VC

[Corran]

FIX VC ... How ?

Simple .. Make it work like mimic .. play and record the groups damage over 10 seconds for the first element then play it back to provide an amplifed hit on attacks for a portion of the recorded damage.

 

[Randalph]

I love the idea on a fundamental level, but it would have a huge influence on raid setups if you did that and it will make burst classes even more meta than they currently are. It would also be the final nail in the coffin on what used to define an afk bard, a mediocre one and a good one.

I rather they increased the VC cap, increased all CA damage on bards or even added something like a new passive effect to Songster's Luck/Song of Magic that "Increases the bards profession ability damage by X per active debuff on target".

There is no question VC needs some work, the question is how do you do it without causing more issues with the game and introducing another "mimic" which is a borderline broken and game breaking ability at the moment.

 

[Scrappyz]

While I stand by my statement that "As long as mimic is a thing, Bards will likely never catch Chanters," I agree with Randalph that turning RO into a group record isn't quite the answer for bards. RO/VC is the bards' class defining skill and historically has been the bard measuring stick for how "well played" one is. Turning RO into a group record wouldn't be in the best interest for bards as it would take away from that defining skill as well as create more problems than it'd solve. (Disparity between bards due to group make ups, pet damage probably wouldn't count so rip a vc that's recorded from summoners, etc)

There's really two things that need to happen to Fix VC:
1. Bard abilities need a significant increase in damage (both Spells and CA's need to get looked at)

Note: I understand this point requires its own series of posts with details on individual spells, but stating it vaguely here is relevant as there's no "fix" to the RO/VC problem without bards getting an increase in damage output​

-Increasing ability damage would result in higher VCs and would have bards go back to having "VC chains" as we did in the past which would make playing bards more fun​

2. The trigger limit needs to either be removed, or at the very least significantly increased.

-On a 7.5min fight, both necros in my group procced VC 21 times. Which is an average of only 3 times per cast of VC. With VC lasting 12s, that means they only triggered VC to hit once every 4 seconds resulting in the damage of VC to be negligent as part of their damage output. ​

Note: Milage varies from fight to fight, this data was taken from just a straight turn and burn with no movement included​

-In order for VC to be a relevant group damage proc again, it should be hitting every second, as a dot, or triggered off any damage cast from the group​

Sidenote: I'm unsure of the multipliers and whatnot that actually go into the RO/VC formula, so if damage has to be lowered slightly to account for higher trigger counts or even if bards get an increase in damage that's a discussion we can have as well

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In summary, RO/VC definitely needs some help to become its class defining ability once again, however, making it work like mimic doesn't seem like the best course of action. The best course at least in my opinion, would be to take a look at increasing bard ability damage (something that requires a series of detailed posts), and raising or eliminating the trigger limit of VC.

 

[echoing]

so the formula from what i remember was it charged off your damage (excluding procs and stuff) for RO. and then VC was 6% of the damage recorded (3% per point) and then scaled off your potency and CB, and then the fervor applied was from the person procing VC. not sure if the is what you were asking 100%

as for charging VC there is always going to be the perfect rotation and it isnt hard to figure out. the only time you can tell the good bards form the bad is the select situations in the past where you could AOE charge, or good ole days with Ro deity spell charging. the problem comes from how little damage bard abilties do compared to ascensions. i know i havent number crunched like i did in the past but still dropping ascensions to charge it most likely just due to damage per cast time is the way to go and just feels bad

there shouldnt have ever been a trigger limit to begin with. for dirges it is a 10 sec buff and troubs it is a 11 sec buff??? with recovery speed being removed and you only cast things with a .25 cast time and then had the .5 recovery speed you are at most going to get 13 cast off (single target). i only have seen a few parses where people run it and even with 13 procs over the 3 or 4 it still isnt a class defining ability or have anything that brings a wow factor or would even come close to mimic. i would say you would need to remove the limit and increase the % recorded but that just feels like an easy bandaid solution. the dirge's do have infectious disonance when increase the extra damage appied to VC but i dont think anyone ever ran it even back in the day (unsure on this as i was a troub for the longest time) but could be something you can then make synergis with VC for something cool

 

[Skoen]

RO/VC use to be a huge buff for dirges long ago, it just isn’t used nearly as much as it once was and that’s sad. It used to define when a dirge was good. As far as buffing it I would simply increase the amount recorded into the buff and make it proc more often than it does currently.

 

[Bentenn]

RO/VC use to be a huge buff for dirges long ago, it just isn’t used nearly as much as it once was and that’s sad. It used to define when a dirge was good. As far as buffing it I would simply increase the amount recorded into the buff and make it proc more often than it does currently.

If they were able to fix some mobs in game and allow it to proc more then they would. DEN Challenge was the reason they put the limitation on it and I doubt they will ever lift or change that unfortunately. They need to add something else to it since they won't change it, just not sure what that would be.

 

[Chath]

If they were able to fix some mobs in game and allow it to proc more then they would. DEN Challenge was the reason they put the limitation on it and I doubt they will ever lift or change that unfortunately. They need to add something else to it since they won't change it, just not sure what that would be.

Yeah, I remember how broken it was in den challenge because of powering it on the massive waves and then using it on the boss, but I think it was a quick fix of seeing an ability that didn't have a proc-per-X-time limit in place and attaching it, the same as how Curse of Darkness was nerfed due to TLE or whatever with a similar mechanism that broken its functionality. Doesn't mean they aren't weak and can't be revisited though, just that they may need to be adjusted via values rather than changing the proc limit.

I'd lean towards keeping VC powered by the bard's damage alone but attach some multiplier to the ratio of damage recorded -> proc damage. Some of this could be fixed if bard damage as a whole is buffed so maybe not much work would need to be done here: VC could be fixed as a side-effect of buffing bard damage themselves. Still, it could be buffed up a bit by somewhere between +50% (meaning the bard's damage would count 50% more than it currently does for the purposes of what's recorded and translated into proc damage) to several times over.

For the procs themselves, if they don't want to go the route of relaxing the prox limit, it could have the duration increased. I think it should definitely proc off any combat hit to make it much easier to proc - I think it's still just melee hits.

 

[Skoen]

Yeah, I remember how broken it was in den challenge because of powering it on the massive waves and then using it on the boss, but I think it was a quick fix of seeing an ability that didn't have a proc-per-X-time limit in place and attaching it, the same as how Curse of Darkness was nerfed due to TLE or whatever with a similar mechanism that broken its functionality. Doesn't mean they aren't weak and can't be revisited though, just that they may need to be adjusted via values rather than changing the proc limit.

I'd lean towards keeping VC powered by the bard's damage alone but attach some multiplier to the ratio of damage recorded -> proc damage. Some of this could be fixed if bard damage as a whole is buffed so maybe not much work would need to be done here: VC could be fixed as a side-effect of buffing bard damage themselves. Still, it could be buffed up a bit by somewhere between +50% (meaning the bard's damage would count 50% more than it currently does for the purposes of what's recorded and translated into proc damage) to several times over.

For the procs themselves, if they don't want to go the route of relaxing the prox limit, it could have the duration increased. I think it should definitely proc off any combat hit to make it much easier to proc - I think it's still just melee hits.

The whole group damage is just to much, but increasing the bards damage recorded I think would help fix the issue. It doesn’t make sense to change an entire ability for 1 mob but it appears that’s what happens and it never gets changed back

 

[Taiyla]

A good start to improving RO/VC would be to allow Dagger Storm to be used for recording again. This would be very helpful to a dirge since we don't have many choices for AOE's and we all know that a good charge comes from a group of mobs.

 

[RubyHOF]

There's also the possibility of not increasing the bards ca/spell damage, but just increasing the amount of that damage that was "counted" moving from 6% to something higher.

 

[Vlkodlak]

I would love to see VC to be as useful as it was when I still raided on my Dirge, since the bard's DPS has not been updated to where they should be it does hamper the proc for VC. If there was to be a Mimic component, I would rather see it along the lines of the Chanter's mimic of one target, then a portion of it is transferred to the group. I feel if the entire groups DPS was brought into the mimic, the VC proc has the possibility of being insanely overpowered.

As an alternative I would love to see the Bard's overall dps multipliers be increased to overall make them more powerful and thusly increase their VC's. Bards are such a fun class and have been left behind for some time, they deserve some dps boost loving.