Useless support classes

[Teron]

That's the thing, Josiah.
Bards only get higher charisma with 40s and maybe bonus charisma, because they have little else to spend drachma on.
But higher charisma doesn't contribute to your grip runs, unless you do mobs that are standing alone, which is exceedingly uncommon and dangerous.

I don't see why 9x40 gods of war wouldn't give you more damage, compared to 1x40 gods of war. It'd make it worth to get mid-high level bards with you to splork much larger mobs. In large groups, bards would be more inclined to keep singing, rather than blasting. Of course, they could heal, if needed.

Or we need a resonator that lets a bard focus his cry at a particular mob.

Two ways a bard can be more useful: a stronger song+strike or a strong single-target blast with charisma.

Since these are two various gamestyles diff bards use, both would be good.

And yet JB doesn't agree with me completely about higher damage for all aspects of gods, and then complains his bard is made to firewind rather than do his bard work.

I have no problem with bards blasting or striking, but it sucks, when their prime skills aren't more useful past 4x40.

[*juggleblood*]

Don't put words in my mouth. I'm not complaining about any such thing. I blamed myself for putting mage late in classo because I got blasting late, but never have I suggested that Bards should be blasters. No bards should not be blasters. No Bards should not have their own special melee attack. It's not what they do. If you don't want to be a support char, then don't play one! Don't ask to turn bard into some super do-everything great class because it suits you.

Charisma does matter. Reign of confusion, reprieve, eye of beholder, haunted dirge, cry of the avatar, and seven luck gods are all charisma dependent! And they're all cool abilities.

The smart bard doesn't WANT to NEED charisma gear to use gods and valor, the smart bard would rather outfit in AC, hitroll, hand damage, etc... sometimes and yet still have those melee bonuses available. From my perspective as a bard, this is not a smart request. You're asking for a nerf.

[Ezekiel]

Hell..before we talk about useless 2nd to 8th support classes, can we tweak the prime benefits that are horrendous to use?

Just from a mage's perspective:

reflection= useless for the most part when you look at blanketed spectral shield benefits, reflection mana cost, and length reflection actually lasts

mirror images= too time consuming to use on runs, we have hella lag in between casting it 4, yes 4, times to get full mirrors for a matter of 10 secs for 80 mana to get full mirrors back up...when a cleric gets aerial servant in one cast for 45 mana, go figure. By the time a mage takes damage on the multiple mirrors, he could have just taken the dam and healed without the need for 10 sec lag on remirror cast, which is why mirrors are essentially useless at higher levels. FFS, please just make mirrors 1 cast for 4 mirrors.

second wind= warriors can do more blast damage than even mage primes. I appreciate that it's been tweaked to make it harder, but i still see it happen. Second wind should be available to all classes like it was on s3. Warriors already still have a ton of valuable prime advantages if this was made available to all classes. Even most warriors would agree this is likely a necessary change.

Just my two cents, I love my prime and sec class, but I'm with Gorka...I don't think we should be worrying as much about newbies who pick their secondary class weakly as much as newbies who a look forward to skills in their prime class and get dejected because all of these supposedly awesome skills really don't have any luster.

[Hung]

JB, your reasoning applies to the prime bard. However, let me ask you some questions related to this topic. Would you recommend to a newbie taking bard as 2nd class? Does high charisma cap justify such choice? If not, what game mechanics changes would you propose to make 2nd bard good choice? Taron's proposal does that.

[*juggleblood*]

In any classo it depends on the player, whether they're looking forward to 4x40 for 9x40. In the shorter run, necro/bard could be fun/viable. In any case I don't see how giving bard a special offense attack would justify placement in classo. 3 wraiths x 5? damage for non-prime gods x 3 attacks is 45 damage per round? Not terrible, but yeah prolly not worthy of high placement in classo. What if non-prime gods gave same as prime gods +10...and then Bard prime gained a new skill, one which enables the bard to remove his name from the mobs pissed list, i.e. if target is same align as bard, then mob forgives bard on successful charisma check.

@Ezekiel, I agree wholeheartedly. Second wind as warrior prime is not fair. As if achieving ridiculously low AC, plus parry weren't enuff to choose warrior, second wind also? It is a skill that helps so much and makes the game more enjoyable, it's a real shame that it's prime. As for mirrors, if necro can summon 4 wraith instantly, then let's give same courtesy to mage. As well as some sort of mirror at level one and the ability end dispel selected effects. I can't speak to your opinions on reflection, I've never played with it.

[Teron]

Okay, let's continue discussing the necro/bard example.

Normally, you get:
- 3 wraiths
- with 3 attacks
- +6 gods of war non-prime in any charisma
=54 damage per round, if they all hit (that's a big if)

What I'm suggesting, a necro can wear ac +charisma eq and runes to get +10 charisma, so he can use:
- +3 wraiths
- with 3 attacks
- with +7dam from gods of war from higher charisma
=63 damage per round, if they all hit.

As a high level bard, you wear about +12-15 charisma in your gear, so you'd get some increase. If you need to wear a heal set, that'd be a tradeoff for between heals and damage, like everyone else does now.

It just boggles my mind that bard's prime attribute doesn't affect the most popular songs. It's not about sets or anything.

And yes, it is a nerf for those, who don't wear charisma gear. You don't expect to heal with 300 restores w/o a heal set, right? And you also need healers with heal set to heal, so the demand for bards with high charisma will be the same as for clerics with great heal bonus.

[Josiah]

What if we gave second wind to everyone, but increased the movement cost for non primes? That would give everyone the quality of life improvements from the skill (weblag sucks) while making it it too expensive for mages to go crazy spamming it.

Right now it costs 30 mv until avatar 1, and then costs 15 mvs. I'd support everyone getting it for 30 mvs, and the cost reduction to 15 being the warrior prime benefit.

[Filk]

Better we should add rebirth within prime skills variant , get 9x40, reborn, pick warior second and viola!

[*juggleblood*]

That's not a bad idea Filk, but 2nd wind would still be better non-prime. I'm not sure it even needs to be penalized compared to warrior. I just don't like the idea that warriors have an advantage in speed, how many actions they get in the same amount of time. The coliseum couldn't be more rigged to help casters, and yet still somehow the warriors are at the top because they can blast faster than a mage and strike faster than a monk.

[Josiah]

I think warriors are near the top in coliseum because Alris, Taron, and I play warriors.. not because warriors are inherently superior. Warriors run out of mvs really fast in the coliseum and if you stop to cast refresh you aren't killing things.

Back when coliseum was first put in, I led the rankings with my druid/mage and people claimed druid was overpowered.

Cizin did amazing things as a thief in the coliseum despite all the ethereals and nostabs. I think it's more players optimizing their characters rather than it being biased against specific classes. Although I admit, I'm not sure how to do well as a bard prime.

[Teron]

Dr isn't in the top place at level 9 only because he has no interest in the coliseum.
Same for Ezekiel, I guess, I haven't seen him there often.

I'm sure if they put as much effort into coliseum as I did, they'd (easily?) top my score at levels 8-9. Esp that I've set the 9th level record, when I was 8x40, so Dr has a huge upper hand there.

Sadly, he's now disappointed by our arguing, says Sloth doesn't interest him and is consumed by WoW .)

[*juggleblood*]

Haha, that's funny...him disappointed by us arguing! Seriously funny. I love the guy as much as anyone, but if you haven't noticed, the mud has been rather peaceful lately.

@Josiah, you'll never convince me that warriors deserve more actions per round than any other class. I guess it's good for you I'm not in charge of such things.

[Josiah]

I have no argument against everyone getting access to second wind. I would be happy if there were far less prime skills. Casters, monks, and perhaps thieves can use the skill better than warrior primes, but not dramatically so.

My suggestion that second wind be more expensive for non warriors was a simple attempt to compromise directed at a problem that may not exist. Cheaper second winds would be adequate for warriors to not cry about the loss of their best prime benefit.

The question is, what else would you give warriors to replace the loss of their most powerful prime skill? Giving full access to second wind to everyone would be a dramatic buff to all other classes, and is effectively a big nerf to warriors.

Is there a valid case that warrior is so good that everyone else needs a dramatic buff? If not, warriors will need a new skill, or every class should mainstream one of its prime skills.

[Hung]

@Juggleblood, I like the Taron's idea to scale gods of war damage with charisma. As it'll address the issue discussed in this topic. We already have charisma cap tied to the bard class position. So if the Taron's idea will be implemented. And if, say, 2nd bard's gods with max charisma will be +12 damage. While 8th bard max charisma will be only +6. It'll be more than valid reason to put bard high in the class order.

Can't say I support the resonator idea. Here I tend to agree with you that if someone wants strong blast, he'd better play prime mage.

@Ezekiel, I completely agree with you too. I am pretty sure that If some kind coder will add an avatar spell to cast all mirrors in one cast. That coder will see GRATITUDE in the eyes of every mage.

[*juggleblood*]

I am coming around to the idea, within such reasonable limits as you just said. Ideally also this damage would fully tie into stab and grip, to achieve your desired end of greater diversity of viable class orders. I like that the damage would scale with class placement, but not with charisma. I'm thinking if you want to put charisma more properly into play, then make it affect the number of people you can sing to. I think that's more logical than trying to scale gods of war to it.

@Josiah...scale warcry bonus health to class order placement?