Bard suggestion: Bard Stance

Right now I feel like an ARC who just casts a buff/debuff when needed.

I think it would be cool to have a Bard Stance in which we take out the Harp until we cancel the stance. This way we wouldn't be attacking but we'd have single cast tunes that we could use as if we're playing the class instead of just being an ARC who casts songs.

Bard Stance - conceptual
Mage's Ballad: Restores 10% MP over duration of ballad (10 second duration, can move while singing)
Army's Peon: Restores 10% TP over duration of song (10 second duration)
Rally the People: Increase damage of party members by 20% for 8 seconds.
Fortress of Might: -10% Damage reduction for all party members for 5 seconds.
Song of the Healer: +5% Healing received for all party members.
(Of course these would all have cooldowns or respective MP cost so that we have to manage their use... and get out of Bard stance eventually)

These would all be quick, decisive skills we could play in Bard Stance in situational moments. What do you all think?

These skills aren't balanced.

Mage's Ballad would have to restore between 50% and 100% of the target's mana to be competitive with the current one.
Same with Paeon.

Rally accomplishes nothing as you lose 1 dps to buff 3-4, considering comparative dps you would lose 20-40% dps. On the flipside, would be ridiculous in 24 man alliances.
Fortress of might - 5 seconds is way too short, and you're better off just Rain of Death on the enemy for 20 whole seconds of damage reduction.
Song of the Healer - this does nothing.

Furthermore noone would give up a bard's dps for that amount of time except in dire need, and none of the skills you mentioned are useful in dire need.

so for 10s you pretend to look pretty and stand there while others enjoy a song? and u find that fun?

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

These skills aren't balanced.

Mage's Ballad would have to restore between 50% and 100% of the target's mana to be competitive with the current one.
Same with Paeon.

Rally accomplishes nothing as you lose 1 dps to buff 3-4, considering comparative dps you would lose 20-40% dps. On the flipside, would be ridiculous in 24 man alliances.
Fortress of might - 5 seconds is way too short, and you're better off just Rain of Death on the enemy for 20 whole seconds of damage reduction.
Song of the Healer - this does nothing.

Furthermore noone would give up a bard's dps for that amount of time except in dire need, and none of the skills you mentioned are useful in dire need.

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Perhaps these skills could be rebalanced. Again it was conceptual. These skills could be very useful in situational context if tuned correctly. Why does everyone, instead of contributing to the discussion immediately dismiss the validity of possible outcome.

Also "Fortress of might - 5 seconds is way too short, and you're better off just Rain of Death on the enemy for 20 whole seconds of damage reduction."

This song could last longer depending on how long the Bard sings it, and MP constraints. Rain of Death also costs 200 TP which is an overall DPS decrease per point of TP against other skills.

Again fine tuning... you don't have to take these concepts as word of the lord and completely dismiss that they could be potentially useful.

Did you not read any of my suggestions?

My take is this:

IF bard stance is not meant to be used constantly, then the use of it for a short time must justify the gains in such a short time. I suggested buffing the short term power of some of the songs if this is your idea.
IF bard stance is meant to be used constantly, it must outweigh either 1 DPS, or 1 healer, or some combination of such so that it is worth playing.

I don't know if you read my synopsis of how bards work in Forsaken World, so I will post it again here:

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Have any of you played Forsaken World? Yes it is super grindy and overall a terrible game, but it is by far the best bard class I've ever played. You play notes, which are also attacks...these three notes, played in different combinations, give your entire party chord buffs. You have a complex rotation involving keeping up as many chords as possible (they don't last very long), as well as situational chords, and healing chords...you also have long duration buffs called "movements", and oh my god I'm gushing but how can every other game get bard SO WRONG...while this one gets it so right. Please, check it out, see what bard can truly be as a support/dps class.

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To expound on Forsaken World bards more, they also have cooldowns that give them notes, allowing them to complete a chord out of turn. They have special 4 chord abilities that are extremely powerful...they have mana draining and hard to play (requires iirc something like 3 E notes, which have the longest cooldown), to put out bursts of healing...it was just...beautiful really. Just an amazingly well designed class that no other mmo I've played has implemented. I am not exaggerating when I say that bard is hands down my favorite class to play in, well, anything. I am also not exaggerating when I say no mmo with the exception of Forsaken World has even come close to making a bard what a bard...well could be.

If you go by that way, pure support with some dps (they did about 1/2-3/4th the dps of other classes iirc), then the buffs they provide must overcome their lower damage, obviously or noone would take them.

So your idea of different songs is a bit boring, tbh, if all you can do is push 1 button every 10 seconds. And it is unbalanced, like I stated before, but I gave some suggestions to balancing it.

Please don't take any of this as a personal attack, its just, well, in your current concept it just doesn't really work. Again, gameplay is the issue here, and I don't think anyone thinks 1 button every 10 seconds makes it a very interesting class.

If you go with something like the chord system in Forsaken World, it would be done PERFECTLY, so I am deeply saddened that they didn't do that for FF14. Extremely...disappointed.

Because we should face the music, as it were. Implementing an interesting musical/support class like that would require a complete rewrite, and that simply is not going to happen.

I understand what you're saying but I think you are misunderstanding the concept if you think it is pushing 1 button every 10 seconds.

This stance allows us to play our ARC side to the fullest with rotations and DPS but instead of just casting Mage's Ballad whenever needed we would switch over to Bard Stance and provide buffs or regen in that fashion. Could even make Bard Stance like the Forsaken World Bard in which we are shooting our bow and arrow and then switch to the Harp to play a few chords to provide unique and interesting raid buffs. The point of my suggesting a Bard Stance, is in addition to our role as Ranged DPS. To be able to DPS as ARC, and switch to the Harp for situational buffs. And not necessarily just being there to push 1 button every 10 seconds.

In this case you'd be doing full ARC rotations and such and when a Bard ability is needed; instead of casting 1 spell - we go into a stance and do a rotation of abilities in that fashion to provide it.