Idea for Small Adjustment to Bardic Mastery: Discordance

[FoodStamp [GL]]

Overall, I think these are cool additions for the bard, but I'd like to see the mana upkeep cost for Tribulation and Despair reduced by a little:

Tribulation (Current upkeep: 16): Would like it to be 10-12.

Despair (Current upkeep: 18): Would like it to be 12-14.

The reason for this request is that with Mana Increase, 100 to 150 is going to be the estimated mana pool (maximums). At the current upkeep rate, it's going to take between ~6.25 and ~9.375 seconds to completely drain a person's entire mana pool using Tribulation & ~5.56 to ~8.33 seconds to drain the mana pool for Despair. **Note 1: That estimate does not factor in the initial cost of 30 mana to activate the ability, so the actual mana drainage times will most likely be shorter. Monsters will probably respawn fast and the bard will be without mana to defend/attack. **Note 2: Please do NOT decrease the monster spawn timers to fix this!!! The same goes for PvP - the bard will only last for a short period of time with no mana. It will be almost like the bard functions as a potion that is used, lasts only a short amount of time, then the affects disappear - not to mention again, that the bard is without defense/attack ability if they are a magic-oriented template.

And, for magic-oriented templates, even with maximum Mana Increase and Mana Regeneration, the Bard will not replenish their mana pool quick enough to make the abilities highly useful. The bard will have little opportunity to participate in the combat due to low/zero mana & easily picked off in PvP because no mana to heal/attack.

This is not a massive reduction in upkeep so it would be nice if the developers considered this.

 

[Lord Chaos]

It really should be much much lower in mana cost.

I would really rather see a timer for the abilities instead, simply say they can last X amount of seconds before requiring a break of X seconds.

That would make it fair for all Bard templates and not underpower non-mage oriented bards.

 

[northwoodschopper]

so the Lower Mana Cost property doesn't work for these? Because if it did, the costs would be 10 and 11, respectively.

 

[Logrus]

Both the initiation and upkeep of the spells are affected by LMC.

Tribulation
At 40 LMC this would drop it to 18/10 from 30/16
With 0 Mana Regen/ Second at 100 mana it would give 8 rounds before expiring. (16 Seconds)



Despair:
Would be 18/11
At 100 Mana with no Mana regen this amounts to 7 Rounds of damage before expiring. (14 Seconds)
(At Max skill this is 448 Physical damage After reducing the target's strength by 32.)
At 0 LMC with 100 mana, it would be 3 Rounds, (6 Seconds) and 192 Physical Damage + the 32 Strength Reduction (Its actually 3.88 but for the sake of argument lets ignore any round fractions)


At 40 LMC The equivalent in magery for damage would be approximately 5 Flame strikes and 1 Magic arrow that mana cost would be about 126. And the cast time would be ~12 seconds.

At 0 LMC The Equivalent for magery would be 2 Flame strikes and maybe a punch .
The mana cost for the Mage would be 80, and the cast time would be 4 seconds.




The longer the bard song is in effect, the total cost for value is lowered. While in the case of the mage, its a constant linear growth.

 

[Barry Gibb]

It really should be much much lower in mana cost.

I would really rather see a timer for the abilities instead, simply say they can last X amount of seconds before requiring a break of X seconds.

That would make it fair for all Bard templates and not underpower non-mage oriented bards.

A good mana leech weapon or wraith form would make these powers last longer.

Logrus' comparisons sound very fair to me.

Stayin Alive,

BG

 

[Old Man of UO]

Both the initiation and upkeep of the spells are affected by LMC.
...

I haven't had a chance to log on and try it yet, but can you Meditate while the new Bard effects are active and will they stay active?

 

[Shelleybean]

I haven't had a chance to log on and try it yet, but can you Meditate while the new Bard effects are active and will they stay active?

I am testing this now. For the peacemaking mastery, the effects will stay active, however your meditation will be interrupted.

I am glad that LMC helps though.

 

[FoodStamp [GL]]

It really should be much much lower in mana cost.

I would really rather see a timer for the abilities instead, simply say they can last X amount of seconds before requiring a break of X seconds.

That would make it fair for all Bard templates and not underpower non-mage oriented bards.

This is a cool idea. I'd like to hear more about how you think this timer should work.