Ponderings on Bards in the Expansion

I've seen spell lists for casters posted up for the expansion, but I really don't know what will happen to good ole bards. Here's some ideas for new songs and skills. I am well aware that is it a favorite pasttime of many people to constantly whine about their class and demand changes. I feel that for the levels I've played a bard, (1-45 so far), they're a great class, and while I don't neccessarily like very song and such, I see *no* reason why bards from 1-45 need to be changed. As far as from 46-50, from what I've seen and heard, bards get even better, so no complaints there as well. There are now 3 songs missing from lvls 1-50, (47 songs in total instead of 50). There used to be 4 songs missing, but recently the level 47 song was added. Anyway, it'd be nice to see the missing songs pop up, but as it is now, bards can get by without them, so it's not a *neccessity*. So here's some ideas for bards for 51-60, some of which I've heard rumors about, or from other people's ideas, as well as a few ideas of my own.

Binding song
Elkrum mentioned this song as a possibility. I, for one, don't think that bards, or any hybrids and melee classes should get bind. If one hybrid did, then all should, and if everyone could bind except for warriors, monks, and rogues, that woudl just suck for people who play those classes. If any one of the non-binders were to get bind, it should be rangers, since, from a role-playing perspective, they're the outdoors, tracking type. I envision them travelling to far off remote areas in the wild, but apparently, they'd best not get beat down out there, or they've got a long run ahead of them. Despite the fact that bards don't strike me as a class that should get bind, I'll say that it would be bloody awesome to have it, and I'll be loving it if indeed we get it. Actually, here's an interesting idea... Maybe there could be an extremely hard to get, no drop item from the planes that casts bind affinity. It could be really rare, allowing only a few lucky, and very high level individuals to get it.

A Gate or Group Gate song
This was an idea I read awhile back on a message board, from someone who had the idea that a group gate to a bard guild would be nice. Though, this still seems to me like an ability that should be reserved for druids and wizards, I'd have no problems at all with receiving a song like this. A regular gate song would be awesome, but again, seems like it should be reserved for casters only.

A Mana Donating song
I think Iheard something about this song from somewhere... A song that takes the bard's mana and gives it to someone else. Bards currently just use mana for the lvl 43 song, and 800 mana at that, and I'm sure many times bards, (me included), roam around with mana just doing practically nothing. The concept of this song seems a bit confusing and unessecary, though. After all, we can already help casters with clarity

Feign Death
Once, I think I read a message board post talking about bards and the feign death ability. The poster explained how bards, in roleplaying, would be actors as well as singer, storytellers, etc., and that playing dead would be withing roleplaying terms, which is interesting to me. Now, feign death could be really useful, due to the fact that bards can easily aggro tons of stuff, and have weak defensive skills. One might say that the feign death ability would give bards too much power, (and if we get it at all, it shouldn't be until after level 50), but who knows how aggroing bards will fare on the big baddies at level 60? I rather think this is a cool ability, and I'm sure my bias really shows that, but I'm don't want to seem greedy. After all, a bunch of classes get feign death anyway, and I think uniqueness is a rather hard to achieve feature when everyone ends up with all the same abilities and spells.

I am the Walrus
Not sure if this would be able to be implemented, since there would have to be some kind of special arrangement to get permission to use this song in EverQuest, but wouldn't it be cool?

Some Mega-Resist song
There's tons of resist songs available to bards, and I have a huge suspicion that another one or two will be added if they can't think of anything else. If another one is added, maybe it could incorporate stuff from the MANY various others, into on big resist song. Maybe not, I dunno. I just don't wanna see all of the new songs get used up in many more resist songs, since I don't use resist songs too much. They're useful and all, but it gets annoying wasting many song slots to be able to stack them all up. One big resist song could free up room, but several more of them, that you don't have space to stack, (considering you'd wanna play other songs), seems kinda boring.

Mez-DD
We get a mez song, and bellow, a DD that raises as we level, which are both cool. (We get more DD dots as well, and the mana using DD that we can't use often). Mez is great in PvP, and if it could do some damage as well, (I'm not talking about mega damage, but just a little bit, maybe like bellow), it could be rather fun.

Charm song upgrade
Currently, bards can't charm stuff over level 37. While this can be annoying, it's understandable that they would want bards to be weaker in this area than Enchanters, since enchanters are the real EQ charmers. However, bards should be good charmers, too, (although not at the enchanters' level). After all, there's all sorts of stories of magical charm songs of faeries and whatnot, the pied piper, etc. Anyway, the lvl 37 cap allows bards to charm but still be behind enchanters. With the lvl limit raised to 60, that puts us way behind, so maybe the cap could be raised to 47 or something.

Here's a note on bards as to roleplaying. Here we're weak melees who can do cool things with songs, like casters who don't have to med, but not nearly as powerful as they are. Our songs effect people around us, in groups, and in area effect, which is how they should be. Roleplaying wise, bards are pretty cool to play. I think, though, more emphasis should be played on musical intruments than melee. After all, all casters start out as melee classes... the pure casters soon fall out of that catergory, followed later by preist classes, and finally, by bards. At 45, (and probably 50), bards aren't melee classes, but we still stand up and swing our weapons at the baddies, and tank on occassion. Perhaps, bards should get less melee skills, and more defensive skills instead, with powerful songs, making us more backup singers than fighters. The lower melee skills would be countered by better defensive skills, so it could even out, and better defensive skills would allow us to taunt more with our songs. Plus, if we sucked even more at melee, to the point where, at 60, maybe our weapons would be of barely any more use than a caster's weapons, and we could concentrate on using instruments to a greater effect than we do today. Just some thoughts, and remember, I'm completely happy with the way bards are now, and I don't want to seem like a complainer. These are simply ideas, which may or may not be good ones, but are things that I feel could be interesting.

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