Please boost BRD to make it competitive again

[Shiyo]

I think that's a pretty huge problem with bard. It actually needs more gear than a DD to be playable.

[detlef]

I think it's pretty funny that people say BRD pairs well with GEO in a high-difficulty melee setting, but you have to have already cleared those NMs to get the gear you need to be considered for said situation. In reality you need a relic, mythic, empyrean, and aeonic or else you're not going to be able to contribute. Just leave it at home.

People are right to say that the base job needs some sort of boost that doesn't come in the form of gear. It should be something meaningful enough for a 3-song BRD to bring something to the table at least some of the time. I'm not even sure what that would be at this point.

[OmnysValefor]

Fae, I get your position, but I don't understand it to be honest.

You claim to be at the top of the game but you're worried about what buffs to others. So what if it's an indirect buff to people at the top (your 3 minute WoC just became 2:50!). You said something earlier about making the game easier but isn't that why you bring Aeonic bards? Isn't that way you melee zerg rather than some skillchain setup? There are a few people in this thread with Aeonic Bards andaccess to Aeonic Bards who say Bard can use a baseline buff, but you're insisting that I, and none of them, know what we're talking about.

[Reain]

I think there's a few issues.

Bard traditionally gained strength mostly from new tiers of song but has only gained new tiers of Threnody and March in the last 3 years.
COR and GEO both have buffs/debuffs that are percentage based so naturally get stronger as players/monsters get stronger, spells that scale with skill (geomancy to 900 combined skill), equipment added post item level that significantly increases potency. (Dunna/Idris/Barataria Ring). That's not to say we haven't had lots of quality of life changes and duration increases but buff-wise my pre-delve bard would adequately do today's content outside of Honor March which is locked behind an Aeonic and some boosts to Minuet/Minne/Requiem. (Job points/Minne adjustments).

The strength of songs split among so many tiers isn't worth 1 of 5 song slots. Just as an example, casting 4 Paeons typically does around 42 hp/tic and prevents us casting anything else. A Regen 4 or Regen 5 can do a lot more and has it's own slot. 2 Carols give 110 Elemental resist and block 2 song slots, a Barspell from a WHM typically is 180 elemental resist. Similarly a Boost spells vs etude. Attunement vs 8 Carol1s, 8 Carol 2s, Operetta x2, Aubade, Gavotte, Cappricio, Fantasia, Round. In a difference sense you can pick 1 threnody out of 8 vs languor which works for all spells.

A lot of our spell list is/becomes redundant. Once you get Requiem VII, Requiem 1-6 are retired. Status Resist songs effects can be fixed with a -na spell, an echo drop, a remedy. In a fight like Teles Operetta x2 offers no utily against silence aura. It perhaps doesn't matter but it sounds like they are hitting the limit for the amount of spells they can add.

Songs can take a lot of work to put up and maintain. Against anything that can dispel. In setups where you need to do different songs for Tanks/Mages/Melees/Range DD. Even 1 effect dispel can become a nightmare to fix because it takes a different effect from each person. Duration with troubadour become difficult to change once troubadour is gone. Not that corsair doesn't have some of these problems too. Throwing 2-3 bubbles can be a lot faster even in situations when they are difficult to keep alive.

It's entirely possible to be capped haste, capped acc and capped atk before a bard has cast anything depending on setup. This isn't against high end stuff but these situations can happen. You are left with etudes to cast which outside of SV are a little lackluster. Compared to GEO and COR who still have incredible things to use. Samurai Roll/Tactician's Roll/Allies Roll/Thief's Rolls and more. Attunement, Vex. Wilt and more. 2 or more GEOs or 2 or more CORs in a party still have useful things to use. 2 Bard's in party offer little benefit. Similarly mage-wise when content restore HP/MP on pop, has large amount of temps, and lots of other sources of MP recovery Ballad usefulness is diminished.

Prebuffing and HP scaling. Others have gone into it.

[Zhronne]

IMO the best way to deal with buff and drop issue is to create more battle field type of content and all buffs are wiped after enter.

Don't need that.
They could already wipe all buffs with Geas Fete NMs if they wanted. As a matter of fact Geomancy bubbles (even entrusted ones) get deactivated each time you pop a new Geas Fete NM.
I'm pretty confident if they wanted they could do the same to all buffs.

This would be a nice solution but I hardly believe it would make a huge difference into BRD's level of "wantedness" into endgame content.
I mean it would certainly be better than the current situation, but I wouldn't expect a very different scenario in the end.
People would just optimize to live without a prebuff BRD. 1-2 mins longer fights, big deal! :P

[Zhronne]

but has only gained new tiers of Threnody and March in the last 3 years.

Despite the name and being affected by +March gear, I wouldn't really call Honor March a new tier of March. It feels more like a unique song than a third, higher tier of March. Doesn't it?
Pointless thing to say, I know

A lot of our spell list is/becomes redundant. Once you get Requiem VII, Requiem 1-6 are retired

This is true but affects many other spells from many other jobs as well. Arguably not as much as Requiem though, I agree on that.

Songs can take a lot of work to put up and maintain.

This is a serious issue. Some time ago I got into a (polite) argument with a friend and he was saying BRD was so powerful with the versatility it offers.
That's true in theory but REALISTICALLY you can't really offer 4-5 different songs for every single alliance member, even without dispel mechanics.
One way to make this issue better would be to make SV or Nitro (or both!) songs undispellable. Wouldn't solve the situation when someone goes out of range or dies, but overall it would make the situation better.
Another way is to allow us to powerup Daurdabla and Gjallarhorn. Owners of BOTH weapons will be able to get a new Horn and a new Daubla, they would be identical but both would have the effect of BOTH items, only difference would be one is a String and the other is a Wind instrument. This would make the situation of reapplying (people out of range, dispelled, dead) so much easier because it would save us the step of doing fakes.

Either of these solutions, or even both, would be very welcome. Would it solve BRD's problem though? No, alas I don't think so, and it would be a treat only for us RMEA BRD owners. Surely welcome, but ultimately it wouldn't change the position BRD has in game atm.

Prebuffing and HP scaling. Others have gone into it.

This should be solved regardless of BRD situation, imho. Make all buffs disappear on pop (except stuff like reraise and food, maybe make an exception for "buffs that stay while zoning" as well) AND make the HP scaling of NMs a bit more gentle would do wonders into making leaders be more willing to invite BRD into setups.

Specifically I don't know what else it could be done in an easy and fast way, most of the things I have in mind are fine-tuning stuff that would require SE probably more work than they will ever be willing to invest into BRD.
So what other solutions could they do to fix BRD in a fast way?
Buffing all songs by a small % and consequentially nerf Soul Voice maybe? Altough honestly if they keep the % small like 10 I doubt SV doubling that would break anything.
Specifically Threnodies are in big need of a NOTICEABLE boost. Etudes too need a boost. Paeons too of course but nobody cares about lolPaeons. Marches and Ballads are fine like they are.
They could also merge Prelude and Madrigal, and use Preludes for another type of buff, whatever really, anything would be nice.
But see what I did here? We're already into specific tweaks here and there.
I dunno, I think it's gonna be hard to do something fast and easy that's gonna be meaningful and at the same time it won't make BRD too OP during SV.


tl;dr
Make buffs disappear at pop
Do some QoL change about fake songs and dispelled songs
Do a noticeable buff to Threnodies and Etudes
Merge Madrigals and Preludes, give a new purpose to Preludes

With these points I think BRD would already be in a much better and more desireable position than it actually is, and these changes would affect all BRDs, not just RMEA owners.

[OmnysValefor]

What if we had a fight designed just like escha fights are now (tribulenses and popping) but the fight length was extended by three minutes. All buffs wore on pop (except anything typically not dispellable--reraise, runes even, stances like hasso, light arts, yonin), but the boss didn't agro til it was claimed?

The other advantage this would offer is protecting from the frustration of the occasional person who forgot lens while 2hr is ticking.

The fact is, however, that this doesn't make Bard, in its current form, any more desirable for the groups its not already desired for (lullaby-strategies, melee zergs)

[detlef]

Buffs used to disappear at pop and it was awful. Nobody liked that.

I don't see buffing and dropping to be as big a deal as people think. The job has other issues that seem more pressing.

[Fae]

IMO the best way to deal with buff and drop issue is to create more battle field type of content and all buffs are wiped after enter. Also stop creating contents with HP scaling so bigger pt isn't being punished.

...

I think the best solution is probably make all future content works like master trials.

No HP scaling means no matter how bad you are if you throw enough people at it, you win. That creates a dumbed down game people didn't like and was why HP scaling was introduced in the first place. It doesn't help that anyone wishing to not bring a job will exaggerate how much HP scaling adds without actually knowing how much it adds in the first place. It's basically misinformation piled on top of rampant opinion which is never good.

Two of the three current master trials let you prebuff before entering by the way.

The solution would be to raise awareness of what you're actually missing out on with a competent brd or cor in party, as people tend to dismiss it without even knowing what it is. You yourself have said and know that COR can add a lot of damage, as well as quickdraw support and biggest of all, Job Ability resets which only COR of all jobs in FFXI can do.

Fae, I get your position, but I don't understand it to be honest.

You claim to be at the top of the game but you're worried about what buffs to others. So what if it's an indirect buff to people at the top (your 3 minute WoC just became 2:50!). You said something earlier about making the game easier but isn't that why you bring Aeonic bards? Isn't that way you melee zerg rather than some skillchain setup? There are a few people in this thread with Aeonic Bards andaccess to Aeonic Bards who say Bard can use a baseline buff, but you're insisting that I, and none of them, know what we're talking about.

I've made no such claim, your statements themselves already display that you lack both experience and game knowledge along with your own testimony about your own accomplishments, I simply stated as such because it's pretty obvious. And once again, reread my posts, what you're responding makes it seem you dont' really understand them. I caution on what should be done, and don't totally disagree that something should and talked extensively about geo-frailty and geo-malaise, which you probably didn't read if you made party setups for endgame more often, or at all, it's something you'd inherently already understand.

To bring brd in line with GEO damage boosts to the point you could only bring bards and no geo you'd have to give them some sort of potent def down and magic def down which would stack with GEO, or give them astronomically high buffs to attack and mab. You have made many wrong statements, such as saying BRD isn't used at all, or only brought for lullaby. And no, I mostly just said you're wrong and gave reasons why don't put words in my mouth. I also don't like how close you're getting to attacking me personally rather than my statements, which is a pretty clear indicator that someone already feels they lost so I guess we know where you stand. The game doesn't need to be easier right now, 95% of the content is something you can do in sparks gear anyway.

[OmnysValefor]

I haven't fought/defeated, as it stands, three bosses in the current game (or really, the game as a whole). (Teles, Schah, and the dragon). When I mentioned this, you said

It leads to running around in circles accomplishing nothing. You're clearly set on your views which I won't hold against you, and I won't hold this against you either but you have less game knowledge and experience than me and while I tend to not discount people on that alone, it goes miles further for stating your perspective if you can admit as much.

So if you've not got aeonic clears (why I said "at the top of the game"), what have you fought that I haven't?

Oh, and Master Trials, because I don't care about content that doesn't improve me.

Edit: I'm clear at who I am and my experience. Names that I recognizes from FFXIAH who are pretty clear about their experience (usually better than mine, Sechs, Saevel, Afania and others) are weighing in and they're not disagreeing.

Are all the REM Bards I know just bad?