X amount of the same type of gem. Something that might allow for the process to go by quicker. It could also be left alone and I would be a happy bard.

cute song, especially when younger. Not so much at higher levels, but still fun to knock out friends in town.

another one that I use because it's there. Always seemed like a good idea, I feel like the 'you feel a bit luckier than normal' or whatever messaging on CM's has something to do with it. Probably just making it up in my mind

useful and should be looked at for further improvement. A daily driver spellsong

useful again at lower levels, like 1005 is.

sonic gear is cool. I don't use a shield, however.

always nice to be able to call a timeout.

sonic's are cool - I use this spellsong every hunt

another fun one - useful in certain situations on items and critters. I think this could be looked at for further expansion/tweaks or even removal, if something radical is being considered.

another cool one. i don't use sonic armor any longer, because of the wind and dispell-ablity of it. if your armor is dispelled, well, we have a problem, Houston.

great song as a support bard, which I consider most bards to be in a group combat situation.

not useful to me ever and can go away. I forgot about it entirely until just this very moment.

this is cool but situational and not very helpful if what you are hunting is casting at you and able to hit you. This is likely not gonna stop it, I've found.

great song. wish it didn't kill me and other as often as it did when I was learning to use it as a young bard. But that is also what made 'The Death Song' so much fun. I like the challenge/benefit balance it offers

great song and a must for bards

see my wishlist! should be a bit more powerful...

i don't use it, but the idea is cool. It takes too long to respond and start up, and by then, I'm on to the next one.

love it. use it. live it. The recent changes are interesting and probably needed to happen to make things a bit more even and fun/safe for passersby.

great song. would like to see some additional tweaks to it, possibly, based on lore refinement/specialization.

works well, doesn't blow my socks off for a 1040 spellsong, honestly. So, yeah.

I only know the bard circle, so I can not compare it to others. Seems like we're doing ok in general, not great, but ok. Very decent, if you will.

1015, 1016 and 1017 can go away as far as I'm concerned.

n/a - Bards are awesome. Please do not take that away from us!

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

Song of tonis. 2x weapon training. (Mechanical carrot over my enhancive-dependent wizarcher -- bolts really do suck.)

I'm one of those sweaty (casual) rollplayers, not roleplayer. But if I'm going to put my +1 charisma hat on, I think that the mechanics of singing to equipment are needlessly terse and may have more people engage with their flavour rather than scripting in guildspeak if they were just moved to a standard spell with distribution of spell customisations like all the other spells get.

1035. 1007. 2x weapons. Sonics. And how 1017 is way overpowered, even if it's fiddly.

Answer would have also included being the second-best pickers, but the locksmith pool has basically eliminated most of that upside.

Mechanically uninteresting, but solid. Professions seem to be less important than equipment (bows, specifically, are allaround good, and recycleable through my toons).

Solid AS (1007; very hard to complain). DS lacking without outside spells until 30th train (and even then only if going heavy spells and elemental route first).

I think you already know how many things are broken here. Loresinging either shouldn't exist, or custom loresongs that have a mechanical impact should frequently spawn on items, occupying the script slot.

All characters should be able to identify basic things about their loot without an AI crystal or 405.

?? -- Bards don't *have* combat maneuvers. Even Rangers get SMastery, and Paladins get Tainted Bond, Shield Charge and Bull Rush shared with only one other profession each.

Bards get what -- spin attack, charge and cheap shots to write home about? The last of which being the only thing resembling something exclusive but also shared with 2 professions (monks and rogues)?? There's a reason my bard is an archer and I don't second guess it, and if self-ammo sonic bows were a thing, I doubt there would be any bards who aren't.

Not really. 1035 would be more convenient if it were cheaper, but I'm not sure it's meant to be more convenient.

1020 sucks royally, and is also needlessly terse, but I don't use familiar gate on my wizard either.

1030. I basically mind everything else, and the AOE change impacting 410 was a big Bard nerf because Bards don't have any reason whatsoever to train EMC until way post cap.

I guess 1013 being infinite mana unlike the wizard mana leech equivalent also counts -- the nerf won't be felt until mana doesn't matter, unless you use 1030.

And if I'm really stretching, losing minor elementals would mean bards are now terrible pickers compared to rogues, but again, locksmith pool makes that a complete non-issue.

Sonic bows (immune to disarm, self-ammo optional).

I don't really have two other wishes. Maybe a very minor loot impact on 1006 (it does say luck after all), but people will continue to use 1006 regardless.

As an archer bard, it would be a sizeable nerf. Losing 425 would suck, and losing 401, 406, 414, 410 & 430 are irreplaceable in the minor mentals.

Then again, the game isn't difficult. And 1235+1035 without multi-accounting would completely invalidate what I believe is the only real function of bringing a Monk to a hunt.

425, 430 and 1035 + elemental lore with cheap (for semi) training costs speak louder than any functionality and identity thoughts I could give on the matter.

Without them, I guess if 1007 moved to scaling with bard ranks and the DS gap were filled in somehow, 410 would be the only thing I'd miss -- but I can use those cheap training costs to get it on imbeds.

The ranged review really did make 411 completely obsolete, especially on a class that already has superior flares and enchants via sonics. But 418 is also completely obsolete when it clashes with 1018, so I mechanically probably don't give a damn long-term if I hypothetically get 1235 in return.

Don't use it. Probably amazing at cap.

Don't use it *yet*. Great spell.

Boring spell. Only exists to fill in a lack of DS and get me closer to multi-song penalty.

Ehh. I think it's a boring spell, but 1030'ers with manip lore love it.

Probably broken, but I prefer a multi-target disable like 410.

Boring spell. Would prefer reliable cman defense. (This is the one I leave out until I can afford multi-song penalty.)

Solid (duh). Who doesn't like exclusive heroism that stacks with heroism?

Obsolete due to 410. (Affects more types of targets, RT more effective than stuns.)

Solid, but I don't use shields.

Another boring spell, but more interesting than 1003.

No complaints. Foraging bounties, rescues, casting MnE with high hindrance.

Tuning forks are too hard to come by, but the disarm cancel would still make this a keeper even if I had a +50 T5, flare-scripted 50 CER deathdealer of whatever variety.

I haven't used it at my level. Would be nice if the mana returned didn't rely on mental mana control.

Solid, encumbrance boost is great, but I don't use it. MSP, no crit padding, and loss of armor support when it inevitably drops due to death and/or anti-magic rooms. :(

Haven't used it (restrictive mana cost at my train).

Haven't used it (restrictive mana cost at my train).

Please don't nerf, I can't go back to being afraid of Earthen Fury. ^_^

Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I'd add it to my repertoire if it meant overall mana returned and no head assplodes.

Currently, I don't even use it because the only other scenario that would be to the benefit of others (e.g. Dreavening), I frequently clash with Luxelle using it, and risk assploding either my head, or another bard's head.

Solid. I like that at 1x dodge, bards can get mobiles, blurs and mirrors and pretend that they're 2x dodge trained (at my level, I believe I even qualify as > 2x).

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Hahahaha. Ha. Hahahahahahahaha. Ha. Hahahahahahahahahaha.

I've never been trained beyond 19 bard base so far, almost just to spite 1020.

I'm sure there's a lot of flavour code and love that went into its creation, but I don't care if it is deleted and not replaced whatsoever.

*shrug* -- No complaints, but I've never been past 1019 (see above).

I went bard because I was sick of my wizard running out of mana. I don't want to roll a rock & roll wizard that has even more severe mana issues and no access to 515.

I'm sure it's broken, and lures a lot of other players in, but 1035 + ranged = infinite 1-second eye shots at 30 EL:A is way more applicable in way more scenarios.

Lacking 410 equivalent. I think replacing 1008 with an RT-inducing song would make 410 obsolete. But I guess 1016 is meant to cover this. (I just haven't used it -- too expensive.)

1020. 1013 mana returned tied to minor mental rather than bard base. (At least make it return 13 mana by default instead of 1.)

Please don't take my Tonis. :'( I haven't even unlocked it yet.

At the time, I already had a ranger and I just thought that bards sounded fun.

She carries significantly more instruments than my other characters. She is also more outgoing.

Bards are very helpful in groups, so everyone is happy to have a bard in their group. It is also a good excuse to role play a slutty, drunk kleptomaniac.

I think it is a bit harder to solo hunt with a bard than with some other professions, at least at lower levels.

My AS definitely got much better when I got 425 and made my character much more playable.

I haven't played around with the newer skill. Loresinging and gem purifying are definitely fantastic skills though.

Training points are usually pretty tight.

The ability to hide during song renewal.

Please no. My bard has a wizard partner who she shares mana with and I use the 400 spell circle as much as I do the 1000 circle (minor Elementals 1-3, 425, 430 for buffs along with 410 and 411 for hunting).

The MnE spell circle seems way more useful to bards than the MnM one does.

I don't tend to find this spell super useful.

A useful spell when hunting creatures that carry weapons.

I constantly have this one running.

Also one of the buff spells I have running constantly.

Great spell, super helpful for groups.

I don't really use this one much, but I probably should.

I don't use this one because I don't use a shield.

One of my go to buff spells.

Great for foraging and searching bounties. It's even better than minor sanctuary, imo.

Great for hunting the undead.

I haven't really used this one.

I haven't really used this one. I think adding it costs too much mana on renewal.

It's a bit annoying that you could in principle die using this and the set up is tedious.

I just got this spell. It seems fun.

I don't have this spell yet, but it sounds great.

The bard spell circle is pretty good. Mana costs for song renewal can be a problem, especially at lower levels, which is annoying.

Kind of: multiple accounts/veteran characters/whatnots

Long-term he plays a huge impact in my personal story, being one of two from my gnome family that breaks "protocol" and speaks common, albeit less than my Empath.

In more than two decades it's the first prof I've leveled past 10 that used a weapon. At 30 I switched to how I want to play, a pure magic user.

As costly point wise as others, but not as desired/impactful.

None. I don't want CMs for pures. It's why we have spells.

Song timing and mama costs, but it's reducing as I level.

Anything but 1030 and 1011.

A better or mechanically beneficial service, no changes to 1030, 1004 single cast to completely purify vs 5+ casts.

Not invested, but I appreciate 425.

Wish it could be multicast or single max purify cast.

Unsure what it exactly impacts.

Weak, pure don't use as 1030 only costs 10, so 2 more.

Not skilled enough to use yet.

Not skilled enough to use yet.

Haven't gotten it yet, but excited about it.

Wish we had a bolt (1206???), an SMR attack, and leave 1030 for single vs and aoe attack.

Less physical focus and more pure OR let us convert to Savant.

more td,better service, 1025 upgrade

would like it without having to give up anything

did it stop working against smr2?

great to use on your friends

annoying & wish it couldn't be dispel

a spell has to be on top ? why not 1030?

not as good as 506 & 515

less than beseech for paladins?

I wouldn't have the character without being a bard, so integral.

I enjoy lore singing, playing the instruments and the bardic specific skills that don't relate to hunting.

Having a tough times from 45-65 ... levels.

Too much to train in to be successful compared to other professions. Dogding, CM and maneuvers have to be trained in to be successful hunting

I like recall and unlocking, but I wish it wasn't tied to hunting.

Too much to train in compared to other professions.

The spells aid bards, but I can get a lot of the base elementals from other players.