Here's a simple thought.

Make bard attacks affect whether you have deafness or not.

Make bard attacks invisible to deaf people.

Make blanknote *give* deafness to people who don't have it, take away from people who do, strip truehearing and deafness if they have it.

I think I would understand this suggestion better with some examples. I can certainly see some uses of the attacks being invisible to deaf people - set up an octave and then blanknote, for example.

I am not certain, but I think you're looking to set up a situation where bards select a few afflictions, set them up masked, blanknote and go into their active offense?

I'm trying to set up a situation where having deafness without truehearing actually makes bards deadlier. Because that's an insane twist on the way that bards work in virtually every fantasy world, and because it would allow bards to work better since having a defense that defeats an entire skillset is ridiculous. Obviously, the change I propose would also have to come with significant powerlevel adjustments to bard skills.

Another alternative is to make truehearing or deafness come up with a significant delay, like rebounding aura, and make it so some higher-level verses can be composed to pierce deafness, like lunge and similar warrior attacks.

Step 1) Wipe Music and Acrobatics

Step 2) Redesign music+specs so they are not all 'supportive' and focus on a single target, and actually have some effect.

Step 3) Redesign Acrobatics so it's not just all about getting away and surviving, and it actually has some decent offensive skills, and a insta skill.

Step 4) Lunch.

Done. The Earwort and such can stay as it is now, but honestly, Music and Acrobatics are just plain useless, they do not work at all, there are some few limited skills in Ecology/Tarot which work with the few skills in the music specs which are actually useful, but then we have to what, rely on damage (Har har) or our insta kill to actually kill someone.

I'm rather fond of dodging in Acrobatics.

But then, I suspect everyone is. Be nice if I dodged player attacks more often with 18 dex and trans, tho.

That was another point, make dodging impacted somewhat by acrobatics, and by changing acrobatics I meant more removing all the useless skills which no one uses, and replacing them with some skills which are somewhat decent. Mainly Handstand, Balancing, Handspring.

Deafness, as it stands, increases bal/eq regain and causes dizziness. It's enough of an increase that I do not enjoy trying to save myrtle by hunting linked eagles without myrtle, thought they do knock off balance. That's what you have to work with, so...

I suppose a bard could simply try to slow a deaf target down by knocking them off balance or equilibrium (web, if nothing else.), and using the time to set up an octave and any other effects desired before blanknoting again and going for a kill.

I know people have been asking for new Acrobatics skills - so envoy some skills to put a foe off-balance or prone and otherwise take advantage of dizziness. Maybe envoy that dizziness should affect standing up, as well as moving, and should have a chance to prone when it hits, as well as the blanknote suggestion above.

Truehearing does not cause bal/eq+dizziness.

I know. That's the point of truehearing - defense against bards without the downsides of deafness. Verithrax was arguing for giving bards a reason to afflict/unafflict deafness at different stages in the fight. (If implemented, blanknote should delay curing deafness just as it delays gaining it. This would mean blanknote would have a multi-stage progression - once to strip truehearing, and then as desired to flip between deaf and hearing. Given the delay, this could be repeated indefinitely at the cost of giving up some offense.)

Estarra has already said that this will never happen. Ever. That people repeatedly ask for it has been of severe irritation to the admins for quite some time, or so we were told months ago when trying to balance bards.

the skills are good as it is except for perfectfifth which is currently a problem, without the ability to hold someone in place, well that screws up our support big time.

I'm pretty sure he meant "let bard attacks affect whether you have deafness or not", not "let bard attacks affect you whether or not you are deaf." That is, let bards afflict deafness as well as unafflict it, with his proposed change to blanknote. Right now, bards can undeaf someone, and that was approved by Estarra. They cannot make someone deaf, and they wouldn't really want to if they could - but maybe with some tweaking, they would.

Ah, I misread what he said.

What would the advantage be though?

IF bards could afflict deafness (and stick it, just as they can strip it and keep it stripped for a time) and

IF dizziness were tweaked some to affect standing up as well as moving and give a chance to prone when it hits and

IF acrobatics had some new proning / unbalancing moves,

THEN bards could keep shifting an opponent in and out of deafness with a slight stun each time. While the foe was deaf, they'd use the acrobatics trip to prone and unbalance a foe, counting on the slowed balance recovery plus dizziness to hold the foe in place, and take that time to imbue an octave, sing a stanza, or do whatever they might like. While the foe could hear, bards would go with music.

The theory would be that bards would work back and forth on deafness, preparing the field, and then go for an offense. Anyway - Verithrax wanted a way to let bards use deafness offensively, and that's my first stab at it. Thoughts?

I think focusing on boosting bard offense is the wrong approach.

I know that we've never gotten a clear statement about whether bards are or are not intended to be a "support class", but let me say that I think they should be. It would be good for bards to be good at that for a number of reasons. First, it'd provide a guild for people who want to help in combat without the feeling of being on the front line. It would make the cities and communes need bards since they'd be able to do something that other guilds aren't as good as. Both these things would make bard guilds grow. And it would make bards interestingly different from the other guilds.

Bards are already designed in a way to lend itself to that. Songs as portable demesnes with both ally-buffs and enemy-hindrances are right in line to be a support class. Acrobatics allows bards to come along in a big fight and survive long enough to be useful. Their offense is a bit weak, but that's fine if they are good at other things -- it's balanced.

The missing part is that the support class stuff, the ally-buff and enemy-hinder parts, are so weak that most of the time your allies aren't even sure if they're happening. They're so weak that it's never worth it to give up truehearing for them. They're so weak that it's not even worth waiting around a moment to get captivated.

Bards shouldn't be buffed into being a reckoning force offensively in combat. Instead, we need to make captivate easier to set up and last longer, make buffs potent enough that citymates/communemates consider them important or even essential (say, at least on the same order as how valuable it is to have someone set up a demesne), and make sure they can get their buffs in to their allies without requiring them to sacrifice a vital defense.

Perfectfifth should prevent deafness from coming up again. Because then, as the whole skillset could be nullified by just earwort, where in every single other guild, NOTHING can nullify the skillset like Earwort and Music. So if perfectfifth is played, then the person shouldn't be able to use earwort and become deaf. That's one pillar why the bards are so horribly underpowered.

But on a side note, why not give bards the ability to afflict? At least city bards, something that makes them more unique than clear deafness. One 3 power aeon skill (cantors here), and attack... Will we have something like, you play so and so song, making the target feel (insane/stupid/some type of ailment...) That would aid the offense as well as fixing the earwort.

Just my two cents..

I agree with what Lendren said. E.g. the Cantors health and mana regen songs have very little noticeable effect. I would also love to see more utility abilities too. I joined the bards thinking I could better support my city and allies without having to build a system or anything like that, not to get more involved in pvp. I'm sure a few other people who joined bards had that intention too. Not saying that offense isn't important, but that's the entire focus it appears like.

First, having Perfectfifth stopping Earwort would be a bad idea, how can they escape then?

How can you make bards a support class without increasing their offensive capability and not making them overpowered, a lot of the abilities are already great for support, but the fact that group combat is over in under half a minute per clash, means half the time they're not taken into effect before the target is dead or one group leaves.

So lets look at Starhymn.

Processional A beautiful hymnal that regnerates willpower and mana. - Good
LoveCanticle Blessed be Raziela, a hymn of love and healing. - Good
HopesCarol Thanks be Shakiniel, a hymn of protection. - Bit of Elemental Protection, always nice
StarLight The light of the stars replenishes the body's needs. - Good again
MercifulSanctus Honours to Japhiel, a hymn of balanced justice. - Pretty good for the offence.

Now looking at those skills, the bottom three stanzas, you have health and endurance regen, willpower and mana regen, increased sip balance for allies, slower sip balance for enemies, and elemental protection. Probably the best passive support defence out of all three of the skillsets.


CrusaderCanto Glory to Methrenton, a hymn of the holy flame. - Good offensive, who doesn't love making salves useless?
LightCantata Praise be Elohora, a hymn of the blinding light. - Good offensive as well, blind and prone every 10 seconds.
PrincessFarewell The last song of Princess Marilynth holds great power. - Aeon, Stun and Blackout for 3 power
CelestOde Rousing song that inspires the citizens of Celest. - Increased damage for all celest citizens
AngelSong Angels who hear will increase their speed. - Increased angel attack speed.

Now mid stanza, it's basically related to offensive. Celestode only works on players, which means it's not useful for bashing. CrusaderCanto and LightCantata are both good offensive, basically the rest of the skillset above the low stanzas are based around offensiveskills.

Recessional When the hymn winds down, it is best not to disturb it. - Stops siping vials - annoying
EverSea Infuse the waters with the music of the stars. - Stops Shielding in Aqua water
Requiem Lead those unto death with the requiem for the dead - insta kill



If you compare this to say, Necroscream, it really lacks the passive defensive skills, I mean, it has Undeadblues which makes allies undead, increased damage resistence, and Necroballad, which gives undead level 1 health regen, and Taintedlove, which is +2 balance for allies, -2 Balance for allies. There's Vileblood as well which is 1 affliction cured per 10 seconds for allies. Besides Taintedlove which is in the high stanzas, all of those are low, and really dont match up to the defensive bonus from Starhymn, which is obvious since Necroscream should be more offensive rather then defensive.

I have not been paying much attention to the discussion, however I have a question/idea to ponder.

Could the "group enhancing skills" not be dealt with seperatley from the 1vs1 skills?

Such as the song that increases poison affliction rate?

So fix the 1vs1 issues, and then later, think about the group combat aspects.

Honestly, unless things have changed since I quit (and I'm pretty sure they haven't), Prefectfifth needs a severe nerfage. It was far too powerful in a group for keeping someone in place.

What bards could really use (in my opinion), now that blind and deaf are seperate, is a way to cure deaf without the stun on all their MUTUAL allies in the room (synergizes well with lust tarot too) for 1-2p, and more beneficial song powers. Stuff that makes them really nice to have as allies in a fight, like Wyrdsong (omg I hated fighting people who had that up).