More info on the upcoming patches/releases - from VN board

[Cuchuluhain]

Im going to bet theres a specific set of 'base' spells you can get from each BASIC trainer.

Ya know

the guardian trainer
the naturalist trainer
the forrester trainer
the magician trainer

it wont be going to the Enchanter training and saying 'oh 2 points in Mana spec please'

Itll be going to the basic trainers, the guardian one will go 'I can train you to wield this weapon type with XX skill', the naturalist trainer will go, I can teach you can self improving spells with XX value', the forrestor will go 'I can teach you to shield yourself to this value', the magician trainer will go 'I can teach you to damage your foes for XX' and so forth.

it`ll be interesting to see how they work things around those classes that have no mana pool,eg heros and Bms, how they can 'cast' spells. I suspect any buffs will be of a similar ilk to rangers self buffs, perhaps a similar sort of level as the vamp gets as they level. They wont be as good as spec buffs, but they would be good enough to be competitive. With the move for a no buffbot server etc, I suspect that mythic will be edging toward that kind of solution to 'balance' the realms. I may even be they hard cap dex for casting, then allow the 'champion' buffs to stack with the spec buffs, but run them inside cap, meaning that your average druids buffs would be enough in future and you wouldnt HAVE to have that buffbot.

They may not, since buffbots make up a large portion of mythics income, but if they play it right, they can bring a lot of the lost customers who were run off by TOA and buffbots back. Id say put that choice on the vampir trainer for 'self enhancements' , and make something else naturalists, like improved healing rates, maybe make magicians champ bonus increased mana regen.

This would allow spread or focus, want to have perma crack 5? want to be self buffed like you drank lots of pots/used charges? Want to recover your health really quick ? Specialise, want to be semi buffed with crack 2 and a mildly annoying dd, spread your points out.

THIS is how champion levels would best serve the players, I suspec Mythic may have another idea, but lets see how well my predictions come out, Ive already called a lot of things correctly (like its about DF, it`ll have horses, new epics etc etc).

[Lieva]

lets see how well my predictions come out, Ive already called a lot of things correctly (like its about DF, it`ll have horses, new epics etc etc).

yea

now tell me when im gonna win the lottery

hmm

lenah atm when you start a base class theyre limited to certain specs.
I cant verify this (perhaps i will when i decide will change my male firby druid to a sylvan insted - not cause of the facial look or the 'dead' eyes but because of that ill fitting armour!) but i think when a naturalist starts out they can only spec in regrowth and nurture.
Nurture - spec buffs (when your a druid/resists if warden) so i pesume this could be just normal buffs?
and regrowth - heals ( but regrowth - druid like = spread heals and rezzes etc) so possible just access to base heals?

Still -- specing 20 in base heals will guive you quite a good heal tbh ...

[Xest]

I'm not personally in any trouble I got plenty to choose from, but what I read from the expansion notes, its not going to be good to any bards.

Bards.

Cant melee. Even by speccing high into it, wearing RF only with small shield with no other defensive abilitys you're a joke.

Can cast only shout as damage spell. 100ish dmg, at highest level. every 10 second. Highly resisted.

Can mezz. There is already incredible high resist rates on any mezz even if you spam it constantly. If it stacks on someone they're not mezzed more than 5 seconds becouse relatively free new IP. Passive stoicism on all tank classes (cc time reduction), together with RA with similar effect (cheap compared to what it was). Artifacts to not only counter, but also feed mezz back to caster, the bard. Thats only the current situation, in future u seem to have banners that even more reduce mezz duration, or raises resists.

Bards heals are weak (casual spec), 250ish heals with bigger heal. 700+ with Druid, 500+ with warden. (casual spec). Bard grp heals are lol. AM is nerfed in value in NF.

Bards baseline buffs (con & str) are weaker in value (with 43 nurture) than any warden ones (49 nurt), and in normal grp setting hardly used anyway becouse of BB's and wardens handling bases. (Most ppl want out-of-grp buffs, as their caster is alive even if your grp warden dies.)

Songs. Power song, FOP is lot faster. TOA brought 100's items with manacrack 3 and everyone can get it with 50g. GRP's with Mentalist always have crack of some kind. New +powerpool % - bonus, and FOP effect being percentage based on manapool size (making it as fast anyway no matter what size of pool u got) lessens powersong mainly to slightly increase manaregen on fop when u got time. Endurance, if not counting sprinting, all endurance users have free passive endurance regen. Cheap TOA items with +20% instant endurance charges. Cheap RA to instantly renew all endurance. In current day RVR doesn't really negate, but greatly reduces the value of end song (no more frontloading LW tank assist trains neither). Speed, only thing that currently makes bards the fastest moving thing, granted with aoe songs its a great song. Soon all above 35 move speed5 with horse. No need for speed =/ 1 good point, health song is still better than underhill ally health regen!! (tho they still, even after many suggestions, do not stack to be any use at all)

Bards got aoe and single instant lullaby, aoe and single instant mezz, aoe mezz and instant shout to be used as forms of interruption. (tho aoe mezz often feedbacks to your own face). This is the reason for anyone to really play bards, alot of mages out there, interruption is essential for the hope of surving and it helps if u get 1-2 of them out from the game even for that 1-5 seconds mezz lasts. But, even now great deal of other, DAMAGING aoe spells do this job (500+ dmg or 1-5 second stop?), and with bainshee its even increased. Soon everyone seems to have accses to somekind of AOE spell that causes interruption.

Can confuse theurgist pets effectively! Tho many mentalist can do it aswell, and aoe dmg kills theurgist pets like flys, its still fun =)

I cannot really tell good stories on camp fires ... and it certainly wouldn't help anyone if I could. Just wondering, will bards still exist after this future expansion? And if so, for what reason? =)

Minstrels already lost their spot in a lot of Alb groups, but tbh I don't think it's a bad thing, Minstrels are still viable in a group however the difference now is the group gets a concious choice of what they want in that spot. I don't really see classes losing a guaranteed group spot as a bad thing, some classes have never ever had any chance of a group spot ever so it's really nothing new. I'd rather see every class have an equal chance at a spot in a group, whilst that's never going to happen because primary healers are always going to be needed, Mythic's definetely on the right track. With ToA/NF you're suddenly seeing classes that were previously complete gimps like Champions coming back - I'd much rather see a broad range of group setups than the stale system of past where every group is the same old fotm layout.

All that said, I can't see bards ever losing a group spot, they just have so much to offer that they're always going to be wanted for something, speed, CC, end and very good at interrupts is a lot to offer and not going to be easy to deal with losing it all from most groups.

[Arcsalin]

I think peeps are just so messed up about the whole grouping procedure these days they don't know what they want. I am guessing that's for all realms. Imo peeps are just obsessed with soloing that the whole process of grouping even in pve has been *expletive* over.

Small message to those gimps that encourage the whole realm to actively solo - it's boring, you get zerged and if you like that then you should keep it to yourself