It -is- kind of weird that the only bards with a force move aren't whoring it more. Give shovel to dude, force dig, fling soulless, etc etc, unless their force consumes eq, and even then it's still good.

I agree though that Tarot might be able to be adjusted to mesh with bards more, but I don't think it's horrible for cacos/cantors either.

Also how about that improved carillonknell eh.

I know this is late, but wouldn't forcing UNENEMY ALL work decently for Darkmaster?

Especially on a mage/druid/bard?
Or for wiccan/guardian, ORDER ENTOURAGE ATTACK ME

I'll be honest. Let it be noted, I'm not a top fighter. I can't deal nasty damage, can't tank insane attacks. I have, however been able to pull off dirge or, crazily, even damage-based kills on big-ass people. Being able to do this relied on illusions, good use of music, more illusions, knowing when to run, and knowing when to go for the throat. That is, not really using my song (yeah, it's great for slow herbs and off-balance, but I'm not expecting a deathsong victory unless I have them screwed up more than a passive off-balance), but using my other skills in any and every combination I could think of.

I guess uhh....point being, if I can kill people, while pretty much neglecting the whole "song" mechanic entirely, perhaps caco aren't entirely unworkable. I mean, you could go ahead and claim that shadowbeat was helping me, but it's not a skillset that really builds up to bard instakill - slow herbs and shadowrave are -all- we got.

Dark master has it's own balance. Doesn't use eq or anything, just you can't use it more then once every 10 seconds.

Death tarot is easy to cure, have to aeon twice to remove quicksilver, allheale will cure the blackout. I remember the days of tarot and they were not pretty. That said, pfifth has been fixed quite a bit since then and is a lot harder to get out of, and there are some nice combinations you can do with soulless. Tarot has never really been weak, just always much better for guardians since they were designed with it in mind and it was more just tacked on to Bards for lack of a better option at the time.


Forcing dig has always sounded nice but once people caught on it'd be useless, and it's hard to catch people on balance to use it. The force requires eq to use also (but doesn't consume eq).
Improved Carillonknell is a nice change, but it's not like it changes how easy plague afflictions are to cure, so maybe it'll cancel out a form of regeneration!


Unenemy all is decent, and I've done that. Ordering entourage isn't too great because it requires eq and in a fight you're not often going to find someone with eq. Besides, even if you do get lucky enough that it goes through they're just going to reorder the entourage to attack.

Hi, my name is nightshadeblues and i'm here to melt your face ktxbai

This hasn't been announced yet, but it's live in game:

Blackdeath when it ticked was showing which affliction it gave. It no longer does that, only giving a generic message.

In order:

Not easy to cure, and just double up blackout. Allheale balance is slower than the second blackout. Plenty of people fall for blackout soulless without even adding shackles to it. You can easily get half of the timer out of the way before they finish and I think you'll be surprised at just how many people will stand there thinking you aren't attack or they are hindering you.

Forcing dig is easy, it requires the same thing as forcing debate. The trick is to leave the room and hand the shovel/force dig as they enter yours, or walk a couple rooms away and walk back into them when you know they have balance.

A trick for entourage users is to move out of the room, then come back and order them to tumble. Catch them on the other side with p5 and they will have to call ents in order to use them.

Yeah ok death tarot = soulless, wasn't sure what you meant. And yeah, that was one of the nice combinations for the blackout song, just use it twice to kill allheale balance. I would be surprised if people just stood there after blackout against someone with soulless, any time they could have 7 rubs and I see blackout I get scared and somersault out. With dig I guess it's just a matter of whoever's faster, your alias to force dig or their trigger to put the shovel in their pack.

Killing entourages always seems better to me than trying to force them to attack or whatever, since at least then they have to use power to recall.

Good use of illusions is certainly key. In the same vein as a dominate skill, it's incredibly effective in the hands of someone who is inventive and knows what he's doing.

It's fair to say that any Cacophone who isn't making use of either is a probably a fair distance from realising the full potential of his skillset.

People tend to learn too. Blackout/Soulless can work if someone isn't paying attention, but it's not all that worthwhile against someone who is. Celestines have been using this trick for years.

The shovel trick isn't as useful for Cacophony because the force fails if you are deaf. You have to leave the room, let them regain balance, and then get it off before they can eat earwort - not easy to do!

The final suggestion just doesn't seem all that worthwhile given Channels.

Well-- there are Celestines posting that they won't use Channels.

That can be said for everything. Just eat earwort, just leave, just cure, just parry, just stance, etc. When I fight SS I just keep moving and they don't build spirits, whoopee.

That should be enough material to help us come up with something worthwhile. Thanks a lot to everyone for their ideas and proving that the forums can be used for something more constructive than the usual trolling and mudslinging.

Perhaps the Cantors could try something similar to help them pull a good setup for StarHymn?

I believe to do that you may need to find a Cantor in the first place.

A what?

Then you also aren't fighting. There is a complete difference. If you move, a SS can just recall the spirit. They lose nothing and can resume as soon as you return to fight. The same cannot be said if you have to waste time charging a card every single time you fight.

Except that the 'cure' for SS spirits is to leave the room.

This doesn't necessarily "destroy" the spirit since they can call it back. It just removes one attached to you. Give how fast they can put them on you, it's fairly moot if they start off with all of them summoned.

It's the principle of the matter.