most underpowered class in game?

[Jimjam]

Shaman pets are classified as animals, so druids can take spite golem pets in fear and caller of sathir pets in KC, even if it is mostly a novelty.

Druids are great in overgeared groups where tanking can be shared as everyone is a beefcake, which really synergises with group regen. In these groups not every mob needs a slow which synergises well with damage shield.

Was in a group like this at the weekend, pulling like 5 lvl 50 mobs at a time thru the back wall of RCY and it was no problem and great xp (enc, war, war, ranger, monk, druid, max level 56). No deaths just chain kills of knights/protectors, bodyguards, hands and occasional decayed mobs.

Also shout out to Fistii who taught me some RCY pulls I didn’t know how to safely achieve previously, great job!

[Ennewi]

Originally Posted by socialist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I've never actually agreed with the notion that the bard is a jack-of-all-trades. I mean, that particular phrase was used by the developers themselves to describe the class, and printed in the manual and shit, which is why it lives on to this day; but if we look at the actual jobs that a bard can do, they're not particularly versatile.

I get why people have this perspective, but ultimately I think the original box description fits.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_o...master_of_none

The original version "a jack of all trades" is often a compliment for a person who is good at fixing and has a very good broad knowledge. They may be a master of integration, as such an individual who knows enough from many learned trades and skills to be able to bring the individual's disciplines together in a practical manner. This person is a generalist rather than a specialist.

It's an int caster that can wear chain/plate, benefits from sta 4 to 1 by comparison, isn't dependent on mana (with few exceptions), can move around while casting, has a defensive discipline, and isn't reliant on weapons but can eventually shift into melee attack role at higher levels thanks to groupwide procs. Its version of the wand/staff actually enhances its version of spells and it has multiple, one for each type of magic; granted, only two are tremendously useful. Every "spell" is a three second cast and the class gets at least one per level unlike other casters.

Borrows a little from all over the class list. Safe fall (mnk, rog) helps prevent a lot of inadvertent runspeed damage before travelsong. Forage, track (dru/rng) and pick lock, sneak, hide (rogue). Separately none of it stands out, esp at the skill cap, but together all of it equates to a general convenience/QOL feature.

Can't bind, gate, or port, but it has the fastest movement speed to compensate, turning West Karana into a leisurely jaunt.

Originally Posted by socialist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

A bard can't tank,

Not ideal, but group tanking is possible depending on the level/zone, esp since bards have slow on demand. Equip a shield and lute of the howler, deftdance if/whenever possible, and hold on for dear life.

Originally Posted by socialist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

heal

True, but the regen put out is fungi+ depending on lute/level. And shield of song complements canni, allowing shamans to put out heals more readily.

Originally Posted by socialist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

or DPS.

Bard charm can put out respectable damage, esp if there are rogue mobs in zone, and it costs no mana until higher levels (insta killing an NPC's pet via charm counts towards bard DPS imo). With a decent drum, dot damage isn't a terrible alternative either for smaller groups, esp with other dot classes present. Is it ideal? No, but ideal isn't required to fill a role because, from those who are LFG, choices are limited.

Originally Posted by socialist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It's basically a puller and CC class, with some buffing and mana sustain thrown in. If we look at it in terms of actual group roles, there's only a few classes that can fill more than one to any meaningful extent, and bard certainly isn't among them.

Bards can assist in preventative ways, spamming mez to interrupt casters, highsun/PBAE fear to buy time for evac. They can also assist with CRs using any combination of sneak, bind sight, and other songs, the most obvious being locate corpse.

Jack-of-all-trades might not be a perfect description, but how else could they be described? While technically INT casters, they aren't dependent on mana, who can move around while casting (assuming the INT caster doesn't return to the original loc to finish channeling). At higher levels they can once again do decent melee damage, having every excuse to downshift into that role thanks to groupwide procs and epic modifier.

Originally Posted by socialist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

To gauge the versatility of a class, take any given group with one of that class in it already and then add another member of the same class who has to take up a different role. How happy are you with that? In the bard's case, nobody in their right mind would ever want two of them in the same group.

It could be made to work. Excluding SS helm clicks, one bard pulls using charm/highsun liberally, the other bard covers the usual lineup of beneficial songs while remaining in camp. Or one bard could maintain charm. In lower level groups, one bard could weave in AE mez on incoming while the other chain pulled; at those levels either of the two could also stand in as tank.

Originally Posted by socialist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The versatility of bards is generally overrated. They have a lot of different types of abilities, but the vast majority of them are pointless garbage that never gets used.

Bards are versatile but their extra abilities rarely ever get used by players who mostly swarmed to max level.

Originally Posted by socialist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

When you get right down to it, there's really just a handful of bard songs that are ever called for in a typical grouping environment. Haste, mana regen, Selo if outdoors, lull if pulling, mez in exp groups, resist songs in raids, and I guess slow if there's no other slower. That's 98% of what a bard exists for, and they don't have the kind of versatility where you could have two of them in a group and feel fine about it.

Charm and AE snare/slow are two of the more important song types. Charm preoccupies two mobs instead of mez's one and it lowers their health/mana in the process. AE snare/slow is great when used in tandem with enchanter mez; if anything resists/breaks early, it won't catch the enchanter and even if it does, it won't do multiple rounds of damage...more often than not it will be slow-motion chasing the bard instead. Other class slows will prevent its application, but the aggro generated should still redirect targets from enchanter to bard. Resist songs in group, not just raids, prevent a lot of potential damage while pulling/on incoming on top of adding a damage shield. Dex from chant of battle with drum helps warrior proc more, so if haste is already covered by another class, there's a decent alternative to use and it's the very first song on the list.

Originally Posted by socialist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Having a long list of ability types doesn't mean much if most of them are either weak as piss or serve no particular purpose in ordinary gameplay.

OT hammer costing a single jade? No charming nonsense required, just illusion mask and faction song. Faction song is also good for MQing. Sneak? Access to otherwise uncooperative merchants. Jig of vigor would be in greater demand if endurance use was the same as in classic, but it's still good to have ready for warriors discing depend on raids. March of the Wee is more trouble than it's worth in groups, but it still has its uses elsewhere. Even something like cassindra's elegy has its place and time (tradeskilling). The list goes on.

Originally Posted by socialist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Many aspects of the bard class are comparable to a car with two wheels--technically it's better than a card with no wheels, but it's still not a usable car.

A motorcycle would be a good description of the bard class in this case.

Originally Posted by socialist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Having dual wield but no double attack means your melee output is irrelevant,

Yeah but through melee attacks the bard gains access to certain procs that benefit the damage output of group members who likely do have double attack. That's pretty relevant.

Originally Posted by socialist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

having plate armor with garbage hit points and defensive skillcaps means you're not really tanky, etc.

Still tankier than the traditional purecaster though.

[Cen]

bard single target DPS when three-chanting is often overlooked. it's above average without the epic and with it's very high

[Ennewi]

Originally Posted by Cen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

bard single target DPS when three-chanting is often overlooked. it's above average without the epic and with it's very high

Yep, I haven't been able to test this out thoroughly at max level/with epic yet, but others have reported 60+ dps from percussion dots alone and having been capable tanks in zones like the hole, seb, and skyfire, not excluding guardian wurms.

https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...d.php?t=198946

Originally Posted by Cherry23
Bards can not mezz or charm high end content, their haste and slow is not as good as a shaman or enchanter which almost evey high end group has one of... You can't use run speed indoors...

They have pulling ability and mana regen. Not much else. They are as bad as rangers at high end but fun when levelling

Originally Posted by falkun

With Ervaj's line, non-epic bards now have better haste than shaman (55 vs 50%). Also, epic'd bards have had better haste than shaman since Kunark (60%, 70% with ervaj). You could also argue their pulling ability is not as good as a monk's yet that's not strictly true either. And as Astuce pointed out, bard song DPS is respectable. Bard slow is also the single best snare in the game.

We also have unparalleled resist buffs, an unresistable debuff, group-wide DA, we've had eyeball pulling since Kunark (lol @ holgresh camp), among many other tools in our toolbox. Bards are still quite valuable in almost every raid composition: DS/epic proc for tank+spank, resists for resist fights, melee buffs for burn fights, mana batteries for endurance fights, etc.

If you think bard's are one-trick ponies, you do not understand the class.

[socialist]

Originally Posted by Ennewi [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Yep, I haven't been able to test this out thoroughly at max level/with epic yet, but others have reported 60+ dps from percussion dots alone and having been capable tanks in zones like the hole, seb, and skyfire, not excluding guardian wurms.

Eh. Chants will tick for 56ish each w/epic, which is something like 30 DPS if you maintain three of them. That's if you can maintain them all, because while they do apply a resistance debuff, it's not exactly huge and plenty of things in the endgame will be immune to one or more of magic, fire and cold. Add the shitty melee on top and it might amount to 50 DPS. No, bards do not do real DPS. It's marginally higher than a paladin, and that's if the bard is doing nothing other than DPS, which is not a scenario that ever actually happens in reality. Ask a level 60 bard how big a percentage of his time is spent in DPS mode. He'll probably chuckle at you and recite a dirty limerick.

As far as tanking goes, bards are on par with rogues. They get marginally higher HP and they can wear plate, but their parry and dodge skills cap significantly lower, so it's about equal. If you take a fully ToV-geared bard to tank the Hole, I'm sure it'll probably be fine. Under real-life conditions, it's not a thing. A ToV-geared cleric could probably tank leveling content with a slower. Shamans tank guardian wurms all day and they don't even have any real defensive skills. This is not a measure of viability in conventional gameplay settings.

Maybe you can come up with some fantastical scenario where there's a group in which the bard is forced to be the tank, and then it's probably better than having the fucking wizard do it. But in reality, it's not a thing that happens with any sort of regularity, and it certainly isn't good. Bards are certainly useful in the one role that they inhabit, but they don't have the kind of versatility that lets them fill more than one role. They're pullers with mild CC and haste/resists/manasong. Stop pretending they're also DPS and tanks.

When was the last time you had a bard in your group and then invited another one, when it wasn't the only option available? Yeah? Yeah.

[cd288]

Originally Posted by socialist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Eh. Chants will tick for 56ish each w/epic, which is something like 30 DPS if you maintain three of them. That's if you can maintain them all, because while they do apply a resistance debuff, it's not exactly huge and plenty of things in the endgame will be immune to one or more of magic, fire and cold. Add the shitty melee on top and it might amount to 50 DPS. No, bards do not do real DPS. It's marginally higher than a paladin, and that's if the bard is doing nothing other than DPS, which is not a scenario that ever actually happens in reality. Ask a level 60 bard how big a percentage of his time is spent in DPS mode. He'll probably chuckle at you and recite a dirty limerick.

As far as tanking goes, bards are on par with rogues. They get marginally higher HP and they can wear plate, but their parry and dodge skills cap significantly lower, so it's about equal. If you take a fully ToV-geared bard to tank the Hole, I'm sure it'll probably be fine. Under real-life conditions, it's not a thing. A ToV-geared cleric could probably tank leveling content with a slower. Shamans tank guardian wurms all day and they don't even have any real defensive skills. This is not a measure of viability in conventional gameplay settings.

Maybe you can come up with some fantastical scenario where there's a group in which the bard is forced to be the tank, and then it's probably better than having the fucking wizard do it. But in reality, it's not a thing that happens with any sort of regularity, and it certainly isn't good. Bards are certainly useful in the one role that they inhabit, but they don't have the kind of versatility that lets them fill more than one role. They're pullers with mild CC and haste/resists/manasong. Stop pretending they're also DPS and tanks.

When was the last time you had a bard in your group and then invited another one, when it wasn't the only option available? Yeah? Yeah.

I like how in some ways you moved the goalpost to they suck because they can't do a certain role as well as another class of that role, when the whole conversation is around being a jack of all trades master of none

[Vivitron]

Originally Posted by socialist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The class was designed in spirit to have a bit of everything, but it's not as if anybody genuinely considers the bard to have any relevant melee capabilities, or tanking, or damage-dealing. Having a long list of ability types doesn't mean much if most of them are either weak as piss or serve no particular purpose in ordinary gameplay.

I mostly agree with you about the bard's role in a typical 6 man group.

I also think bards look more versatile if you consider the breadth of their "ordinary gameplay" instead of their role in a 6 man group.

I did quite a bit of time in those 6 man groups, but I also charm soloed multiple levels. And pbaoe kited a chunk, whether solo or small group or pling. And duoed, doing slow/haste/regen/melee; or with aoe dots and support for root rotting or cluster charming; or fear kiting.

Originally Posted by socialist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

That's if you can maintain them all, because while they do apply a resistance debuff, it's not exactly huge and plenty of things in the endgame will be immune to one or more of magic, fire and cold.

I haven't felt limited by specific immunities very often, but it's a bummer that non-lure damage spells are garbage against high level mobs in general (talking ToV, not Seb).

For raids it would be nice if Ervaj exceeded the haste cap to make it closer to justifiable to put a bard in a rogue group. And if songs went to a separate buff window to make it nicer to put a bard with a tank. And if mana pump were somehow less mind numbing.

[TomisFeline]

when this thread was started i never expected to see someone trying to argue bards were at the bottom. same for druids (though underpowered, their versatility definitely prevents them from being the most UP)

wiz takes my vote unfortunately
would be mage, but their sdps and peripheral utility to others keeps them out of the bottom.

hard to argue that, if rogbog offered to non classically buff a single class, that it shouldn't be a wizard

[PlsNoBan]

Originally Posted by TomisFeline [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

when this thread was started i never expected to see someone trying to argue bards were at the bottom. same for druids (though underpowered, their versatility definitely prevents them from being the most UP)

wiz takes my vote unfortunately
would be mage, but their sdps and peripheral utility to others keeps them out of the bottom.

hard to argue that, if rogbog offered to non classically buff a single class, that it shouldn't be a wizard

Wizard is great for raiding just doesn't have the sustain to be effective in groups. Druid is just "meh" at everything. If you ignore the PL capability and ports. What does anyone actually want a druid for? Worst of the healers by far with weak sustained dps and little utility. Snare and a couple buffs I guess? Mage has equivalent DS. Cleric has equal/better HP buffs. Multiple classes have SoW. Shamans have regen/str.

I've played EQ since beta. Not once have I been in a situation (outside of wanting a port or PL) where I was like "Man I wish we had a druid"

[branamil]

Literally no one has called bard's a "one trick pony" in like 20 years. It's funny when people are pretending their some wizened prophet when they're just like "diD you kNow bards cAn MeZ and Haste????"

It's not like they're going to do ALL of those things in every group. The average XP group is so mind numbing that it's not worth it to give yourself carpal tunnel to squeeze an extra 1.5% xp per hour.