Enough is Enough, bard mana Needs to be nerfed NOW!

[Destinae]

Ill save you the testing, with the appropriate gear and buffs and 3 Bards, yes you can have 4 clerics chain cast CH and Never go OOM.

It doesn't take a chart to prove you wrong. 2 bards in group giving you 50mana/tick, 21 from chorus, 18 from VoQ, 9 from SD, 5 from emp shawl, 15 from FT, 3 from mental clarity and if you're outdoors a horse for sitting regen. Alot of regen, sure...But chain casting CH, unless you use an instant click item after it lands to sploit recast is one cast every 12 seconds. Manacost on complete healing is 400, the only way to reduce that mana cost is specialization checks. In 12 seconds with the optimal setup for manaregen you can't even hit 300mana. Most places you'll be chain CHing with 4 clerics are not outdoors, so that eliminates a horse.

So if you happen to even have 3 bards, it's possible to extend the duration of your CH chain a very long time, but not infinitely. Then you remember clerics usually end PoP fights at over 50mana and the only way you're going to lose is by killing your main tank. Smack yourself for not giving wizards focus, mana and DA and decrease the margin of error because the mob is now dying twice as fast. DOH!

[Frelance]

The cost of Complete Healing after SCM3 is 280mana, according to cleric calculations. It takes twelve seconds to cast/reset, two ticks. If you count the cast/reset to keep Yaulp-ing also, it's extended to 14ish seconds, but we'll go with the shorter number, to keep it simple (shorter cast cycle favors the sceptics, btw, I'm not fudging in my own favor). 140/tick needed.

Available mana is...

1 natural, standing
21 for Chorus of Marr
19 for being mounted, 1 for "sitting", 18 for Meditate
18 for Voice of Quellious
15 for Flowing Thought
10 for Yaulp VI (2/tick deducted for it's own upkeep)
9 for Spiritual Dominion
8 for Armor of the Zealot
7 for Mystical Transvergence
5 for Koadic's Heightened Focus
3 for Mental Clarity 3

...for a total of 116, with no Cassindra's action at all. Each bard singing pulse mana adds 25 per tick (according to others' math, not my number, but pretty agreed-on), so two bards would add 50, bringing total regen to 166 mana per tick...

Which is more than 140, with a small error margin even. Congratulations, you can chain-cheal. Three-and-a-half second rotation, with 4 clerics, indefinitely. I don't have a clue how long it would take, but I'm pretty sure that's an 12-man AoW kill with modern gear, right there.

[Destinae]

Even in that ideal situation, the buffs in your list require 10 different people (including 4 clerics) to sustain 166/tick regen (I didn't think about mod rods and didn't count yaulp, a 4 second rotation is stretching it on any relevant content to a bard with maxed singing mods and a guild full of clerics like that). You can't use a horse to kill the avatar of war, but that content is 2 expansions old. You could 12 man it anyways with normal mana regen and command of druzzil

You're still better off using your bards for other things than cleric's mana in almost every situation.

[Genado]

You're still better off using your bards for other things than cleric's mana in almost every situation.

This is exactley what ive been trying to say. However, a lot of Guilds arent looking at it like this, they see the insane regen and Say OMG Bards feed the clerics! If the 32 song was properly scaled this Wouldnt exist at all....period. If our other mana songs are made to not be affected By Midifers ON PURPOSE, than so should the 32 mana song....In the old World verant never had to worry about this, becuase there was no way to increse singing..so 32 mana was made singing becuase of this. Then Somewhere in between the beta and final They figured out how to flag some certain songs Immune from modifers (Haste, Slow). But 32 Mana was left alone. Fast forward to Kunark. Our 55 song was made stringed. And The Regen component was able to be modified with it, but NOT the mana regen component, ON PURPOSE. Everey mana song weve gotten since then (level 34, 58, 62, and 64) Shares this same properties. Given this evidence, like ive said all along the 32 song was simply overlooked, and it needs to be brought back in line with the others, so that i nor any bard am never asked to play a level 32 song on a raid again....period. Whats so wrong about that?

[Hertogenbosch]

This is exactley what ive been trying to say. However, a lot of Guilds arent looking at it like this, they see the insane regen and Say OMG Bards feed the clerics!

To Summarize:

1. You see Guilds (probably yours) using Bards to only feed the clerics.

2. We all agree there are better things for bards to do.

So; How about you talk to your guild's Leadership and inform them about all the other things a bard can do, instead of coming here and bitching to change a level 32 bard song? And if it's other guilds, then it's their bards, and their problem, and why do you care?

[gn0me]

Yeah, no shit. Why don't you take your obviously vast knowledge of the bard class and inform your guild of their better uses instead of trying to get them nerfed? Asking for your own class to get nerfed is bad karma.

[artebus]

Have you tested it yourself? i have, there is No Phantom Mana. K thnx

I haven't tested it myself, but if there's no phantom mana and you can in fact twist this song twice in one tick, I would consider that a separate issue, and one that should be fixed independently of whether the song itself is too powerful.

This is exactley what ive been trying to say. However, a lot of Guilds arent looking at it like this, they see the insane regen and Say OMG Bards feed the clerics! If the 32 song was properly scaled this Wouldnt exist at all....period.

Well, that would be a social problem, I'd say. If your guild does this to you, educate them to the contrary, and get them to use you correctly.

Given this evidence, like ive said all along the 32 song was simply overlooked, and it needs to be brought back in line with the others, so that i nor any bard am never asked to play a level 32 song on a raid again....period. Whats so wrong about that?

I can agree that CCoC was designed before voice mods, so that it's possibly not intended to scale. If they made it so that mods don't affect it, it would make the song less valuable but it wouldn't be an unreasonable nerf. However, just because the song wasn't designed with modifiers in mind doesn't mean that it needs to be nerfed. The designers didn't intend twisting at first, but now it's an integral part of bard power. In my opinion, CCoC falls in this sort of category: it's more powerful than they probably originally intended, but it's not a game breaking feature. On the other hand, it's also not a core ability in my mind, so if they change that one song, I wouldn't be too heartbroken.

[EllessarBard]

now don't get me wrong, its like all spiffy that 4 clerics can chain heal.... but wouldn't it be more effective to get *5* clerics chain healing with 1 bard with this song... or even 6 clerics healing instead?

Lets look at 6 clerics instead:

4 cleric * 166 = 664 mana / tick regen
6 cleric * 116 = 696 mana / tick regen

That means that making the 2 OVERPOWERED bards with their UNBALANCED songs play a cleric alt instead of EXPLOITING some ability that was never meant to scale, you get a healthy increase in sustained healing ability.

Maybe its just me... but if 4 clerics and 2 bards can do sustained healing... so can 6 clerics, and the 6 clerics are better at it. The can pickup the delay (important), they are less vulnerable to any one person dying (important).

[Frelance]

It's absolutely better. My math was just to lay out the numbers for people to see, kinda like a reference. Much better than "I hear that..." and "It seems to me that..." etc.

[Dekein]

The last time I ran the test on this was a while ago. Early luclin if I remember right. The times only varied by a few seconds. Easily close enough for error.

Tested again last night: Standing 65 necromancer from zero mana. FT4. Only epic mod to CCoC.

Time needed to cast a 800 mana spell.

3:26 average with CCoC left running.

2:45 average with CCoC refreshed as quickly as I could.

I was unable to locate another bard that was free to test stacking but, stacking did work in the past for 2 in the same group.

I don't agree with the posters points, but he was right about the mana gain every pulse, not every tick.

[Genado]

The last time I ran the test on this was a while ago. Early luclin if I remember right. The times only varied by a few seconds. Easily close enough for error.

Tested again last night: Standing 65 necromancer from zero mana. FT4. Only epic mod to CCoC.

Time needed to cast a 800 mana spell.

3:26 average with CCoC left running.

2:45 average with CCoC refreshed as quickly as I could.

I was unable to locate another bard that was free to test stacking but, stacking did work in the past for 2 in the same group.

I don't agree with the posters points, but he was right about the mana gain every pulse, not every tick.

And if you can get your singing Mod even bigger youll find that you can get this down to 2 minutes...maybe a little less, Very sick indeed.....

[Dekein]

Or, I can do it in 38 seconds without playing the song at all with a properly buffed and equipped necro.

I maintain my disagreement with your points. It appears powerfull when you consider the numbers alone. The reality is quite a bit different.

Six clerics with a bard outside playing chorus is better than 5+1 bard in the group playing chorus and this song. Less heal agro per cleric. Better safety margin if 1 dies. More versatility. Greater freedom of movement for the clerics. Bard contributes full value to his/her own group.

The same goes for offensive casters, especially the agro part. How often do your offensive casters go OOM in non Luclin fights? Devoting full effort to giving them extra mana they can't use is the same as not even being on the raid.

Sometimes, you may have to do this because you are short of clerics and it's better to sacrifice some overall capability to ensure you have enough healing mana. You are robbing Peter to pay Paul though. But, if it is the only way you can win with your current makeup 1. Your makeup is screwed and 2. Everyone on the raid should be kissing your butt for enabling them to win with a substandard lineup. You have the capability to rescue a raid, this should make you proud, not make you want it nerfed.

The bottom line is you will do more for the raid overall by not making a bard mana group than you will be making one. If your raid leaders (or worse, you yourself) do not understand that, then they/you need to be less narrow minded.

[Spontaneous Cumbustion]

Ask Mages if we got much of a choice whether to be rod whores or not, then tell bards to tell their guilds no.

[Frelance]

Screw "choice". RoMT was a -very- powerful and significant contribution to guild power, and I was more than happy to summon 'em. This song does not turn out to be so significant, so protesting becomes, not a choice, but a responsibility of the afflicted bard. He could be doing much more for the raid, and he knows it; letting the leadership know is being a good member.

[Xequecal]

I am very surprised at how civil bards are being over a direct call for a nerf on their class. I've considered many times starting a "Nerf Shadowknights!" thread on this board just for the fun in watching 700 SKs create accounts and write out two pages flaming me.