Want to “main” Songcraft

[Rokal]

Hail and well met, all,

Every MMO I’ve played over the years a Bard has been my main character. EQI Bard, EQII Troubadour and Dirge, Rift Full Bard tree, Vanguard Bard, DAoC Minstrel/Skald… you get the picture.

I just like the idea that I sing and play so horribly that I can kill my enemies… plus I like playing heals/off heals and support.

So... keeping the following in mind…

I’m really not much into PvP, but will happily join group/guild PvP when invited just to be helpful to my team/guild. I’m really more PvE focused. I don’t care about leaderboards, being the best, or taking on content that I really shouldn’t be because I’m pushing the edge of OP, nor do I care about Min/Maxing.

My intent is to “main” the Songcraft tree for attacks, and everything. On a side note, I played this playstyle a couple of years ago and found the ability to play the healing song and keep me and my pet healed while damaging the mob, (once charmed), to be very effective. Maybe not the fastest kill speed, but at the time that style killed things/groups my Archer or Sorcery damaging specs could not kill, or had more trouble killing.

But anyway… Bard… Songcraft as my main damaging tree. Can I get through the overland quests and content, especially once I move into Hiram or Ancestral, (whatever it is), endgame PvE content/mobs?

I think of a Bard as a Rouge’ish type character, so I’m thinking of adding Shadowplay for the poison, dropback, (the agile fighter aspect appeals to me), and stealth… since there is no invis song.

What might be a good third option? I also think of Bards as dual wielders… so maybe Swiftblade?

While I prefer to be a “concept” player… when concept meets “gimp” I draw the line, lol. Conceptually, Shadowplay and Swiftblade go best with Songcraft to create my idea of a Bard… but is that concept running up against gimp? Don’t have to be optimal, just viable. I know I can swap out, level other trees, etc… and I plan to… but I’m curious as to how these 3 together will fare at the outset?

Thanks for your advice and insight.

P.S. This is for Unchained if that matters at all.

[Higorkovic]

You can only be main Songcraft if you'll play support in party.

There's no way to do much damage with Songcraft anymore, after they changed Critical Discord cooldown. So you'll need other skills tree to do damage, it can be any one, depends what you like. But i recommend you choose Vitalism, and focus on healing, so you can deal damage with Holy Bolt, Antithesis and Skewer (for these skills the damage are based on healing power), and the rest of the damage can be by any physical skilltree, Battlerage, Shadowplay or Swiftblade. If you go with Battlerage and Shadowplay use Greatclub, if you choose Swiftblade use one-handed Club, and on other hand you can use Axe, Sword or Dagger.

Casses that are good for you solo and pve: Bloodthrall, Confessor, Dreamspinner.
For support based in party: Athame, Cleric, Confessor.

[Colonelmustang]

I'd have to agree with Higorkovic. It's a support tree that needs another to shine. It works very well with vit, just grab another tree that can help you do some damage. Unless you'd like to go full support, you'll just have a harder time soloing enemies while leveling.

[Zuesprime]

Now that the forums work again I can finally paste this.

Everyone that has played Archeage for any decent length of time has an opinion on this and to show the other side of the coin, this is mine.


The first thing to realise for Songcraft is that every ability that does damage has a cooldown attached to it . whether it be Critical Discord ,Dissonance or Startling Strain to play debuffs you wont have a spammable attack skill.
The second thing to realise is that people that tell you Songcraft is just a support tree hasnt taken the time to see what it is capable of with a decent magic attack weapon and magic based (read intelligence) gear.


If you only play songs in a 5 man dungeon or a 50 man raid within 25 meters the group gets the following at Level 55
18-26% skill damage and 282 Attack Speed.
A heal over time that does 400+ every 3 seconds and can crit.
+2600-3800 to all defenses
and 20-28% movement speed to avoid AoE or get to a target faster.

Now if you add debuffs to the equation by hitting a target with Startling Strain you also do the following.
To the target of Startling Strain you:
Reduce all defenses by 50 %
Reduce all skill damage done by 20 %
Reduce movement speed by 30 %
Deals a Damage over time that scales off magic attack and procs based on attack speed.
As you get into the Ancestral Levels you can get versions of Startling Strain that removed the cooldown
on kill making it much more useable as a primary DPS ability.

For the damage over time debuff I have had crits over 6k in 2 second pulses all while the target is being slowed and doing less damage than normal with
1500 magic attack power and 800 attack speed using a Sceptor/Dagger. This with a Battlepet makes quick work of mobs as long as you understand the abilities the mobs has to avoid them.
But this was also on mobs in eastern hiram mountains so it didnt have PVP stats to reduce the damage outside of magic defense.


Debuffs work on players and most mobs in the game but Bosses are immune to Startling Strain so it helps to either have a secondary DPS tree or switch
to a Club with Vitalism if you wish to heal during those encounters. Otherwise just playing songs and spot healing with Songcraft skills
more than makes up for the lost DPS buffing the rest of your party.

Any of the trees can synergise with Songcraft to varying degrees but you have to spec heavily into it to get the most out of it.
If you are going to be playing songs to buff the party you will have at least 7 points in Songcraft for the 25 meter range but for DPS classes
6 Points in the tree unlocks the passive that makes it worth investing in for DPS classes:Lingering Impact.
This allows you to play a song and the buff stays for around 4 seconds even if you use another ability.
Most DPS that invest this many points into Songcraft do it for Bloody Chantey as it gives you 18-26% skill damage and 282 attack speed
while the song is playing and once you get used to it you can weave it into your rotation or play it as soon as you drop AoE attacks like
Bladefall, Ancestral Gods Whip or Ancestral Concussive Shot to make them that much more powerful.

If you want to go the route of a healer you can get DPS in the form of supporting your pet with songs while debuffing the target ( try the new pet gear in the stablehand
it is seriously good stuff for solo PVE) or simply use the songcraft skills to further support your own abilities.

If you want a magical route I could suggest Lamentor (Sorcery/Witchcraft/Songcraft) It can be used as a DPS spec in PVE or seriously ruin someones day in PVP
(Protip: Song debuffs don't break Bubble Trap {yes it is only half damage but it is half damage while you take none} and neither does a Fiends mana drain)

Or Spectre (Sorcery/Malediction/Songcraft) If you want the ability to have high personal DPS with the ability to support or run pure Bard build with points heavy in songcraft.

Someone already mentioned some melee options so I wont repeat them.

Hopefully this helped you better understand the skill tree and if it helped others as well, all the better.


TLDR: Songcraft guud

[Forumwarrior]

can someone give me a 101 crash course on CHARM? I still fail to understand it's use.
Is it only a debuff that needs to be combined? How is it apply and what's the most used rotation?

[Tenki]

Charm is basically a debuff status that makes it so hostile songs will apply harmful effects:
- Quickstep: -50% move speed
- Bloody Chantey: -20% skill damage
- Bulwark Ballad: -50% physical/magic defense (applied after 'added' debuffs like Puncture)
- Ode To Recovery: Deals magic damage per tick.

On a similar note...
Dissonance's 6 second debuff also makes songs add debuff effects as well:
- Quickstep: -10% attack speed
- Bloody Chantey: -10% accuracy
- Bulwark Ballad: -10% defense pen
- Ode To Recovery: -10% max health

There isn't really a rotation with it - it's just a matter of having the songs playing and the debuff targets in range when you do. The only other combos are really that Charms last 50% longer on Dissonanced targets (so if you do Dissonance > charm move, then you get a longer charm debuff).

Stacking effects:
- Bulwark Ballad's -50% defense does add with Critical Discord's 15-30% defense removal (so with Flame Critical Discord, you can get a total of -85% defense). It's a huge gear-neutralizer when you're dealing with overgeared dps or people with pocket healers.
- Charm>Bloody Chantey's -20% skill damage stacks with Dissonance's -30% skill damage, so you can temporarily remove 50% skill damage from a target with that.

The only other combo effects within songcraft itself are:
- Critical Discord > Dissonance: Disarms left hand weapons (useful if you're a mage attacking a plate tank because they usually have magic shields, or phys dps attacking a cloth with phys shield).
- Dissonance > Critical Discord: Lengthens Critical Discord's debuff by 50%
- Rhythm > reduces .5s of song cooldown per stack. Perform Songs have a natural 2 second cooldown between each other, but if you have Rhythm stacks (ex: use Deadly Refrain for 3 stacks), you can eventually reduce it to 0 and be able to stack your buffs/debuffs quickly.

[Nayita]

How i remember that Songcraft (Critical Discord), were a spammable skill long time ago in legacy. I am really sure it was. But not anymore.
Or i totally remember wrong here, and big time

[Spyritt]

It used to be spammable hit like a truck too. The pure bard in this game is tomb warden song,def,aura. I used to run song with sorc and witch for pve, because the ode to recovery debuff never broke bubble. It was my lazy bard build Lamentor fun pve build.