Yesterday Tonedeaf, the newest (and soon to be greatest!) bardass, forged his elite 8x40 bard eq "Ancient Dragonmail of the Knights Order." Unfortunately it does not work as advertised...
AFF_KNIGHTS_BLESSING = 1
The knights blessing simply doesn't function on the armor. If I sing the song the song works, but the armor does not. Furthermore... could the difference between knights blessing and knights prayer be explained, because they do exactly the same thing. If it's an avatar version of the same song... then why did it need that?
I know we don't really have many people playing bards... but there is good reasons for that...
* Bard lacks a prime offensive or defensive skill, that's not better in a secondary class.
* Charisma works with about 7 songs... and one of those is an avatar version of the same song. Two of them wake mobs up and make them sleep... because that's useful in a game where you kill things for experience.
* The songs charisma works with are extremely rarely used.
* Charisma has no effect on luck gods. Luck gods only works effectively at high levels and now all the best eq is drachma.
* Charisma does not increase the damage of offensive spells, only saves.
* Songs like fare thee well, haunted dirge, only effectively replicate spells in other classes.
* Song of the Mist is somewhat redundant with the Sphairai and doesn't reach many people.
* Sidhe charms have a more limited function with so many mana and health potions in the game. Increased mana regen means trying to find a shard and forge a charm isn't often worth the hassle, and they can't be vaulted.
* The best instrument a bard can use is not even prime - but nearly all other instruments are.
* The most used songs by thousands of times are rina, gods, march and valor... and only gods has a prime effect, and none of them use Charisma.
* There is very little transparency or feedback when songs are sung... it's difficult to determine whether they are succeeding or failing in a lot of cases.
Can the builders and people who create equipment please stop putting charisma on "bard equipment." In day to day normal running - It's as useful as firewind on the eternal flame.
Bard is filled with lost opportunities, charm person / eye of the beholder / luck gods / cry of the avatar damage could have all been charisma based and instruments could be made far more interesting. Instead we are part thief, part warriors with very little identity other than "the player who sings gods in a group." If it weren't for support classes, Bard would be pretty insufferable. I knew this before I made one, and I made one partly because of it, I know I will find a way to make Tonedeaf better than avg players... but all the same, if classes aren't being picked because they are useless, they need fixing. It seems being an active player and an immortal usually turns into a conflict of interest.