Plus with Denon's Desperate Dirge taking 800mana and Solon's Bewitching Bravura also taking mana, we can always use as much as we can get. Because bard med is complete BS.
The ONLY reason bards even have mana is that Verant needed to place a casting limit on a few songs that were too powerful as a regular song. They needed to find a way to make it so it could only be cast X number of times in X minutes at most.
They had two ways they thought of to do this. A class-based skill with a long recycle time like Harm Touch or Lay on Hands or else giving bards mana for just those couple songs.
Due to programming reasons, it was a lot easier to use the mana route but since the bards had a mana regen song and there was a mana regen spell, they decided to make bards unaffected by mana regen to prevent those songs from being used more often than they should.
Bards only get med at skill 10 to give them faster memorization of songs, not for mana regen. Be glad you weren't a bard when it took almost 5 minutes to mem all your songs again after a death.
I personally wish they had gone with a class-based skill, like you mentioned. In fact, I think all the hybrids, or maybe even *all* of the classes, should have some sort of class timer-based skill available at all levels, like LoH or HT. Rangers could have a "Bullseye!" skill, only using a bow, does 20 pts. times your level (but you **could** miss!), recycles like HT and LoH. Wizards could have a "Tap Reserves" skill, instantly fills their mana bar, minus one to ten percent, recycles like HT or LoH. Bards could have had a super-song skill, call it "Ballad" or something, do the song-effect instead of using mana, and recycles like LoH/HT. Necros could have a half-strength Harm Touch, but theirs would also act as a Life Tap, where they got the damage done back as health. Etc., etc., etc. I think they could have done something like that for all the classes, and it would have been very cool, and not over-balancing. Not sure why they gave the "special skills" *just* to the SK and pallies. And doing this through a timer-recycled skill would have eliminated the bard-mana problems and complaints.
There are class based skills with reset timers, you just have to reach a certain level to use them and have the proper expansion. Rangers get something called trueshot, rogues and monks get various disc including a quad dmg one, warrs get arguably some of the best melee discs, wizards dont have a disc persay but have a 1 mana spell that restores a small junk of mana (bout 8% for my 50 wiz with 255 int), necros get harmshield (so do SKs), clerics get DA/DB (so do pallys), etc. Be happy with what you DO have and try not to always whine for more stuff peeps. ;)
you made some points but so did the previous poster, considering that noadays twinking is more common than standard playing maybe verant could do something with the previous suggestions. (if they would monitor allakhazam that is) Just to add some more power to the newly started ppl. For the higher lvls, i think on the other hand such skills would be game killers. Imagine a raid of 30 persons and eachone having his/her skill/ability up. The game would become a bit too easy if this added up to the skills already available from the aa. Maybe there is a road inbetween wich could be walked, but it's kind of hard to determin how far it should go. At 1st glance it could be nice, but i have to agree with the 2nd writer that we should be happy with what we got, and learning those things to it's full potential. Some things still need to be understood, i remember reading on some boards that lightning strike was a useless manakiller until they figured out quadding etc. etc. And some items though they would be nice on some classes, could make them too powerfull as well. I remember seeing lots of bards because of that until they were nerfed just a bit. Now there is a serious decline and ppl play them for fun or for challenge not for powergaming. And that's what eq has to be, a never ending chellenge.
As long as EQ has been around, bards have traditionally been able to use many caster items. A few good examples are the Orb of Tishan, the Water Crystal Staff, and the Gilded Cloth.
what is so out of place is the fact that the only classes that use it are casters, and then bards are thrown on it, too. that is what he was pointing out. all the int casters and wis casters, and then bards are thrown on it.
it does seem odd. not that i am bedrudging bards the item, not that ANY bard anywhere on any server will ever use this item =)
I had always read that a bard's mana was affected by wisdom, that's even what it says in my RoK guid book. Why would Verant put Wisdom as a primary stat if mana was calculated by int??
ROFLMAO...that's pretty good man. LOL.. the next item to follow will be "Filleted Brain Helm." "....mmmmm...that's good, what is it? Can i have some more please?...." the proc will make your ememy retarded instantly! lol...
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Posted:Oct 26 2001 at 5:41 PM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) eww! sorry for posting trivial crap
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Posted:Oct 26 2001 at 6:09 PM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) lol good point. whoevers flesh this was, he sure musta been one hella smart guy with a nice resistance to poison :)
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Posted:Oct 26 2001 at 5:38 PM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) not bad, nice mana and save, great for casters, anyone know what drops this?
Was dropped by 'Underboss <somethingorother>'. 57th level mob down near the herbalist 'house'. Coming from the lev tunnel, clear the herbalist house area, go out the tunnel to the right, and hug the left wall.
Beware, the spawn down there is fast and furious. I think everything is on 12 minute cycles, and one good balanced group can keep up, but just barely. Also, note that the herbalist house must be pulled carefully, we pulled it from the wrong side once and got the whole room (>10 sarnaks, plus dogs). Needless to say, we did not survive the experience.
Our group was all 56+, with uber-uber Warlord tanking, enchanter, bard, cleric, shaman, and a second warrior. Don't think about taking a single group down there unless you can handle literally continuous fighting with some tough mobs, some of which are not mez-able.