Will bard lose it's identity/class fantasy?

I want to say you guys are all over-reacting about homogenization...
... but...

I'm also a former WoW player and I remember conversations like this starting to happen around the time of the Pandaria expansion - around the time ARR launched here. That was a good expansion, so the conversation died down... but as the years rolled on - it turns out that was a harbinger of things to come.

We can only hope that SE has seen the same road - and knows where it leads, and isn't actually homogenizing things. Time will tell.

I'm honestly only crying over warden's paean since i love using the skill to cheese mechanics like doom, cleanse stuff for tankbusters or help others with it.

On the other hand, i get why they're doing this. YOu can't tell me many bards actually use a lot of their support skills. They don't. Most of them only use their wanderers/mages/armies rotation. So the crit is automatic. A little sad to see it go, but here we are.

Foe? Most bards don't use it. Or use it once and never again.
Tactician? Hah, not even if it helps them, nope.
Refresh? Used with foe? Not really seen that either, not even when healer really need it.
Warden's paean? Somehow is part of rotations for some bards and i will always tell them what it actually does, they don't care.
Troubawhatnow?
Minnet? Don't know her.
Palisade? NAh

Not even Peloton gets used a lot and i'm just wondering to how.

Of course, there are people who use all their tools to help out, but the other half doesn't... give a shit about it.

We don't lose anything and i'm actually happy that troubadour isn't tied to the song you use anymore since it was a hassle to have the right song at the right time to get the most use out of it.

The other ones like refresh are a little annoying because it helps healers and i really hope they give SCH and AST more ways to manage their mp since whm is totally fine with that.

I know bards are usually seen as support and i love support roles, it's part of why i love bard.
But i also love it since the rotation is fun to me and i love the aestetic.


And to me, it's not losing their identity that fast since we do rotate songs, aka music. The crit buff could still be a thing though, yeah, it wasn't too much anyways.
And we still have SOME tools to support.

I rather hope that people that pick up dancer actually use their skills instead since using support stuff as dps seems to be really hard for some people, that's what i'm worried about...

Honestly, I don't really care if Bard is more selfish DPS or Support, I just want it to use to use music instead of arrows to do either. Let's upgrade tools like Bloodletter, Causticbite, Windbite, etc. with things like Black Requiem, or DPS oriented music.

Be a lot less Ranger and a lot more https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMf6NdM55ws

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Honestly, I don't really care if Bard is more selfish DPS or Support, I just want it to use to use music instead of arrows to do either. Let's upgrade tools like Bloodletter, Causticbite, Windbite, etc. with things like Black Requiem, or DPS oriented music.

Be a lot less Ranger and a lot more https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMf6NdM55ws

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I totally agree with this; it’s not even the support the job provides at this point, as much as the fact that the job has taken another step away from what it’s being sold as.

I mean, the icon for the job is a Harp. Surely we should be doing stuff that involves a harp, like, often? Not just every 30 seconds on a cooldown? Even if it literally just done direct damage. I mean, couldn’t Apex Arrow have been Song of the Absolute Apex of Elite Deeps or whatever. Exact same ability with the exact same mechanics except now it actually has some relation to ‘voice’ and music lol. It’s not like we don’t already have a huge variety of arrow attacks compared to songs that see frequent use.
It’s not like it absolutely has to be one or the other. Surely we can fight with magic voices and arrows equally

I don't care if it's just a minor aura. I want my songs to buff the party. Battle Voice once every few minutes is not enough. I want to have support skills that are being used to good effect every fight. If they change the encounter design such that a healing aid and an oGCD proactive Esuna are going to be seen every fight, great.

If not, I'm not going to silently accept Dancer getting all the damage boosts shifted to it because it's the expansion job they're trying to push.

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Originally Posted by bass9020

Bard has completely been gutted of any form of being a support or what we come to enjoy about bard. They could have made the songs still affect the party in some way but of course they took the easier route.

Im so tired of them fearing and what-ifing the playerbase and im tired of the playerbase whining about job metas. CREATE YOUR OWN GROUPS OR SUCK IT UP FFS.

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they are not fearing anything ...players like you are. embrace the changes that make bard better. this entire forum is a fear paradise. They just got rid of clunky skills and those that didnt add any value. All the classes are fine. 2 weeks and we can play and move past this stage of

"devs dont care all classes broken unsub"

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Originally Posted by Razard

Are you serious? The job that gave us the Hide command and FFXIV is the one doesn't do it justice?

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I am. In the rest of my post I mentioned that this is because it doesn't resemble the other renditions of Bards across other titles, instead their combat mechanics are themed much more around archery than songs and performance.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

I am. In the rest of my post I mentioned that this is because it doesn't resemble the other renditions of Bards across other titles, instead their combat mechanics are themed much more around archery than songs and performance.

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And what do all those renditions (minus one), have in common?

Yep, they are all trash.

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Originally Posted by Razard

And what do all those renditions (minus one), have in common?

Yep, they are all trash.

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Uh, seriously? So nobody is allowed to like it? Because you don’t?

I mean you could least say why you think they’re trash lol

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Originally Posted by Razard

And what do all those renditions (minus one), have in common?

Yep, they are all trash.

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Job fantasy is considered a major important factor for literally every other job in the game. Machinist needed mechanical adjustments, but they didn't just do that, they added in machine attacks from Final Fantasy VI. Red Mage was designed with Vercure and Verraise not because a heal and raise spell is required for casters, but because a major part of the Red Mage's identity in Final Fantasy is about being a jack of all trades who can attack with swords, cast black magic, and white magic. Blue Mage is quarantined to the masked carnivale content and nothing else specifically because the devs wanted to retain the job fantasy of having all types of gimmicky spells that are op in some instances but useless in others.

Why is Bard the odd man out who isn't allowed to thrive in the job fantasy of running into battle with nothing but a flute or a harp and using exclusively music to help allies and hurt enemies? Yeah, the support role in ARR was deemed too niche and was cut from the game, but what's wrong with a DPS using music to attack? Deuce does it and she's arguably the most broken character in Type-0 besides maybe Rem abusing Reraise + Summoning.