bard synergy crystal

[Fuglypump]

(2) increases damage of cadence by 15%
I'm alright with this bonus, as long as its a real 15% increase, not a silly base 15% increase which is more or less really a 3% increase

(4) Reduces the cooldowns of Verse abilities by 20%
This bonus sucks! Not even worth getting if I can find items with better stats elsewhere! Here's why:

Verse of Vitality: This is by far the most useful of the verse abilities, but 20% is only a 12 second reduction, and I only use Verse of Vitality when I REALLY need to use it, I've learned the cooldowns and capabilities of my fellow healers so I know exactly when to use verse of vitality, and quite frankly, I'm alright with a 60 second cooldown, because I only use it every about minute and a half.

Verse of Joy: This ability has always been hard to gauge when exactly it's useful for the raid to use, It's really useful for warmaster in river of souls because of all the draining that the boss does, but in fights where there's no external draining of people's resources, it's really not that useful. Ferver really does its job in keeping people's energy up, Verse of Joy seems like it's overkill and is a waste of points spent into bard IMO. (my build doesn't even have joy in it.) Although I think this is mostly a problem with verse of joy, it's not really a good ability to invest 51 points into getting it. (I think it should additionally reduce the global cooldown by .25 or something)

Verse of Captivation: What?

Verse of Fascination: you and aoe mez 6 seconds earlier than before... honestly what bard spams this ability as soon as its up other than a pvp bard? No dedicated pvp'er is going to sacrifice 4 pieces of gear with valor in order to get 6 off of their cooldown of this ability.

Trion I hope you read this and think of a better bonus for the 4 piece synergy

[Fuglypump]

Verse of Rebirth: I forgot this was a Verse, but again... what???

with Fascination being as un-viable as an upgrade as it is, you're really only looking at 2 out of 5 verse abilities being effected by this synergy bonus.

my spec doesn't use verse of joy, so for me it's 1 out of 5.

Here are some of the alternative ideas i thought of for either bonus on the synergy crystal for bards.

Coda of Restoration and Coda of Fury effect 3 additional targets
Increases the effectiveness of Fanfare abilities by 20% (an additional 8 to each attribute)
Increases the effectiveness of Anthem abilities by 20% (ferver = 15% / comp = 23%)
Motif of Regeneration effects all party and raid members
Increases the duration of Motif's by 10 seconds
Increases the range of cadence by 10
Virtuoso increases energy regeneration by 25% and reduces the global cooldown by .5 seconds
Virtuoso lasts 5 additional seconds

[Frozenflood]

I would love to have the 4 piece bonus have to do with finishers extending motifs.

[Villainelle]

I would love to have the 4 piece bonus have to do with finishers extending motifs.

Oh my god, this.

There's a precedent set, since the Assassin crystal applies Expose Weakness after Final Blow.

Please make this happen.

Also, 15% increase to Cadence is negligible. I'd rather see something like Cadence gives 5CP instead of 3.

[Fuglypump]

i'd pretty much be happy with anything, the current synergies are pretty crap.

[Fuglypump]

i really hope trion reads this, there's definitely a problem.

[Swordfishy]

It's better than no set bonuses at all

[Relanex]

It's better than no set bonuses at all

That's not always true. Some of those sinergy crystals were truely bad.

Asphodel's Inquisitor Crystal
(2): Gives Bolt of Judgment a 5% chance to reset the cooldown on Sanction Heretic.

Sanction Heretic
54 Mana
Instant
Cooldown: 15.00 Seconds
Lambastes the enemy, dealing 80 to 83 Life damage. Sanction deals an additional 152 Life damage over 15 seconds.

Ok, so a blast that has a 15 second dot after it. If you suddenly reset this you blast the opponent and overwrite your dot with another dot. If this happens quickly in succession you have basically burned mana for a loss of dps.

[sandpaper3]

my guess is this is a nerf by default kinda thing.

Because there are no good bonuses yet, my guess is that the Devs feel like Bards are already too good.

But Im Certainly with you guys! better bard stuff!

[Phage]

I would love, love to see Fervor 15%.

That 13% drives me crazy.

Putting Competence would be just as aggravating, but at least is less common.

[Mulch]

15% increase in cadence is very much in-line with what others get.

Shorter cooldowns are awesome if it lets you get one more use per fight. If you don't, then it got you nothing.

So ya, it's not a thermonuclear upgrade, but look at what ho-hum sort of things other souls get, especially on the souls that are kind of popular.

Trion is leaving these weak on purpose, perhaps so patch 1.6 can bring some really good ones. who knows...

[strych9]

Honestly I find this thread funny when you put it in context. Firstly, you get a set bonus by wearing gear you were already going to use because its the best gear. Second, these bonuses look pretty good to me. Think about what an upgrade of one peice of armor does - its like 2 or 3 points to each of your stats. Even if that 15% works out to actually be 3%, is that comparable to what you would get from 2 or 3 of each stat added? I am willing to bet it is far better.

Furthermore, if you look at the other callings crystals you will find a few examples of better ones, many examples of similar ones, and quite a few examples of crappier ones. Someone already pointed out the inquisitor one, but all of the cleric ones are worse than this. To give you a few more examples - the cabalist one gives you bonus to dot damage as you put more points in the tree (much like the 36 root passives) which would make sense if the cabalist used dots... they have one spell which you can spec into which has it. Another example is the shaman one that gives you a chance to hit 2x when you use the baseline ability. The problem is that ability doesn't get used much since its only when everything else is on cool down so if you do some rough math you will see that this will likely happen once every 5 minutes.

In summary, I think that's a pretty good example of what should be done for a lot of the crystals.

[Festo]

15% increase in cadence is very much in-line with what others get.

How can you say this when they Paragon bonus exists? Seriously, how is "Increases the damage of abilities that require 2 weapons equipped by 30%." equal to the Bard bonus? Please tell me how, I would REALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLY like to know. How does the Bard bonus increase the effectiveness of the class by the same amount the Paragon bonus increases their effectiveness? I know I'm repeating myself here but I would really love to know how you came to this conclusion.

[elshagan]

How can you say this when they Paragon bonus exists? Seriously, how is "Increases the damage of abilities that require 2 weapons equipped by 30%." equal to the Bard bonus? Please tell me how, I would REALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLY like to know. How does the Bard bonus increase the effectiveness of the class by the same amount the Paragon bonus increases their effectiveness? I know I'm repeating myself here but I would really love to know how you came to this conclusion.

Bard: Support Soul not meant to have high dps... so a +15% dmg boost is alright...

Paragon: DPS soul meant to have high dps besides it's already been tested out n it is only an effective 3% increase since it's additive...

[joker225]

Bard: Support Soul not meant to have high dps... so a +15% dmg boost is alright...

Paragon: DPS soul meant to have high dps besides it's already been tested out n it is only an effective 3% increase since it's additive...

Yes, obviously this is what makes sense...
If Bard's DPS is increased the same % as bladedancer's dps it is called balance because bard is not a dps soul.
Right...