In 4.0 can we please get rid of caster bars on physical ranged jobs?!

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Originally Posted by Ametrine

Again, I shall reiterate, Bard isn't the only job fundamentally changed with the level cap increase. Read: Enochian on BLM and Aetherial Attunement on SMN.



Although, if giving WM a shorter cooldown to allow Bards the ability to stance dance ala and healer with Cleric's would save old school bards some heartache, then why don't we all push for it in 4.0?

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Let me explain it too you in a simpler way, the BLM and SMN skills past 50 work with the basics of the class, yes they might be sloppy, but they don't change the fundamentals of those classes. If Enochian and Aetherial Attunement were even on the same level as WM, you'd see BLM and SMN skills be drastically changed, like all the skills going from being casted to just AoEs or even turned into a physical melee class. Now imagine a new player playing BRD till 50 and then getting slapped with WM? Having to adjust to new playstyle virtually immediately, it causes a disparity in the gameplay. As I've stated and people before me, WM did more then just change the class, it redesigned it overnight and caused issues within the classes toolkit pre HW, you know, the foundation of the class that players must understand first before anything else.

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Originally Posted by AskaRay

I play SCH just fine with a controller?
I have 3 and a half crossbars, and it did take some getting used to, but it works... so I wouldn't call it "impossible".

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The controller issue was only part of the reason... To be honest, I really don't care for Scholar's level 60 skills, and how you have to pre-set up the heals by hitting a second skill verses adlo's simple sheild system. On top of the heavier fairy use, it no longer jived with me. I had always been a bit too reliant on Lustrate being there to save the day, and the sudden drain on my aetherflow stacks from other skills on top of having a far harder time with my fairy, I just jumped ship before I made more teams weep with their gutted healer.

Scholar's new skills made sense with the lore and aesthetic, but it just no longer worked for me despite loving both those aspects of the job.

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Originally Posted by Ametrine

That's why it bothers me. I've HAD to swap mains with 3.0, too, and I know I'm not the only one who did so. Scholar is borderline impossible on a controller set-up at level 60. I couldn't micro the fairy since I ran out of slots to put her skills on!

So, I tried SMN, DRG, PLD, and eventually landed on AST for a long time. I found another option that was different but still fun.

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i don't main scholar and i play on keyboard+mouse, but i have it at 60, and the only time i have used emergency tactics and dissipation was on nidhogg extreme, during the last phase - akh morn stacking to be specific - when the WHM died due getting hit with one of the bombs prior.

otherwise those skills are not hotkey'd and are just click skills for me, deployment tactics - i only use this pre-pull and phase changes (esp pre-adds phase) so it's off the hotkeys too.

the only thing i have on tap is indom and broil which should be too hard to find a spot in your controller mapping (for two skills) since the fairies themselves never got anything new from 50-60.

so yeah half of the SCH toolkit for HW is very very situational and i suggest you give it another go because you loved the job and for what it is.

same as us here that complain. we love bard and there's no replacement for it for some (maybe til they give us ranger someday). so no matter how much SE decides to screw us over, we stick to the job for what it is.

I really liked MCH up until level 52. Then it became a slog that took over 6 months to finish.

I'd be fine with BRD and MCH losing the stand still stances.

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Originally Posted by Kosmos992k

I agree

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You're right, a good player would be able to adjust and maintain, but sadly it's more the opposite because like you said, the complexity of the class because of WM. Sadly, SE didn't realize it already had the skills they could have put on BRD which would have made the toolkit much better, look at Jehantels skills Voice of Valor, Voice of Fortitude, and Relentless March, 3 great support songs that would have kept BRD how it was and expanded on the support aspect of the job.

I'm honestly still shocked they went with standing totally still. I'm surprised it wasn't made as long as mage cast time, but you had walking speed movement. Like that just fits with the motif they setup for ranged physical before it felt.

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Originally Posted by Cinno

People will complain about it until the day it gets removed..

They took a class that specialized in mobility, and forced it to stand still. If people wanted to stand still, they have BLM, and SMN. You cant take a class that people have picked, and have played for fifty levels, and change up the formula on them so drastically. It's not even the fact that people dont want to adapt, its that people picked a class and put large amounts of time into it, and suddenly its something entirely different that they didn't choose, and may not even like.

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They forced it to stutter step, much more easily than any true caster, and prep or compromise (again, at less cost than for a true caster) for mobile dps. It's about as rooted as a melee maintaining uptime on a mid-sized mob with some tank-waggle.

The only real sad thing is that Bards fell well behind MCH in terms of preparation for movement possible, by the simple fact that stance-dancing is more costly due to Bloodletter's massive potency and chance frequency and that you have only one instant proc weaponskill instead of two. They gave us a challenge, but then gave us only one real option by which to reliably deal with it — Feint.

As for the issue of how sudden the change was, or even that it's usually a dps loss until 56, I'll agree completely. But I don't think SE should therefore just scrap the mechanic completely. Instead, they should introduce it bit by bit, starting early, until both ends of stance-dancing seems satisfying and rewarding to master — which requires that there are those several little steps or tricks to get used to or keep in mind within a given fight that skill gap will show within, not highly as to make playing in either stance more than one optimally should a noticeable difference in casual content, but enough nonetheless to make a Bard feel like they need to know what they're doing to master it. WM at least has increased that skill gap, and the number of concerns and decisions involved in BRD play. I'd be more likely to quit the class for having lost those than its "mobility" before.

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Originally Posted by blackkanye

I'm honestly still shocked they went with standing totally still. I'm surprised it wasn't made as long as mage cast time, but you had walking speed movement. Like that just fits with the motif they setup for ranged physical before it felt.

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If you could move the whole time at 2/3s speed, or 2/3s of the time (starting movement at about 2/3s cast bar, just short of cast cancel) at 100% speed, the only difference is the latter can be more easily cut in case of emergency, and allows you to more... explosively play chicken with AoEs. There's no difference in actual mobility between your 'archer's walk' and WM. WM's just safer, mechanically.

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Originally Posted by Felis

Not canceling, but shooting earlier. Make the shoot weaker and increase the chance to miss

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This would be a good compromise tbh.

What gets me is, I honestly don't see the problem with WM. And to be 100% honest, pre60 I ran around like a moron as a BRD.
Gaining WM just keeps me still but if I time it right, I can move while casting it. I mean, at least you aren't losing DPS and that much time
unlike the BLM's. We still have to AoE dance to hell, lose Enochian, possibly lose Sharpcast, Lose Leylines and any other buffs.
I just don't see any valid complaints about it. You still are mobile, just not 100% like you use to be more like 95%.
Yoshi listened to those who wanted a more of a DPS bard, and here you go, you just gotta stand still for a sec.
I mean the ones of use who wanted a more supportive bard got screwed.

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Originally Posted by bass9020

I just want bard to have ya know... MORE SUPPORT ABILITIES?

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I agree with this guy.

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Originally Posted by mb52139

Thing is, we already have/had two caster classes with cast bars. Now we have 4. Removing variety is not a good thing here...

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you forgot to mention the healer classes, who are casters as well. 7 out of 13 jobs have cast bars. the other 6 are melees.

yes, more variety would be nice.

SE, it's time to decide, and 4.0 is a perfect catalyst for the change:

If you want BRD/MCH (or should I say Dex based jobs overall, considering the trend?) to be limited as a DPS for the sake of party support, then it's time to break the Trinity, and fully, officially create and designate Support as a party role.

Please consider this seriously.

I'd love for SE to ditch the cast bars but I doubt it's going to happen.
I hope they at least redesign bard from the ground up so we aren't left with an awkward shift in gameplay in the 50s that works against Bloodletter procs.

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Originally Posted by Tint

you forgot to mention the healer classes, who are casters as well. 7 out of 13 jobs have cast bars. the other 6 are melees.

yes, more variety would be nice.

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They'll probably add cast bars to the remaining classes in 4.0, you know, cast bar when a monk pulls their arm back to punch...

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Originally Posted by Brill_

Cast bar when a monk pulls their arm back to punch...

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Finally! The Punch Mage!

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Originally Posted by ThirdChild_ZKI

SE, it's time to decide, and 4.0 is a perfect catalyst for the change:

If you want BRD/MCH (or should I say Dex based jobs overall, considering the trend?) to be limited as a DPS for the sake of party support, then it's time to break the Trinity, and fully, officially create and designate Support as a party role.

Please consider this seriously.

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That would require so much rebalancing, I doubt they could do it in the time they have, and if they did, we'd lose content.

Personally I'd be ok with the cast bars, if they were just 0.5s instead.
It makes u stop to cast, preventing extreme kite tactics, but separates them from the other casters. (I also hate playing casters, even more so if they have off the GCD abilities, and u cant trigger them while casting)

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Originally Posted by AzraelX

In a recent interview Yoshi regrets how complex and different some jobs play at lv 60 compared to 50. It lead to a widening gap in skill level among players. He mentions in 4.0 he wants lv 60 skills and above play/ feel like lv 50 did. Bard and MCH play completely different at lv 60 compared to 50. The difference is so large that many people have let the BRD for good.

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And I'm one of those people. I loved BRD in 2.0, it was so much fun to play. Then 3.0 happened and SE turned it into a caster. I leveled it up to 60 and then dropped it like it was hot. It wasn't the archer class I loved anymore.

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Originally Posted by Hakuro89

And I'm one of those people. I loved BRD in 2.0, it was so much fun to play. Then 3.0 happened and SE turned it into a caster. I leveled it up to 60 and then dropped it like it was hot. It wasn't the archer class I loved anymore.

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Exactly the same here.

i love brd the way it is now.

like a mix between blm and smn. i can see why ppl like the lv50 brd, though to me it was the most boring class in the 2.x series and it never made much sense that you could run around like a headless chicken while shooting at the enemy and actually perform good. I think the cast bar just fits a bow user perfectly.
for mch it's different though. while you don't have a cast bar anyway when your shots proc, i would like to see them take away casts bar for a gun. guns have reload times.

Gotta love how people who can't even play bard properly claim job is fine. Filthy heavy shot single target rain of death spammers.

I like WM. :(
I would like more support stuff and more songs for my bard.

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Originally Posted by Brill_

They'll probably add cast bars to the remaining classes in 4.0, you know, cast bar when a monk pulls their arm back to punch...

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It's only fair. XD

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Originally Posted by ThirdChild_ZKI

SE, it's time to decide, and 4.0 is a perfect catalyst for the change:

If you want BRD/MCH (or should I say Dex based jobs overall, considering the trend?) to be limited as a DPS for the sake of party support, then it's time to break the Trinity, and fully, officially create and designate Support as a party role.

Please consider this seriously.

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That is just way unnecessary and unneeded. It would be so much easier to just simplify the rotation by cutting skills out like sidewinder, making Paeon an aoe, and greying out and canceling songs when using WM. Or, actually anything that would allow bards more time to, like, focus on the entire party instead of just the cast bars and their crossbar/hotbars the entire time.

I'd love if the cast bars are removed but I doubt it. I did eventually get used to WM but what still makes me cringe to no end is all the missed blood letter procs cause you are locked in mid-cast.

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Originally Posted by Ametrine

That's why it bothers me. I've HAD to swap mains with 3.0, too, and I know I'm not the only one who did so. Scholar is borderline impossible on a controller set-up at level 60. I couldn't micro the fairy since I ran out of slots to put her skills on!

So, I tried SMN, DRG, PLD, and eventually landed on AST for a long time. I found another option that was different but still fun.

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Going off topic a bit but Scholar is far from impossible with a controller it doesn't require massive numbers of hotbars or anything drastic.. As an example here's my layout uses just 2 hotbars plus the expanded one.

http://i.imgur.com/j4V38CZ.png

A few points about it.

A: is hotbars 10 and 9 vertically. they're never actually used i only ever set skills there so i can track cooldowns.

B: the 3 macro's i have here are all targetting macros. one is target circle. one is target attack1. and one is assist <t>. they're not used alot but can be helpful when everything is crammed in a really confined area. or to mark a key player in another alliance in 24 man content is if the main tank is in another party. makes it quicker and easier to target him and toss a heal if his own party is in bad shape.

C: is my pet commands which are changed when i cast the relevent summon spell. you can see my macros for these in the picture. also changes them on hotbar 10 again only for visual indication of cool downs.

set 4 is my expanderd bar which is mostly pet commands plus I have resurrection on there near swift cast and my summons as those are typically the 3 things I use swift cast for. so have the full toolkit on 2 hotbars plus the expanded one.

I'm personally a big fan of emergancy tactics as well. i use it a hell of a lot with adlos instead of lustrates as often as possible and succors instead of indomibility. it frees up so many aether flow charges over the course of time.

it's probably not the best layout in the world but it's one that works very well and very easily on controller. a few friends have copied my layout and have said it works very well.

so yeah if its a class that still interests you. maybe this will be useful.

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Originally Posted by Hakuro89

And I'm one of those people. I loved BRD in 2.0, it was so much fun to play. Then 3.0 happened and SE turned it into a caster. I leveled it up to 60 and then dropped it like it was hot. It wasn't the archer class I loved anymore.

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I didn't main bards back in 2.X BUT I used to play one constantly, to the point that it was nearly raid-geared at the end of 2.55. I loved bard so much that I even made an archer/bard alt first THE I made my main character a bard later. It was so much fun to play alongside my warrior (my main job) and I even kept my artemis bow because of its looks.

And yeah, 3.0 came, they turn bard into a caster, I just don't see the reason to be one so I went BLM. Afteral they're both casters and while enochian is a new mechanic, it benefits from the lack of mobility that blm already possess (especially when ley lines is deployed).

IMO, if they want to fix WM and GB, they should make them have unique buffs when they stand still, and not just put casting bars onto them. That, or just remove them: i doubt we will miss them...

Except you do not have to stand still all the time, there is a threshold you can move and the attack will still go off... this is true for other jobs as well.
It is rather funny as i have seen countless Bards while dealing in level 50 content moving around like crazy, but why? There was no aoe that needed to be dodged, it does not bring up your damage either, lol
Bards still have it easier then many jobs, be thankful of it
Change was needed for Bard as 2.x Bard was far too simple

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Originally Posted by Maero

[...] it does not bring up your damage either, lol

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with all the missing auto attacks the opposite did happen: bards who were running around like crazy lose damage.

I think it's more about the diversity between jobs than it is people failing to adapt. The good players will be fine with WM and GB, but that doesn't validate the ability as being good.

I also don't think it's as easy as turning the ability off for 4.0, I think they would need to pair that with certain mechanics that use the mobility to good use. As has been mentioned, running around like a headless chicken should not be promoted, but having mechanics that require mobility from jobs would make it more worthwhile. I prefer the diversity option, so i see no reason why the ranged support jobs can't be given their mobility back. We already have casters with cast bars in this game.

And to second this other point I read, it would be great to give BRD/MCH some more support abilities rather than making them full on DPS. It's something that could add a whole new dimension to this game, and I'm sure it'll be more fun than being strictly a DPS job.

There's a good reason why MCH, BRD and BLM are in such high demands for raids is because nobody wants to play them because they are too difficult or not very fun. Every time I see a PF looking for static members it's always looking for MCH BRD and BLM. Of course I don't blame them. Would YOU want to use Enochian in Alex savage? I sure wouldn't!

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Originally Posted by Zojha

No, it does not - it means that unlike the person I quoted suggested, there IS no job currently in the game that better suits the playstyle of the people who preferred the old bard to move on to. We have no ranged jobs, neither DPS nor otherwise, without cast times in the game right now. Zero, nada. It's on the same level as telling poor people to just eat cake if they lack bread, purely condescending.

That's why alt jobs aren't a solution. They're not even a tangent. That's like telling a person who prefers ranged classes to just pick a different class when theirs and every other class in the game gets turned into a melee. There are no options for that playstyle and therefore, such a suggestion is ignorant at best and malicious glee at worst.

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Originally Posted by Cinno

People will complain about it until the day it gets removed..

They took a class that specialized in mobility, and forced it to stand still. If people wanted to stand still, they have BLM, and SMN. You cant take a class that people have picked, and have played for fifty levels, and change up the formula on them so drastically. It's not even the fact that people dont want to adapt, its that people picked a class and put large amounts of time into it, and suddenly its something entirely different that they didn't choose, and may not even like.

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Quoting these because they're absolutely true. I've leveled every combat class to 60 and I have to say, Brd/Mch were significantly less fun when I got the cast times. I will say however, I think Gauss Barrel works better than Minuet does. I can get past GB on Mch because not ALL of it's attacks have the cast bar and it's not as hampered, Mch "feels" like it was designed from the ground up with GB in mind, Minuet feels really tacked on.

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Originally Posted by kalasnikov

Gotta love how people who can't even play bard properly claim job is fine. Filthy heavy shot single target rain of death spammers.

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Well some of us have either gotten use to it, or never found it a problem at all.
I think people miss the 'smooth' feeling when using skills of 50 bards.
You can't have it all.
You can't have the DPS, 100% mobility, and support buffs so they had to knock something down to get it.
That's what people don't seem to understand. I said this before and people bit my ass about it.
Now I use to think BRD shoulda been left as is just to please the people and have MCH with the cast bar...
but now say if BRD was exactly the same, but MCH came out NO ONE would play MCH because of that cast bar so I guess
they had to find a way to even the field there too.
And those of you cool dudes who refuse to use WM, I hope you know you're gimping us, severely and I would probably kick you from party.
It's been over a year, you either don't play BRD, trudge on and shrug it off or gimp us.
Anyways, since as he said he's simplifying rotations, there may be some hope so wait and see.

I still personally say let Bard be a healer and make the 'Ranger/Hunter' DPS but eh been saying that for years.

I just want shorter cast bars! Still cant run and gun, but have you actually used 0.5s cast spells yet? they are actually VERY comfy/tollerable to use!

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Originally Posted by Mugiawara

You can't have the DPS, 100% mobility, and support buffs so they had to knock something down to get it.

... you either don't play BRD ...

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Well BRD weapon damage is the lowest and scales the worst so "the DPS" is out of the picture anyway. And support buffs reduce dps further. In reality it would just be 100% mobility and support buffs. I don't see an issue with that.

And yeah we have the option to either not play it or play it properly, that goes without saying. But we don't have to be silent about disliking the cast times no matter which option we choose. Staying silent means it's never getting reverted back. Speaking up means there is a chance it's reverted. I preferred 100% mobility and fluid oGCD use to this pseudo DPS buff that turns the unique playstyle to something I can already find on other jobs.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

Well BRD weapon damage is the lowest and scales the worst so "the DPS" is out of the picture anyway. And support buffs reduce dps further. In reality it would just be 100% mobility and support buffs. I don't see an issue with that.

And yeah we have the option to either not play it or play it properly, that goes without saying. But we don't have to be silent about disliking the cast times no matter which option we choose. Staying silent means it's never getting reverted back. Speaking up means there is a chance it's reverted. I preferred 100% mobility and fluid oGCD use to this pseudo DPS buff that turns the unique playstyle to something I can already find on other jobs.

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Meh, he tried to please everyone but the ones who looked forward to a more supportive stance. You only do so much when you're making a hybrid job.
And most bard's don't even sing, and the most used is Foe's and that kills your MP, not your DPS.
Bard's songs are completely situational anyways. It's so much so, that it doesn't even feel like the staple of the job. I'll explain.
AP - TP based jobs have Interewiorewpogate, gives you 400 TP and unless it's extremely long out fights and 560 deaths no use.
MB - Comes in handy if the healers die quite a bit. Otherwise, WHM has 2 MP restores. SCH has Aether and they rarely EVER had MP problems, AST has LA that refreshes alot of MP during the duration.
Foe - Used the most, Just kills your MP as I said. Should used almost always esp when your healer is DPSing. So there's no reason to not use it most of the time.
WP - Meh. It helps alleviate if you have mass people have a debuff so heals don't' have to do it. Seems like a raid skill tbh. [Needs a rework on this skill imo.]
He should make it where the MELEE have a DPS buff song. I would love doing that than worry about my own DPS.
Make Army's Paeon a DRG/NIN/MNK/PLD/DRK/WAR/MCH DPS buff a bit but lower yours. That sounds a lot better to me.
I didn't say you can't be vocal about it but as I said, he might be looking into it if he's tryna simplify the battle system so keep your fingers crossed.

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Originally Posted by Mugiawara

You can't have the DPS, 100% mobility, and support buffs so they had to knock something down to get it.

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I'm going to say this again, but my idea solves the problem and keeps the mobility and raises the skill cap a bit.

They could have added range requirements (close skills, medium skills and far skills) so only certain skills will work at a certain range (or get bonuses for being at those ranges) from the boss.
Similar to positionals but for ranged. So instead of rotating around the boss, you move closer and farther.
It raises the skill cap, lets you still have your mobility but doesn't give you an EZ-mode like where BRD would be if it had all the benefits but none of the drawbacks of WM.

I seriously think it would make everyone happy. They keep their mobility, they keep their damage, and they have a higher skill cap for said damage.

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Originally Posted by Mugiawara

You can't have the DPS, 100% mobility, and support buffs so they had to knock something down to get it.

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Thing is.. bards as is.. don't have the dps.. we don't have mobility and we dont have any more support then other classes.

So what exactly did we gain by sacrificing our mobility?

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Originally Posted by mb52139

Thing is.. bards as is.. don't have the dps.. we don't have mobility and we dont have any more support then other classes.

So what exactly did we gain by sacrificing our mobility?

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With a drg brd's damage is fine. actually really high. of course you are not a mnk, but you knew this from the beginning. MP song is pretty much needed in during progression and foe's is always nice to have. you could argue that foe's does nothing without a caster (or just one, compared to 3 physical dps). but it is still a nice tool.

and all that mobility was never needed. ppl ran around cause they could, not cause they had to.

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Originally Posted by mb52139

Thing is.. bards as is.. don't have the dps.. we don't have mobility and we dont have any more support then other classes.

So what exactly did we gain by sacrificing our mobility?

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I'm sorry but Bard was never suppose to have high DPS like every other job.
It's a hybrid, it's a support DPS and I won't defend it's all that great of a support DPS but it is what it is.
Again, I just think you guys miss how smooth it was to run and shoot.

@Funky. - While I kinda like your idea but will not work because someone will cry about how they need to be this close or far to excel maximum damage.
After they found the sweet spot, they are going to standing still.

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Originally Posted by Tint

with all the missing auto attacks the opposite did happen: bards who were running around like crazy lose damage.

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Well, they're actually changing it so you don't have to be facing the target to auto attack anymore...

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Originally Posted by Starkbeaumont

and all that mobility was never needed.

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Then why was it taken away? Why can't we have it back?