Do we want a Bard class? why?

Holycannoli

yes

Vevvev wrote: »

Unless we're using tonal architecture or the thuum to manipulate the universe it would make absolutely no sense in TES. We already have a morale buffing skill in the form of War Horn so I don't see what a Bard can bring to the table we don't already have.

What doe Arcanist bring to the table that we don't already have? The portal? After the inevitable nerfs from the exploiting it will allow it will become another Streak. Nothing really new and unique in that class at all.

Billium813

yes

Vevvev wrote: »

Unless we're using tonal architecture or the thuum to manipulate the universe it would make absolutely no sense in TES. We already have a morale buffing skill in the form of War Horn so I don't see what a Bard can bring to the table we don't already have.

I wouldn't say that it would "make no sense in TES". It certainly wouldn't be the lute/harp strumming stereotypical Bard that I think everyone has in mind! Dwemeri have Tonal Magic that allows its user to manipulate elements of the Aurbis (TES universe) wielding forks and hammers, but there are also other types of tonal magic like the Thu'um wielding Nords, Sword-Singing Redguards, and Green Singing Bosmer Spinners. Could be an interesting class that has subtle changes based on Race, similar to how Destruction Staff skills are subtly different depending on the element type of the staff!

Personally, I wouldn't mind something like War Horn being co-opted into the Bard skill set. War Horn is generic, available to all classes, so I would expect the Bard variant to be better in some form. Over all, I think Bard would be a good Tank/Healer focused class.

Tandor

Sparxlost wrote: »

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

Get 6 people surrounding you as you play an instrument, now have those 6 people start pushing you around while you attempt to play instrument, now have them start punching you, and finally have them start sticking pointy objects at you while you attempt to play your instrument. Tell me your results after.

No one said you have to play an instrument to be an effective warrior poet...

you could make use of small rhymes as functional destruction spells or write spells on scrolls to use in combat.. your power over sound could turn your screams of rage into a huge debuff for enemies or your laughs into a source of confusion...

Oh my, forget just spellcrafting, I can imagine already the number of polls additionally demanding wordcrafting as a new feature.

Tensar

no

classic bard class would be the worst possible class possible

+ it dosn't fit in TES. It's just a fantasm of old ppl liking the bard class from old rpgs.

Malthorne

no

I want skill trees. We have enough classes imo.

LadyLavina

yes

When a humble baaaard, graced a ride aloooong

emilyhyoyeon

doesn't fit in TES

No. And there are plenty of other TES classes that actually make sense to add instead of Bard in the non-TES style.

karthrag_inak

yes

Or at least a skill line, to provide performance skills that can provide buffs and healing perhaps?

DarknDarker

doesn't fit in TES

Frankly speaking, the traditional type bard wouldn't make sense lorewise. Music isn't magic, and anything close wouldn't make sense for a bard to have access to.

spartaxoxo

yes

I think it would be fun and I do think it makes sense lore wise. There's already a lot of examples of singing and sound having magic in the lore (Tonal Architecture, Spinners, Th'um, Sword Singing). In addition, we meet a character in High Isle who basically wants to be a combat bard who uses her signing as magic.

Grizzbeorn

Going all the way back to the days of First Edition AD&D, I have never understood the fascination with the Bard class.

Given how infrequently they add new classes, I would vote no to Bard, in favor of other choices.

rauyran

yes

Think of all the synergy possibilities for sound/musical based skills.

Ragnarok0130

no

A healer's current job is already to buff teammates and debuff the enemy so we don't need an entire class devoted to what the healing role and many proc sets currently in game already do. I'm curious, how would you envision a bard tank or bard dps would work since ZoS wants all classes to be able to do all roles?

Holycannoli

yes

Tensar wrote: »

classic bard class would be the worst possible class possible

+ it dosn't fit in TES. It's just a fantasm of old ppl liking the bard class from old rpgs.

Why doesn't it fit in TES? I'd say dragon shouting doesn't fit either, because it didn't fit until they added it in Skyrim. I never played Daggerfall and Morrowind wondering why my characters couldn't shout like a dragon to push people off mountains. It didn't exist in TES until they added it.

The idea of rigid classes in ESO doesn't fit TES either but we have them.

SirGabenOfSteamia

yes

Yes. Would love more unique support classes rather than having healers and DPS just swap out their gear to give the team limited buffs.

Lumenn

no

Hmm, Even with the negative being split in two, it's overwhelmingly no.

A singing warrior DOESN'T fit tes lore, despite dwarves and dragons. It could be NEW lore but bards in tes, to my knowledge, have never used "voice magic ' in battle. and yes, I played classic EQ from launch plus 12 years or so on Brell Serelis. I loved the bard class(although iksar monk was my main after kunark dropped) and a singing warrior just doesn't fit in my opinion. A MONK sure, but a nightblade attacking with a harp and tambourine I just can't see. Not to say I wouldn't try one out, but other classes would make more sense.

NettleCarrier

yes

As long as it worked the same as it does in Everquest/Everquest 2 then I'd love it. They aren't obnoxious and are generally very desired support classes for any group with some tools to solo if they'd like to. It might struggle to fit ESO's requirement of being able to tank/dps/heal on one class, but they should be able to do everything but tank at least and I'm sure ESO could figure out a way to make tanking work with defensive auras/songs.

JumboWheat01

yes

I'm not sure how one would really work its way into ESO, but I wouldn't say no to it. I'm rather fond of bards in D&D and Pathfinder.

spartaxoxo

yes

Lumenn wrote: »

A singing warrior DOESN'T fit tes lore, despite dwarves and dragons.

Sword-singers literally sang their weapons into existence and we watched Sai Sahan do it.

In High Isle, we directly meet and assist a would-be singing warrior. She uses her songs to aid us.

In the bards college, we pickup instruments a few which seem magical like this chime.
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Chime_of_the_Endless

We already have so many examples showing us there is magic in song and sound.

They could also do a bard class in a manner similar to the TES bard class of other games where it was less a singing warrior and moreso a talented illusionist.

I'd be sincerely curious to know why some feel the concept is so lore breaking.

Darkstorne

Doesn't fit in the lore?

It was a class in Morrowind and Oblivion. Singing and music is intrinsically linked to magic and power in TES. Anyone who thinks it doesn't fit in the lore is just highlighting their lack of lore knowledge.

As for class mechanics, like previous TES games it doesn't mean you have to literally sing and play music in battle. It could be a class that has a lot of team support mechanics to their skills though, whether healing, tanking, or DPS, providing secondary buff and debuff effects to their class actions. That would be highly desirable in group content, and would make the inevitable bard companion insanely popular.

Here. Oblivion's Bard class art:


Morrowind's Bard class description:
Bards are loremasters and storytellers. They crave adventure for the wisdom and insight to be gained, and must depend on sword, shield, spell and enchantment to preserve them from the perils of their educational experiences.

Deter1UK

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Sword-singers literally sang their weapons into existence and we watche Sai Sahan do it.

In High Isle, we directly meet and assist a would-be singing warrior. She uses her songs to aid us.

In the bards college, we pickup instruments a few which seem magical like this chime.
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Chime_of_the_Endless

We already have so many examples showing us there is magic in song and sound.

They could also do a bard class in a manner similar to the bard class of other games where it was less a singing warrior and moreso a talented illusionist.

I'd be sincerely curious to know why some feel the concept is so lore breaking.

Indeed, Anyone else picked up on the notion that ZOS have been fleshing out how Bard Magic might work - (Ring of Resonance , Resonance Crystals for example).

It might be just for future NPCs or plotlines but the thinking is definitely there , the High Isle quest was a little eye opener.

Billium813

yes

Darkstorne wrote: »

Doesn't fit in the lore?

It was a class in Morrowind and Oblivion. Singing and music is intrinsically linked to magic and power in TES. Anyone who thinks it doesn't fit in the lore is just highlighting their lack of lore knowledge.

As for class mechanics, like previous TES games it doesn't mean you have to literally sing and play music in battle. It could be a class that has a lot of team support mechanics to their skills though, whether healing, tanking, or DPS, providing secondary buff and debuff effects to their class actions. That would be highly desirable in group content, and would make the inevitable bard companion insanely popular.

Here. Oblivion's Bard class art:


Morrowind's Bard class description:
Bards are loremasters and storytellers. They crave adventure for the wisdom and insight to be gained, and must depend on sword, shield, spell and enchantment to preserve them from the perils of their educational experiences.

I agree with you, but unfortunately for ESO, we are going to run into troubles when you review the Warden class:

Wardens are defenders of the Green, master storytellers whose nature tales become magical reality. They wield frost spells against enemies and summon animals to aid them.

https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/crownstore/item/6286

Seems like there may be some overlap and/or ZOS may think we already have a "Bard". In the same way we most likely will never see a "Spellsword" class since the new Arcanist ESO class kinda fills that role.

kaushad

doesn't fit in TES

"Bards were a class in previous TES games."
So were healers. That doesn't mean we need a healer class. Classes in previous TES games were what your character did. Classes in ESO are what type of magic you use. And bards used the same type of magic as healers, nightblades and mages, albeit less of it.

"Bards could be Tonal Architects/Tongues/Sword Singers/Green Singers/Grave Singers."

There's a lot of unfounded speculation about tonal architecture and its relationship other types of magic that involve sound.

First of all, making sounds in magic is standard. We used to have "silence" spells, which disabled spell casting. You might guess that "silence" was a just special term for the effect disabling spells using Illusion, but we had books that described the effect; it literally silenced people. A person who cast spells by vocalising is... a mage.

As for those traditions, we don't have evidence that they anything more in common than they do with wardens or necromancers. Tonal architecture, judging by the name, is probably tonal. The Thuum might be tonal, but the words appear to have more importance than the pitch. When we saw Sai Sahan learn how to sword sing, it turned out that a lot of was about focusing on his desire or something, using a song. Also, these types of magic are used by completely different people. The existing classes group schools of magic studied under common traditions.


Compare this to Arcanists. Arcanist have learnt magic from Hermaeus Mora or his books. People going to daedra to gain powers is already a thing in TES:

"I'm a warlock. I have bound myself by oath and deed to the service of a Daedra lord, and in return have received gifts of knowledge and power. The Temple calls my patrons the bad Daedra, and perhaps they aren't very nice... but I guess I'm not very nice, either. If you are curious, and not afraid, I can tell you a little about the bad Daedra and Daedric summonings."

In spite of narrowing it down to one prince, Hermaeus Mora widens the concept in a way. One thing we learnt from Dragonborn is that you don't always have bind yourself in oath and deed to the service of Hermaeus Mora to learn the secrets of Apocrypha, because some of them are lying around in books.

We also have Nightingales and werewolves who get extra powers from Hircine in exchange for service, but the latter is just Werewolf skills and the former would functionally be nightblades. And Hermaeus Mora probably has widest range of spells recorded.

Jaimeh

no

Not if it involves any singing, music, prolonged sounds, I wouldn't enjoy that. Unless they would also release a toggle to mute them.

joergino

no

No new class would be the best new class. There won't be anything anyway, just the same skills with different animations.

oldbobdude

no

No - because why?

spartaxoxo

yes

kaushad wrote: »

When we saw Sai Sahan learn how to sword sing, it turned out that a lot of was about focusing on his desire or something, using a song.

In Sai's case, the song was magic and gave him the ability to summon a shehai. But it only allowed for it if he focused on what was most important to him. Song magic then, at least this particular song spell, is shown to be similar to other forms of magic wherein emotional links are either required to help make certain rituals/spells work or enhance their power.

He couldn't summon it before because just focusing on what he wanted wouldn't be enough. Neither is just knowing the words to the song and signing it. He has to put them together.

Kirawolfe

yes

As a support class type, yes. Played one in Everquest and absolutely loved it. Loved how different songs were made more powerful by the right instruments, and the different tiers of instruments.

It was fascinating - speed up healing over time, combat speed, movement, add to damage (like a morale booster that makes folks hit harder because they're pumped up ) plus debuffs on enemies - snares, weakness, confusion, etc.

And yes, in Everquest you could kite a bunch of creatures, running ahead of the pack and working them down with dots. So, you could go solo as well, if you wanted.

emilyhyoyeon

doesn't fit in TES

Darkstorne wrote: »

Doesn't fit in the lore?

It was a class in Morrowind and Oblivion. Singing and music is intrinsically linked to magic and power in TES. Anyone who thinks it doesn't fit in the lore is just highlighting their lack of lore knowledge.

As for class mechanics, like previous TES games it doesn't mean you have to literally sing and play music in battle. It could be a class that has a lot of team support mechanics to their skills though, whether healing, tanking, or DPS, providing secondary buff and debuff effects to their class actions. That would be highly desirable in group content, and would make the inevitable bard companion insanely popular.

Here. Oblivion's Bard class art:


Morrowind's Bard class description:
Bards are loremasters and storytellers. They crave adventure for the wisdom and insight to be gained, and must depend on sword, shield, spell and enchantment to preserve them from the perils of their educational experiences.

When most of us say it doesn't fit lore, we're referring to the non-TES style bard because that's what people generally go with whenever a possible bard class topic comes up.

I'd be fine with a TES style bard.

fizzylu

no

DarknDarker wrote: »

Frankly speaking, the traditional type bard wouldn't make sense lorewise. Music isn't magic, and anything close wouldn't make sense for a bard to have access to.

There's legit a questline in High Isle where someone is using singing as a form of magic though haha they had a specific name for the "magic" or it's user and everything, but I don't remember it at the moment.

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

I'd be fine with a TES style bard.

And I actually do like the TES style bard, but I don't see how it'd fit as a class in ESO since Zenimax got "creative" with their own class system and it doesn't really mesh well with the actual TES style. Like we don't even have speechcraft in ESO haha so the only way to properly give that feel is to have a singing/battle cry oriented person or whatever they called that girl from that quest in High Isle.