Why 1 mastery at a time?
It is my thought that if two people of equal skill were to dedicate the same time and effort to the same thing they would be equally adept. By the same standard if the same two people in a different situation where the first focused on only one thing, and the second focused on two things. They may both be considered masters at what they do but they will likely not be equal.
I believe that a pure mage should probably be a better mage than a mystic mage, or a necro mage. Hence a Bard can go ahead and max skills in every one of their bard abilities, but they will be best at their focus ability.
Ok, that makes no sense, the bard skills are part of the same "skill group", necromancy and magery are different magery groups, you can mix them, but thats the same as a tamer/bard.
The place you're going wrong is that it doesn't give additional power, you can only use 1 mastery at one time, so having them all once you do the quest unbalances nothing, it makes the bard more desirable and less of a hassle to play and god knows bards have been through enough hassle. (as anyone who's trained provocation up to legendary old school way can attest)
Though I do like the idea of posibly adding some multi discipline abilities to future iterations of the bard mastery system I would still want masteries to be geared towards focusing.
You focus by only allowing one to be used at a time.
The mastery system takes a step away from the template for all seasons. Any of the abilities will be useful, though they may not be the best for the situation.
Erhm, what it does is take something away from "true" bards and favor FOTM bards and side-skilled bards, Honestly this should have been a big boost to "true" bards and not an excuse for people to script up new FOTM bards.
Heck, one I know is simply soul stoning the bard skills off onto 3 different characters, logging on the one that fits the situation, each one of those 3 will be vastly overpowering compared to the original "true" bard.
To Party or Not to Party?
The beneficial bard abilities can augment the effectiveness of their party members. You don't have to party, you can keep the benefits all to yourself. Though I'm sure any group would be very appreciative for any of the beneficial abilities. At the same time, if you're just out for yourself you may appreciate the extra survivability.
Except the mana cost is so staggering the abilities are near impossible to keep going for more than a couple of seconds (aka useless).
And no, groups won't appreciate the "oh, you're going there? I'll have to change masteries, can you guys wait an hour twiddling your thumbs while I go and do the quest?".
Not to mention the ability to outdamage most casters in game for short periods or if you prefer, feed off the damage that anyone else is doing to your target.
Uhm...lol, the damage even by the discordance ability is palty compared to an SDI mage or mystic. And hell bards are incredibly non-diverse...mage classes can summon, use utility spells, do damage of all kinds, heal, cure, boost, etc...what can a bard do?...They have a SINGLE ability per skill + 1 of 2 mastery skills...thats a max of 3...that only lasts for a couple of seconds.
Side Notes:
Bard abilities should only be cancelled by using the same skill as the mastery focus. (ie Using provocation will cancel Inspire and Invigorate, but not any of the other abilities)(If you want to Discord and Despair it'll take 2 Bards)
Why is that? It pretty much nerfs the bard when using the mastery, mages aren't forbidden from doing damage when they have an EV up for instance. Why should bards be penalized for using their ability?
Bards interupt threshold is lower for PvP damage than PvM damage.
(In PvP with all 70's anything under 6th circle or a heavy pain strike probably won't interupt the bard. In PvM closer to flame strike or a high damage armour ignore.)
So you can stand in the corner if you like, I'll be out there swinging away.
All bard abilities are affected by LMC.
So now all bards will have to completely suit respec to get +int +mana +LMC, +mana regen + LRC...no room for luck or good resists anymore, one of the main advantages of a bard.
All for one ability that can be used for a short burst, while mage classes get huge benefits and loads of abilities.
I did not make a mistake in coding. It is my intent that switching between masteries requires more effort and thought than using a soul stone or changing equipment.
So can we look forward to that in the future a mage will have to do a quest to switch between circle of spells?
If a bard wants to max provocation thats a 240 skill point investment
If a mage wants to max magery thats a 240 skill point investment
If a provo bard wants to max discord thats a 360 skill point investment
If a mage wants to max necro thats a 480 skill point investment
Currently the only benefit to adding a secondary bard skill is that you can use that skill without interrupting your mastery abilities in the other skill.
These make for some powerful combinations but I'll wait a few weeks for players to figure out the ramifications of combining skills and abilities. Maybe its OP maybe they could use some more tweaks.
Max magery is 120 skills, bards are useless with 120 skills
Mage and Necro are still two different branches of abilities and you can use both with no penalty.
And exactly what you're saying, there's little benefit in having a "true" bard, you're relegating bards to being FOTM template additions. Basically leaving us old bards in the closet.
Casting Not Interrupting Bards: ( Yeah that would take about 2 seconds before it had to be nerfed)
And why would that have to be nerfed? Whats the point of giving an SDI increase when you can't cast spells, that makes no sense. The SDI increase is not *that* powerful in PvM.
Something positive has been added for the Bard class, and to me that seems like a good thing ...
