Let us dodge mobs, and I'll be fine whatever armor you give me.

People keep saying this. At the moment, we have very little by way of physical damage reduction (elasticity, which I haven't tested, but it doesn't feel like much; dodging doesn't work against mobs, though that would be nice). We have absolutely no magical or elemental damage resistance. Commune bards also have no hindering power at all. We would need much more than we currently have to compensate for not wearing robes.

Also, I realise most of the armours in the Forging skillset are useless, but leather seems like an odd place to start redeeming them, being the cheapest and most throwaway.

It seems mostly a flavor decision. Bards have tons of it, now we just need to lean on our envoys pretty hard until we start getting functionality too. We can run circles around warriors, but it means doing pretty much nothing but defending. We're not touching you if you're not touching us.

And to reiterate: We can't dodge mobs and have no elemental resistances without robes. I used to shrug off Moonburst like it was nothing. Now I take 950 from Vix's, with level 3 resistance.

So no bashing Gorgogs without healthvials anymore? I feel for you.

But eh, for example Ur'guard don't have any elemental resistances either. Sure, they get armour, but when I was warrior, armour never seemed to affect much of the damage taken.

As a Moondancer, I could bash without health vials or robes. As Hartstone, only way I bashed without robes was by running constantly. As a bard, it's going to be very tough.

And right now, I can't even kill hulking weevils in one hit. Gorgogs would take forever to drop with MinorSecond.

So what's wrong with bashing in greatrobes, and player combat in leather?

I'm pretty sure the leather restriction is there just because the dodging can be ridiculous against players.

Becaue now we have to buy and maintain two sets of armour, nothing anyone else HAS to do. Further more, if you are jumped will bashing, you do not have a chance to change... putting on armour takes balance... so chaging into leather armor is four peices, so four balences fired before you even between returning fire. It aint like a warrior stuffing some fast weapons away and wield his pk weapons...

Yeah. It's gotta be between like 33% to 50% from what I experienced, which really can screw over any strategy.

Bards don't have to maintain two sets of armour. They don't.

It gets stronger. InstrumentBond is essentially Cudgel, or staff, or symbol. Your damage will be more than doubled from what it is with a 0% instrument.

Leatherfetishist.

Not what I was refering to. I was talking if we had robes for bashing, and leather for fighting. Hence the maintaining two sets of armor.

To avoid making the coders rewrite mob attack coding, how about just have certain bardic skills enhance armor vs. mobiles?

I'm sure it gets stronger, it just takes forever. Any other class, I'd have had my bashing attack by now. Bards have to practice theirs, and while the first few % are fast enough, the rest are taking forever.

Not if you didn't have the credits...

Bards are actually the most credit-friendly archetype. In exchange for taking time. I think that's fair.

'maintaining' leather armor won't be that expensive, it lasts for ages, and even if you start having tons of bards demanding forgers make them perfect leather the price will -never- be close to anything else. I've had forgers -give- me leather armor for free before, I used it for a few months(ooc), it still had oodles of time left on it, so when I got my robes I gave my leather set to a seeker for free. Plus, no one said you had to maintain two sets, it’s just an –option- bards have that makes them more versatile. I think that fact plus the fact that their damage isn’t mainly based on how many lessons they’ve put in, but instead practice time, makes the bard class extremely lowbie friendly. ( 'ed a bit by Fallen )
Just how effective are charms in Ecology today? I heard Gregori, back in the day, talking about his 50/50 charm. 25% resistance surely wouldn’t be something to shrug at, in combination with other sources.
I'd love to see a Bard with the Absorption rune running around, to see how tanky they would be, with essentially a 48%-65% dodge rate.

This is bad. Bards are now the archetype with less viable tradeskills. We can't wield tomes, we can't wear full plate, we can't wear splendor, we can't take alchemy or enchantment. This leaves us with Artisan (Which has no particular synergy with us), herbs (-1 charisma, +1 cons if you take it), poisons (Which we don't use), and jewelry. That's four viable choices. Compare it to a wiccan or a druid who can take anything but enchantment or forging.

Just to keep the facts straight, Commune bards do use poisons if they choose ecology.

You can do it the easy way and attach an artifiact rune to it, poof instant maestro instrument

If you buy a shieldrune, you can wield a tome if you don't mind not having weaponparry. And you don't need weaponparry while bashing or fighting a mage/guardian/druid/bard/wiccan