So instead of actively fuguing you want to spend 3 power blankchording and taking turns captivate-chording again?
That already happens. Captivate wars happen. There's already a bard counter. No need for this Fugue nonsense.
I can tell you one way fugue > captivate. If the baddie bard suddenly starts deathsonging your buddy, you can fugue his song away and prevent something that might have been a kill.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Only if he's an utter dope, basically. There are better, more foolproof ways of accomplishing that same goal, including doublegusting the target away, or using tarot.
1). Maintaining a blankchord on an enemy group is not that feasible unless multiple bards are willing to sacrifice the power for passives, and can already be countered by a quick and smart captivate audience.
2). You make it sound like it's double sleep all the time. Gotta sacrifice a gem slot on my violin for a 25% chance at double sleep.
3). Bard actives are already hindered enough by earwort. Also, Queenslament still does blackout.
4). Captivate Audience versus a team that has more scary bards.
5). haha, ahah. Not everyone has cement socks to stay in Octave. Soulless maybe? If they're hindered to the point by friends that you can fling it under blackout and not get hindered themselves? Also, DCC has been behaving pretty weirdly lately. I bugged it already and it said it was resolved, but I'm not sure it actually was.
6). You don't think it's ridiculous to have to have your song that low just in case some fugue happy bard comes along? I will admit that it's a pretty amusing notion that they're fugueing you up to speed from stanza 4 to stanza 9 for 5p and 5 balances, but I think that, for the most part, that's pretty impractical.
1) Captive Audience is stripped by blankchord too.... and if you're taking the time to captive audience, you're not doing more damaging things to me, plus my bard buddies can captivate after my blank to make sure our song effects are the only ones hitting, so not really a good argument against.
2) Just because it's not double sleep all the time (and sacrificing a gem slot? it's not a sacrifice, it's a no brainer) doesn't mean it's not double sleep ever. It's also detracting from the point that songs are generally more hindering than melds.
3) Bard actives being hindered by earwort isn't really something to argue against fugue. If I get blanknoted with earwort up, I'm going to get hit with Pfarewell next. or Crowcaw, or whatever, and there's nothing I can do to stop it.
4) Blankchord strips captiveaudience again.... plus there are ways to remove captiveaudience (move the bard, kill the bard etc)
5) How do your song effects stop that gusting? They help, sure, but do they prevent it? Nope
6) Yeah, I don't think it's ridiculous to make an enemy bard waste time with fugue if they're deadset on it and not actually paying attention. I don't 'have' to have my song there, I'm choosing to have it there. Songs should help you achieve your end goal, they shouldn't be the only reason you get there. If you can't act without your song, even if fugue is deleted, you're going to have a bad time.
Moral of the story is that fugue isn't the endall sayall of bard combat, it's a mechanic that's useful some time, but not all the time. I don't think it needs to be changed.
I think captivate wars are a million times more fun than Fugue. I do. -That- should be the pinnacle of bard combat -- using not only yourself but also your allies to keep the enemy from hearing Loralaria's heal and cure songs, for example. And if the enemy team's bard # or stacking bard effects are too scary, you should strive to keep your friends captivated at all times -- choose among you which has the most healing (I would say) and keep them captivated.
The pro-est bard should act like earwort for his team (and they would trust him enough to not upkeep truehearing or, if he dies, immediately toggle it on), but earwort with benefits. Even though captivate doesn't stop targeted songs.
(Also this is neither here nor there, but of course fusing turquoise is a no brainer. But CrystalSong might as well say "you only have 2 slots available for customising your offence in combat" instead of 3, lol).
But failing that, I'd love if Fugue gave you a chance to Reprise to negate its effect, a 5 second window. The enemy bard Fugueing wouldn't have to channel it, so the onus would be on the afflicted bard to reprise in time. Or play their song forward if Adagio'd.
You can only be "fugue afflicted" by one bard at any time.
Change encore into an ability that starts a song at a specific stanza, costing power equal to the stanza's number. That will make the mechanic more strategic than "Whoo hoo, how do you like that spiked club I stuck up your backside, huh?"
I think captivate wars are a million times more fun than Fugue. I do. -That- should be the pinnacle of bard combat -- using not only yourself but also your allies to keep the enemy from hearing Loralaria's heal and cure songs, for example. And if the enemy team's bard # or stacking bard effects are too scary, you should strive to keep your friends captivated at all times -- choose among you which has the most healing (I would say) and keep them captivated.
The pro-est bard should act like earwort for his team (and they would trust him enough to not upkeep truehearing or, if he dies, immediately toggle it on), but earwort with benefits. Even though captivate doesn't stop targeted songs.
(Also this is neither here nor there, but of course fusing turquoise is a no brainer. But CrystalSong might as well say "you only have 2 slots available for customising your offence in combat" instead of 3, lol).
Captivate Wars have their place, as does fugue, but they're still pretty boring. If a team is intent on using captivate, I'm going to tell my guys to keep up earwort, because there are better things to do with my time, than maintain captivate.
Of course, you get tarot. That doesn't really sail ships for a Spiritsinger or Harbinger who then has to rely on other tertiaries with no kill progression and variable power (that's generally lesser than Tarot) without their song.
The ecologist's "better things to do" is poisons and smudges, yawn.
Of course, you get tarot. That doesn't really sail ships for a Spiritsinger or Harbinger who then has to rely on other tertiaries with no kill progression and variable power (that's generally lesser than Tarot) without their song.
The ecologist's "better things to do" is poisons and smudges, yawn.
poisons from eco aren't bad, but even then, they're probably better off throwing damage in groups. Herbbane is good in group settings too. Smudges prepped right can be pretty nice.
Smudges prepped right gets really buggy really fast, if you're talking about gust spamming to line up a bunch of desert and forest smudges as a 'trap' in a room. That's not even taking into account the easy ways to counter that particular trick. Herbbane is cool in groups if your target is in aeon, for the chance to fail curing aeon mostly, yeah. Glamourists can spam colorburst, I suppose, it's just nothing like Tarot.
Well, anyways, I think that adding a little more protection against fuging is not a bad thing. There are other, less painful ways to negate bards temporarily - and just because some specs can play bardian and mostly ignore their primary, not all of the bard guilds really have that luxury.
Technically, a melder -could- make an alias to parse WHO HERE for enemies and dissolve all of them at once.
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
as for Smudges, I rather enjoyed sitting ten rooms away spamming the enemy group with stun and fire damage every 6 seconds, or blindness, or concussions from tornados.
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
as for Smudges, I rather enjoyed sitting ten rooms away spamming the enemy group with stun and fire damage every 6 seconds, or blindness, or concussions from tornados.
Tornados shouldn't be giving concussions. And it's not going to be 6 seconds on the smudges, even if that's how long it takes for you to make and send them: They have a minimum 8 second windup with up to (iirc) 5 seconds of randomized wait before the windup. It's pretty cool, but go go one ability to rule them all?
Anyways, I don't want to divert this thread, as much as it might seem that way. I just wanted to point out that just letting someone fugue you out and keeping on going is less of an option for forest bards, who derive a larger part of their strength/utility/usefulness directly from their primary.
I think the general consensus for Fugue is that it needs to stay for counterplays (despite the existence of captivate audience) but needs a change in how it works.
What I need to know now is the opinion of @Ieptix and @Saesh, and whether this is something to focus on for the Overhaul. My next target as far as reports go was meant to be Glamours and weeding out redundant affs, but Fugue is kind of discouraging to have to explain to an upcoming bard warrior.
It's good to start threads like this. I have a few I probably should start myself, to hopefully address some similar "Wow, this really sucks to explain to new fighters" problems.
as for Smudges, I rather enjoyed sitting ten rooms away spamming the enemy group with stun and fire damage every 6 seconds, or blindness, or concussions from tornados.
Tornados shouldn't be giving concussions. And it's not going to be 6 seconds on the smudges, even if that's how long it takes for you to make and send them: They have a minimum 8 second windup with up to (iirc) 5 seconds of randomized wait before the windup. It's pretty cool, but go go one ability to rule them all?
Anyways, I don't want to divert this thread, as much as it might seem that way. I just wanted to point out that just letting someone fugue you out and keeping on going is less of an option for forest bards, who derive a larger part of their strength/utility/usefulness directly from their primary.
So far as I know, doesn't ValleySmudge fling people into the air? Landing without levitation should cause concussion.
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
@Shaddus - iirc - dissolving still takes balance, it just doesn't require eq, which is what allows you to dissolve after performing an action, so no, you can't just dissolve everyone in one fell swoop, otherwise why aren't more people doing this?
I don't really think commune bards are as bad off as it's being portrayed, I started as a bard with HB and played it for over a year before leaving Glom, and never once did I feel like 'damn that fugue really destroys any offense I have' and that was during our manadrain hayday. Nightshadeblues was complained about a lot and I was getting fugued quite often. Just because Ecology/Glamours/Drama aren't Tarot doesn't mean they aren't useful or nice to use, and in my opinion, Ecology is probably one of the most underrated terts in the game. Glamours has plenty of useful combat applications, especially now since illusions are on a balance, and Drama is a bard version of hexes-lite. Think custom affliction lines rather than illusions with drama. (Just because you don't like the design doesn't make it less useful.)
Continuing against the grain and voting no to changing fugue. If anything change captivate to be more like dissolve!
as for Smudges, I rather enjoyed sitting ten rooms away spamming the enemy group with stun and fire damage every 6 seconds, or blindness, or concussions from tornados.
Tornados shouldn't be giving concussions. And it's not going to be 6 seconds on the smudges, even if that's how long it takes for you to make and send them: They have a minimum 8 second windup with up to (iirc) 5 seconds of randomized wait before the windup. It's pretty cool, but go go one ability to rule them all?
Anyways, I don't want to divert this thread, as much as it might seem that way. I just wanted to point out that just letting someone fugue you out and keeping on going is less of an option for forest bards, who derive a larger part of their strength/utility/usefulness directly from their primary.
If he began this windup every 6 seconds, would it not start up 13 seconds later, then every 6 seconds after..? or was there a cooldown I missed in there?
I haven't really thought this through, so don't eat me if it's a bad idea.
If fugue needs to stay to be a counter to passive effects, then how about moving the targeted active skills (note: not deathsong) to mid stanza? This would be PrincessFarewell, CairnLargo, DrunkenFool, QueensLament, SkysForzando, and CrowCaw. In this, the bard can make the choice between having the high stanza passive effects, or fighting at mid stanza to better keep their song. I think this also helps the problem where, if your song does get dropped (especially when you die and are trying to get back into the fight), you don't have to sing all the way up to high stanza to have access to your bread and butter.
This thread we've had has convinced me that I actually can stay on 7th stanza comfortably as a Symphonist if I absolutely had to, and could make relevant aliases for such. But I'd much rather see a change to Fugue to make it more fun.
I have stayed at 7th stanza and can say that it does not help. Fugue eq recovery is too quick, and again if there are multiple bards doing it then you are really screwed.
Because they're high stanza songs. They're your most powerful songs. They aren't piddly mid levels. There is a certain degree of risk that comes with power (see: taint, Goloth, Ice Angels), and that would be having your song at 7, 8, 9 stanza.
EDIT: Moreover, having your active songs at mid level locks you out from using high stanza songs. Not a good tradeoff. See report 771 and report 857.
I haven't really thought this through, so don't eat me if it's a bad idea.
If fugue needs to stay to be a counter to passive effects, then how about moving the targeted active skills (note: not deathsong) to mid stanza? This would be PrincessFarewell, CairnLargo, DrunkenFool, QueensLament, SkysForzando, and CrowCaw. In this, the bard can make the choice between having the high stanza passive effects, or fighting at mid stanza to better keep their song. I think this also helps the problem where, if your song does get dropped (especially when you die and are trying to get back into the fight), you don't have to sing all the way up to high stanza to have access to your bread and butter.
As long as Shotnote is moved to mid-stanza for Minstrels too! Can't use drunkenfool unless we make the target drunk with shotnote first (and if they're drinking against a Minstrel, well that's just silly).
I'm not really opposed to this, it would present a tradeoff, and I like tradeoffs. It would also present more team coordination effort. Like one person rolls with high stanza songs for those effects, while the other sit on mid stanza's for actives etc.
Again, remember that the other 4 song specs besides Starhymn and Loralaria don't have easy rewind songs to play, they have to compete with nothing but reprise.
Edit: captivate wars are imo, much less fun than fugue.
Comments
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
The pro-est bard should act like earwort for his team (and they would trust him enough to not upkeep truehearing or, if he dies, immediately toggle it on), but earwort with benefits. Even though captivate doesn't stop targeted songs.
(Also this is neither here nor there, but of course fusing turquoise is a no brainer. But CrystalSong might as well say "you only have 2 slots available for customising your offence in combat" instead of 3, lol).
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
I try not to comment much on dramaturgy, its design rubs me the wrong way. Tornados shouldn't be giving concussions. And it's not going to be 6 seconds on the smudges, even if that's how long it takes for you to make and send them: They have a minimum 8 second windup with up to (iirc) 5 seconds of randomized wait before the windup. It's pretty cool, but go go one ability to rule them all?
What I need to know now is the opinion of @Ieptix and @Saesh, and whether this is something to focus on for the Overhaul. My next target as far as reports go was meant to be Glamours and weeding out redundant affs, but Fugue is kind of discouraging to have to explain to an upcoming bard warrior.
If fugue needs to stay to be a counter to passive effects, then how about moving the targeted active skills (note: not deathsong) to mid stanza? This would be PrincessFarewell, CairnLargo, DrunkenFool, QueensLament, SkysForzando, and CrowCaw. In this, the bard can make the choice between having the high stanza passive effects, or fighting at mid stanza to better keep their song. I think this also helps the problem where, if your song does get dropped (especially when you die and are trying to get back into the fight), you don't have to sing all the way up to high stanza to have access to your bread and butter.
But I am going to say no.
This thread we've had has convinced me that I actually can stay on 7th stanza comfortably as a Symphonist if I absolutely had to, and could make relevant aliases for such. But I'd much rather see a change to Fugue to make it more fun.
Please expand upon why you are saying "no"?
EDIT: Moreover, having your active songs at mid level locks you out from using high stanza songs. Not a good tradeoff. See report 771 and report 857.