If they realy wanted a casting time on one of them, I would prefer it to be Blood Letter or Misery's End. Blood Letter would be best I think. But it is not needed as I think BRD does not need any sort of nerf.
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Putting a cast time on Bloodletter would make its proc mechanics redundant and negate the fact that it's off the GCD. Having it on Misery's End would make it confusing as a finisher, during which high damage is wanted to kill off a weak enemy quickly. If it was on Heavy Shot, then there would be no need to use it because the dps loss of moving would make other skills more appealing like Straight Shot. Straight Shot, however, would be a good candidate as its use is only to apply the crit buff and to be used during a proc where a crit is guaranteed. Putting a cast time on that is justifiable.
How about instead of cast timers, play around with the ranges a bit? Bards are mobile, which is their thing, i wouldnt take that away but none of their mechanics revolves around that mobility. Melees have no cast timers either, so they get some complexity added to them via flank and rear attacks.
For bard i could imagine for example the DOTs could require you to be within 10 yalms while misery's end and bloodletter could require you to be at least 15 yalms away (similar to MNKs shoulder tackle). Would add a little bit more depth to the class and might make it a bit more fun to play, without hurting their mobility.
I suggest tuning like this...
Bard attack acc depends on distance. If barb is far from mob they have very high chance to miss their arrow.
Sounds a good design and fair?
I am just going to post this again.. It targets a lot of what people talk about without being a full on nerf.
Example
Increased Action Damage II: Increases base action damage by 20% after standing still for 3 seconds. This buff lasts for 1 second after moving.
This targets their mobility without removing it. This targets their damage without lowering it. Last but not least this targets their positioning without changing their abilities.
This. I guess ppl are not at this point if they really try to say Bard has top dps. And I laugh when ppl post that Bard has second highest AOE, as if all the dps classes even have AOE.
All I will say that there are things they could do to tweak pretty much all the dps classes, but to just start a nerf bandwagon against one class is pretty asinine.
I don't know why people keep saying bards to less damage per attack... That have a 20% more action damage all the time. That increases their overall potency. Why do people ignore that.
I dont think the bard needs a nerf, more like they need to balance the other jobs. And im not a bard im a drg