Bard skills in 5.0?

Army's is worth ~16 pps or somewhere around there at max stacks. It is definitely not "barely does anything". At early ilvl crit, it is not really all that far behind MB.

Is failing to use procs past the fourth a problem, or a feature? Personally, I appreciate that each song interacts with crit in a slightly different way. There's nothing wrong with that at all. Why should every song be +damage for every proc? Remember when we only got paid off for crits on a coinflip? That was never seen as a huge deal.

Still, like I said, it could use a little more happiness to it. And, it's not actually bad if it does become better than MB, in fact if it's better than MB at base crit, and worst with crit buffs active, that'd be kinda neat in my book.

I just do not want Bloodletter v3, and I don't want anything similar where you're forcing it to convert every proc into damage like both the other songs do. My strong preference is for there to be some payoff for hitting max stacks instead. Leverage AP's uniqueness instead of making it more like the other two songs.

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Originally Posted by Cetonis

Why should every song be +damage for every proc?

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Because Bard is designed around wanting to get Crits so as to proc Songs?

Like, every Song wants you to get as many DoT crits as possible to maximize your songs.

Apart from AP. Which wants you to get as many DoT crits as possible to maximize your song, up to a maximum of 4 times. With the rest of its duration being "Lul who cares" when it comes to procs - Such as using Emypreal Arrow or caring about DoT crits (Outside of the fact that DoT crits will be damage increases because of the crit itself)

It feels bad when everytime Empyreal Arrow comes off CD during AP, I immediately look to see if MB/TWM is available because switching to actually get use from the EA proc would do more than staying in AP.

AP is a song that you only want to stay in for 20 seconds while both MB and TWM you want to ride out their full durations.

Why should that be an intentional design? Why should we have a song that we actively want to cut short because a major point of our kit flat out doesn't work during it?

You can have AP remain unique in how it passively does its thing, rather than creating Bloodletter II or Pitch Perfect II.

Just... Make it so that the Bard's playstyle of "You want to maximize crit to get more Song procs" is a thing in all 3 songs. Not just 2 of them with the third wanting you to maximize crits to get up to 4 stacks ASAP and then not care about procs at all.

Especially when the song that doesn't care about extra procs GENERATES extra procs through Empyreal Arrow's CD being affected by SkS...

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Originally Posted by Cetonis

My strong preference is for there to be some payoff for hitting max stacks instead.

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It already does. You get your 4th stack of Repertoire for an extra 4% SkS making it a total of 16% SkS for the rest of the duration.

I meant a more explicit / bonus payoff, obviously. One that the player will feel, so that there's some positive-feedback moment in AP.

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Why should that be an intentional design? Why should we have a song that we actively want to cut short because a major point of our kit flat out doesn't work during it?

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We only cut it short because it's weak. It has nothing to do with its relation to our kit. If each stack was 10% instead of 4%, no way would we cut it short. If it replaced Heavy Shot with a 200p filler GCD, definitely not getting cut short. We'd cut MB short instead.

And even then, it isn't -that- weak. There are lots of points in this past Savage tier where the correct thing is to play out an AP for a full 30 seconds. It's not actually a potency loss worth avoiding if there's a benefit on the other side, so long as you aren't losing WM+Raging/Barrage uses to it.

The problem with AP is simply that it doesn't feel fun. And you can make it more fun without making it more like the other songs. If SE wanted to just have Bard get paid off for DoT crits in roughly the same way full time, there'd be no need to even make three songs in the first place. WM and MB, and the sort of AP you propose, are not different enough to warrant it, design wise. Might as well just go back to River of Blood at that point.

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Originally Posted by Cetonis

We only cut it short because it's weak. It has nothing to do with its relation to our kit. If each stack was 10% instead of 4%, no way would we cut it short. If it replaced Heavy Shot with a 200p filler GCD, definitely not getting cut short.

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But what's the major difference between AP just simply GIVING you something like a Heaviest Shot with 200p while at 4 stacks of Repertoire and having AP rewarding your procs with a Heaviest Shot with 200p?

Other than the obvious RNG aspect? Which ties together Bard's design where it's "Stack Crit > Get Song procs > Use Song procs in some manner"

Like, even with a per proc damage boost from AP, you can still make it passive and thus different to MB/TWM. As I mentioned, something like a passive bonus damage on your next auto attack (Synergizing with AP's AA speed increase). A passive bonus damage on your next weaponskill (Basically the aforementioned "Heaviest Shot" bonus, only it would be applied even if you used Straight Shot/Refulgent Arrow/Iron Jaws)

Each song would still have a different take on how its damage bonus works.

MB would continue to be CD resets on Bloodletter/Rain of Death
AP would continue to be the "Breather" Song that you don't have to do anything for it just passively increases your DPS
TWM would continue to be about getting 3 stacks and then firing off the oGCD

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Originally Posted by Cetonis

WM and MB, and the sort of AP you propose, are not different enough to warrant it, design wise.

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I'm curious, do you think I'm the OP whom suggested the Velocity Shot thing?

I was thinking around something for Army's Paeon. If it is a "rest" song, I think it could do with a bit more "burst preparation" in it. Compared to SMN which is the other DoT master, maybe refresing DoTs under Army could have an added effect (potency boos, crit boost) for the duration of the next song...

Please give me access to Diversion.

And I forgot : Troubadour is a very good Ability, but quite difficult to use because you need to synchronise it with the proper song (and let's face it, no one is going to delay Wanderer for it). I'd like to see it reworked in a way that makes easier. Maybe just flat damage reduction, regardless of the song, with a longer CD.

As an aside, I can see how making all 3 songs give bonus oGCDs with Crit being a tricky thing to balance. No other job has exponential DPS increases gated behind crit procs. BRD sort of starts out weak-ish at early ilvls when they're 12-15% crit, but by end of expansions when they're pushing 28-33% base crit rates, shit gets ridiculous with all the bonus oGCDs they get. Balancing a 3rd song's extra oGCDs (e.g. Bloodletter/Pitch Perfect) might be too much.

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But what's the major difference between AP just simply GIVING you something like a Heaviest Shot with 200p while at 4 stacks of Repertoire and having AP rewarding your procs with a Heaviest Shot with 200p?

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Because it changes the way the song interacts with crit, and I see that as a positive end in and of itself.

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I'm curious, do you think I'm the OP whom suggested the Velocity Shot thing?

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No, but what you're asking for is just another WM and MB with different lipstick. Just because you don't press an oGCD button doesn't make it different enough imo to justify the button / complexity bloat associated with having three songs. I like the goalpost design of AP, it's kinda just as simple as that. I wish it were sexier, but I don't want a significant rework.

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Originally Posted by Cetonis

No, but what you're asking for is just another WM and MB with different lipstick. Just because you don't press an oGCD button doesn't make it different enough imo to justify the button / complexity bloat associated with having three songs. I like the goalpost design of AP, it's kinda just as simple as that. I wish it were sexier, but I don't want a significant rework.

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Though, if you want to use that logic, even what you asked for can be said to be just "WM/MB with different lipstick"

Where if your Heavy Shot became Heaviest Shot with 200p at 4 stacks of Repertoire, then you can just make the logical leap that if you average say... 10 Heavy Shots within the duration of AP with full stacks then you're getting an extra 500 potency so you could argue that the 4 procs you need crits/Empyreal Arrow for to get to that point are basically just an oGCD with 125 potency that you don't even need to press.

Since, at the very base, even Army's Paeon is subject to the core song design which is Crits = Bonus damage from song.

The fact that it's incredibly limited in how it provides that doesn't negate the fact that you actually need to get the procs for it to even do anything.

Meaning every song is Crits = Proc for song. Every single one. Yet, AP is one that arbitrarily doesn't scale past 4 procs.

I'm aware of the semantics. You're describing the problem. Presuming that the job design is to reward DoT crits, if SE wants to have that happen in three different ways, the objective is to make those ways as different as possible within those bounds.

One of the benefits of doing a 'bonus' effect for the fourth stack is that it makes AP more-different from the other songs than it is now. That is a positive for me.

Clearly, you think stopping after four is too much of a departure from the 'reward crits' guideline. I don't, but to each their own. But if you want to push for a rework to get rid of the four cap, to me that would require more creativity.

Or less - would increasing the cap from four to six help? Presumably it would, as then you wouldn't even cap before 20s some portion of the time.

More creatively, if procs / extra procs also strengthened the Straight Shot buff, while they are ultimately leading to damage, you have to forfeit a Heavy Shot to cash in, so there'd be a different dynamic there in deciding when to trade a weaker GCD for a better buff mid-song. You only benefit from procs once and as you make those trades. Or, imagine if the speed buff itself was a cash-in type of deal.

You could also have something like a fourth, long-cooldown song whose cooldown is reduced by excess AP procs. Sometimes that would be pertinent, but at other points in the fight it wouldn't matter; it'd operate a little like the SMN's Enkindle cooldown situation but with more control.

Anything sort of weird like that would be fine with me too, just so long as it isn't a direct potency-per-every-proc kind of thing. (twisting via semantics after the fact isn't relevant)

BRD changes?

None of these are new, but...

Changes-

• Battle voice to become a trait to make room for palisade on crossbars, and shorten the number of abilities players have to manage and prevents action lockouts that mess up brd's opener. Oh, and make sure that it improves every 10 levels with an added affect or potency increases
  
• 2.0 shadowbind to be returned as a cross class ability for all rng dps classes and a psuedo holmgang version for drg and ninja or just scouting set classes
  
• Wardens- It would be really nice if this had an aoe radious llike flash and cure 3, but with an mp cost
  
• Invigorate, should restore MP or HP or eliminate weakness debuffs
  
• Refulgant to replace straight shot when it procs. It works with WAR, so so tkae that to every other job pls and tnk stances
  
• Remove or change sidewinder to balance some of the increased dmg
  
• Electric guitars and keyboards, pls

Songs-

• Army: Once the gauge is full: army will reduce the cooldown timer for the players song and carry over it's affect through the duration of the next song.
• Ballad: Hm, this one should just reduce mp costs or use pitchperfect to restore MP.
• Wanderer's: every pitch perfect will progressively increase PP's dmg by a percentage point per note and maxes out at 15%

New-

• A new dot that requires one enemy to have a windbite dot that when cast on target replaces the windbite dot and inflicts that dot onto all enemies within an AOE radius, which basically makes multidotting way less tedius
• An ogcd to that reduces the cooldown timer for all songs that are on cooldown by half