Is discord that important for a bard to use?

[Anderuin]

Decided to make a bard again, just came back to the game! Anyways i was wondering If Discord was that important to use for a bard? Because I was thinking instead of maybe doing a scribe or something.... Or would poison be a suitable sub? Are Nox Mages still around??? THANKS!

 

[Old Man of UO]

Decided to make a bard again, just came back to the game! Anyways i was wondering If Discord was that important to use for a bard? Because I was thinking instead of maybe doing a scribe or something.... Or would poison be a suitable sub? Are Nox Mages still around??? THANKS!

You leave out too many details of your character to answer intelligently. The important Bard skills are:
Music
Discord
Peacemaking
Provoking

The only "must have" skill is Music. The rest of the skills depend on what you want to do with your bard. Discord supplements almost any other template (except pvp) because it lowers the targets skills/abilities. So if you can't decide which bard skill to use, try Discord first, and pt it on a stone if it doesn't work for you.

Other than that, the Poison skill was nerfed so badly in PvM that I stopped using it. Nox Mages just aren't the most powerful because poisoning is too easily cured, but can still be fun to play. Scribing is better for increased mage damage.

Grab a handful of soul stones and experiment to see which combos you like to play.

 

[jelinidas]

My Bard wouldn't leave home without Discord. It is a must have for me.

 

[Poo]

120 discord drops any monsters RESISTANCES by 28 points ACCROSS THE BOARD, and lowers ALL THIER SKILLS 28%, again.... ACCROSS THE BOARD.

is that important?

well.... is it easier to kill a monster that has lost 1/3 of its defencive resistances and 1/3 of its skills?

is it easier to take a hit from a dragon whose skills have been lowered to that of a Harpie?

i think its pretty much a given that your not really a bard if you dont gun with disco.

but thats not the best or most important point with disco.
disco DROPS THE MONSTERS BARDING DIFFICULTY!!!!!

you roll into a uber dragon, its sitting at 160 barding diff.
hard as all heck to provo it onto another uber dragon.
disco it, its barding drops way down, now its like butter baby.

strum that harp and collect that gold!

if you want to see a good example of what disco can do for ya, go out with a disco tamer.
go fight a peerless boss.
a mel or dreadhorn or something.

just let the pet tank.
watch the peerless HP.
will barelly go down.
then disco it.
you can watch it go down by leaps and bounds.

 

[Poo]

ah ha!

i knew i had a picture from the old days laying around.
here is some visual pixil crack for ya

 

[Anderuin]

Yeah seems like I'll be needing it lol. I didn't think it would make that big of a difference! Thanks!

 

[uoBuoY]

With Disco (120) you can:

1 - insure that the creature you're taming hits you much less painfully

2 - PVM with much tougher critters

3 - farm the same critters much faster

 

[Shanna]

And on a Fel note, Disco comes in handy for downing a champ at a spawn and killing off a tamer's pet from a rival guild.

Trust me. It has its uses.

 

[Starla]

Of all the 3 barding skills, I like discord best. Followed by provo and lastly peace. I have a discord-tamer and the other 2 skills are on my bard who has 120 mage, 120 med, 120 music, 120 provo, 120 peace, with the last skill changable using soulstones.

 

[Sarphus]

I agree that discord is a good skill to have.

I'm surprised no one directly responded to the comment about possibly taking inscription over discord.

Inscription will give you a 10% boost to all spells that get their dmg buffed by eval int.

Discord debuffs all resists and skills of a target by 28% unless the target has bard difficulty of 160 in which case the effect is cut in half (14%)

10% boost to some of your spells will never surpass a 14/28% debuff ability, but that's not to say that discord is always the best bard skill to choose for your template.

I have a char that has GM music/peace alongside magery/necro and spellweaving. It would be foolish to sacrifice anything on that char's template to get discord, because that character does tons of dmg with spells because of the other synergies of the template. That character is designed for very specific environments where you encounter lots of small monsters (champ spawns).

If you're going after big game, discord is pretty much a must. Discord will make your damage spells AND your summons more effective against a target. Also, discord has great synergy with animal taming. Also, discord reduces bard difficulty, because part of the calculation for bard difficulty comes from the skill total of a monster.

Also, if you're considering doing inscription for spell damage, I would suggest taking spellweaving instead. You gain a lot of powerful abilities with spellweaving including a spell that can buff your SDI by as much as 60% (lvl 6 focus), which is considerably more than you get from inscription.

 

[RoycroftLS]

if you want to see a good example of what disco can do for ya, go out with a disco tamer.
go fight a peerless boss.
a mel or dreadhorn or something.

just let the pet tank.
watch the peerless HP.
will barelly go down.
then disco it.
you can watch it go down by leaps and bounds.

Discord has some effect on Peerless bosses, but it is much much less than the 28% drop in stats that legendary disco gives on normal creatures. The whole "so-and-so shrugs off some effects of your song" thing.

Not to say that it isn't still useful when multiplied by a small party's worth of people pounding on the boss, but the actual percentage drop on bosses is somewhere around 5% from what my bard has seen.

 

[Spree]

I have a tamer with all the bard skills at 120. Peace and Prov are on soul stones. Disco if the best bard skill.