Discordance
Discordance is a Bard skill that weakens a single creature by reducing all of its resistances and skills. Unlike Peacemaking and Provocation which control behavior, Discordance makes the creature genuinely weaker, allowing you and your party to deal significantly more damage and land abilities more reliably. It is widely considered the most powerful bard skill for group content.
Requirements
- A musical instrument in your backpack
- Musicianship skill (checked before every attempt)
How to Use
Use the Discordance skill from your skill menu. Select your instrument if prompted, then target the creature you wish to weaken. On success, the creature's resistances and skills are reduced for as long as you maintain the effect.
Musicianship Check
As with all bard skills, Musicianship is checked before the Discordance roll. If the check fails, you play poorly and the attempt ends. The chance to pass is:
Success Chance = Musicianship / 100
At 100 Musicianship this always succeeds. Musicianship above 100 also provides a separate difficulty reduction (see below).
- A failed Musicianship check still consumes a use of your instrument.
How Difficulty is Calculated
Discordance uses the same difficulty formula as Peacemaking:
Effective Difficulty = Instrument Difficulty − 10.0
Where Instrument Difficulty is the creature's Bard Difficulty after your instrument properties (Exceptional, Slayer) are applied.
Two additional bonuses then apply:
- Musicianship above 100: Reduces difficulty by half the excess. At 120 Musicianship, this is −10.0.
- Mastery bonus: If you have a Discordance mastery, it further reduces difficulty by a percentage.
Your Discordance skill is then checked against the final adjusted difficulty using the standard ±25 skill window.
The Debuff: What Discordance Actually Does
When Discordance succeeds, it applies a powerful debuff to the target based on your Discordance skill level:
Debuff Strength = Discordance Skill / 4 (capped at 28)
At 120 Discordance, the debuff reaches the cap of 28. This means:
- All five resistances (Physical, Fire, Cold, Poison, Energy) are reduced by 28 points
- All skills are reduced by 28% of their current value
Against creatures with a base Bard Difficulty of 160 or higher, the debuff is halved:
- Resistances reduced by 14 points instead of 28
- Skills reduced by 14% instead of 28%
Debuff Examples
| Creature Stat | Normal Creature (below 160 difficulty) | Hard Creature (160+ difficulty) |
|---|---|---|
| 80% Physical Resist | Reduced to 52% | Reduced to 66% |
| 70% Fire Resist | Reduced to 42% | Reduced to 56% |
| 120.0 Wrestling | Reduced to 86.4 | Reduced to 103.2 |
| 130.0 Magery | Reduced to 93.6 | Reduced to 111.8 |
- The resistance reduction is a flat number (−28 or −14), while the skill reduction is percentage-based (−28% or −14%). This means high-skill creatures lose more raw skill points than low-skill creatures.
Duration and Maintenance
Discordance does not have a fixed timer. Instead, the effect persists as long as all of the following conditions are met:
- You remain alive and are not a dead bonded pet
- You remain visible — going Hidden or using Stealth ends the effect
- The target remains alive and is not deleted
- You stay within bard range of the target
If any of these conditions break, a 15-second grace period begins. If you move back into range and become visible again within those 15 seconds, the effect continues. If the 15 seconds expire, the debuff is removed and the creature returns to full strength.
- This means a skilled bard can maintain Discordance on a boss indefinitely by staying alive, visible, and in range. It also means that if you die, the debuff drops — plan accordingly.
Cooldown
- 8 seconds on success
- 5 seconds on failure
Success Rates vs. Maximum Difficulty Creatures
The following table shows approximate success rates at 120 Discordance and 120 Musicianship against a creature at the maximum Bard Difficulty of 160:
| Instrument | Effective Difficulty | Success Rate |
|---|---|---|
| No bonuses | 140.0 | 10% |
| Exceptional only | 135.0 | 20% |
| One matching slayer only | 130.0 | 30% |
| Exceptional + one matching slayer | 125.0 | 40% |
| Two matching slayers (no exceptional) | 120.0 | 50% |
| Exceptional + two matching slayers | 115.0 | 60% |
Success Rates by Creature Difficulty
Approximate success rates at 120 Discordance and 120 Musicianship with an Exceptional instrument (no slayer):
| Creature Bard Difficulty | Effective Difficulty | Success Rate | Debuff Strength |
|---|---|---|---|
| 80 | 55.0 | 100% | Full (−28 resists, −28% skills) |
| 100 | 75.0 | 100% | Full (−28 resists, −28% skills) |
| 120 | 95.0 | 100% | Full (−28 resists, −28% skills) |
| 130 | 105.0 | 80% | Full (−28 resists, −28% skills) |
| 140 | 115.0 | 60% | Full (−28 resists, −28% skills) |
| 150 | 125.0 | 40% | Full (−28 resists, −28% skills) |
| 160 | 135.0 | 20% | Halved (−14 resists, −14% skills) |
- Notice that the debuff is halved specifically at 160+ base difficulty, not at a specific effective difficulty. Even if your instrument lowers the effective difficulty, the creature's base stats determine whether you get full or halved effect.
What Cannot Be Discorded
- Bard Immune creatures — these are completely immune to Discordance unless they are your own tamed pet
- Already discorded creatures — a creature can only have one Discordance effect at a time. You will receive: "Your target is already in discord."
- Yourself — you cannot discord yourself
- Player characters — Discordance against players is only available under specific PvP ruleset conditions
Discordance Compared to Other Bard Skills
| Discordance | Peacemaking | Provocation | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Effect | Weakens the target | Stops the target from fighting | Makes two targets fight each other |
| Duration | Indefinite (maintained) | 10–120 seconds | 30 seconds |
| Flat Difficulty Bonus | −10.0 | −10.0 | −5.0 |
| Requires Maintenance | Yes (stay alive, visible, in range) | No | No |
| Cooldown (success) | 8 seconds | 5 seconds | 10 seconds |
| Cooldown (failure) | 5 seconds | 10 seconds | 10 seconds |
| Stacks with others | Yes — discord + peace/provoke all work | Cannot re-peace until expired | Can re-provoke after 30 seconds |
Tips
- Discordance is the bard's best contribution to group fights. Reducing a boss's resists by 14–28 points means everyone in your party deals significantly more damage. On long boss fights, this adds up to thousands of extra damage.
- Use Discordance first, then Peacemaking or Provocation. The debuff persists while you use other skills, so discord a creature, then peace or provoke as needed.
- Stay alive and visible. Your discord drops the moment you die or go hidden. If you are a bard in a group, your survival is as important as the tank's — losing the debuff mid-fight can be devastating.
- The 15-second grace period is forgiving. If you accidentally step out of range, you have 15 seconds to get back. Do not panic and do not re-discord — the original effect is still ticking.
- You cannot stack multiple Discordance effects on one target. Only one bard can discord a creature at a time. Coordinate with other bards so you are not wasting attempts on already-debuffed creatures.
- The halved debuff at 160+ difficulty is based on the creature's raw stats, not your instrument. A creature that naturally reaches 160 difficulty always gets the halved debuff, regardless of how much your slayer instrument reduces the effective difficulty for skill-check purposes.
- Musicianship above 100 is valuable. Every point above 100 reduces difficulty by 0.5. At 120 Musicianship, that is −10 difficulty, which can push a 10% success rate up to 30% with the right instrument.