Bard in FF14 is so much like Hunter without Pet in Ragnarok Online

It was. There also were no knowledge sites or class guides etc like today, and brd was that mysterious class no one really knew what they did and how they worked bc it played so different from everything else. They also had a travel song that made them float and run at like 300% movement speed leaving a trail of flashy notes and particles in the sky, I was still a noob when I saw that for the first time and it completely blew my mind, causing me to reroll my char as a brd, played it for 7 years straight after that lol.

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Originally Posted by TcomJ

"The rotations smooth, it works together. And it isn’t flawed objectively. Simply it doesn’t suit you."
"I haven’t seen a good bard since I left Everquest 1 :p and j doubt I will ever find a iteration of bard I loved as much as Everquest 1s"
That's your personal opinion of the DPS rotation.

Like Connor says, you are delusional. You haven't even up bard to 80 but MCH. Do you guys honestly have to go make opinion of other people's main just to make yours feel better?

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Saying I need a level 80 bard to know bard plays like SB without the crit RNG but more flatline RNG and a nerfed utility kit is delusional.

I mean honestly I can go play bard get it to 80 in prolly a day if that rly qualifys me to have a opinon.

I talk to a lot of bards that still love the variant of it I’ve also talked to people who prefer it now feeling more like a ranger because they never liked the fact the only bow option was on a support job. So now it fits them more because it has more ranger components to it.

The only solid problems I ever hear is with apex arrow, which I could agree looks like it needs some work and I doubt trying it would change my opinon on that.

Bard didn’t take enough changes in SHB gameplay wise to change much. The utility was nerfed yes but from a self gameplay the songs didn’t. They still proc the same stuff

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Originally Posted by Drayos

Saying I need a level 80 bard to know bard plays like SB without the crit RNG but more flatline RNG and a nerfed utility kit is delusional.

I mean honestly I can go play bard get it to 80 in prolly a day if that rly qualifys me to have a opinon.

I talk to a lot of bards that still love the variant of it I’ve also talked to people who prefer it now feeling more like a ranger because they never liked the fact the only bow option was on a support job. So now it fits them more because it has more ranger components to it

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Realistically having a Bard at 70 is the same as having one at 80 lol, since you get pretty much no new abilities between 70-80 unless you count the Heavy Shot upgrade and Sidewinder reskin.

You still seem to be misunderstanding the argument here. Nobody is saying that they want the Ranger aspects of Bard to be removed or deleted. They’re saying that the job should be a balance of the two aspects it’s fined by - the bow and the music. Because right now only one of those identities shines, whilst the other seems to have been left at the wayside

Oddly enough, I don't think Bard needed to be dumbed down. It was one of the easiest classes to get into, you just had to put in effort to play it well (and you know read the tooltips and job actions so you know what stuff is doing). RNG was a pain at times, especially if you weren't geared up on CRIT materias, but I chalked it up to Bard being like AST in that regards so I didn't mind it.

Since EQ was brought up, I thought I'd bring up my Bard experience from another MMO I played years back.
Back in my days on Eden Eternal, Bard wasn't a DPS class but actually a healing class (the AOE master). You had your classic Cure, Revive, Escape (saved a few raids with that one), etc. But you had about 5-6 songs you had to constantly weave as they lasted less than 15s each, as well as put up a 3x DMG debuff and set time for a few Stones, it was a great feeling when you could keep that chain going. Then class specialties came along (you could go back and forth) and we got boosted versions of those songs. At least now they lasted 30 seconds.

Now for comparison, I enjoyed SB Bard more than Eden's movement wise. I'm no fan of casting classes in FF personally. However in terms of identity I enjoyed Eden's more. More songs, more to do (and more panicking when shit hit the fan) and a better feeling of helping your team. However it's likely I'm comparing apples to oranges here since the design roots were different between both games.

*Edit: EQ Bard sounds dope and much fun!

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Originally Posted by Drayos

Bard didn’t take enough changes in SHB gameplay wise to change much. The utility was nerfed yes but from a self gameplay the songs didn’t. They still proc the same stuff

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Highlighted for good measure. Gameplay is fine, class identity about Bard supporting its allies is gone.

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Originally Posted by Xieldras

Oddly enough, I don't think Bard needed to be dumbed down. It was one of the easiest classes to get into, you just had to put in effort to play it well (and you know read the tooltips and job actions so you know what stuff is doing). RNG was a pain at times, especially if you weren't geared up on CRIT materias, but I chalked it up to Bard being like AST in that regards so I didn't mind it.

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I agree with you here, mostly notably about how Bard is by far the easiest job of any to pick up. There’s very little to actually keep track of now, your DoTs are still covered by Iron Jaws, your procs are a lot steadier now. There...isn’t really anything left for a Bard to manage now lol, just DoT and hit procs. In the past we had song management to break up the tedium of waiting on procs, even if it was limited to just managing Foe Requiem uptime. I mean, you could argue that there’s ‘management’ in using Minne/Paean/Troubadour, but considering they’re just ‘set and forget’ instant oGCDs, there isn’t any actual thought involved in how to use them, especially because they all have long cooldowns (can’t manage buff uptime or usage of its unavailable most of the time)

I’ve made my personal issues with current song design clear. They exist solely as an invariable conveyer belt outside of the rare AoE situation where you go from Paeon into Ballad and back. You will always use the Wanderer’s Minuet first (for raging strikes line up), always followed by Mage’s Ballad, always followed by Army’s Paeon which will always be cut off short to for Minuet / Raging Strikes.

The only three songs we have that see regular use and we have no control at all on how we use them (unless you like losing DPS). And then there’s the jarring fact that they all exist solely for our own DPS gain, which is kinda against what the job was intended to be

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Originally Posted by Connor

I agree with you here, mostly notably about how Bard is by far the easiest job of any to pick up. There’s very little to actually keep track of now, your DoTs are still covered by Iron Jaws, your procs are a lot steadier now. There...isn’t really anything left for a Bard to manage now lol, just DoT and hit procs. In the past we had song management to break up the tedium of waiting on procs, even if it was limited to just managing Foe Requiem uptime. I mean, you could argue that there’s ‘management’ in using Minne/Paean/Troubadour, but considering they’re just ‘set and forget’ instant oGCDs, there isn’t any actual thought involved in how to use them, especially because they all have long cooldowns (can’t manage buff uptime or usage of its unavailable most of the time)

I’ve made my personal issues with current song design clear. They exist solely as an invariable conveyer belt outside of the rare AoE situation where you go from Paeon into Ballad and back. You will always use the Wanderer’s Minuet first (for raging strikes line up), always followed by Mage’s Ballad, always followed by Army’s Paeon which will always be cut off short to for Minuet / Raging Strikes.

The only three songs we have that see regular use and we have no control at all on how we use them (unless you like losing DPS). And then there’s the jarring fact that they all exist solely for our own DPS gain, which is kinda against what the job was intended to be

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It is the easiest job but one of the highest depth class out there, which the depth makes it fun.

Don't know what's with spoon feed mentality that makes everything so homogenized and clones of each other, how is that even fun in an mmorpg?

Like you said, they could have left or change those songs abit and that would be fine.

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Originally Posted by TcomJ

It is the easiest job but one of the highest depth class out there, which the depth makes it fun.

Don't know what's with spoon feed mentality that makes everything so homogenized and clones of each other, how is that even fun in an mmorpg?

Like you said, they could have left or change those songs abit and that would be fine.

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Tbh this I can agree with :p the changes to bard didn’t really change anything but it did take a lot of depth out of bard.. but removing a lot of thought processes out of it during a fight.

And they haven’t really made any effort to replace any of the depth it had originally.

The only time bard has ever felt like a support class in this game was back in 2.0 and Heavensward. Which is when you had a mana pool, 3 songs to choose from depending on the situation, which would result in a 10% reduction of damage (depending on the song) and some decision making to factor in.

As someone who has never played any Final Fantasy game outside of 14, Stormblood bard did not feel like a support at all because everything you did to 'support' the raid was everything any other DPS did in terms of buffing for raid-wide damage.

1.Battle voice doesn't feel like support because it's akin to any raid-wide buff you would hit on any other dps class.

2.Your songs giving a 3% doesn't feel like support at all because you would give the same raid-wide buff regardless of which song and when you played it. The 3% buff was a bi-product of playing the job correctly which ultimately makes it fall back into the raid-wide buff department like battle voice.

3.Any cross-class skill doesn't count (Refresh and Tactician) if you are arguing for identity.

4.Warden's paeon is never used in 99% of cases. The only time it has ever been used consistently was back in Heavensward for Warrior's berserk macro spam. If anything it's just reskinned Esuna.

5.Foes is somewhat on the fence but when you break it down it ultimately falls back into something like Battle voice since your only resource (mana) would be used for it and there's really no level of decision making either when using it.

6. Trobadour is debatable since you had to be in the right song for the right buff to go off which makes it hard to account for since the song rotation is very strict. If anything you had to pray the fight was scripted in a way that you could use it effectively.


The only big thing separating bard from being similar to other DPS buffing the party would be that it has more buffs than any other class in exchange for its lower DPS output.

If the criteria for 'support' is the number of buffs you can output in conjunction with low personal dps, it feels very weak as a criteria for the role of support.

Heavensward and 2.0 Bard is the best SE has ever done in terms of the identity of support because you had choice and had to have some level of decision making to play the class effectively for what it was intended. Stormblood bard doesn't feel like support because you buff the group regardless of what you did and, as a result, you had lower dps which made you 'feel' like you were supporting the group.

Edit: Nature's Minne was a decent support skill but it felt quite underwhelming unless you were in organised groups. In duty finder people would just overheal regardless.

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Originally Posted by WoWprogaymer

The only time bard has ever felt like a support class in this game was back in 2.0 and Heavensward. Which is when you had a mana pool, 3 songs to choose from depending on the situation, which would result in a 10% reduction of damage (depending on the song) and some decision making to factor in.

As someone who has never played any Final Fantasy game outside of 14, Stormblood bard did not feel like a support at all because everything you did to 'support' the raid was everything any other DPS did in terms of buffing for raid-wide damage.

1.Battle voice doesn't feel like support because it's akin to any raid-wide buff you would hit on any other dps class.

2.Your songs giving a 3% doesn't feel like support at all because you would give the same raid-wide buff regardless of which song and when you played it. The 3% buff was a bi-product of playing the job correctly which ultimately makes it fall back into the raid-wide buff department like battle voice.

3.Any cross-class skill doesn't count (Refresh and Tactician) if you are arguing for identity.

4.Warden's paeon is never used in 99% of cases. The only time it has ever been used consistently was back in Heavensward for Warrior's berserk macro spam. If anything it's just reskinned Esuna.

5.Foes is somewhat on the fence but when you break it down it ultimately falls back into something like Battle voice since your only resource (mana) would be used for it and there's really no level of decision making either when using it.

6. Trobadour is debatable since you had to be in the right song for the right buff to go off which makes it hard to account for since the song rotation is very strict. If anything you had to pray the fight was scripted in a way that you could use it effectively.


The only big thing separating bard from being similar to other DPS buffing the party would be that it has more buffs than any other class in exchange for its lower DPS output.

If the criteria for 'support' is the number of buffs you can output in conjunction with low personal dps, it feels very weak as a criteria for the role of support.

Heavensward and 2.0 Bard is the best SE has ever done in terms of the identity of support because you had choice and had to have some level of decision making to play the class effectively for what it was intended. Stormblood bard doesn't feel like support because you buff the group regardless of what you did and, as a result, you had lower dps which made you 'feel' like you were supporting the group.

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On the support mechanic aspect side yes, 2.0 bard was really good, tho the bow mage ticks me off.

I do not mind having lower DPS output but higher than DNC and abit lower than NIN.