My Take On A Bard Class

Been a while since I tried designing a class so I'll try one that is heavily requested instead of my own idea.

The bard is one of the most requested classes, either tied with or above summoner, which I can't say I entirely understand. Every class is either a fighter or somebody who helps fighters. Since a bard would probably be the guy who plays background music, I think it'd be a support class rather than a full-on combat class, but I'll design it as a combat class with some support aspects.

This'll be formatted like my super old Gladiator suggestion.

Spoiler: Name and rank exclusive name

Wasn't too hard to come up with, though it is less cool than my previous class suggestion.

Name: Bard
Rank alternative name: Either Conductor or Musician

Spoiler: Stats

Attack: Low. This is to accommodate for the fact that its spells are really good.
Speed: Decent.
Defense: Low. How is a random bard supposed to be more well defended than a warrior?
Range: Great. The musical attacks can cover great range, so it is good with stopping enemies from reaching it.

Here's the detailed stats:
Damage: **
Defence: *
Range: *****
Spells: *****

Difficulty: ***
Weapon: A variety of instruments
Donor-exclusive reskin: Conductor/musician

Spoiler: Spells and combat

RLR: Conduct / Instruct. The bard conducts a small wave of powerful notes that are strong enough to break sizeable boulders (in the tutorial)
Upgrade 1: Sonar Song: Using this in the direction of a mob will highlight it with the glowing effect for all to see. Works even if the mob is behind a wall. Does not work on NPCs.
Upgrade 2: Rain dance: More music notes are added and they now shoot water droplets that deal water damage to enemies
Mana: 4
Duration: 1 second, glowing is 1 minute
Damage: 3* as much as the weapon will do with regular hits, the weapons are very weak so it is balanced

RRR: Warp whistle / Storm song. The bard plays a song that sends them into a tornado and spins them to the area they were facing.
Upgrade 1: Powerful tornado: The tornado now deals a lot of damage to anything it hits
Upgrade 2: Exponential growth: The tornado gets larger and gains range as it spins. Lightning bolt particles also crash down near it now which deal damage.
Mana: 5
Duration: Depends on distance
Damage: 2* that of the weapon used

RLL: Fury violin / Electric guitar. The bard furiously plays a violin (electric guitar on rank reskin) which sends a straight beam of music notes and wind in the direction they are facing. It can be controlled and lasts 3 seconds. Pushes enemies away
Upgrade 1: High notes: The guest does damage to enemies, dealing 10 hits to them if they remain in the beam which each deal 25% of the weapon damage
Upgrade 2: Lift: You can lift enemies off the ground and hold them into the gust, except if they have CCI. You can slam them into walls in this state which deals 750% of your weapon's regular damage per slam
Mana: 10
Duration: 3 seconds
Damage: 25% of the weapon damage, 750% for slams

RRL: Ocarina / Healing melody. The bard pulls out an ocarina and plays a song that heals all teammates to the same amount of health that they had 10 seconds ago. Does not make their health lower.
Upgrade 1: Reversal: The song will reduce nearby enemy HP to what it was 10 seconds ago if they regenerated it, does not increase their health.
Upgrade 2: Skill: The song will heal a little extra health for allies.
Mana: 15
Duration: Instant
Damage: None

Combat info:
The regular attack is a low-damage AOE song with 3 range around the player.

Spoiler: Lore

Bob never trained in this class
The electric guitar used by the reskin is from Corkus

Spoiler: Bonuses

2 of the regular spells are Zelda references

Each element has a different instrument:
Neutral: Guitar
Fire: Drums
Water: Tambourine
Air: Flute
Thunder: Harp
Earth: Pan flute

 

Another Bard Suggestion, neat :3
Ya already know the drill, cool base class suggestion, Bard is always a neat thing to see suggested, for a more Support centric class, with it being a low damage dealer but makes up for it's spells, or other areas. Also, nice addition to give the VIP class name. I will give some criticisms I noticed since some details seems either lacking or things that deter me from seeing this being an implemented class.

Some things on base I noticed. Range seems inaccurate, since while a lot of attacks are AOE, they seem to be short distanced, as Basic Attack is only 3 Blocks, and Spell 1 is described as "a small wave". I don't know how big Spell 3's line is, so idk from there, but for reference, Mage only has a Range Rating of 2 due to it's basic attack and Ice Snake being more on the short distance. Shaman and Archer are higher Range Rating due to their attacking being able to be activated far away to hit their enemies. Also, add the Range of all spells attacks, like how big is Spell 1, and Spell 4's AOE. How big is Spell 2's base AOE around you? How long does Spell 3 extend to? Also, elemental conversions, those are pretty important for addressing spells. Btw, you should probs move

to the top of Spells and Combat section, since that should probs be addressed first before the spells due to readers being curious what makes the high Range stat so high. (Also, not really a criticism, but mayhaps change Flute for Air skin into something different like a Clarinet, or Saxophone, so we don't have two archetypes named Flute? Just a small suggestion :) )

Conduct is interesting? So, it's similar to Bash and Spin Attack, which I can understand, having AOE first spell is good and all, and nothing we haven't seen before. 4 Mana fits the Spell Stat 5 department, but damage is where ya have to consider a few things. So, idk if ya knew beforehand, but Damage and Defense Stat is normally an indication of a Classes' Base Damage and HP multiplier. For example, Mage with a Damage rating of 2 has a 0.6x Damage Multiplier. (It is a bit wonky tho, since Warrior has a attack rating of 4 and deals 0.8x damage, and Archer also has a rating of 4 and deals 1x damage.) So, since Bard also have Damage Rating of 2, I assume it also deals 0.6x Damage. That means it deals 180% Damage when multiped by spell damage. Now, compared this to Assassin's Spin Attack; 1.2x times 150% is also 180% and Warrior's Grade 1 Bash; 0.8x times 170% is 136% (208% at Grade 2 and 3), this actually makes this more powerful that other Spell 1s at Grade 1 due to the lower Mana. I can see thing being very fun at early game. However, it's upgrades is where this makes the spell meh. Upgrade 1 is very situational. You can see the tags of enemies from a distance, so visibility of them shouldn't really be a problem for you or a team unless your in a fight with Blindness. How much more damage does Upgrade 2 do, and is it pure Water Damage? For example, Assassin's Multihits Upgrade 1, Fatality, adds a final hit with 120% Damage with 15% Water Conversion on the last hit with knockback.

Warp Whistle is a pretty cool movement spell! I can see this being pretty fun to use, quick, and dynamic! Both in overworld movement and combat! Upgrades are very cool, but you should probs clarify if the Lightning deals the same amount of damage as physically hitting enemies as Upgrade 1. Also, you should mention what is the max distance you can travel for some spell and if you are affected by gravity while doing so, like Charge.

Fury Violin needs more details. Does it damage the enemy every second they are in the beam, every half second? Since enemies HP don't beam away in vanilla Minecraft, it's all hits in narrow time frames. If it's every quarter second, that's 12 hits per spell, or 300% Damage unaffected by Class Base Damage, which I think makes sense due to it also pushing enemies way while not being as rapid or damaging as Mage's Meteor. Upgrade 1 is a lot. First off, idk what ya mean, by "the guest" here:

secondly, an extra 250% Damage, yikes. That's almost like adding a Grade 1 Multihit with slightly lesser damage. Here's the thing tho, I would be okay with this being Grade 3's Damage output, if it wasn't for Upgrade 2 also adding more damage. Then is Upgrade 2. So, when proofreading Class Suggestions I was going to post, a proofreader said it's actually not possible for Vanilla MC developers to program it so that they can detect if a mob hits a wall, so that's unfortunately a no go. Secondly, 750% Damage? Like, I know this spell costs 10 Mana, and it requires focus to basically telekinesis a mob to hit a wall, but 750% is way too much on top of all the other damage this spell does. For reference, Mage's Meteor does 500% Damage with the same Damage stat. Technically 625% at Grade 3. Fury Violin can deal supposedly deal up to 1300% Damage, that's a lot of damage. Also, if you can control multiple mobs to float, how big would your "beam" be, to tell if it scoops enemies up? So, yea, a lot has to be changed/edited for this spell.

Now, Ocarina is very unique! A very interesting last spell, that would require a lot of coordination for teams to use effectively. However, I feel like it would be too hard to use? Like, it's too hard to learn to get the timing right (since unless you have a timer you, you can't accurately gauge how much is 10 seconds) with too little pay off. Also, a couple of questions. Does the spell effect you? Since the spell would be near useless if you solo stuff. For Upgrade 2, how much extra Max. HP % will they recover also? Did you mean Base Mana Cost to be 5 instead of 15? Since 15 is way too much for this spell, when you could just have a Mage cast Heal a couple times to the same efficiency. Honestly, I really want to like this spell, it sounds so cool! But I feel like in practice, it's just really hard to use efficiently compared to other Spell 4s as compared to any other class and even other Class Suggestions. I will absolutely give you props for the unique idea, but at the same time, I just can't see myself using this.

So, generally, you got some good ideas, I'll give ya props for that. However, your lacking details on some areas, and some Upgrades needs changing. It fits the role of Support with good knockback, spells that can help with assisting, and (supposedly) a spell that can help heal. Unfortunately, some aspects feel like they are either game breaking, or not really functional to play well. I can see this being a good and fun class to play at early game, but really start to get messy by mid and late game with Spell 1 and 4 having rather lack luster Upgrades, Spell 3 getting ungodly buffs for Upgrades, and Spells 3 and 4 too hard to use efficiently. Hard to learn, hard to master, is what I would say, so yea, lots needs to be change for this Class Suggestion. I congratulate ya for putting something like this out there , and the neat ideas ya put forwards tho! :D

(Also, Fury Violin in a nutshell :P)

Spoiler: Fury Violin

 

The class would then get criticism that the wand Squidword's Clarinet is not a Bard weapon

Deals half of it in thunder damage

The spell is the same as teleport except now you take slightly longer to move since you have to hit enemies

Typo, meant to type gust

This did not come to mind when I thought of the spell, but it might have been the subconscious inspiration for it since I was for some reason obsessed with that scene when I was 8

 

I think this is cool, but the abilities should probably revolve around the same instrument, and make one of the abilities non-instrument based. Seeing anyone whip out and play 4 different instruments within 3 seconds would be weird, bard or otherwise.