Bard - they broke my job

Its not a good trade-off when we lose the equivalent on AAs, DPS loss when we cant weave in our procs because of -> cast time, DPS loss for using repelling shot so might aswell ignore it, DPS loss while aiming Flaming Arrow because we cant do that beforehand due to -> cast time. Thats just a few examples.

If anything WM should be changed to something like Cleric Stance which we couldt toggle on and off, instead of it being behind 3s song. Also 20% dmg buff could be higher, but not too high so it doesnt break the stability.

Edit: what annoys me is some people seem to ignore the fact that they have way better weapon/gear compared to what we were used to past few months, and they seem to think WM is so powerfull if they happen to crit higher what was considered normal before the expac.

SE needs to fix and tweak things , maybe on alex patch they put some fixes.... maybe bring back autoattack while WM is on (i miss AA badly just leveling mob at 1% .....waiting on autoattack.........oh nvm....) or maybe let brds cast bloodletter/RoD while casting :3, iron jaws needs to be instant thats for sure....

i doubt WM is going away so better learn how to play with it on now (2 years of moving around happy made me lazy and nearly inmune to aoes ).

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Originally Posted by Boss_Koivula

Edit: what annoys me is some people seem to ignore the fact that they have way better weapon/gear compared to what we were used to past few months, and they seem to think WM is so powerfull if they happen to crit higher what was considered normal before the expac.

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People just see the high numbers and think they're doing massive damage now. You don't "see" yourself doing less damage cause you cancel a cast to movement. Most people don't realize they're cutting 0.5s - 1s into the next GCD which results in a dps loss. They don't pay attention to those little auto attacks, cause they only do minimal damage every couple seconds, but those nice 3k damage crits? Obviously everyone notices these.

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Originally Posted by Boss_Koivula

Its not a good trade-off when we lose the equivalent on AAs, DPS loss when we cant weave in our procs because of -> cast time, DPS loss for using repelling shot so might aswell ignore it, DPS loss while aiming Flaming Arrow because we cant do that beforehand due to -> cast time. Thats just a few examples.

If anything WM should be changed to something like Cleric Stance which we couldt toggle on and off, instead of it being behind 3s song. Also 20% dmg buff could be higher, but not too high so it doesnt break the stability.

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I'll paste the suggestion I made on reddit on this topic:

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Looking at the abilities BRD has (I'm not a BRD main but have leveled the job to 50), there's a couple of ways to fix this. Making Wanderer's Minuet instant cast (the way all other stances work) would be one. This would turn the ability into an easy toggle and leave BRD players to adjust and decide when to use it. Doesn't deal with the fact that they went and turned the job's gameplay on its head, but it would be the easiest thing to implement.

A more work-intensive alternative would be changing what WM does. Like have it decrease the rate of auto attacks instead of remove them, and still give cast times to abilities but allow the cast bar to progress while moving (maybe make the bar fill slower when moving?). Edit: obviously, this doesn't deal with OGCD abilities and procs that are weaved in.

An extreme solution would be removing Wanderer's Minuet, and change the other 4 skills. Turn Empyreal Arrow into a skill that can only be used on a proc. Turn Iron Jaws into a shot with a lengthy cooldown. Leave Warden's Paeon and Sidewinder as is. Maybe give Iron Jaws and Sidewinder aiming/casting time if you're hellbent on giving BRD skills with cast times.

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TBH whenever I played bard I always felt as if they were too strong. The mobility and immunity to mechanics is huge - you can nearly always sustain 90% or more of your typical striking dummy dps on a fight, meaning you could function nearly at full potential no matter what mechanics were thrown at you (Earthshakers and tethers to name just a few).

And on top of that, they had by far the best raid utility in the game. It wasn't like their dps was low either - with a dragoon in the party, I could beat the black mages I played foe's for, and even the melee I played paeon for in certain fights.

I've always felt that bards needed to work a little more for massive value they brought to a raid group. I'm not sure WM is the solution to this, but I think it's at least a step in the right direction.

Personally, i like the concept of sacrificing mobility for power, however in it's current state, WM just seems poorly executed and clunky. There must have be many different ways the developers could of implemented this concept without making it feel so awkward. My suggestion would be to make WM similar to BLM's leylines, removing the cast times yet still reducing mobility. IJ and EA could still be locked behind it, but it would allow the play style of bards to remain unchanged, while still adding a higher skill ceiling to the job.

At least we are reaching a consensus that WM is only usefull during the opener. At the moment i'm trying to precast it again when B4B/Hawk/Barrage and Empyreal Arrow are going to allign and shoot the weaponskill fully buffed like that and turn off the stance once again... but i'm unsure if this is efficient <.<'

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Originally Posted by Seifa

At least we are reaching a consensus that WM is only usefull during the opener. At the moment i'm trying to precast it again when B4B/Hawk/Barrage and Empyreal Arrow are going to allign and shoot the weaponskill fully buffed like that and turn off the stance once again... but i'm unsure if this is efficient <.<'

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Havn't had much success with it either, but I think I can still optimize the timing in my rotation and get some better results.

I'm only at 53 (work and RL and all that), but I've done some non-scientific testing with what abilities I have available so take it for what its worth. I found with open world mobs, engaged one at a time, I could engage the targets and achieve approximately 15 to 20% more total damage output in WM than non-WM. However, the encounters took approximately 5 to 10s longer to end with WM than without. When popping all my buffs, the WM would end quicker, but then I would have to wait for the CDs to end if i wanted to maintain that shorter engagement time length.

I did this with single open world mobs that i could at least try and control the conditions of engagement.. i.e. "real-world" usage as opposed to just a striking dummy.

I guess it really is just something for the opener... ah well bards, lets let the dream die.

After reading that pares with and without minuet on a DUMMY are largely similar......</3 What were they smoking that day...( not talking about the parsers there xD )

The opener IS better with minuet.....but is it better than our old opener with old barrage? Don't have act setup atm, so no tests done. I got the feeling bard is just nerfed this patch.