Yoshi-P Sanpo comments re: Bard

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Soldier_Zero

I think people are unhappy with BRD because of its low damage contribution. BRD would be in a better spot if it was a selfish dps like MCH and had its songs changed from party-wide to self-buffs.

---

It's partially its overall damage contribution and that of the entire ranged physical category as a whole. But, shifting the whole role into being selfish-DPS classes would just end up circling like back to its issues at launch: Lore deletion, false advertising, and being too selfish and lacking in party support

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MPNZ

It's partially its overall damage contribution and that of the entire ranged physical category as a whole. But, shifting the whole role into being selfish-DPS classes would just end up circling like back to its issues at launch: Lore deletion, false advertising, and being too selfish and lacking in party support

---

it also wouldn't change the problem as long as overall dps is not raised, i know some people are big on the whole "selfish classes" topping the meter, but there is no real reason why selfish classes should have both the highest personal and highest raid dps contribution, at best there is nothing that necessites as much, at worst it just ends up in "supporting clasess" allways being worse.

of course things like actual utility support (so things like curing waltz, armys paeon, useless as it is..., maybe give bard the regen song our teacher used in a class quest with the next addon?) should count somewhat against total dps, but talking purely on a "has dps buffs" level theres zero reason why total raid contribution should be lower than on a "pure" class.

so no, bard would not be in a better spot if it was a selfish dps, bard would be in a better spot if its dps was raised, doesn't matter if through personal damage or group buffs.

Not that these suggestions are bad or anything, but if the devs want a quick fix, all they gotta do is unnerf bard's DoT damage. Even if that also means reverting the songs (though I'm not sure this is necessary; anyone theorycrafted those numbers?). Bard was in a better state in 5.0 than in 5.1 and onward.

This doesn't solve greater issues like class identity, that dancer and machinist both have firm niches while brd is just a crappier version of both, etc, but it'd be better than just ignoring bard as they did in 5.2. And with that sanpo comment, I'm now worried they'll do the same for 5.3....

They couulllld, but part of the idea here is very explicitly hoping that they select buffs that are more productive than just making numbers go up.

A DoT buff would only serve to make Bard better at the things it's already good at, when there are glaring areas of weakness for the job's ability to output damage. And it'd also fail to address any of the notable QoL issues, noob traps, anti-synergies, etc. that clutter the kit right now.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MPNZ

IDK. BRD has been, like, an AOE demon for a while, but just that in itself wouldn't necessitate further nerfs which where acceptable, even if unnecessary, outside of the DoTs which were totally unnecessary. If anything the numbers in general need to crunched downwards and rebalanced to like shorten the DPS gap, or buff other jobs to compensate, or vary the damages incurred to NPC based on their scale because Physical-Ranged is already below or falling short of the perceived minimum required damage values. The launch version of AST was super bad enough in terms of DPS to say the least

---

As a dancer myself, I think ranged are perfectly fine being the lowest dps as our role is easiest to fulfill in general. Now if our jobs get more complex and we have to use our mobility to do our dps, then I can see it being warranted to be higher, but right now, the 1% buff keeps us relevant and that's okay.

As for BRD, it being too strong with AoE means SE can't make raids with AoE or multi target for fear of BRD being too strong again. Look at E6S, where they made the two target portion split so that people can't double up on damage. Similarly, look at E7S, with the 3 adds, that skyrocket BRDs performance too much. If BRD was as strong as the other ranged then they'd be the only pick for TEA as they'd be strong in both multi target and single target portions. I'm concerned with the current BRD implementation means that it can't be good at single target AND multi target without some adjustments. I'd rather it be strong single target since that's most fights and lose the multi target strength to be more in line with other ranged DPS.

I haven't read all the suggestions but a lot of comments here are pretty good. My specific suggestion about bard is about Apex Arrow.. and the only things I would adjust about it are.. take it off the global cooldown, and second let us store up to 125 in the gauge instead of 100, and if you have more than 100 points in it, it will only take up to 100 points. That would help the skill substantially, while not over powering it. Sometimes when I'm going spam happy with my AoE's I just feel like it isn't worth it to shoot an Apex arrow off, versus what else i could do in my 2 second window. And my keybinds might be all over, but I'm usually spamming quick noct and reign of death as it refreshes, and using the mouse to hit pitch perfect when that lights up if I got say Wanderer's minuet on. So I have to either quit slappin quick noct, (sometimes monsters are not lined up good enough fro apex to make up what quick noct will tag), to hit apex arrow, or potentially miss a pitch perfect "proc" to slide the mouse over to hit Apex.

There are all kinds of other things I'd break down about bard and adjust, but the biggest one is just the way Apex arrow is handled. It doesn't feel like it should be my level 80 ability. Like not at all. It feels like it needs adjusting, and maybe be a level 71 skill or something, as it is. I don't even like the name Apex Arrow XD

This has been said about Apex Arrow in other threads but seems it needs to be repeated.

It would be better as an Ogcd and gaining full power at 50/100 instead.

It feels annoying and tacked on having it as a gcd.

Oh we all hate Apex Arrow outside of dungeons. I expect it will sort of solve itself in 6.0 though, since a single-target gauge spend is all but a given, and presumably would be an ability because otherwise you could Barrage it. In turn, obviously depending on numbers I'd guess that Apex itself may need three targets to be usable, causing the gap between Bard single target and two-target to narrow.

And really that's sort of the big power spike re: challenge content design for Bard, as when it comes to mass AoE, usually things are too short-lived for Bard to get a lot out of multi-DoT'ing and other jobs' bursty AoE is pretty good.

So AA in my mind is sort of... I feel like SE isn't going to touch it because in their minds there's a long term replacement already planned, basically. As annoying as that is in the short term.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rai_Takara

As a dancer myself, I think ranged are perfectly fine being the lowest dps as our role is easiest to fulfill in general.

---

I don't have that experience myself. I find Samurai easier to play than Bard. The moments where you have to step away from the boss entirely are extremely rare and I get Mediate, enhanced enpi and a gap closer to mitigate that. I'd see melee as being almost as mobile. The rotation isn't particularly complex, while Bard is fairly high APM and has all sorts of opportunities to leak damage. Not to mention I can play my Sam badly and smash my Bard on dps even if played well. That makes it a very easy class to provide good contribution with, while I'd struggle as Bard.

There also seems to be a misconception that ranged phys dps can chill somewhere off in Narnia and run laps of the arena where no mechanic will ever touch them. Fights don't work that way, both ranged and melee have responsibility when it comes to mechanics. If you're sitting miles away in the corner as Bard, you're losing rdps because you aren't keeping everyone in song radius and you can miss people with Battle Voice.
The ranged tax feels far too high for what amounts to a fairly minor benefit.

You used Bard as an example on e7s, while it's in the bottom 3 and about 1500 rdps behind Sam even at high tiers where the Bard is multi-dotting adds and taking full advantage.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

I don't have that experience myself. I find Samurai easier to play than Bard. The moments where you have to step away from the boss entirely are extremely rare and I get Mediate, enhanced enpi and a gap closer to mitigate that. I'd see melee as being almost as mobile. The rotation isn't particularly complex, while Bard is fairly high APM and has all sorts of opportunities to leak damage. Not to mention I can play my Sam badly and smash my Bard on dps even if played well. That makes it a very easy class to provide good contribution with, while I'd struggle as Bard.

There also seems to be a misconception that ranged phys dps can chill somewhere off in Narnia and run laps of the arena where no mechanic will ever touch them. Fights don't work that way, both ranged and melee have responsibility when it comes to mechanics. If you're sitting miles away in the corner as Bard, you're losing rdps because you aren't keeping everyone in song radius and you can miss people with Battle Voice.
The ranged tax feels far too high for what amounts to a fairly minor benefit.

You used Bard as an example on e7s, while it's in the bottom 3 and about 1500 rdps behind Sam even at high tiers where the Bard is multi-dotting adds and taking full advantage.

---

The difficulty in melee is always optimization. No job is hard when you're not optimizing it to the fullest and that's by design, following something akin to the 80-20 rule where 20% of the effort gets you 80% of the result. SAM, funnily enough since you mentioned it, is the hardest melee to optimize right now around buffs because it's the most inflexible melee with a very strict rotation. However, if you play SAM and don't try to align with buffs, then of course it'll be easier. Same can be said on Dancer whether having a NIN or not makes Dancer boring or engaging. One might say that's just the top end players and not the majority and that's correct, but balance must always come down from the top end.

Not being glued to melee range is a tremendous advantage. Of course you don't have to be in Narnia, but being able to resolve any mechanic with 100% uptime is not something you can dismiss. Ranged tax is a thing for good reason. Groups are able to leverage mobility with bad, easy strats to get through mechanics but still have enough DPS to meet checks.

As for the Bard example, look at the 95th/99th (where parties can utilize BRDs buff the most). At max BRD gets edged out by dancer but we all know dancer has the highest max potential thanks to RNG so all it takes is to get a good run a long with your team/partner to do that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

*snip*

---

So true it hurts Liam. I was part of the Ranged DPS should be lower crowd back when all I played in a Savage setting was Bard. Then they stripped away so much of what I liked about Bard and made me just find the job overall boring so I decided to branch out in Shadowbringers. Played some Summoner throughout all of Progression, black mage during re-clears. Played some Samurai helping another static prog the fights. Even did some white mage for a bit.

I found out that the ranged tax is a freaking joke. I felt no more taxed and any more sort of difficulty playing Summoner, supposedly the most complex DPS rotation in the game with the most optimization, then I ever did on Bard. Heck what I found was it was actually far easier, because suddenly, my raid's are giving me all the priority and shields to stay still and ignore some mechanics, and focusing things on me. When I'm playing Samurai and spread out mechanics I'm suddenly allowed to barely have to move an inch and even tanks will give me priority of staying still. I'm getting healers telling me to tank the AOE and keep casting in my Ley lines and putting crit shields over me and just tank the mechanic. Suddenly half of the things I always felt were just normal parts of raiding (handling all ranged mechanics, baiting distance foe's, etc) are just something I never have to deal with. The trade off of having to time some instant casts or when to use true north is so much more simpler.

All that and I get to deal far more effective damage then the ranged even if you count their party utility, and heck if I'm on Summoner, I get to bring MORE party utility then two of them. Please for the love of god give ranged some more love. I probably won't ever go back to Bard unless they reverse their decision of it being the 'middle ground' between greed and utility of Dancer and Machinist, but outside of maybe a few 100 dps below other DPS roles, their is no reason for it to be anywhere close to as low as they are. Machinist should not be getting out DPS'ed by jobs that provide actual utility. Bard should be in the middle ground with Red Mage and other mid range utility jobs like Dragoon. Dancer should be the lowest but should only be a 100 points off of the other jobs at most.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rai_Takara

One might say that's just the top end players and not the majority and that's correct, but balance must always come down from the top end.

---

your "balance coming from the top end" left us with mch outperforming not just bard but dancer aswell up to the 90% percentile to a quite ridiculous degree as not even curing waltz is worth nearly the dps a dancer at that level does less than a mch making it just go even worse for bard, and it only gets worse from there going down, and what for ?

100% of the top 50 speedruns on ramuh and ifrit/garuda include dancer, 88% and 84% for idol and shiva respectively,lets not even talk about the near non existence of warrior and scholar at top speedrun level. monk you could potentially handwave with simply being a not very liked class right now, but other classes? you are quite literally fucking over 90%+ of the raiding playerbase (yes, i included the groups that have to drag their sorry ass bard with them instead of the vastly superior mch) to have "balance" at the top, except you still don't have any balance there because at this point even being just 1% better is enough to make you unquestionably the best.



if we actually do balance around the top, why is dancer allowed to be so much stronger than mch ? clearly superior utility and a very clear damage lead can't be balanced at once. oh wait, its because dancer damage is more up to rng, funny how if we look at "max" its suddenly fine to be clearly better, i thought we balance around the top ? or is it suddenly the top 1% that counts ? maybe top 2% would be better? or do we prefer top 0,5%?

keeping down a class for literally everyone so the top 1% of groups can't find a way to abuse a class to an overpowered degree is absolutely pointless, these groups will clear the content either way, these groups will use what is best either way, so fucking over literally everyone else, so that people that for all intents and purposes are looking for every little way to positively break the game and split it in 2 accomplishes absolutely nothing. no normal person would exclude a 90% mch when it would only do 200 dps more than a 90% dancer because a 99% dancer was suddenly 600 dps ahead instead of 400. the ones that actually do that are the ones that (surprise) allready exclude both bard and mch for dancer because if you are going for world record you go for the god run either way.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rai_Takara

Not being glued to melee range is a tremendous advantage. Of course you don't have to be in Narnia, but being able to resolve any mechanic with 100% uptime is not something you can dismiss. Ranged tax is a thing for good reason. Groups are able to leverage mobility with bad, easy strats to get through mechanics but still have enough DPS to meet checks.

---

yes, you can use easier tactics with more ranged, have fun losing out on the 1% stat buff if you go all ranged aswell fucking over your tanks completly if you just go for "easy"... (and if you do take a melee than whatever tactic you use allready includes 2 tanks+1melee, so it will at worst be "mostly identical", because funnily enough, the people that go for some crazy "if we do it like this and than we can do that and that, but only with exactly 1 melee...." tactic are again the very very top of the very top).

an average group (that would by definition of the word mean 50% percentile, and thats actually allready being nice because it excludes all the groups are simply unable to handle any given fight) will totally have room to spare if they lose 1000 dps do to no melee 1%, another 1000 do to having to use a multi target lb on a single target and say 500 because their new "easier tactic" bends over their tanks uptime so bad at least this much loss is inevitable. or wait no, they won't. maybe they would make it, but thats a big maybe

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rai_Takara

As for the Bard example, look at the 95th/99th (where parties can utilize BRDs buff the most). At max BRD gets edged out by dancer but we all know dancer has the highest max potential thanks to RNG so all it takes is to get a good run a long with your team/partner to do that.

---

looking at the 95th percentile bard is BARELY above mch while offering utility on a level that could best be described as "sick joke" , surely if bard would actually outperform mch , like really outperform on a single fight while being say 200 below on average (so across percentiles) on the other fights instead of the current "hey, if you are in a top group your bard is only 300 dps worse instead of 700" situation would make the sky fall and lead to mass deletion of mch

90% of groups are in no position to change their lineup for every single fight, so a certain class (or to come back to "but melees...." a certain role,)being clearly superior in fight a) while being slightly worse in fights b),c),d) would be perfetly balanced, and when it comes to people going for world first/top speedrun times ?

Stop acting like the top 1% of raiders would suddenly all ditch both melees to go for "easy mode strats", there is need for an incentive to use harder strats, yes, but that need is not nearly as big as the current dps gap, if it where people would allready ditch melees completly for casters.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Soldier_Zero

I think people are unhappy with BRD because of its low damage contribution. BRD would be in a better spot if it was a selfish dps like MCH and had its songs changed from party-wide to self-buffs.

---

my wish take on brd is to have selfish DPS like MCH BUT....

when they start tuning their song, their potency DPS will drop by xx% because now they are in "support" mode. so basically you can be a selfish DPS like MCH or you can be a supportive BRD by keep applying song buff to your party.

this way everyone happy with archer class, you want pure dps? just go full ham dont use song buff, you want the usual supportive brd? just keep rotating your song, easy.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gumas

my wish take on brd is to have selfish DPS like MCH BUT....

when they start tuning their song, their potency DPS will drop by xx% because now they are in "support" mode. so basically you can be a selfish DPS like MCH or you can be a supportive BRD by keep applying song buff to your party.

this way everyone happy with archer class, you want pure dps? just go full ham dont use song buff, you want the usual supportive brd? just keep rotating your song, easy.

---

That was literally how Bard was used in A Realm Reborn, didn't go over well with the player base.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gumas

you want pure dps? just go full ham dont use song buff, you want the usual supportive brd? just keep rotating your song, easy.

---

But this only gives the illusion of choice.
Based on party comp and the duty you're doing one mode will be better than the other.
Sure, you could just do what you want, but people hate BLMs that roleplay and only use ice spells, and they hate th for legit reasons.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rika007

That was literally how Bard was used in A Realm Reborn, didn't go over well with the player base.

---

i though people hate brd backthen because the "stationary" mode? yeah the skill increase your dps but it literally make you more turret than BLM backthen so people really hate that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gumas

i though people hate brd backthen because the "stationary" mode? yeah the skill increase your dps but it literally make you more turret than BLM backthen so people really hate that.

---

No, that was HW. In ARR, Mage's Ballad and Army's Paeon were persistent songs that drained your MP while active, in order to provide MP/TP restoration to your party. The thing was, you dealt 20% less damage while they were active. Classes were designed to make people's MP/TP run out after a while, which is how they forced groups to bring a Bard even though its overall damage was lower (after 2.1) even before the -20%.

This continued into HW, with MCH getting a similar treatment, but over time they reduced the penalty down to -10%, and eventually just eliminated it. Honestly it was interesting to optimize for high end groups, but for the average player it just kind of felt bad, nobody wanted to use the skills, healers would yell at their DF ranged to stop being selfish and sing, and so on.

So these skills became Refresh and Tactician in 4.0, just straight 3m cooldowns with no strings attached. Once again, overall the ranged still brought less damage than the fourth-best other dps, but because it was difficult to impossible for healers to maximize their dps without Refresh, you had to bring one (and subsequently a Dragoon).

In ShB, they've decided to stop this frankly-dumb design of forcing people to bring a weaker role just to be able to operate resource-wise. Instead they've changed the party bonus to this 1% per role, which is kind of just as dumb but at least it's transparent, and doesn't open the door to healers getting screwed by bad ranged who don't press Refresh.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Akiudo

...

---

Honestly I'm not sure what you're trying to get at. If you want BRD to do more damage (which it should) then it needs to also be homogenized further and avoid situations where they are superior due to multi-dotting and be more in line with the other ranged. I just hope SE considers this otherwise they won't be able to buff BRD like how they can't really buff RDM because it has insane raise potential.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cetonis

In ShB, they've decided to stop this frankly-dumb design of forcing people to bring a weaker role just to be able to operate resource-wise. Instead they've changed the party bonus to this 1% per role, which is kind of just as dumb but at least it's transparent, and doesn't open the door to healers getting screwed by bad ranged who don't press Refresh.

---

To be fair that's be design as nobody wants to go back to the time when double ranged was meta. Even the double caster meta is dumb, but hopefully SE will bring the nerf hammer for SMN.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rai_Takara

snip

---

why is bard being superior in multi target situations a problem ? it would be a problem if bard was perfectly equal single target compared to the competition and clearly better at multi target situations i'll give you that, but theres zero reason why bard only falling half as far behind compared to mch as it does now while in fact being clearly superior in a fight with more multi target chances would be gamebreaking unless you want to imply groups will just change their physical ranged on a per fight basis, which is completly unrealistic for most groups, and for the groups that would do that ? lets be honest here, more power to them.

there'll allways be a best class/composition, if say on e7 bard had another 500 dps so what ?.

also about no one wanting back double ranged, and double caster being just as dumb, you made clear what you want, and of course you are free to do so and entitled to your opinion, but don't speak for everyone.no, i dont WANT a double ranged/caster meta, i also don't give a flying .... for a double melee meta, meta in the purest sense of the word will allways exist, therefore i can honestly say whatever. preventing a certain kind of meta for whatever reason<fucking over classes for the general (90% or more) of the playerbase.

just look at tanks and healers, there are clearly superior choices at the absolute top, the tank/healer distribution at the top end is no more equal than the dps distribution, in a lot of ways i would argue its worse, and i couldn't care one bit about that, as a group going for world records, be that fastest run or world firsts will use what suits their needs best either way, doesn't matter what exactly these class(es) is/are, they take what works best, and something will allways be best, its impossible for there not to be. so making sure everything else works about equally well for the general player base has actual use, namely enabling people to play what they want without overly punishing groups, whereas aiming for "perfect balance" at the absolute top 1% level no matter how much that hurts everybody else in practice has no balancing effect at all, 1/3->1/2 the classes will get left in the dust either way, something one can clearly see looking at the class distributions for top 50 speedruns.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rai_Takara

Honestly I'm not sure what you're trying to get at. If you want BRD to do more damage (which it should) then it needs to also be homogenized further and avoid situations where they are superior due to multi-dotting and be more in line with the other ranged. I just hope SE considers this otherwise they won't be able to buff BRD like how they can't really buff RDM because it has insane raise potential.



To be fair that's be design as nobody wants to go back to the time when double ranged was meta. Even the double caster meta is dumb, but hopefully SE will bring the nerf hammer for SMN.

---

Why is double melee ok but double caster or double ranged not ok? As long as you bring 1 of each role you will always have a double.

yep brd get damage buff, at least thats what the translator say.

was hoping some change on the skill but i take any upgrade at this point.

btw, monk finally getting rework (translator say want to rework the GL system) *fixed*

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gumas

yep brd get damage buff, at least thats what the translator say.

was hoping some change on the skill but i take any upgrade at this point.

btw, monk is getting rework again lol

---

Im sorry "again"? when was the first time MNK got a rework?

wops my bad, i forgot that was SHB where everyone getting new stuff, i keep misremember it as rework lol.

*fixed*

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gumas

wops my bad, i forgot that was SHB where everyone getting new stuff, i keep misremember it as rework lol.

*fixed*

---

Sad part about that is that MNK did not get anyhing *new* NEW just worse version of what we had, somehow....

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Wyakin

Why is double melee ok but double caster or double ranged not ok? As long as you bring 1 of each role you will always have a double.

---

Because double caster and double ranged imbalances the comp and makes raid design bad. Naturally, double caster and double ranged makes raid easier, and if you start taking that into account, making raids harder for that comp, then double melee comps will be even harder. As a result, that's why SE is encouraging double melee comps while still allowing other comps, which is the best way to handle it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Akiudo

why is bard being superior in multi target situations a problem ?

---

Because if their ST gets buffed enough, like it might with the next patch, then it might also be too strong overall and the obvious pick if there is any multi targeting involved. Though maybe BRD won't be buffed to MCH level so it might be token buffs but who knows.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rai_Takara

Because if their ST gets buffed enough, like it might with the next patch, then it might also be too strong overall and the obvious pick if there is any multi targeting involved. Though maybe BRD won't be buffed to MCH level so it might be token buffs but who knows.

---

good thing i adressed exactly that both in my original post aswell as in the next paragraph following the one you quoted than. while were at it, can you please crusade against dancer being the obvious pick for speedruns ? i mean you seem to have a problem with a class being clearly superior, even if its just under specific circumstances and potentially for a single fight, so one out of 3 physical ranged being in 93% of top 50 groups among the whole raidtier surely is terrible and fail design. btw while we're at it, on average only around 13% of these groups used scholars, and lets not even talk about warriors. but i guess these things are fine because whatever.

so again, i know i'm repeating myself but it matters jack if one class is clearly superior in a single fight or whatever, the vast majority of groups can't and won't change their lineup on a per fight basis, and if you're part of a group that would do so than so be it, groups that would make their dancer/mch go bard because he brings 0,5% more group dps on one out of 4 fights are exactly the kind of groups that got dancer up to a 93% participation rate for the top 50 speedruns among all fights in the current raid tier, so please don't act like the current "balance" offers these groups any kind of choice.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rai_Takara

Because double caster and double ranged imbalances the comp and makes raid design bad. Naturally, double caster and double ranged makes raid easier, and if you start taking that into account, making raids harder for that comp, then double melee comps will be even harder. As a result, that's why SE is encouraging double melee comps while still allowing other comps, which is the best way to handle it.

---

Except SE isn't encouraging double Melee comps, if anything they are considering double whatever you want as anything that enforces four people close to the boss (like light rampant) is absolutely random about who it chooses. And almost nothing about raid design has taken into effect ranges mobility and used it as an advantage. They haven't done it in years. Nothing about double ranged or caster is inherently blocking SE from making better raids. If anything they have proven that last spot is as flexible as a team wants it to be.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rai_Takara

As for the Bard example, look at the 95th/99th (where parties can utilize BRDs buff the most). At max BRD gets edged out by dancer but we all know dancer has the highest max potential thanks to RNG so all it takes is to get a good run a long with your team/partner to do that.

---

I am. I see Bard third from the bottom despite a near-perfect situation to multi-dot and benefit. A blue 60th percentile SAM would still beat that 95th percentile Bard and that's a significant gap.

SAM is a hard job to optimize, but Bard really isn't far off. Like I said, it's incredibly easy to leak damage as a Bard. Where SAM is well designed is that you can contribute reasonable numbers even if you aren't on a perfect rotational loop and optimizing Meditate/Seigan, but amazing numbers if you do. So it's easy to pick up and do fine with and very rewarding to master.
A class like Bard is absolutely rubbish played badly and can scrape low tier damage played flawlessly. That's not rewarding. You are getting far too little for the tax you pay.

Since we've gotten some splinter of detail that we are in fact just getting basic number buffs (presumably meaning no charges), let's talk about the collateral impacts of buffing different skills, beyond obviously total dps going up.

GCDs

Burst Shot - The main side effect here is that it makes snapshotting DoTs worse, by increasing the gap between Iron Jaws and your filler GCD. +10p here won't really change anything on that front gameplay-wise, but a bigger buff might.

Refulgent Arrow - Buffing RA would slightly increase our busrt via Barrage, and otherwise not do a whole lot besides make our output a little more random.

Stormbite, Caustic Bite, Iron Jaws (initial damage) - I'm presuming they would buff all three of these in tandem. As discussed in OP, because there's room to buff Iron Jaws by quite a bit here, there's a chance to substantially strengthen DoT snapshotting here. As for the two bites, buffing those would primarily mitigate Bard's new target weakness a little, with no significant impact otherwise.

Apex Arrow - Unless they buff it by quite a lot, I would not expect anything to significantly change. We'd get a little more creep on the fringe cases where we can gain by holding a full Apex or using it at 90-95 around Raging or other buffs, but that's a pretty small deal and will continue to be if it's just like a +100p or +150p kind of buff.


Abilities

Pitch Perfect - This would be a surprise, but if for whatever reason they went this route, it'd be a mixed bag. On the one hand, it'd increase the payoff for maximizing WM time, which is nice. But on the other, it'd increase our RNG and also exacerbate the various end-of-WM QoL problems.

Bloodletter - Unless PP is buffed in tandem, a buff to Bloodletter would be a sign that they have no intention of ever giving it charges. That'd be a terrible omen, and there would be no gameplay benefit - only an exacerbation of the biggest problem in the kit (EA under MB).

Empyreal Arrow - One of the most common newbie Bard mistakes is to lose track of EA in the midst of mechanics, so I feel like the main impact of a buffed EA would be to punish that more. Yes we're grumpy about the microscopic skill gap right now, but this doesn't feel like the way it should manifest.

Sidewinder - As talked about in OP, Sidewinder neatly lines up with party buffs, so a large buff to SW would nicely enhance our group synergy.

Song hit damage - This would just be SE waving the white flag on having no clue what they want to do.


Cooldowns / traits

These wouldn't fit the "scattered potency buffs" description, but it's so vague/limited that we might as well imagine some of these being options:

Battle Voice - Could wind up going to 2 minutes. Impact is pretty obvious, it'd make Bard less prone to "bad kill times" and more in line with the meta burst timings.

Raging Strikes - Making Raging stronger seems simple enough to be on the table, naturally it would mainly enhance our burst but could also have Apex or DoT snapshot implications.

Army's Muse - Cynically, I'd be shocked if SE realizes that they should make this 15 seconds, but hey you never know. As per OP, Muse at 10 seconds exacerbates the QoL mess at the end of WM, so this would be a sneaky smart change.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ramura_Sono

That is what having a Team of Battle/Class Designers is for. There is a multitude of feedback for them to parse and discern a concrete direction to take the job in in an attempt to fix it. "Players haven't given us concrete suggestions" is just a way for the Devs to pass the buck. It has to stop.

---

Agreed. You will never find a more passionate group of players than ones on MMORPGs, especially optimisers. The amount of work people have put into sites like Bole and Akh Morning, and the Balance Discord all of those guides, google docs, spreadsheets like holy mother of god. Even WoW's top players don't go that deep, and this isn't even a game where optimizing is on the same level or as important. So I know without even researching it any Bard suggestions put forward were probably extremely deep with examples to back them up. I know it's the JP forums they run to first for backup but they're even more brutal than we are so I know they've probably gone into it too. BRD is just entirely centered around that stupid WM/RS window with not much interesting things to do or get more of outside of that, is this really the vision for the job they wanted? Bard does have it's place. Honestly in early prog I like Bard because I am not as reliant on RDPS to have an impact, but obviously the more comfortable the encounter becomes, the stronger dancer gets as I'm no longer using the higher personal DPS (which isn't even that much higher) as a crutch. Every pull has different decision making and different instances of small bursts on Dancer which means they are capable of making Bard as interesting as it once was and simply don't, almost like it's their design for the job to be training wheels for learning how a cycle and priority system works - and it's just sad.

After playing BRD along with DNC and MCH, it seems to be the most well made job among the three not half baked like MCH or not in their prime like DNC. besides a DPS buff I want to see some other buffs such as: increase Burst shot proc to 50%, Armys Muse procs refulgent arrow every Burst shot, The wardens paean removing that dum Has no Effect subtitle because I know dam well no new bard will use it properly with that remark dissuading them to do so. Also have it do something additional like a shield or reduce damage taken. Sidewinder and Empyreal Arrow potency increased drastically or reduce Sidewinder CD to 40 seconds. Have Barrage be able to triple Quick Nock. and finally have Troubadour separate itself from the other ranged raid wide defense skills their is no reason for these three skills to be so similar. Have it increase healing potency, or have it be a combination of Minne and Paean but raid wide, with MCH and DNC being common as trout they dont align their defensive skills optimally its hard enough to get the other Bard to hold battle voice let alone 3 DNC or 3 MCH in a very unfun run. they arent critical skills just dont want them to be replaced by shield samba seconds after I used mine when i could've saved my breath. Apex arrow is a conversation for another topic as it depends on preference

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jirah

besides a DPS buff I want to see some other buffs such as: increase Burst shot proc to 50%, Armys Muse procs refulgent arrow every Burst shot, The wardens paean removing that dum Has no Effect subtitle because I know dam well no new bard will use it properly with that remark dissuading them to do so. Also have it do something additional like a shield or reduce damage taken. Sidewinder and Empyreal Arrow potency increased drastically or reduce Sidewinder CD to 40 seconds. Have Barrage be able to triple Quick Nock. and finally have Troubadour separate itself from the other ranged raid wide defense skills their is no reason for these three skills to be so similar. Have it increase healing potency, or have it be a combination of Minne and Paean but raid wide

---

50% RA proc - You'd be surprised at how kinda low-impact Refulgent RNG is right now, since RA is only 100p stronger than Burst and the 35% rate reduces variance (compare to ShB). If your thought process is "less Burst Shot spam", my suspicion is that this is where Apex is headed in 6.0. As much as I'd like the single-target version to be an ability, SE likes their consistency, and having it be a GCD in tandem with an increase in gauge generation could bring it up to as high as every 10th/11th GCD or so, basically filling the void left by old Straight Shot.

Army's Muse RA procs - They're likely going to be designing Muses for the other two songs, so realistically we shouldn't expect random add-on effects like this. It's going to be hard enough to construct a Mage's Muse that feels appropriate as it is.

Warden's - Yeah that's a weird coding thingy. Honestly though, if they're going to make every new debuff immune to the auto-cleanse, they might as well remove that aspect of it. As much as it feels great when you do find those cheese-able mechanics, it's not super necessary.

SW - I like a potency increase for this, as per OP. Changing it to 40s would be a bit of a waste of its chance to serve a party-synergy purpose.

EA potency up - Not a fan, at least not until/unless they clean up the kit so that we aren't punished by the auto-proc (BL charges, Wanderer's Muse).

Barrage on Quick Nock - They coulllld, re: solo Apex just being a GCD, they'd have to change Barrage to only affect certain skills (Straight Shot and Refulgent), so they could certainly add Nock to that list.

Troub - Clearly they just want Troub to be a glorified role action, the only reason it isn't is because role actions stop at level 50. I do think it would be nice for Bard (and Machinist) to get a true defensive bomb skill in 6.0, to compete with Curing Waltz.

here are some improvements/suggestions i came up with taking into account more support + music based abilities

1) Replace 'Repelling Shot' with a new ability: shooting out a 'grappling hook' to move around with, make it target like ninja's Shukuchi. also, do not make it need you to be in range of target. this would also fix the issue of repelling shot being pretty much useless. im almost never close enough to use it and the animation delay makes it near impossible to use... it would also give you more of a visual of where you go! no more jumping off the ledge!!

2) for hotbar management: make 'Wanderer's Minuet' replace with 'Pitch Perfect' when minuet is in use. you can't use pitch perfect outside of the song anyway, why give it its own button?

3) merge caustic bite and stormbite into one dot skill: this way you arent eating up more gcd time! it can start as 'venomous bite', add in the effect of wind bite, and upgrade them when caustic bite and stormbite are unlocked.
this would make iron jaws pretty useless, but maybe buff its potency to make it more useful? or just get rid of it, less hotbar space.

4) make song effects stack, it is.. so annoying when there's another bard in the party and the buffs are constantly swapping. doesn't even matter if you are using different songs, because they don't stack anyway ;w;

5) make quick nock not require a target... i don't even know why it needs one in the first place. its shooting in a cone in front of you, not around what you are targetting

6) a temporary rez: hear me out ok?? make it like living dead, will just die again if not healed to full. OR there could be no cure and you die again anyway. but it would be very useful to get a healer up again for some quick real rezzes
concept wise, it could be like singing for them and granting new inspiration to fight
could give it a cast bar... casting is not ideal but a rez is a powerful ability

7) other party buff things: do something with warden's paean... i dont think i have *ever* used it. maybe make it into a 1 person dps buff? idk
make it more clear in nature's minne description that it can buff shields too!

8) this applys to dnc and mch as well, make it so that you cannot use troubadour/tactician/shield samba if you are already under the effect of one of these. it cant be stacked, so this is just making sure you cant accidently waste it
can also do the same thing with battle voice, cant use it if you already have the buff on you

9) add another soul voice thing, maybe to even replace apex arrow but it would be good to have variety? my idea is a big party buff to crit hit or overall dps, the buff increasing the more charge you have. similar concept to battle voice, maybe call it crescendo? to make the name more accurate, you could have the buff increase over time before it falls off

alright these are all the ideas i can come up with for now uwu
i dont expect to get any of these but they would be pretty cool

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by heichoukun

here are some improvements/suggestions i came up with taking into account more support + music based abilities

---

1) its always bother me why we get a skill that make us do backstep where considering our class, we probably stay far away from the enemy from the very start lol (solo also useless because the backstep is very minimal and it does nothing to change the combat flow at all)

while something like grappling hook is nice, thats not very BRD like, a ninja using grappling hook make sense but for a BRD using it seems weird look/lore wise. maybe something like "teleportation arrow"? the BRD shoot the arrow upward then we teleport to where the arrow land (basically BRD version of NIN Shukuchi)

2) yes totally agree with this, they can put RDM verflare, verholy and scorch in existing skill button but BRD perfect pitch is separate button?

3) this depend for me, if the expansion they give BRD another dot skill then yes, by all mean merge this into one. but right now iam actually fine with it. personally i wish they erase the iron jaw and make Refulgent arrow (when proc) instantly refresh the dot timer, some RNG but its more fun that way


but one thing that i really REALLY want is, please PLEASE dev put a projectile flying from our bow to the target when we do our attack? please? i hate seeing an attack when we clearly using a projectile (arrow) and somehow just magically landed on the enemy without seeing it.

many of BRD attack suffer from this

- Heavy shot (Burst shot suffer less because there is straight line coming out from our bow when we shoot it but it still weak)

- Caustic bite (storm bite is better because when you shoot it there is wind turbulence going to the enemy)

- Blood letter (same case with Burst shot)

- Sidewinder (even less effect than Burst shot and Blood letter)

just make a simple effect, like star wars laser shot or something or one of those blueish arrow shot from Empyreal Arrow. i just want to see the "thing" that we shoot going to the target and hit, it feel more "oomph" that way.

I assume the skill was for cases where players had to stack on the boss. Stack on the boss, use it to get away from the cleaves.

Grappling hook seems more of a MCH thing then a BRD/NIN thing IMO

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by heichoukun

here are some improvements/suggestions

---

1) I always uses repel for after a stack, the odd thing is it doesn’t do damage that’s where the issue lies, BRD is a Ranged job you don’t need these crazy maneuvers. Not every job needs DNC mobility

2)Solid Idea, even if all the Ranged jobs (especially MCH) have many empty slots. But I like this

3) No, Bard has no rotation this would make the job a bore and make Iron Jaws useless. Last thing we need is even more boring jobs, hello mch

4) With other Bards it’s a pain to cooperate the song buffs to the point where it’s impossible, so yea agreed

5) Agreed I suppose

6) I agree BRD needs more hardy support but let’s not get crazy overboard and give it a lesser living dead

7) I always Use Paean as it’s shield and I never know what’s coming. Helps the healer out not wasting time with Esuna, but I agree as a whole “HAS NO EFFECT” Line annoys me and Paean should have more effects

8) Why do all Ranged jobs has the same exact skill do the same exact thing, I say leave samba and have Troubadour do somthing else. It’s not hard to coordinate a Macro but since MCH and DNC are the two most common jobs will run into this a lot

9) a Gage that buffs? Sounds clunky but Kenki has one so its worth exploring the idea at least. I just wish Apex wasn’t apart of the GCD like Refulgent and Iron jaws. Somthing spammy like Pitch would make Apex better as I already like the skill. A constant gage for songs and knowing the best ways to utilize it under Raging strikes

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jirah

I always uses repel for after a stack, the odd thing is it doesn’t do damage that’s where the issue lies, BRD is a Ranged job you don’t need these crazy maneuvers. Not every job needs DNC mobility

---

originally it actually did deal damage, that however was allways a pain to time do to the animation lock, which got WAY worse with menuett added during heavensward, while i agree that its a mostly unneeded skill on bard as is please lets not go back to it dealing damage, repel doing no damage most definately was for the better.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jirah

4) With other Bards it’s a pain to cooperate the song buffs to the point where it’s impossible, so yea agreed

---

unless they made some stealth changes its actually worse, the buffs literally don't stack, you can try as much as you want it simply has no effect, the buff that gets used later simply takes precedent and thats it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Akiudo

good thing i adressed exactly that both in my original post aswell as in the next paragraph following the one you quoted than. while were at it, can you please crusade against dancer being the obvious pick for speedruns ? i mean you seem to have a problem with a class being clearly superior, even if its just under specific circumstances and potentially for a single fight, so one out of 3 physical ranged being in 93% of top 50 groups among the whole raidtier surely is terrible and fail design. btw while we're at it, on average only around 13% of these groups used scholars, and lets not even talk about warriors. but i guess these things are fine because whatever.

so again, i know i'm repeating myself but it matters jack if one class is clearly superior in a single fight or whatever, the vast majority of groups can't and won't change their lineup on a per fight basis, and if you're part of a group that would do so than so be it, groups that would make their dancer/mch go bard because he brings 0,5% more group dps on one out of 4 fights are exactly the kind of groups that got dancer up to a 93% participation rate for the top 50 speedruns among all fights in the current raid tier, so please don't act like the current "balance" offers these groups any kind of choice.

---

I mean I agree to a certain extent, but keep in mind that DNC suffers the same thing that SB AST did. The problem with DNC is that it's a heavily RNG based class. This means it is tuned for its average contribution but when the stars align and RNG is in your favor after numerous runs, it'll be stronger. Which is also why it's used in speeds because it becomes a numbers game and aside from speeds, you see MCH is actually stronger, which is pretty much 99% of raiding. I'd reduce dancers RNG spread a bit like they did with AST and balance accordingly.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rika007

Except SE isn't encouraging double Melee comps, if anything they are considering double whatever you want as anything that enforces four people close to the boss (like light rampant) is absolutely random about who it chooses. And almost nothing about raid design has taken into effect ranges mobility and used it as an advantage. They haven't done it in years. Nothing about double ranged or caster is inherently blocking SE from making better raids. If anything they have proven that last spot is as flexible as a team wants it to be.

---

They have been by damage. If you look at previous tiers, it has always been double melee or even triple melee as an optimal comp. SE has compromised by encouraging double melee but still not punishing you for any other comp aside from damage to the point that you can't clear fights.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

I am. I see Bard third from the bottom despite a near-perfect situation to multi-dot and benefit. A blue 60th percentile SAM would still beat that 95th percentile Bard and that's a significant gap.

SAM is a hard job to optimize, but Bard really isn't far off. Like I said, it's incredibly easy to leak damage as a Bard. Where SAM is well designed is that you can contribute reasonable numbers even if you aren't on a perfect rotational loop and optimizing Meditate/Seigan, but amazing numbers if you do. So it's easy to pick up and do fine with and very rewarding to master.
A class like Bard is absolutely rubbish played badly and can scrape low tier damage played flawlessly. That's not rewarding. You are getting far too little for the tax you pay.

---

When it comes to your damage, you should be looking at it relatively. You shouldn't care what a caster or melee is doing. If anything you should only look at your job and the other ranged. In addition, should decouple difficulty and reward. I don't think it's feasible to expect a hard class to pay well. SAM being hard but also rewarding isn't by design, that's an accident, for example. If as a BRD, you're being out done by your peers, something is up, hence why BRD is getting buffed. My only hope is they take it slow and address the actual issues without creating another balance issue. People aren't not taking bards. Heck even world first shiva had a bard.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by heichoukun

snip

---

1) The reason Repelling Shot is still in the game is because the level 15 quest dialogue explicitly discusses it and explains what it does. They have changed one of those level 15 quests before, for Pugilist, but they had a skill (Fists of Earth) that was available to move to the level 15 slot. There's no such clear option for Archer. But all the same, there's no reason for SE to go through the effort of reworking Repelling, when they could just remove or replace it instead. Making some new skill would take the same amount of effort, and dredging up an old one (Flaming Arrow? Dare I dream?) would take even less.

2) There's a consistency to having all three songs work the same way UI-wise, most Bards are going to have all of them next to each other or on the same group in their controller hotbar, so suddenly having to ship one onto a "press this a lot at a moment's notice" bind would be kind of disruptive. There are easier / better ways to shed buttons and we have no indication that SE thinks Bard is overburdened on that front right now (heck, I comfortably have space for five different Minne buttons).

3) If SE was going to do that, they would have done so already. And if they were going to do that, they'd just make it a single DoT with a higher (or 100%) proc chance. While the two DoT application skills causes some fight design vs. job balance issues, if that's SE's big concern they can easily resolve that with large numbers buffs (frankly, they could go as high as i.e. 180p and 200p and nothing would break).

4) The passive song buffs are getting removed in 6.0 anyway, most likely. SE didn't get rid of them because they liked them. They're a bad design and SE knows it, they just now also know that if they leave Bard barren on damage support riots will ensue.

5) Micro-managing facing seems even worse than needing a target. This would be a step in the wrong direction.

6) This sounds like a Black Mage proposal to me, also why the heck would you give only one ranged a res, when only one caster lacks one?

7) The only thing they need to do with Warden's is to increase the number of cleansable debuffs. I think a lot of people simply don't look out for them, but there has been a little bit more of it this expac. Still, they could definitely be less shy about i.e. giving people cleansable burns if they step through fire puddles, giving mobs poisons here and there, etc.

8) Would be nice, but they don't do this anywhere else so there's little reason to expect it here.

9) Coming in 6.0, almost certainly. 99% chance it's just a larger single target version of Apex. And 80-90% chance it comes with some increase to gauge generation.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cetonis

6) This sounds like a Black Mage proposal to me, also why the heck would you give only one ranged a res, when only one caster lacks one?

---

Because BLM doesn't need a res.
It doesn't make sense with what a BLM is either traditionally or as it's implemented in FF14.
If it got one it's kit would make it an even bigger res machine than RDM.
And BRD is one of the "support-iest" jobs, so I can understand the logic though I don't think BRD needs a res either.