Hello. :)

I'm new to the forums, and to bards, and I want to inquire as to the logic behind a spell being available at 30th circle, but requiring 250 ranks? It seems very, very strange. Is Silvy secretly trolling young bards? ;)

-Hawk

To be honest, it's really painful that our one defensive skill buff is Advanced, which means you need 250 Augmentation to cast it and 1000 ranks to totally cap it, although with spell stance you can at least cap it at around 850 ranks, less with augmentation mastery. The same goes for NAME, but with Warding instead of Augmentation. The two spells could have a circle requirement in the 50-70 range, but then you might hit the skill required before you hit the circle requirement. With a low circle requirement, at least you don't have to wait to cast it once you're able.

It takes some extreme overtraining to be able to pull off Advanced at 30, even with the mastery feat for the type. I'm more concerned with how Bards get three TM spells - one kicking in at 10, two at 250 - with nothing in between. There's ways around this (even without sorcery or simply suffering through killing your attunement faster than monsters) since Bards share mana with Warmies, but it seems... odd. Especially given that even Paladins and Traders get 10, 80, and 250 TM spells. Even Rangers get 10 and 80, though the poor sods lack a 250.