Lothringen:

This has been pretty satisfactorily achieved as far as Music specializations go, in my opinion.

Unless you are a spiritsinger.

Darned spirits.

Spirits are pretty awesome, but so was spamming CrowCaw! :)

Spirits are just a bit more versatile, wouldn't you say?

some are terrible and some are starchord.

I keep saying this, but there is nothing overly special about Starchord! There really isn't. What people are generally seeing is a combination of CrusaderCanto with it. With the recent buff to CrusaderCanto, the damage was dramatically increased to the point that it's more than feasible to add an extra ~900 damage. The "crazy numbers" that people claim generally come from aslaran and a combination of aslaran/undead. Added to this, most hard hitting Cantors are also Seasinger which has both high int and cha. (Something the other org specs simply don't have. It's generally one or the other.) We have to accept a LOT of squishiness because of this.

I would dearly love for somebody to try a Cantor combatant as a non-merian and you will notice a considerable difference.

Xenthos:

Spirits are just a bit more versatile, wouldn't you say?

Clarify. You mean the entire Spirit mechanic, spanning several skills, or CairnLargo? If the latter, for one vs. one, sure. I rarely have the time or inclination to haunt people in groups, mostly because I have better damage output with minorsecond or manabarbs/egovice and minorsixth, and group combat is all about fast damage spam. Conversely, CrowCaw you can spam in groups to your heart's content and it can be quite effective! (Though the loss of Choke is a significant nerf to that, admittedly).

It's not that Starchord is "special", per say. It's more than the analogous skills in other specializations are decidedly meh. If, as Eventru said, all the formulas are equal, Starchord simply lucked out thematically by having fire (a very common racial weakness) and divinus as their damage type combination. Starchord is simply better/more useful than the others in bashing (Icewynd) and in PK. I've used Ironchord, Wildechord and Shadowchord and they were all pretty lackluster in comparison.

Also, wild elfen int/cha are delicious!

As to undead and aslaran, I know Starchord hit me for 2.5k as an elfen lord with Drawdown. Now, I don't know the exact circumstances (sensitivity, etc.) but that's just ridiculous to me. In general, I'm in favour of damage caps that prevent any basic attack (point staffs, minorseconds, chords, symbols ) from doing that sort of damage so that we can get away from damage spam combat, regardless.

I keep trying to bow out, but you guys are pulling me back in. I'm done for real this time!

Lothringen:


Clarify. You mean the entire Spirit mechanic, spanning several skills, or CairnLargo? If the latter, for one vs. one, sure. I rarely have the time or inclination to haunt people in groups, mostly because I have better damage output with minorsecond or manabarbs/egovice and minorsixth, and group combat is all about fast damage spam. Conversely, CrowCaw you can spam in groups to your heart's content and it can be quite effective! (Though the loss of Choke is a significant nerf to that, admittedly).

Yes, I mean the entire spirit mechanic (PvP, PvE, great variety and useful all over the place).

Other bard specs are more limited, especially in their PvE applications.

wow thanks everyone!!

Not to derail, but...

Draylor:

Cannon starchord does take a fair bit of investment and work, to be fair. To pull it off, you need:

1. Seasinger.
2. Demi (Int and Cha endowments.)
3. Trans starhymn and beastmastery. (Beast spit.)
4. Beauty, Knowledge and War karmics.
5. Beauty or Knowledge Domoth. (War too is nice, obviously.)
6. Good earwort tracking code.
7. GC? (Sure, it's only minor, but it's all extra damage.)
8. Magical damage rune.
9. The right illusion(s). (You basically need to steal their sip/sparkle and scroll balance.)
10. An angry face.

Geebus. Back in my day, all you needed was 4, 7 and 10 :wacko:

The days of old are long gone.

Edit: This thread is really making the itch to guildhop worse, but it's just been a constant thing lately.