Bard resist 33% (for the other partner it's roughly 25%) for 15 ticks or so
Village resist 40% for 8 ticks or so
For shits and giggles, the assassin has martial trance. +50% for 6-8 ticks without stalks. (this match is going to be even less fun if the assassin was smart and stalked the bard before beginning the fight.)

vs.

Bard resist 33% for 15 ticks
Stone skin 25% for 10 ticks
Aura 20-25% for 15-18 ticks
shield 15-20% for 15-18 ticks
misc. other partner

The bard cannot grant the same damage reduction to his ally, that is up to his ally's skill and preparations. The village pair has equal dam redux on both partners, so we're not even talking about a damage race. If you think this is a race to who can deal out annihilates, you're cracked, the answer is neither of them can with this arrangement. The damage reduction is so close here you're simply going to lose regardless of whichever side you're on if you think the damage reduction is going to matter for either side, the answer is: massive for the village side and anywhere from mediocre to massive for the non-village side.

So outdamaging is right out, even with fiend.

Next, either one or both of the villagers will have bloodthirst. Since the bard isn't stupid, he's likely not a zerker (ask Kasty how painfully underpowered zerker bard would be he's already gone over the subject) and the assassin already has abilities close to a defender's so he's probably a zerker. Ideally the bard is a defender but most probably the bard is a scout in this situation. The arena fights last short enough that battle fatigue should never be an issue so now you've got a hasted assassin that has more than enough extra strikes to fight through the ones lost to symphonic echoes. Toss in random tiger claws for kicks, or even better, a nice fat wrist breaking kotegaeshi so the bard does keep singing, he just sucks and you can probably ignore even the pitiful maladictions. Strike 2 versus non-village bard.

I wasn't great, but I played village (scout)bard, I'm well aware of how a bard lands PK's but more importantly I'm painfully aware of the fact that landing kills with a bard is only slightly easier than landing kills with a paladin and that even in the best of times (symphonic echoes, damage reduction) bash kills bards. Add in damage reduction in any situation and you get rid of the bard's best asset: two round annihilates.

Finally, when it comes to anything regarding villagers except parity, you have to admit, pintose would be fully aware of how fast fights go wrong for the aggressor when fighting villagers, especially in group v. group. The other miscellaneous partner that isn't an invoker is screwed in this case ,and even if he is an invoker, you still have spellbane and can simply ignore him till the number 1 target with arguably the most weaknesses that can possibly go wrong/be exploited for them in combat in the game (non-village bard), dies.

This gets difficult if the non-village pair has resist mental, but not impossible. A village assassin has plenty of ways to fuck up a pair solo even if he's just spamming RPK. The only way you can make this match messy is ensure your partner has enough damage reduction to survive the flying maladicts and massive damage output to make the extra ticks on the damage reduction work. Not going to happen if the village bard wants you asleep or lagged and the village assassin wants your offhand gone or strength gone.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/2008 12:21PM by scrimbul.