Bard Charm - Tune It or Delete It

[Benren]

There are classes out there that do one thing, and because they only do one thing, they excel at the one thing - wizards and rogues with damage, clerics with healing, etc. However, there are people that do a lot of things and don't excel at any one of them, although with some classes they can be pretty good here or there. That latter would be the bard. One of our staple abilities for a long, long time has been charm.

These days, there are a lot of enchanters scrambling to learn the basics of charming, because they never did it. Same with druids. But if you could say one thing about nearly every single high level bard, or even mid-level bard, it's that we know how to use charm. Our most obvious use is swarm kiting, but there are quite a few of us that used it for crowd control and DPS bonuses more often than we did for kiting. Until now, that is.

When you can do a lot of things, people tend to point towards that big list of things as proof positive that you shouldn't be seeing any net increases in your power. For example, a wizard might say, "Druids shouldn't be able to nuke as well as I can because they can heal as well. Get rid of your healing and I won't mind you having better nukes." A cleric might say, "A druid shouldn't be able to heal as well as I can because they can nuke, too." (Not to pick on druids or anything.)

The point I'm coming to is this. Our charm is ridiculously underpowered in PoP. The standard level 39 charm charms to level 56. That means our charm works on tsetsian flies in Disease, ravenous nightstalkers in Nightmare, some random robots near the ZI in Innovation, and nothing else. Our 64 charm upgrade raises the charm ceiling by... two levels. We can now charm rats in Disease, yard trash and hobgoblins in Nightmare, and the ZI mobs in Innovation. However, even with the upgrade, there are places in Tier 1 where bard charm does not work due to the low ceiling. It does not work at all save on Dire Charm mobs in Tier 2 or higher.

If the dev team has no intention of improving our charm and allowing it to be used in 95% of PoP, then our charm needs to be removed in favor of either giving us a new line or improving an existing line. We have not received any new lines or proportional improvements -to our power curve- to warrant our charm being gimped in this fashion.

If swarm kiting in PoP is a concern, simply reduce the range on this song to make it next to impossible to used for bard swarm kiting. I would like to have my charm for crowd control and DPS uses; this is always what I used it for. If I cannot have my charm to aid me, I would like to see some of the bard concerns looked into, such as our high fizzle rates, our high resist rates, or some of our weaker song lines.

I guess I posted this here with the same intent that anyone who posts a class opinion piece here has, that someone who has the power to see to these complaints will do so.

[WarderX]

I think it's balanced as it is. Infact im pretty sure most would agree with me.

Enchanter charm will be nerfed soon. Mezes will be tuned (maybe). Charm is fine where its at.

Your charm is allready powerful enough. Swarm kite werewolves and be happy.

[Benren]

The unsaid point of all of this is that grouping > soloing for us these days, so better to just get rid of this and get something upped, or at least something more group friendly, than to have this sitting around stinking up the joint and get aired out when I find the Nightstalker camp open at 5 AM once a week and solo it for an hour.

[Genado]

The point I'm coming to is this. Our charm is ridiculously underpowered in PoP. The standard level 39 charm charms to level 56.

Not True, I WISH it capped at level 56, I couldnt even charm regular xp trash in chardok with the old charm. I agree that the new charm is woefully underpowered, By level 64 a Charm that caps at 58 is pretty useless, Espcecially given the increased mana cost And the fact it gets Broken early a lot due to the High MR of a lot of PoP mobs

[Melrin_Specclaster]

Nerfing enchanter charm would be fairly retarded. Is it overpowered, well, hard to say. Is mage, druid, etc charm overpowered. It adds alot of DPS, it adds a fair amout of risk. If your complaint is enchanters can solo well, well, they've always been able to to a point. Maybe they will lower the DPS they put out, just like they did kiting dots back in the day to just change it back later. Leave it, it makes enchanter fun to play. All people do when they see something is scream nerf stick, if your guild uses charmies on raids, then you will suffer from it being nerfed.

Retuning mezzes (again) would be a waste, leave them the way they are.

Does bard charm need to be retuned, that would depend on who you ask as well. Bards aren't suppose to be king of anything, being mediocre at something won't kill you. Not that I care if it gets upgraded, I'm all for people having their toys.

[Destinae]

Benren isn't allowed to post on behalf of bards anymore.

[Gevarien~SolRo]

Actually a spec song usable in only one known spot in a zone that actually has specs dropping in it is pretty retarded to say the least. How long is anyone going to stay in PoD / PoN before they move on to other xp / raid zones where they can basically throw that song away.

I doubt Wizards would be very happy about their lvl 64 nuke beeing an upgrade to Giantbane.

[KorenskySZ]

I dont recall that ive ever charmed a mob with less dps than players of the same era. WR-ed Elder Wyverns in Skyfire put a Kunark-era rogue to shame for dps. Heck, my young kodiaks back in WC were prison raping giant spiders like no melee i ever saw. Wanna see what a hasted griffawn can do to beetles in North Karana?

Whining about charms seems to be oh-so-fashionable these days, and I suppose hearing every enchanter you talk to about it react with a "...huh?...ive always been able to do this..." makes you scratch your collective noggins.

Remember Luclin's release? And how an average group would pull an aa in 3-4 hours? Well, an average enchanter soloing in Skyfire could do an aa in 1.5-2 hours. An excellent group could do an aa in 1.5-2 hours, an excellent enchanter soloing in Akheva could do an aa in 45 minutes.

Fast forward to Planes of Power. Remember how your xp suddenly got a lot better when you discovered PoV caves?

Now an average group does an aa in 1.5 hours, an average enchanter does one in 45 minutes. An excellent group does an aa in 45 minutes, an excellent enchanter does one in 25.

What you are seeing is not a new, broken ability - you are seeing the popularization of a very, very old one. An ability id argue has been self-balancing from day 1.

[Parm Vomgrossenhirn]

It has to be admitted that some PoP charm limits weren't well thought out. Beckon (lvl 62 chanter charm) tops out at I think level 58, and yeah aside from the DC bait (which doesn't need Beckon) you realy can't use it above most of tier 1.

Beckon should have had it's cap at 60 or 61 to make it useful on some of the mobs in tier 2 and 3, and I'd have to believe the Bard spectral charm upgrade should have been similar.

To give bards a charm upgrade requiring a spectral parchment and then have that charm not usable above tier 1 is lame.

[Quel]

I agree that banshee is next to useless in PoP, but it still has some utility in the old world (not that anyone at level 64 will go back often) so it’s worth having in the song book. As much as I’d love to see the level cap raised a bit, if it was, bards could put enchanters to shame in leveling. The fact is that bards are in pretty good shape right now. Better even than a lot of classes. We don’t need a higher level charm for “balance” purposes, unless you expect to be balanced with enchanters in the AA per hour department.

[Maegril]

Originally posted by WarderX
I think it's balanced as it is. Infact im pretty sure most would agree with me.

Your charm is allready powerful enough. Swarm kite werewolves and be happy.

You think it's balanced for a spell someone gets at level 64 to be literally unusable in most places someone of that level is likely to want to fight?

Amazing insight, there!

I'm not sure anyone else needs to really be able to charm into 300 DPS or something greater (although the fact that bards have to concentrate on it significantly more makes it seem somewhat more reasonable than enchanter charm), but I think it's perfectly reasonable for bards to want to be able to use their spell at the level of play it's received. If they cant, they ought to get something different.

[Patricio]

Charm is hands down completely overpowered with PoP. Being able to add the DPS and tanking ability of one mob in a fight was pretty powerful pre-pop, as was swarming. The problem now is that the trend with PoP is to make things with average amounts of hitpoints that hit for insane amounts of DPS.

Pre-PoP you may be able to find, say, a mob that hit in the 100's, was social, didn't summon, and gave 2% AA per kill.

Nowadays it's trivial for an enchanter or druid to find a mob that hits in the 500's, has probably comparable hitpoints to the above mob, is social, doesn't summon, and gives 10% AA per kill.

So you charm a mob, and put it on just one of its friends (won't even touch the subject of swarming). You've got a tank that's better than the best warriors, and somewhere on the order of 2000 damage being traded back and forth per round of attack. Charm breaks, and you kill both creatures which are low on health now.

That DPS is insane, as is the tanking ability of these mobs compared to PCs, and the need for healing is negated by the fact that you *want* your pet to almost die. In then end you get ~2000 damage per round of attacks for the duration of charm solo using a spell that costs about the equivalent of a single CH, with, let's face it, very little actual risk compared to the experience gained.

Don't beef up bard charm, we don't need it, but do something about the completely overpowered enchanter and druid charm.

[Opivy]

The unsaid point of all of this is that grouping > soloing for us these days

I disagree 100%

[Megumi]

Originally posted by Opivy


I disagree 100%

not everyone is as crafty as you :P

[Benren]

I didn't say anything about any other class's charm. It was not put into question the power of any other class's charm. This post focused on bard charm. It makes one simple point - bard charm needs to be looked at. Even with the 64 upgrade, it cannot be used in PoP. That is not hyperbole. It's not me saying, "This is useless. Why would I cast this? This is horrible." It does not function. Everything from Tier 2 on is immune, and half of the things in Tier 1 are immune. Bard charm, specifically the 64 charm upgrade, need to be reconsidered and raised to be usable in PoP or need to be removed from the game in favor of an ability that will function.

I agree that banshee is next to useless in PoP, but it still has some utility in the old world (not that anyone at level 64 will go back often) so it’s worth having in the song book. As much as I’d love to see the level cap raised a bit, if it was, bards could put enchanters to shame in leveling. The fact is that bards are in pretty good shape right now. Better even than a lot of classes. We don’t need a higher level charm for “balance” purposes, unless you expect to be balanced with enchanters in the AA per hour department.

You pretty much pointed out the obvious with your parenthetical statement. Nobody level 64 has business to attend to in the old world. But even so. In the one zone I could envision from the top of my head within the old world that you might want to use this in, if only to farm, Cazic Thule, you still could not charm half the mobs in the zone.

I pointed out an obvious hindrance to add to high-end charms to keep them from being used to swarm in PoP - decrease their range. If not that, one could do something along the lines of having charm break if a mob is dealt a certain amount of damage. That might work as a CoD fix, too. It brings things in line with why we have this spell in the first place - to use it in groups to add crowd control and damage, not to solo.

I agree, bards aren't in bad shape. But neither are monks, and that doesn't stop Destinae from shitting off at the mouth any time anyone mentions the M word.

And I should addend my statement. For me, grouping is better than soloing. Killing at a fast rate is more efficient than spending 20 minutes DoTting down a frog. I can't speak for all of us. Some of us have 100+ AA and Thundering drums.