Advice to returning bard?

[KalisimBellatora]

Welcome back! ^.^

As you may have noticed, some like the new bard and some don't. I'd recommend leveling it all the way to 60 to give the new playstyle a fair chance. There's no way to really know if you'll like it until you've put some play time into it. If you do end up liking it, great! ^.^ If not, you aren't alone in searching for a new class. If you do decide to change, are you wanting to continue maining a dps? Also, do casting times bother you? Those are definitely questions to consider while you decide what to do.


My *personal* opinion on HW bard:

I've played bard since the ARR beta. I LOVED the playstyle pre-HW. For me, WM killed it, NOT because of having to move less often (I agree with a previous poster who said that those complaining about "no mobility" were chronic over-movers to begin with). Now, I main a white mage, but have been eyeing monk to replace my dps class. I've watched videos of end-game playstyles for dragoon and ninja (and have even leveled them somewhat), and have decided that those probably weren't for me. My husband mains a monk, and watching him play (as well as occasionally playing his character) gives me hope for liking the monk playstyle.

Personally, I feel like the addition of the casting bar completely messed up the playstyle of the class, and now the whole class feels clunky and poorly implemented. Please note: I have nothing against casting bars for classes where the design was based around them! (I main a white mage now, so casting bars in general are not my issue!) Bard, however, was NOT designed to have to deal with casting times. The sudden implementation of them after 52 levels of gameplay seems like an obviously lazy implementation of a new game mechanic designed for a different class, just to also give bards a new mechanic like all the other classes seem to have gotten with HW. I had seen a suggestion a month or two ago suggesting that they remove the casting bar while using WM, and instead adding a stacking damage buff the longer you stay still that disappears upon movement. If they had implemented WM that way, I'd probably still be maining bard. Instead, I have decided to hang up my bow, as I no longer enjoy playing the class. *shrug*

Power to those who do like the new playstyle! It definitely isn't for everyone, though.

[twoheadedenby]

My advice would be to try levelling Machinist before Bard - if you're going to like the cast bars at all, they're implemented in a far more logical and flexible way on that class. Both classes play very very similarly at the moment, but Bard is a broken, clunky mess where MCH isn't, and MCH gets far more mobility on top of it.

Personally I couldn't stand Machinist aesthetically (those animations! those sound effects!) so I've moved to healing full-time. Astrologian's Lightspeed ability and Enhanced Benefic procs make it quite fast on its feet for a healer, but there's nothing at all in the game like 2.X Bard any more, sadly.

[Choko_TS]

Pretty much, what KalisimBellatora said. The new Bard isnt bad, but I also enjoy it far less by now. If you loved Bard and still wanna play this class, you get used to it. But well ...it just feels different, clunky, weird. Just try it for yourself, some of the new skills are awesome after all.

[Neela]

i really like the ES animation... so sad that u cant use that "jump" while moving...