EZ Server

So I have a warrior, monk, cleric, necro, ranger but I do love my bard.  There are a couple of things though.  With dual 3.0 she is not good for much, either solo or in a group.  Her group of songs don't really much add except to speed up kills a bit with overhaste.  The ds doesn't do much in Qvic or POD, her health regen song is small compared to my druid.  In short I need to not use her in my four group.  Even the shaman has a role with the 3.0 epic buff but why even have a bard?  Finally, there is a bug where if my bard buffs herself from her cg pet her hps don't regen all the way.  This doesn't happen with any other character and it is frustrating.  Can we get some love for bards or does she just go on the scrapheap?

Scrapheap along with your necro and shaman. Well your shaman could still be usefull every hour out of group.

Bards are good in very very limited areas and I am 100percent surprised that shit didnt get nerfed along with anything else decent about the class.
Basically if you are not happy with the bard now then just get rid of it because it is NEVER going to get better.
In fact you can expect it to get worse. No idea why this one class gets so much hate here but its just a fact.

Bards are only beneficial where there are at least 4 other dps classes in your group. For instance, 4 monks do more cumulative dps than 3 monks and a bard. However, 4 monks and a bard do more dps than 5 monks. Same applies when you replace the monks with rangers. I am sure the same would apply with other melee classes.

Ok, I get that there is no love for the bard as a class and that our server is built around tanks, but the hp thing.  Why would that only happen to bards?  I am in ldon with my bard and try to rebuff off of the cg pet who I worked hard to get (not sure why I did the fg for her as well) and I don't get any hps more from my pets buff.  That is downright discouraging.  It has to be some code thing.  Paladins got the love, sks have the love, bards, the singers, the performers, are shown no love at all.  So sad.

Bard is the only melee class that can use the CG ring, and when you get a raid buff from the pet or from the buff bot in SFG or Nexus it for some reason gives you a bug that makes it appear as if your health is stuck at around 75%  or so.  But, if you zone then the bug goes away and the HP rights itself.  The correction adjusts the graphic to the actual HP you should have, and not the additional 25% that appears incorrectly.  This is why you don't "regen" the remainder of the 25% that is shown.

It's annoying and can be confusing, but you haven't been cheated in anyway of the additional 25% of HP, because you shouldn't have had it anyway.  This has at least been my experience with the buffs bug, but I am open to being corrected on this by those that know better.

As to the usefulness of bards, I have always played the class with the expectation that it is not my job to be one hundred percent necessary to any group, but to be the one thing that makes any group perform just that much better.  Sure, every other class in the game can perform buffs, dps, etc. better than a bard ever will.  Bards simply make those classes perform their actions better.  That is our job.  We make others shine.

It could be argued that the only classes necessary in the game is a warrior and a cleric and eliminate all other classes as "necessary" if you are solely focused on "end game" objectives, but I have always found that argument to be highly flawed.  Just because two classes are capable of taking on every engagement in the game without any other classes assistance, does not automatically make all other classes "unnecessary" or unwanted. Warrior/Cleric filled groups are easy... and easy does not = better.  Warrior/cleric/bard/ranger/monk/mage groups are more fun and way more challenging.

Edit: I should point out that the 25% figure was based on my own stats and experience with the bug and should in no way imply that your numbers should be the same.

Also, my group make up of "Warrior/cleric/bard/ranger/monk/mage" should in no way  suggest that other classes /different makeup of the group would be any better or worse.

I would like to add that some of the post is going under the assumption that everyone is experiencing this bug. I have not experienced this bug what-so-ever.

Looking solely at bard dps is quite disappointing. However, that is not where you get bard dps from. Really, if you want to know truly what bard dps is, it has the potentially best dps in the game, hands down. Bard songs increase my rangers dps by 26.3% and my monks dps by 33.2%. Since we are going with potential we will go with the monks dps since it is higher. Now, if you put 5 monks in a group with a bard, monks dps with no bard with 127% haste (brawlers 26) yields 3797 dps. With a bard, under the same conditions gives you 5059 dps. That is an increase of 33.2% or 1262 damage that you would not have if it were not for the bard. Put 5 monks in a group with a bard and that is 6319 dps that the bard is responsible for. Under those conditions my bard is indirectly out dps'ing my monk. Some might say this is extremely conditional, but a lot of dps in eq is conditional. Bards were never meant to directly shine. Bards were meant to shine through others. I am extremely glad I have my bard in my group in raiding situations. The only thing I would changes is I would give bards an effect on healing and nuking situations so that they are potentially more beneficial to other classes besides just melee and ranged.

While I don't agree that the bard "condition" for adding DPS is even comparable to the condition for other classes, I will agree that some sort of group song that is a healing/spell focus (maybe a t1 or t2 drop?) would give bards just what they need. Being more realistic, when I group it's usually a war/pal/clr/rng or something very similar since I play with people that 4+ box. Being in a group with 4-5 monks or rangers is an extremely idealized situation so I'm not really sure it's fair to talk about balancing it based on that scenario.

Again I agree that bards shouldn't be doing a ton of DPS themselves - they're a support class. I just think it would be nice to see more songs or abilities that enforce that role.

Even beyond all that, I think in general more classes need some balancing and character improvement should be more of a gradient. By this I mean that once you get 3.0, basically all you're doing until T3 is adding hp/mp/ac. It'd be really nice to see t1/t2 spells/songs/abilities for all classes in addition to augs for the other melee classes. A unique aug for each class would be very awesome to see (for example, +all instrument weapon aug for bards in slot 4 to make the 3.0 a bit more powerful once you get to PoD). I understand that some of these ideas aren't necessarily easy or even possible to implement, and I also understand that the server staff are busy. Just throwing ideas out though.

Edit: another idea includes a pet/dot focus aug for necros (since you sacrifice a lot of stats if you keep your LDoN feet or time/qvic gear for focii). I know that there are already a lot of aug components in PoD so there's that problem to deal with, however I think you see where I'm going.

I have often thought it would be nice to open up the anger v aug (not really an anger aug anymore, just a dps aug since anger was taken off it) to all/all would be a grand idea. Putting augs for every class would not only be time consuming but also make it extremely tedious to finish any aug in PoD.

As for bards having a unique condition on their dps, they are a unique class from the get go.  It makes sense that their dps conditions would be unique also.

I've also thought about a damage aug for other melee classes - it would be awfully nice to have, though it would make stuff die much quicker - mob HP might need to be adjusted for t1+. I do agree that a ton of different augs like that would be incredibly tedious to make with the current PoD system; however, they could be added to drop off trash in hohonora like the current augs already are.

Monk/Monk/Monk/Monk/Pal/Bard is the highest DPS group on the server.  Only War/War/War/Pal/Clr/Clr would come close.  Not many people have enough tanks to make a pure Warrior based DPS group.

Both of those would be an interesting combo. Might have to parse my warrior now and see what his percentage increase is so I can math it out.