User:Larx666/Bard

The Bard Hero class was first introduced as a an April Fools' Day hoax by Blizzard in 2008. The class was presented as damage dealer and buffing class that used a Guitar Hero-like UI. Although revealed to be a joke, the Bard could still be introduced as new hero class with a unique role in World of Warcraft.

Backround
In the wake of the various wars and disasters that have ripped through Azeroth over the past years, The people of both the Alliance and the Horde have become dejected and begun to lose hope over ever seeing the end of suffering. However, A new breed of heroes have arisen to fortify the hearts and spirits of their people. These new adventurers use the power of song to strengthen their allies, dishearten their foes, and destroy those that would harm the free people of Azeroth. These are the Bards.

General
The Bard class will fufill three roles depending on what Talents they specialize in.


 * Death Metal- The talent tree that improves the destructiveness of the Bard's damaging music to kill foes using mostly Direct Damage.
 * Punk- The second Talent tree empowers the Bard's Debuffs to lower enemy stats signifigantly and do some DOT.
 * Psychedelic- The final Bard talent tree focuses on bolstering the stats of other Party members.

As a resource, Bards use Mana like other caster classes. Unlike the Guitar Hero based UI jokingly proposed by Blizzrd which would require much time to program, de-bug, and integrate into the current system, Bards use a standard action bar.

Strengths

 * Able to inflict multiple types of spell damage, including physical (Death Metal)
 * Excellent buff/ debuff cababilities, modified by spell power (Psychedelic/ Punk)
 * Excellent crowd control (Punk)
 * Unique role in groups and raids (Punk/ Psychedelic)

Weaknesses

 * Only able to wear leather armor (besides those specializing in Death Metal)
 * Preformance in groups, raids, and PvP may rely heavily other group members (Punk/ Psychedelic)

Armor
The Bard class wears leather armor. The exception to this norm are Death Metal Bards, who gain the ability to wear mail armor when they decide to specialize in their tree.

Weapons
The starting weapon of any new bard is the most standard of all possible weapons they can wield, a Two-handed Axe. Upon starting out, the new musician will learn the bard crafting skill that, like the Death Knight's Runeforging ability, is exclusive to their class. This new skill will allow Bards to convert standard weapons into Instruments. By doing so, the bard will have unique animations as they use their instruments while casting spells The weapons convert as follows:


 * Two-handed Axe=> Guitar
 * One-Handed Axe=> Ukulele (Main hand)
 * One-handed Mace=> Drumstick (Main Hand)
 * Staff=> Microphone
 * Shield=> Amplifier

Off-hand items are not converted into instruments. When a bard is wielding a 1H mace in his or her main hand, he or she will play a set of automaticily summoned arcane drums while casting spells. If a second mace is not equipped in the bard's off hand, a copy of the main hand mace will appear in it and the item equipped in the off hand will remain sheathed. Bards are innately able to dual wield The Bard's ranged slot will be able to hold a wand which will act normally. A Bard has to have an instrument equipped in his or her main hand slot in order to use most spells, but can convert weapons into instruments anytime outside of battle. All instruments are Soulbound.

Abilities
The Bards have the ability to use different types of music depending on the situation, their role, and their specialization. Generally, Bard spells can be divided into 4 types.


 * Chords- Instant cast spells that have an immediate effect such as a short buff or a burst of damage
 * Notes- Long term buffs usually cast out of battle
 * Gooves- Spells with specific cast times that have some effect such as a Debuff or damage
 * Songs- Channeled spells that have an effect as the Bard plays them. These are the most potent spells in a Bard's arsenal.

All types of these spells are capable of offensive, defensive, and support magic. Additionally, there are both single target and AOE types of each kind of spell.

Talents
The 3 Talent trees of the Bard class are Death Metal, Punk, and Psychedelic.

Death Metal
Masteries:

1. Increased spell damage

2. Increased spell critical damage

3. Heavy Metal- damaging spell criticals inflict additional Physical damage to foes and reduce enemy armor by X% for Y seconds based on damage dealt and Mastery. Stacks with all other armor reducing effects.

Final Talent:

Face Melt- Song that inflicts shadow damage to target. Face Melt becomes more powerful as it reaches its completion. When Face Melt finishes or is interupted, it instantly inflicts shadow damage to its target equal to all damage dealt during channeling.

Death Metal is the Bard specialization that focuses on inflicting direct damage to enemies through shadow, nature, and physical damage spells. The physical damage type spells inflict damage based on spellpower not attack power. The main focus of the Death Metal is to stupify enemies with an endless stream of spell damage puncuated by by massive criticals to blow them away.

Punk
Masteries:

1. Increased spell damage

2. Increased spell haste

3. Sound and Fury- Every time a debuff on an enemy is applied to an enemy, The bard gains a stack of Anarchy, increasing spell haste by X% for Y seconds. Spell haste recieved is increased by Mastery.

Final Talent:

Mosh Pit- Set an area that lasts 20 sec. All enemies in that area lose 20% melee haste and 30% movement speed. When the mosh pit dissapears, all enemies inside it at the time take X nature damage.

The punk specialization focuses the bard on inflicting a plethora of debuffs, many of which that are exlusive to punks. Although lacking in actual damage from the bard, The punk tree allows a bard to quickly reduce enemies to such weakness that the rest of your party can easily mow over the infeebled foes. Examples of debuffs inflicted by the punk specialized bards are reduced movement speed, reduced attck, reduced haste, silencing, and increased chance of being hit. The punk tree also specializes in crowd control with stun, snare, fear, and knock back effects.

Pschedelic
Masteries:

1. Increased Mana

2. Increased Spirit

3. Cosmic Mana- applying buffs on members of your party or raid may cause them to be healed for X health each second over Y seconds based your spirit and Mastery. If the target or targets reach maximum health, this effect dissapears and causes the target or targets to generate Z of their mana/runic power/energy/focus/rage over the remaining time based on your spirit and Mastery. this effect stacks up to 9 times. Mastery increases chance this effect is applied.

Final Talent:

Endless Jam- Your next single target song that effects a friendly unit has its channeling time doubled, affects all members of the party or raid within 100 yards, and its effects last for 20 sec after channeling is finished.

The psychadelic tree of the bard empowers the spells that buff allies. Like the punk tree, this specialization does little in terms of damage or healing. However, it does make the rest of bard's group powerful enough to make up for him or her. With a psychadelic bard around, damage dealers will reach new records, tanks will take less damage, and healers will able to cope with tough situations easier. Although not a healer, the psychadelic bard keeps group members alive in a different way.