Wow.
If Astral will remain as it is i feel sorry for 90% of player base that would like to level up on prime.
All those that used to bash there will move on prime.

I'm pretty sure they fixed it now.

My question has been "how is it a step at all?" (and note, it's a question, not a statement) but after several volleys without answer, I'm going to have to just take your word for it, I guess. I still don't see it and no one seems inclined to point it out.

I think the step was primarily the separation of blindness and deafness. Exactly what that accomplished I'm not sure.

Truehearing+deafness is a defense against bards. Deafness is an ailment that you really don’t want to have up during combat. Thus, the strategy of the defender is to use truehearing as a defense against bards (not deafness). If you do choose to have truehearing up, you open yourself to being stunned by blanknote (which also prevents the eating of earwort for a time). You may wish to always have the truehearing defense up just as any other ‘generic’ defense against music as well as a few other skills. However, you will never want to just have deafness up as a defense because of the side effects. Of course, we could just get rid of earwort (which would have made my life easier if I had known we would do that earlier), which would basically leave no defense against bards and other sound-related skills because deafness is an ailment you don’t want during combat. However, it makes for a more strategic and interesting combat with the defense, at least in my opinion. In groups, you may (or may not!) rely on your bards to deal with enemy bards in terms of fighting for who controls the captive audience. As with everything, we will see how it works out through time.

(If earwort doesn’t use herb balance, that is an oversight and will be remedied. We’ll also move faeleaf to use herb balance if it doesn’t already.)

It just seems like you're taking a good idea, then hacking it to death with a blunt instrument because you aren't willing to make Music magical enough to bypass deafness. As long as you are dead set on allowing a perfect defense against an entire skillset, while at the same time nerfing the buffs, it's going to be a hideous morass of clunky fixes.

It almost looks like you took deafness, designed a skill around it, then realized that it's pretty gimpy and needs fixed, instead of designing the skills, then looking at what should defend against them.

If music goes through deafness, it begs the question of why have deafness at all. Am I being stubborn? Maybe so, but I am not willing to give up on the original design just yet despite the detractors. My question is why are people so unwilling and hostile towards giving the design a chance? Sure it may takes some tweaks, but I think we can get there without it being a "hideous morass"!

I think it's right the way Estarra has it personally.

There needs to be a defense against Bard songs, they're so portable, that just being able to walk in and hit everyone would be wrong. (Mages have protection scrolls etc.)

Now that blindness is separate (removing transfix from the equation (FINALLY)) We can make blanknote more effective. Make it able to do off EQ is my idea, or off balance, not sure.. Maybe make it a vocal skill (the only one, don't worry)

I say this because Truehearing is easier to put up than protection, and bard songs aren't nearly as powerful as demesnes. I think blanknote should be targetted and doable off balance (taking eq) where you make the mating call of the earwort worms and they crawl out of the oponents ears eagerly seeking a mate (and subsequently destracting any other snails you try to put in your ear for X seconds after this note via rabit snail humping)

This will allow bards to effectively keep their offense up 1v1 (and balanced because it doesn't take away 6th sense).

Kinda unorganized, but I figured I'd just spew.

On the astral note, I issued it a while ago and was told it was being looked into. Not sure if it was fixed or not yet, since I do not want to go back to astral and be neurotic in 5-7 mins of waiting for a node to connect. But it would be cool to know if they fixed it, or if they are going to leave it the way they have it, which would leave me NO desire to bash up there and more desire to kill anyone in my bashing areas on prime

I lurve the idea of earwort being temporary. Faeleaf too! That'd definetly make me happy and make things a little more interesting. I keep thinking how much it must suck to have a fae/power feat to paralyze/transfix and having to strip six sense, only by the time your balance is back to attack, they's sixthsensed again! (Or true hearing, now)

Idea for bards - New skill in music specs that uses sight instead of hearing, to change it up a little? Like Celest could have "Starburst" or something where the music makes a big bright star that does some sort of affliction (Blind, transfix, blackout all come to mind, but I'm sure of the more weird ones could work to) Again that would take pressure off the deafness thing while staying nice and IC. And I've seen the song effect! Don't go telling me music can't make flashes!

I'm so glad the Shine change went in, I was one of those that supported making the skill a permanent defense. Cheer.

99% sure they fixed it earlier.

Awesome changes.

The statue/nature change was designed to stop people shielding, statue/naturing, and being completely invulnerable to all attempts of attack.

There is also a phantom change in there to correct the problem of not being able to use these skills while deluged.

I agree there needs to be a defense against bards. And I think there has been progress towards making truehearing viable as that (just not in this last round, which doesn't seem to have changed anything relevant to bards other than the names -- replace everywhere Estarra said "earwort" with "faeleaf" and everywhere she said "truehearing" with "sixthsense", and her explanation would be precisely true a month ago, which is the bit I don't seem to be able to get anyone to address). But I think it's got a long way to go.

There's only one other case I can think of where a single defense you can keep up all the time nullifies an entire primary skillset, and that's rebounding against Knighthood. Let's compare.

• When you strip rebounding, they can't raise it again for a few seconds. When you strip truehearing, they can't raise it again for a few seconds. Even.
• You can strip rebounding quickly by razing. You can strip truehearing quickly with a blanknote. Even.
• Raising rebounding takes 1/10 of an herb. Raising truehearing takes a whole herb. Advantage to bards.
• Stripping rebounding does nothing else. Stripping truehearing causes a tiny stun. Advantage to bards.
• Stripping rebounding when they don't have it does something useful (strip quicksilver). Stripping truehearing when they don't have it does nothing. Advantage to knights.
• Knights have abilities like cleave, lunge, etc. which bypass rebounding. Bards have no such thing. Big advantage to knights.
• Bards can strip truehearing on a bunch of people at once. Knights have no such thing. Big advantage to bards.
• Everyone loses rebounding every time they attack automatically. No one loses truehearing automatically ever. Huge advantage to knights.
• Half of bard skills are buffs for allies which depend on them keeping truehearing down. (CaptiveAudience is an exception during the first round of combat, not thereafter (assuming enemy bards are smart enough to blankchord), so it barely counts.) Knights have no skills that require their allies to give up rebounding. Overwhelming advantage to knights.

So to even things up, first make it so rebounding doesn't drop on an attack anymore. Then, take away half of the skills in the knighthood specializations and replace them with things that only work if your friends don't keep rebounding up. According to the theory "truehearing is a balanced defense against bards", the knights won't object one bit.

Blocking both beneficial and detrimental songs seems like a huge mistake. Why bother with fighting over CaptiveAudience and such, when we've done perfectly well without Bard buffs? They don't seem strong enough to be worth the effort. If the opposing force has sound attacks, put up deafness and truehearing. If not, don't.

ANNOUNCE NEWS #729
Date: 2/7/2007 at 4:16
From: Sior the Anomaly
To : Everyone
Subj: Envoy Updates

Acrobatics:
- Bards should be able to climb out of pits properly now.
- Climbing in Acrobatics will forgoe the need to have balance when
climbing out of a pit.
- Highjump will knock the target off balance
- Forwardflip now has a chance of breaking a random limb on the target

Tracking:
- Willpower cost for "return" has been reduced
- Willpower cost for "seek" has been reduced
- Power cost for unite removed
- The skill of Planar will now compliment the tracking skill in that you
can now do various skills on planes you can survive on
- Hound/Mutt health has been increased
- Dart, snare, and stink traps are now able to be used underwater
provided you have the proper tracking skills
- One can no longer simply FLY out of a pit to escape it
- Added the bloodthirst skill to increase damage done from hounds/mutts

Hunting/Ecology:
- Snakes caught in a net will take longer to reset
- Snakenet capacity doubled
- AnimalGrowth in ecology can now be properly used on animal companions

Penned by My hand on the 24th of Klangiary, in the year 168 CE.

Damn it, I wanna gonna post it first!

Anyways,

The ability to use some of the tracking skills on planes sounds like a nice appeasement.

Tracking:
- Willpower cost for "return" has been reduced Woo
- Willpower cost for "seek" has been reduced Woo
- Power cost for unite removed Awesome!
- The skill of Planar will now compliment the tracking skill in that you can now do various skills on planes you can survive on I'm not sure I understand this one
- Hound/Mutt health has been increased Yay!
- Dart, snare, and stink traps are now able to be used underwater provided you have the proper tracking skills Cool
- One can no longer simply FLY out of a pit to escape it Cool, but why not?
- Added the bloodthirst skill to increase damage done from hounds/mutts Awesome, however, it doesn't work for rogues. My wolf won't accept meat.

Hunting/Ecology:
- Snakes caught in a net will take longer to reset At last!
- Snakenet capacity doubled Ooh, nice
- AnimalGrowth in ecology can now be properly used on animal companions



Nice upgrades. Pity I can't use some of them! They do realize we can't use these once we leave the guild, right? Even if we still have tracking? Power skills not working? Okay, maybe. Companions no longer listen to you? That doesn't make sense.