The Bard

How exactly does this work anyhow? Discord gives provo a better chance or something? I think this class since with having all of the bard skills limits even having basic resist/wrestling with hiding or any other sup fun skill like lockpicking should have some bonuses. How about something like all of the bard skills equal very low if no fails even on higher end bosses, firehorns do substantial damage, maybe other bonuses? The purist in me wants to have a bard with all of the skills, but it seems like peacemaking is a crap skill on a pure bard, I'm just brain storming to make the pure bard template a powerful yet balanced and preferred template equal to a tamer or any other profession, nothing too serous, so don't put on your fighting gloves, I just feel like this could use some work to make the full bard template something that is better than a hybrid option.

What!? I heard you just quit!

Disco does lower the barding difficulty of monsters when it lands.

Peacemaking can still be useful on a pure bard. When monsters are provoked onto each other, peacemaking can help you ensure that they kill each other at nearly the same time.

I have not noticed an improved ability to provoke monsters under the effects of discordance. Can you confirm that Basoosh?

I personally feel the pure bard with all four music skills should get a fantastic bonus to Firehorn damage and maybe range, or something tangible. I would love to see some battle bards out there but really this will be most effective when they enable barding of players. Peacemaking to disrupt spellcasts, provoking of monsters onto players and Disco, well that should just remain as a nerf to Mobs and a %5 bonus to success on Provo or Peace, as it stands.

Eh, looks like it might work not exactly as I thought, but here's a post by Ez talking about discordance making provocation easier:

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=822#p4107

Barding difficulty is based on the stats and skills of the monster, so it goes down when they're under Discordance. For some monsters though (Bosses, etc.), this doesn't make a difference since you only have that base chance before or after.

I only play a bard here and I find it to be the perfect form of effective while still challenging at times. I feel the challenges of barding here are refreshing.

Yeah, that's interesting because in play I haven't noticed things being any easier to provoke after discordance. I could be high (usually am when farming) so who knows, but it certainly hasn't seemed that way. I guess I'll test on Shadow Wyrms with a GM instrument or something soon.

I haven't used a firehorn yet. They use 15 ash per use? Seems excessive. Is their use worthwhile?

I don't really care about the pvp aspects, I just find myself enjoying a bard more than a tamer, and I feel like it's a good class that could use some tweaking. I'd like to see the pure bard in it's own right get a boost since it locks up 4 skills from the get go, 5 with magery. That is a pretty locked down template. On my bard, I'd like to have lockpicking and hiding to make it more of a dungeon exploring char than for grinding out gold, but I dunno, it is probably my favorite class after the thief and thunter, so I'm just kinda throwing out thoughts, nothing too serious



Oh and you know no one ever quits. I was struggling with hating players who feel the need to epeen swing by driving every other player into the ground and the fact that the game is so damn time consuming on every thing (I'm still trying to get a gdamn gam statue and I've killed over 4k harpies total, and I hate shit like that) but I realized after I stopped playing that I could only focus on productive stuff so many hours of the day and I caught myself watching movies and etc, so I decided there is no difference in time wasted, so I wanted to play again. Plus Snap's screenshots make me laugh so hard I wanted to make a new thief for fun

So you basically just described a 7x template that I know for a fact functions fine here.....what seems to be the problem?

You realize you can peacemake everything around the chest, lockpick it, hide, loot, repeat. I mean, there are shards with no skillcap but you've described a desire to do something that is entirely possible already.
Hell, you could make easy work of Balrons WHILE you pick their chests, with a pure bard picker.

Med and Resist are overrated in PvM.

I think a hybrid char is more powerful than a pure bard, I was just thinking with some small tweaks the full bard template could be made to be more desirable. Like I said, this is more just brainstorming through the post, I was just wondering what you guys thought about it, nothing serious or argumentative at all, but even when fighting the boss chars and taking 20+ attempts to land a disco is kinda ugh, I dunno, I know there are slayer instruments and etc to give a boost, but other than silvers and the occasional random drop, those aren't available enough that I can find to take into normal use consideration. Like I wrote before, I dunno, I have enjoyed using a bard here, doing destard main is more fun than grinding out at the eg room or etc, but when I use the char, I kinda feel like it's not up to it's full potential.

I don't see why making a bard able to solo a boss would be so bad either. Peace + Disco + Provo + evs
you guys know how I play, I would spend 4 hours with my thief trying to kill something before having to use a tamer and another account

From what I'm seeing, I'm going to have to make a 2ndary vet healing char to help my provo tamer do these bosses, that's just another annoyance. I can see barding around destard and the azure pops out and then I can kill it, not have to swap to 2 other chars. A little time efficiency in these things would be a great gameplay boost as well.

I'm thinking of this stuff while using a provo tamer and making a new bard (which I should go check) I personally am enjoying the provo part of the template the most. But these bosses are really pissing me off. (I had the azure dragon down to almost dead when it ran and took my tames with it through what seemed like hundreds of dragons, drakes, wyverns, etc. I couldn't stay close enough to keep them healed, and they wouldn't pull back from the spawn for me to save them, that kind of stuff makes it pointless to even fight those, esp when trying to get a super rare statue drop)

I guess what I'm doing is playing and just giving feedback on what I think, more than suggesting any changes

Yes, please can we make it so every template never needs a party to accomplish the most challenging things in the game.......not!


I'm sorry, this is an MMO, I'd rather that no one, even with three accounts, be able to solo the big bosses. I get where you're coming from, but making ultra-char should never happen in any template, ever.

My Disco/Provo Tamer is pretty dope, but has his limitations for sure. I would not be sad to see an additional %5 bonus per barding skill, so a total of %10 success chance increase if you're Disco/Peace/Provo.

I think the champion spawns are fine for big guild pvm, these bosses pop up when you're soloing for the most part, so I'd like to just be able to handle them normally without resorting to any multi account chicanery. The time spent fighting them is a balance for difficulty

I understand your words, but I will never agree with the concept that we should be able to solo these bosses. Maybe the low end stuff like Gamayun and the Revenant, but seriously....we should hardly even be solo farming the big spawns. I would be much in favor of increased difficulty that pushed the solo farmer to lesser spawns thus spreading the activity out around the lands/dungeons and encouraging more group play. No one farms the small stuff because the big stuff is too easy.
I know it's not a popular opinion, but I'll not agree with making it easier to solo bosses.

This is something King Blaise and I see eye to eye on. I've fought with Shadow Wyrms several times. I've tried very hard to find ways to 'viably' defeat them without using the standard 'dragon/bard' approach. While I've often been met with defeat, I haven't though "some skills/stats should be adjusted so I can fight these." Instead I've found my endeavors quite fulfilling and I've often had to get 3-4 other players to come in and help!

- Jupiter

I think one practicable way to boost bard templates without upsetting balance would be adjusting skill delay timers.

We can probably all agree the three active skills rank in usefulness as follows: Provocation > Peacemaking > Discordance.
There's basically no reason to ever open up with any skill other than Provocation, as long as there is more than one monster on screen. It either works and you won't need another bardic skill for those two monsters, or it doesn't and you try again when the delay timer's up. While it is true that successful Discordance should lower barding difficulty, trying to use it first on a monster where this would be "helpful" just means you're passing up on the chance to attempt Provocation twice in the same time span.

I would leave the delay timers for Provocation as is, but reduce Peacemaking to roughly half of that value.
And in order to make Discordance useful in and of itself, past the passive boost, its delay timer could be reduced to 1 or 2 seconds. That way, a quick attempt to discord before using Provocation/Peacemaking is suddenly perfectly viable, and the skill is no longer a waste of time during which one could do more effective stuff with barding.
I don't believe this would have gravely adverse effects on server load, but it could improve gameplay on bards and bring better balance to the different skills.

Discordance is pretty great. Once I discord something my EV's are hardly ever dispelled. If I don't discord something then the EV's will be chain dispelled almost instantly. That and the fact that it makes farming mobs faster means it's more than worthwhile to use. I have all 4 bard skills and I definitely use discordance more than peace and peace has been one of my favorite UO skills since I made my first bard in 1998.

After finally using firehorns I think that they would probably be the best way to give bards a boost (not that boosting bards is really even necessary). Perhaps lower their reg consumption to 4 ash per use and give them more range and slightly more damage based on the 4 bard skills.

I really think doing things like drastically lowering skill timers would really border on making bards too powerful/easy to play. A bard really shouldn't be as powerful as a tamer. It's not like we need to go out and tame/train our instruments, gate them around, worry about our instruments dying, worry about having to heal them. worry about getting them out when PK's jump us, etc...

I'm aware Discordance can be useful (and like it, even), but it is not working as intended with the current delay timers, in my opinion. It's always the afterthought, rather than the asset.
It could be a really solid skill, if you were able to utilize its potential to lower barding difficulty. Right now, even when facing a single monster, it's much better to attempt Peacemaking first - because once that works, delay timers are a non-factor. If you discord first, however, you will be potentially taking damage for 6 seconds... which is what you're trying to avoid in the first place.
That's not to say bards are too weak, or that Discordance is currently completely useless, but adjusting the delay timers for it would allow for much better utilization of the skill. As is, Discordance doesn't perform well when compared to Provocation/Peacemaking, so it could do with an improvement.

Yes and no. First, a full bard template requires 4 skills and renders the character more vulnerable than a tamer (needing 3). Tamers can also utilize pets to fight back much more effectively against Players than a bard can employ Provocation for the same purpose.
It's also difficult to directly compare "power", since tamers and bards work best in different environments. Yes, tamers require higher maintenance, so to speak, but they have advantages along with the drawbacks.
I don't see this as a reason to leave Discordance, specifically, in a bad shape.