E
eynar
Guest
Tbh I didn't write this myself, got it from someone on the skald tl board. I wanted to write a similar post like this, but I couldn't have found any better words than the original poster did, so it's just a copy of his post. 
What's wrong with the skald class ?
These days, a lot of skalds threads are appearing on various messages boards, and a growing sentiment of weariness seems to appear among the skald community.
The criticisms are not "new" however ... you can follow the history of the Team Skald boards, and of our TL's report to realize the same problems have plagued
the class for 6+ months. But it just seems that, now that many of the classes that were considered as below average received a bit of loving during the passed months,
the state of the skald is even more of a problem. However, a significant portion of the player community (and supposedly among Mythic's designers) seems quite convinced that the skald class is perfectly fine and has no outstanding problems, thus widening the gap between them, and fed up skald players. So, I will attempt to clarify things, and explain what is wrong.
This thread will not much deal with facts, because you can simply find all the factual data you need on the TL report and other various threads, logs and sources. This is more of an opinion, a perspective.
1) What the heck is a skald ?
A good number of skald issues today are that the class has never been truly defined as a category. Is the skald a pure supporting class like the warden or bard ? Is the skald a melee hybrid like a paladin or champion ? The most distressing thing when discussing about skald's problems, is that, whatever the subject of the discussion is, the skald falls always in the "other" category. Skalds complain they are outmeleed by almost anything that can wield a club ? "You are support, you are a music class, you are not supposed to melee". Skalds complain that they have only one support song with many flaws worth running in battle and ask for a revamp of their battlesong line ? "Bah, you are a melee class, you are not supposed to have that much support anyway".
It is pretty clear that the skald is all too often conveniently forgotten.
For example, the 1.51 patch (the "caster" patch) added much to many support classes, including additional CC for minstrels and bards, and love for friars, wardens ... The whole "melee balancing process" (from 1.51 to 1.53 patches), besides giving a lot of love to "pure" tanks, also strenghtened the spell line for each other melee hybrid (paladin, thane, champion) as compensation.
In both cases ... the skald was forgotten. Not even mentioned.
This lack of definition is clearly one of the most serious problems skalds face, and it makes the task for the skald community and our team leader, almost impossible. Should we get more of this ? More of that ? Less of this, but much more of that ?
Staying in a status-quo of mediocrity is not a good solution. Even if it "disappoints" half of the community, Mythic has to take a definitive stance, and improve one of the aspects of our class, whichever they choose.
2) A static class in an ever evolving game
Since the first weeks of release, there has been two "major" changes done directly to the skald classs (not counting general changes like resistances, various CC nerfs, snare fix/nerf ...) :
- the introduction of resist songs
- the consequences and side effects of the minstrel's rebalancing last patch (normalized costs on shouts, rest song now scales properly at higher levels)
That's it. Sure, there has been no real direct nerf, that's a good thing.
But, honestly, if you have a look at all the patches since the beginning, do you realize how much the game has evolved ? The whole dynamics of RvR have been tweaked, reworked, revamped, reengineered, reversed a lot of times. All classes had their concepts, their spell lines, completely revamped.
The simple fact is that our class was "balanced" during beta, with certain game mechanics in mind. The balance has so much shifted that it is not only the power of the skalds that have shifted (from balanced - not overpowered like some said - , to
below average), but the role of the class, like I said previously, that has to be rethought and revaluated.
The skald class has been ignored for too long. It is time to act, and have a clear vision.
3) Teh needz for speedz
"But you have speed" : the killing blow to any attempt at understanding what the skald is about. For that matter, we could have 1hp, cloth armor, no spells and wield a toothpick, we would be fine because we have "speedz".
Sure, having a major power should have a "cost" (especially considering the fact we don't need a lute equipped). The question is, how high is too high. It is not even a pure class balancing question. It's about having something valuable and constructive to do when speed is down, just because having a character than can do something valuable in battle is the core of the game.
Failing to achieve this, means being a "bot". A "taxi".
In my subjective opinion, although bards and minstrels certainly could use a bit of love to some extent, they don't pay as high of a price than the skald.
Not to mention the classes that have other "major" powers, like area CC, area DOTS, PB or GTAOE, bladeturn. None of those classes are as much as a one trick pony than the skald. None.
4) Perception and perspective
Sometimes you just want to sigh, give up, and reroll a new class.
When you see a level 48 paladin "proving" with half-understood game mechanics that skalds have a better melee than paladins (aye, it's worth the laugh) or when you see a guy who speaks about the skald's "uber mez (better then healer's insta cc)", you just want to bang your head on the wall.
There is so much misconception about the skald it is not even funny. Skalds have power regen song ... Skalds have more hp and have a better combat table than bards and minstrels ... Skalds have a stun shout (for the love of Odin, please Mythic FIX THAT DAMN SONG NAME) ... Skalds shoot fireball from their eyes ... Skalds eat babies ...
Half digested gank squad encounters, and memories of griefing at sauvage gates by level 20 mixed up, and the false idea of who is doing what in the opposing group (or : if the elf enchanter baseline stuns you for 9s, nukes you and the blademaster finishes you in melee, do you blame the blademaster because he is overpowered ?) ...
About this I'll just quote our favorite TL here (10/2002 TL report)
"Perception, not fact, is causing a great injustice to the Skald class. We have become DAoC's equivalent of an EQ Druid. Everyone knows someone who plays one
and how perfect as a class we are, yet cannot back it up with actual and factual data. Well the tally is in and the Skald players are just tired of putting up with it"
5) Numbers and RP statistics
"Skald is a often played class, gains realm points at a reasonable rate (according to various RvR statistics sites ...). On first glance, the skald both look like a popular class, with no outstanding issues in RvR that prevent it from acquiring realm ranks. And just look at what happens on the 'dreds ..."
Well, the statistics are certainly true, but you can draw any conclusion you want from numbers.
I'am sure many here remember what happened, something like 6 ? months ago for the hunter class, at the time the class was truly one of the most pitiful class
in the game, long before they got a bit of lovin'. After months of hard work, efforts, countless tests and logs, and, a unique thing, the open support of the scout and ranger TLs who completely agreed there was something wrong with the hunter class compared to their archer's counterparts, the hunter TL at least managed to catch Mythic's attention, and got a promise from a Mythic representative that the class would get looked at and possibly revamped. At the same moment, a patch gave a little generic "archer love" ("good" thrusting and blunt arrows notably).
So, many of the hunter old timers actually logged their retired hunter again, and were pretty active testing the generic archer love, and just played their character again in anticipation of the upcoming changes.
To keep the story short : this particular week, hunters across the servers earned a decent amount of RP's and many of them were logged on, thus showing in
a high rank on the number crunching RvR sites.
So, the mythic developer gave the hunter community that dreaded response, something like "err well, I have checked, you guys are doing well at the moment, so your class seem fine, we won't fix anything".
Kthxbye, one of the biggest slap in the face in the history of Mythic public relations.
What does this have to do with skalds ? Simply that that kind of number crunching can be twisted or interpreted any way you want. You can prove anything and the opposite.
Skalds are numerous ? A lot of alts, secondary characters, battlegrounds demigods (many of the skalds issues are actually specific to the 40+ crowd), speed bots. The class has an incredibly high turnover. A lot of old timer have rerolled, or play infrequently. As the skald is becoming more and more of a bot, it doesn't really change the numbers, just the number of really active skalds.
In a team based game, in a realm versus realm context when it is all about group of people face to face, there is no room for mediocrity, for watered down abilities, for "jack of all trades, but master of no one" versatility. We need to have a niche, and speed is not enough.
We must either have paladin-level fighting abilities (and it may, or may not include a self haste spell, more spec points, shield, whatever), or more diverse and useful support song (plus upgrades to what we have now, 10dps 1500 range damage add and 1200 or 1500 range DDs, thanks ...).
What's wrong with the skald class ?
These days, a lot of skalds threads are appearing on various messages boards, and a growing sentiment of weariness seems to appear among the skald community.
The criticisms are not "new" however ... you can follow the history of the Team Skald boards, and of our TL's report to realize the same problems have plagued
the class for 6+ months. But it just seems that, now that many of the classes that were considered as below average received a bit of loving during the passed months,
the state of the skald is even more of a problem. However, a significant portion of the player community (and supposedly among Mythic's designers) seems quite convinced that the skald class is perfectly fine and has no outstanding problems, thus widening the gap between them, and fed up skald players. So, I will attempt to clarify things, and explain what is wrong.
This thread will not much deal with facts, because you can simply find all the factual data you need on the TL report and other various threads, logs and sources. This is more of an opinion, a perspective.
1) What the heck is a skald ?
A good number of skald issues today are that the class has never been truly defined as a category. Is the skald a pure supporting class like the warden or bard ? Is the skald a melee hybrid like a paladin or champion ? The most distressing thing when discussing about skald's problems, is that, whatever the subject of the discussion is, the skald falls always in the "other" category. Skalds complain they are outmeleed by almost anything that can wield a club ? "You are support, you are a music class, you are not supposed to melee". Skalds complain that they have only one support song with many flaws worth running in battle and ask for a revamp of their battlesong line ? "Bah, you are a melee class, you are not supposed to have that much support anyway".
It is pretty clear that the skald is all too often conveniently forgotten.
For example, the 1.51 patch (the "caster" patch) added much to many support classes, including additional CC for minstrels and bards, and love for friars, wardens ... The whole "melee balancing process" (from 1.51 to 1.53 patches), besides giving a lot of love to "pure" tanks, also strenghtened the spell line for each other melee hybrid (paladin, thane, champion) as compensation.
In both cases ... the skald was forgotten. Not even mentioned.
This lack of definition is clearly one of the most serious problems skalds face, and it makes the task for the skald community and our team leader, almost impossible. Should we get more of this ? More of that ? Less of this, but much more of that ?
Staying in a status-quo of mediocrity is not a good solution. Even if it "disappoints" half of the community, Mythic has to take a definitive stance, and improve one of the aspects of our class, whichever they choose.
2) A static class in an ever evolving game
Since the first weeks of release, there has been two "major" changes done directly to the skald classs (not counting general changes like resistances, various CC nerfs, snare fix/nerf ...) :
- the introduction of resist songs
- the consequences and side effects of the minstrel's rebalancing last patch (normalized costs on shouts, rest song now scales properly at higher levels)
That's it. Sure, there has been no real direct nerf, that's a good thing.
But, honestly, if you have a look at all the patches since the beginning, do you realize how much the game has evolved ? The whole dynamics of RvR have been tweaked, reworked, revamped, reengineered, reversed a lot of times. All classes had their concepts, their spell lines, completely revamped.
The simple fact is that our class was "balanced" during beta, with certain game mechanics in mind. The balance has so much shifted that it is not only the power of the skalds that have shifted (from balanced - not overpowered like some said - , to
below average), but the role of the class, like I said previously, that has to be rethought and revaluated.
The skald class has been ignored for too long. It is time to act, and have a clear vision.
3) Teh needz for speedz
"But you have speed" : the killing blow to any attempt at understanding what the skald is about. For that matter, we could have 1hp, cloth armor, no spells and wield a toothpick, we would be fine because we have "speedz".
Sure, having a major power should have a "cost" (especially considering the fact we don't need a lute equipped). The question is, how high is too high. It is not even a pure class balancing question. It's about having something valuable and constructive to do when speed is down, just because having a character than can do something valuable in battle is the core of the game.
Failing to achieve this, means being a "bot". A "taxi".
In my subjective opinion, although bards and minstrels certainly could use a bit of love to some extent, they don't pay as high of a price than the skald.
Not to mention the classes that have other "major" powers, like area CC, area DOTS, PB or GTAOE, bladeturn. None of those classes are as much as a one trick pony than the skald. None.
4) Perception and perspective
Sometimes you just want to sigh, give up, and reroll a new class.
When you see a level 48 paladin "proving" with half-understood game mechanics that skalds have a better melee than paladins (aye, it's worth the laugh) or when you see a guy who speaks about the skald's "uber mez (better then healer's insta cc)", you just want to bang your head on the wall.
There is so much misconception about the skald it is not even funny. Skalds have power regen song ... Skalds have more hp and have a better combat table than bards and minstrels ... Skalds have a stun shout (for the love of Odin, please Mythic FIX THAT DAMN SONG NAME) ... Skalds shoot fireball from their eyes ... Skalds eat babies ...
Half digested gank squad encounters, and memories of griefing at sauvage gates by level 20 mixed up, and the false idea of who is doing what in the opposing group (or : if the elf enchanter baseline stuns you for 9s, nukes you and the blademaster finishes you in melee, do you blame the blademaster because he is overpowered ?) ...
About this I'll just quote our favorite TL here (10/2002 TL report)
"Perception, not fact, is causing a great injustice to the Skald class. We have become DAoC's equivalent of an EQ Druid. Everyone knows someone who plays one
and how perfect as a class we are, yet cannot back it up with actual and factual data. Well the tally is in and the Skald players are just tired of putting up with it"
5) Numbers and RP statistics
"Skald is a often played class, gains realm points at a reasonable rate (according to various RvR statistics sites ...). On first glance, the skald both look like a popular class, with no outstanding issues in RvR that prevent it from acquiring realm ranks. And just look at what happens on the 'dreds ..."
Well, the statistics are certainly true, but you can draw any conclusion you want from numbers.
I'am sure many here remember what happened, something like 6 ? months ago for the hunter class, at the time the class was truly one of the most pitiful class
in the game, long before they got a bit of lovin'. After months of hard work, efforts, countless tests and logs, and, a unique thing, the open support of the scout and ranger TLs who completely agreed there was something wrong with the hunter class compared to their archer's counterparts, the hunter TL at least managed to catch Mythic's attention, and got a promise from a Mythic representative that the class would get looked at and possibly revamped. At the same moment, a patch gave a little generic "archer love" ("good" thrusting and blunt arrows notably).
So, many of the hunter old timers actually logged their retired hunter again, and were pretty active testing the generic archer love, and just played their character again in anticipation of the upcoming changes.
To keep the story short : this particular week, hunters across the servers earned a decent amount of RP's and many of them were logged on, thus showing in
a high rank on the number crunching RvR sites.
So, the mythic developer gave the hunter community that dreaded response, something like "err well, I have checked, you guys are doing well at the moment, so your class seem fine, we won't fix anything".
Kthxbye, one of the biggest slap in the face in the history of Mythic public relations.
What does this have to do with skalds ? Simply that that kind of number crunching can be twisted or interpreted any way you want. You can prove anything and the opposite.
Skalds are numerous ? A lot of alts, secondary characters, battlegrounds demigods (many of the skalds issues are actually specific to the 40+ crowd), speed bots. The class has an incredibly high turnover. A lot of old timer have rerolled, or play infrequently. As the skald is becoming more and more of a bot, it doesn't really change the numbers, just the number of really active skalds.
In a team based game, in a realm versus realm context when it is all about group of people face to face, there is no room for mediocrity, for watered down abilities, for "jack of all trades, but master of no one" versatility. We need to have a niche, and speed is not enough.
We must either have paladin-level fighting abilities (and it may, or may not include a self haste spell, more spec points, shield, whatever), or more diverse and useful support song (plus upgrades to what we have now, 10dps 1500 range damage add and 1200 or 1500 range DDs, thanks ...).
