EverQuest II Players - News - Article 1440
Fin de la NDA (Accord de non-divulgation) pour The Shadow Odyssey!  
Nous sommes heureux de vous annoncer la fin de la NDA TSO  
C'est officiel, la NDA (Accord de non-divulgation) est levée pour TSO. L'accord de confidentialité signé avec les beta-testeurs et la presse a été levé ce matin. Ce sera donc l'occasion de découvrir une foule de nouvelles informations sur les secrets de TSO et de découvrir tout ce que les testeurs ont expérimenté pendant ces derniers mois.  

Ok I know this is work in progress, so I'm giving it that latitude already. But if the general overview is to remain the same then it's a poor expansion for the dirge as class concept. In this statement, I mean that a majority of the abilities in Bard and Dirge all increase dps of the Dirge and don't enhance our fundamental class type being utility.  
 
General - Ignored for consideration due to global AA group for all play styles.  
 
Scout :  
 
Focus Cheap Shot (5% reuse per pt): Solo and grouper choice, this appear to be fine for that style of play.  
 
Strengthened Links (242 Group mit per pt): Probably the best option for group and raiding dirge as the group mit from the parry buff makes the parry buff worth using outside of the highest of high encounters. Although the same issue that has dogged the dirge ever since T6 is that people hit the defence caps without the buff itself. All in all however the mit bonus appears to be about right for scaling.  
 
Enhance: Quick Strike (1.5% base and crit dmg per pt): Scout Tree so dps option, this is fine it's going to be hard to balance all scout classes and its only possible with an option to each type of play style. This being the dps option.  
 
Enhance: Sinister Strike (5s reuse per pt): Highly situational and so many mobs in the game are not correctly body typed (so many a time you see a ghost but this strike won't work). The recast timer reduction is meaningless as it's a once per fight option and with raids you have a multiples and so the longest encounters have that for the use option. If anything, this should increase its effectiveness of the ability itself or add defence reductions or detaunts.  
 
Offensive Prowess (5% skill bonus to ability  per pt): Increases weapons skills by 1pt per pt of the dirge skill ability. This has no effective affect on the buff itself and with the dirge/troub reduces the Minstrel's Aria AA in effectiveness. Adding weapon accuracy for dirges and resistibility reduction for troub's would be the most liked option here.  
 
Shadow Walker (2.5% stealth speed per pt): Ok I get it; it's the flavour option that no one will ever use. If you want to make it a valid option, then an auto restealth on damage would be the most valued option as an idea.  
 
End Line: Evasive Maneuvers (-3 hate places & 1546-2288 melee damage): Nice for preds, somewhat of a use to rogues and pointless to a bard if a bard is ever taking agro (crazy ring proc of SoH ignored) then the fighter lost his taunt buttons in the wash. An increase to (de)hate mods, and % increase to all (de)hate values would be more useful for all. This is the only ability that should have real function for all classes in the tree. Or if the Peds/Rogues are happy with position ability, then just make the bard agro buff no concentration. As this now inflicts damage, the bards will take it for the damage option more than the hate option.  
 
Bard :  
 
Defensive Ballard (5% skill bonus to ability per pt): You've already empowered the defensive song in the Scout tree, and its already a option in the Bard Str tree. Is this just running out of ideas repeats? Add riposte chance to the buff maybe would be a new idea.  
 
Shrieking Cry (3% dam, 2% crit per pt): Dps increase on a spell that is so low in damage it actually reduces dps to cast over auto attack. Either add casting speed of 5% per pt or amp up the damage to 5%/3% per pointover 3/2 ppt  
 
Flanking Chorus (3% dam, 2% crit per pt): More Dps, as I mentioned at the start, class concept is utility I don't mind having the dps option, but for having 4 out of 6 in the bard line being dps this needs to be rebalanced to be at least 3/3 in the favour of utility. As a counter if you want to add some partial utility and dps, the removing the stealth requirement on stealth backstabs of the bard is an option. OFC you would need to have a flat cost for this probably about 3pts and this allows more spread of points (2pts) over the other options.  
 
Selo's Rousing Concerto (10% bonus to buff per pt Now flat 5% per pt addition): It's there for the option to make the bards the magic speed misters and the option is what people have wanted in forever (even if they'd love it as base thing). But overall, its still doesn't make use the fastest class for ground movement with all 5pts in it. Increase this from 10% per point to 20% per point please then all is fine and well.   This gives us a max speed option of 71% with max aa's in both trees and therefore faster than mounts. Its probably the best we can hope for with these bonus. Now if only bonus' stacked with our aa's SMILEY  
 
Chorus of Reflection (5% dam increase to proc): (Another dps boost) Useless in its current form (5% damage to the proc per pt). Either make it 5% damage and 10% proc rate increase for the soloer/grouper option, or something totally new.  
 
Intoxicating Notes (124 ave dam poison 2.8ppm): (Another dps boost), and again trying to give us poison. We didn't get poison for a reason, we're a utility class and it was our offset for the buff power (yes i know starting to be a broken record). If you want to give us a proc, don't make it dps. Make it a valid utility buff or debuff. You know one of the best options that come to mind is a proc like the nox blade from SoH, that reduces melee hit rates that stacks. Now if you had to many bards this would become over powered. But say 1% per point with a npc debuff cap of 10%?  
 
Dexterous Sonata (10% melee, ranged crit, 10% crit multipler): Fine!!! This is actually a great option for an end line that works with all classes. Heals are mentioned in text, but not in desc error?  
 
Dirge :  
 
Defensive Curse (10% damage and 3% defence increase per pt): Although another dps increase, that doesn't scale very well (broken?). Although it does have a defence decrease increase, so so about this one as it had nothing in the past AA's to help it. Now a reasonable damage increase, that scales per point.  
 
Deflecting Chorus (up to 33 physical damage reduction per pt): Bard's don't tank to start with (well I do on rare group options, when the tank afks, but my gear is a massive offset). Also 5 pts for up to 150 per hit is nothing at all when things hit you for 2-20k per swing. Now turn this into a group friend 0 concentration effect for 100 per point and that might have something going for it.  
 
Sacrificial Oration (2pts for stifle removal and increased cost): Fixed ability for 2pts and certainly an option for some players but the fuel increase cost need to be removed.  
 
Deathly Howl (5% casting speed and 3% dam/heal per pt): Dps and ability that already a heavy focus in the Dirge AA tree for life and death. Like the casting speed, but instead of the damage and heal increase, why not make it group heal off the spell instead of dirge healed? Again another dps option that could be made more class friendly for use.  
 
Viral Infection (3% damage and 2s duration reduction per pt): Dps increase again, so I won't repeat. How about something that affects our class debuffs as there is nothing in the dirge 2 tree, which does anything for Clara, Daro or Attack speed. This could happily replace one of the dps options in the dirge section.  
 
Skald's Striking (Adds 1 to Fortissmo per pt): Totally focused on AA from the Bard line which is bad to start with. How about adding the same bonus of DA and say some Crit at 1 per point to blade chime? Then it's not dependant on a previous AA.  
 
End line: Dual Wield Mastery (Melee crit 20, Weapon damage bonus 25) Disease Mastery (15% base damage, 25% casting speed for disease based spells): Basically makes ramping up our dps via auto attack. It's very nice for dps and with Battle cry is a balance in utility vs dps buffs. Now almost worthless ability, 15% damage on low damage output spells is hardly noticed. 25% cast speed still take to long to cast effectively during melee combat. If this also applied to CA's and also had some form of Reuse then this might get somewhere.  
 
End Line: Battle Cry (5% Flurry, 15% DA/RDA): Reasonable, but needs to be able to be self cast on the dirge. As fighters run around with Max DA most of the time, all these bonus DA options become less valued and will be most used on the dirge itself.  
 
Additional Comments: As mentioned a majority of this is for the Dirges personal dps and has a flavour for utility. This should have been the other way around for concept. The other issues that come to light is the lack of debuff increase or something that increases our concentration slots or removes them from abilities. An option in Bard is to remove concentration from Power song and (dehate) songs. This would give a lot more options across the board for the bard class as whole.  
 
As a whole, I know this is work in process as mentioned at the start and so there is some time to truly make this tree a valued addition to the class.  

et voui  ça fout les boules de savoir que la plupars de son matos T8 sera vite dépassé  mais d'un autre coté les compteurs sont remis à zéro comme ça et avec le systeme des shards tout le monde aura sa chance d'une certaine façon  

Concernant les bardes, il y a eu encore des changements ces derniers jours niveau AA alors de là à tirer des conclusions foireuses    rien que "Battle Cry" va faire des dirges le nouveau et tjrs meilleur ami des groupes/raids    .... t'inquietes pas Meg (sauf si tu fais que solo avec une classe essentiellement tournée vers le groupe) tu auras de quoi faire sur TsO  

Expédition nº 1 : Articles expédiés le 17 novembre 2008
Date d'envoi estimée :17 novembre 2008
  Date de livraison estimée :20 novembre 2008 (Plus d'infos sur les estimations)
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2 versions boite : 1 "Standard" a 29,99€, avec en bonus le fameux Dire Bear a /claim dans le jeu ainsi qu'un poster double face (Woot ! ), et une "Edition limité" 34,99€ avec en plus une figurine du Dire Bear (a mettre sur votre UC ).
 
La version téléchargeable sera à 29,99€, disponible sur le Deep Silver Online Store et sur DLGamer (pour nous francophone). Il y aura également une version de précommande, disponible du 14 Octobre au 17 Novembre, au même prix, et permettant de recevoir en cadeau en jeu une Void beast (Bête du Néant) dans sa cage, a mettre dans votre maison.