Enough. 99 BRD, Still singing same song from level 60.

[Creelo]

My opinion is that if they're going to be boosting songs, they should be boosting the songs that bards never use, not the ones we use all the time. That would encourage some thought on the part of the bard instead of just mindlessly using the same ones over and over. So I disagree when the OP says march, minuet, and ballad needs boosts. Madrigal, I'm kinda on the fence about... it's still situationally useful and still one of the staple songs of the job. Stuff like paeon, minne, etudes, and the status resist songs though, sure, boost the hell outta those. Make them strong enough that a bard would have to stop and think "is double march really the best option right now...?" every now and then.

The problem though is that it's incredibly difficult to beat March/Minuet/Scherzo/Ballad, especially now where content is focused largely upon taking out enemies swiftly and efficiently. Paeons and Status Resistance songs are actually pretty decent but aren't truly needed and aren't worth the loss of kill speed. Status effects can be handled by mages, which should be out of AoE Debuff range anyways, or through Fanatic's/Fool's/Items where applicable.

I do feel Minne/Carols could use a slight buff; however, Minne is still just defense which is lol worthy because of how defense works in this game. Carols I do think could use 10-20 additional elemental resistance to them considering how high elemental resistance needs to be in order to be effective.

Personally, if the dev team were to spend any precious time on Bard, I'd still rather them focus on these I listed earlier.

-Tier III March
-TP Regain Buff Song
-Massacre Elegy
-MDB down Debuff Song
-Requiem actually landing on NMs/Bosses
-A Job Trait that reduces Song Spellcasting Time
-Finale dispelling more than just 1 Buff Effect.

Thinking about it now, I think a PDT and MT (or perhaps just DT) song buff could be quite nice as well since it would help cover spots where Minne is useless and damage taken isn't high enough to proc Scherzo. These buffs could also easily be skill based as well, which would be nice since we no longer need skill to maximize our useful buffs at 99.

[Glamdring]

the big problem i see is that the SE vision of bard has never been evolved, or even monitorred in concert with game changes. We've always been thought of as sort of a necessary evil, because while we can help the other jobs boost _____, we don't really do anything ourselves, and if we're REALLY working the songs we don't have time to do much of anything else. Face it, our casting times are long, our cool-down times are long, and alot of our songs need to be "doubled-up" to really be perceived to be worth it. The flip side-no MP cost, no magic aggro, and outside silence, para, stun or knock-back we won't be interrupted-these are actually pretty sweet plusses to the job, but in a party (that isn't being stupid) we should be able to avoid hate, unless we're being tasked with something else-like pulling. I think SE believes we're in a good place right now. It just doesn't wash.

The common thread on every job-outside the obligatory "makemyjobamazingomgwtfgod-mode" 5k threads-is to make the job relevant, necessary and desireable at end-game levels in general, instead of just situational utility. A big problem is the players-not the Devs-only think of 1 way to get things done and it generally leads to jobs being marginalized. So we throw it back at the Devs as if our jobs can't function at these levels/content (they can) instead of the real issue that noone wants to let us in because it's not how people choose to do it.

With bard, all of the above is fairly easy to address-add another tier (or 2 for those that were on a faster pace [Paeon and Requiem respectively]) to the songs that people actually want us using to accomodate the extra 24 levels that have been added. Here's the issue tho-with the haste on all the gear that's been added the cap is reachable without another March tier, noone cares about accuracy, defence (outside a few narrow situations) is ignored in favor of DPS, MP recovery is thought by most to be "good enough" that Ballad is out, not enough damage is being taken to require resting between pulls so Paeon during down-time isn't needed, and lastly our few debuffs land as they are (excepting Requiem)-with SE not wanting us to slow mobs anymore since Elegy + Slow is already as slow as they want to go for "balance". I see their point on the last, the game generally IS laughable in terms of difficulty, but that isn't helping my bard get some playing time love.

TBH, I think the key to get bard (and cor, rdm, and to a certain extent smn for that matter) more end-game love is tougher content so that support players are needed again, but I'm not sure how the idea of mobs that can take a hit and hit back-outside rare NM fights-would sit with the current playerbase.

[saevel]

Hmm I can get behind a significant reduction in BRD casting times. Would give you more time to do other stuff, which is entirely up to you. You guys got epic melee gear and access to magian daggers, could do a mean Evis / Exten setup while also maintaining buffs. Go /DNC for Haste Samba just to abuse buffs even more.

[Lokithor]

What BRD needs is a series of self-only songs, fast cast songs that can give some individual utility outside of party support and allow you to have front line value, similar to dnc or cor. Combined with Tenuto, you could still apply other party buffs. The biggest ones would be crit rate, forced crit, crit damage, etc. A forced crit would allow bard to use make effective use of Twashtar. I'm sure lots of other self only buffs could be devised.

[detlef]

What BRD needs is a series of self-only songs, fast cast songs that can give some individual utility outside of party support and allow you to have front line value, similar to dnc or cor. Combined with Tenuto, you could still apply other party buffs. The biggest ones would be crit rate, forced crit, crit damage, etc. A forced crit would allow bard to use make effective use of Twashtar. I'm sure lots of other self only buffs could be devised.

Why ask for a self-only FC song when you can just ask for the job trait?

The biggest limiting factor is simply the number of songs you can apply. NQ BRDs can only give 2 songs and guess what? In most situations double marches are the best for melee and double ballads are best for mages. The only way to get around this is like Creelo said. Make a super awesome march that opens up a slot for another song, or allow more than 2 songs effects to be active.

Another thing that I think should be considered is increasing the base duration of buffs. When you think about it, 2 minutes is not very long at all. Rolls still last over twice as long. Even something as simple as increasing duration to 2:30 would be fantastic.

[Reain]

Another thing that I think should be considered is increasing the base duration of buffs. When you think about it, 2 minutes is not very long at all. Rolls still last over twice as long. Even something as simple as increasing duration to 2:30 would be fantastic.

It does seem they thought this too. Unfortunately, Daurdabla was the wrong place to put Increase song effect duration. On Gjallarhorn or as a job trait would have been better. I'm not sure they could just add it though since it's the Carnwenhan effect too.

[detlef]

Ghorn increases song duration by default with its +song stat. Daurdabla (even at 99) provides a duration increase equal to that of the level 95 Ghorn without increasing the potency. I think they just wanted to put both instruments on roughly equal footing duration-wise.

My suggestion is that song duration simply be increased rather than having to obtain gear for it.

[Reain]

I think they didn't envision recasting with +3 instruments to be honest. Most songs have and +2 or +3 instrument, so it's really just songs without an instrument(Status resist/Scherzo/Dirge/Sirvente [excluding Gjallarhorn]) that benefit, which limits the usefulness of the "Increases song effect duration" on it.

It's still the best instrument in the game of course.

[Scribble]

I patiently months for any changes to direction of BRD updates. They only go in one direction, straight down the toilet. Each update sadder and more useless then it's previous.

I don't recall BRD ever being in a sad state, much less useless...

Anyhow, I'm not quite sure why you'd want to add effects to spells that are covered by other jobs. I don't BRD, but if I did I would want exclusive songs that would make me stand out instead of feeling like a substitute. Not meaning to knock your post because at least you presented ideas, but I would rather see them implement something new instead of recycling traits/spells/abilities from other jobs. I think it would add more options for players and encourage more diverse groups if jobs didn't share too many of the same buffs or debuffs.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

What BRD needs is a series of self-only songs, fast cast songs that can give some individual utility outside of party support and allow you to have front line value, similar to dnc or cor. Combined with Tenuto, you could still apply other party buffs. The biggest ones would be crit rate, forced crit, crit damage, etc. A forced crit would allow bard to use make effective use of Twashtar. I'm sure lots of other self only buffs could be devised.

They really don't.