SB Bard Changes: Good or Bad? Thoughts?

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Originally Posted by Exterium

It does feel extremelly weak while leveling.

I'm kinda ok with the brd damage on long encounters (very long in fact), but in short combats/leveling, it feels very very very weak compared to anything else I've been with.

AA hits for 1k, usually less, both dots at the same time hit for around 1400, empyreal arrow hits for a bit more than 2k, I've seen direct hit crit sidewinders not even reaching 5k, the same with our execute, hitting for just a bit more than 2k.

The biggest hit we can land is pitch perfect, and I've seen a lot of encounters where it just won't get 3 charges (though I ussualy use it on 2 so I don't waste a possible 4th charge), that means more than 90 seconds without a big pitch perfect.

Throwing a lot of shit to the enemy doesn't mean good damage, I won't argue that it's fun to play, I enjoy the gameplay, but I do feel at the same time that I'm pretty weak.

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I'm not going to claim that you're wrong, because I don't have data on the damage I'm doing and neither do you since ACT is still broken.

I am going to say that I've tanked 90% of the PotD I have done from 50 to 60 that didn't have an actual tank in them, and definitely the bosses.

You say "throwing a lot of shit to the enemy doesn't mean good damage"; I'm going to say "neither does doing a big hit every now and then". Quantity and quality are both equally valid means of reaching the same sum. Stop worrying about it until you actually have the numbers in front of you.

However, there are two things I would say:
1. If you feel you are being outdamaged by a war and a whm you might also look into what you are doing wrong.
2. Stop looking for giant numbers on a class that revolves around ogcd resets.
3. Don't expect to be top dps as bard, when the class has so many buffs for the entire group.

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Originally Posted by Exterium

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Sounds like a problem with your gear and how you approach fights rather than a problem with the class. Although I just looked up your Lodestone and your gear is better than mine on account of you being 3 levels above me (and past the MSQ hurdle too), so it's most likely the approach, as for some reason I'm getting better results than you are (or I'm a bit more attuned to Bard as I'm used to raiding as one).

You should be throwing up Windbite and Venomous Bite BEFORE activating your songs, I see the vast majority of Bards doing the opposite instead, which is really bad. Song first is pointless because that means you're spending the first 5 seconds likely not getting any bonuses.

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Originally Posted by SaitoHikari

I'd argue we're actually way overtuned at the moment, in every dungeon/24 man alliance I've been in ever since SB release, I was far and away the top DPS (and I've literally had to use Tactician/MP Refresh early in numerous occasions already to avoid taking aggro). SB Bard also gets access to better AoE in earlier levels...

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The issue is that Stormblood seems to have been released with little to no concern for balanced growth of power across jobs. Some capacities are gimped at certain level ranges for certain jobs only to then excel at other ranges. Granted, we saw this slightly with Heavensward's release, too, but not nearly to such a degree.

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Originally Posted by SaitoHikari

Sounds like a problem with your gear and how you approach fights rather than a problem with the class. Although I just looked up your Lodestone and your gear is better than mine on account of you being 3 levels above me (and past the MSQ hurdle too), so it's most likely the approach, as for some reason I'm getting better results than you are (or I'm a bit more attuned to Bard as I'm used to raiding as one).

You should be throwing up Windbite and Venomous Bite BEFORE activating your songs, I see the vast majority of Bards doing the opposite instead, which is really bad. Song first is pointless because that means you're spending the first 5 seconds likely not getting any bonuses.

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Straight shot, storm bite, bloodletter, caustic bite, mage's balad, heavy shot, barrage + empyreal, heavy shot, sidewinder, if you have any suggestions, go ahead.

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Originally Posted by Furious

1. If you feel you are being outdamaged by a war and a whm you might also look into what you are doing wrong.
2. Stop looking for giant numbers on a class that revolves around ogcd resets.
3. Don't expect to be top dps as bard, when the class has so many buffs for the entire group.

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1. Answered above.
2. It revolves around ogcd resets every 90 seconds during 30 seconds, during another 30 you are just hitting faster (with luck), and during another 30 you may get a hit.
3. I don't, I've been playing ranged since HW came out, both BRD and MCH, edit: also, the buffs part is fun, we don't even buff ourselves with anything, thus making the solo experience even worse.

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Originally Posted by SaitoHikari

Sounds like a problem with your gear and how you approach fights rather than a problem with the class. Although I just looked up your Lodestone and your gear is better than mine on account of you being 3 levels above me (and past the MSQ hurdle too), so it's most likely the approach, as for some reason I'm getting better results than you are (or I'm a bit more attuned to Bard as I'm used to raiding as one).

You should be throwing up Windbite and Venomous Bite BEFORE activating your songs, I see the vast majority of Bards doing the opposite instead, which is really bad. Song first is pointless because that means you're spending the first 5 seconds likely not getting any bonuses.

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It's not "reaaaally bad". It's not right while solo. While with others, they miss out on 2% crit while you don't have a song.

Going song > dot > dot means you get miss out on 3 proc chances out of 20 on the first song of the fight if you didn't have a song up already, and it means your dots start later which matters if the fight lasts somewhere in the period of time where you didn't have to refresh them once extra for applying them first, but it also means that your group misses out on 3 gcds of 2% flat crit chance.

It's also very much unlikely to be the main cause of his problems in the scheme of things.

Other than the change having to do with mostly being stationary due to cast times, I can't say I'm a fan of the changes for Bard. At all. Even if people vouch for them, I just don't. It's an opinion.

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Originally Posted by Exterium

Straight shot, storm bite, bloodletter, caustic bite, mage's balad, heavy shot, barrage + empyreal, heavy shot, sidewinder, if you have any suggestions, go ahead.

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Seems fine, but saying it and executing it are different things.

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2. It revolves around ogcd resets every 90 seconds during 30 seconds, during another 30 you are just hitting faster (with luck), and during another 30 you may get a hit.

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All 3 songs are effectively ogcd resets in their own ways. Mage's ballad is a direct ogcd reset. Paean is the least impactful in terms of gameplay but still makes your stuff reset faster (all of it, not just ogcd), and Wanderer's minuet is an ogcd reset disguised as something else (think of pitch perfect as the ogcd, and it requires 2-3 "procs" to reset). However, when talking about solo, not being affected by a buff doesn't mean you do less damage than if you could use it; it means you do damage more consistently (your base damage is higher than it would be if you had access to the buff).

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3. I don't, I've been playing ranged since HW came out, both BRD and MCH, edit: also, the buffs part is fun, we don't even buff ourselves with anything, thus making the solo experience even worse.

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I don't have a problem with the dps portions of our buffs not buffing us directly; any time you don't benefit from a buff, it means you need to have higher baseline damage to offset the difference in terms of balance. "Not benefiting from a buff" is often a good thing even though most people think otherwise. Any time you can't gain damage from x, for balance to occur, the designers must somehow integrate x damage into your spec in other ways (often baseline damage).

So, the "problem" of buffs not affecting us is not intrinsically a problem unless we have bad damage as a result. Where this is most problematic is if those buffs are multiplicative with other buffs; the 2% base crit is only marginally so since it is additive with our base crit anyway, but the direct hit buff is multiplicative and thus could become a problem later for bard damage.

I definitely DO have a problem with the defensive buffs not affecting us, because raidwide cooldowns need to affect the whole raid. Troubadour has problems walking out the door because if it is to be used to combat a risk to the entire group, the bard remains at risk when it's used and demands another cooldown or healer attention. It's a weird design choice in terms of defenses, in offences it's not intrinsically a problem.

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Originally Posted by Furious

I don't have a problem with the dps portions of our buffs not buffing us directly; any time you don't benefit from a buff, it means you need to have higher baseline damage to offset the difference in terms of balance. "Not benefiting from a buff" is often a good thing even though most people think otherwise.

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This is the only part I strongly disagree with. Not having damage buffs (well yeah RS, but it's not exactly powerfull for a single usage) directly impacts upon your ability to react, react to a mob being pulled when you didn't expect it, a pull getting out of hand... react, to say it in a word. Right now you just have to pray and wait to see if you are going to be cappable of killing something more than what a quest gives you, because you just can't react to anything else if it happens.

Right now I'm "reacting" to an extra mob, with second wind and a potion.

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Originally Posted by Exterium

This is the only part I strongly disagree with. Not having damage buffs (well yeah RS, but it's not exactly powerfull for a single usage) directly impacts upon your ability to react, react to a mob being pulled when you didn't expect it, a pull getting out of hand... react, to say it in a word. Right now you just have to pray and wait to see if you are going to be cappable of killing something more than what a quest gives you, because you just can't react to anything else if it happens.

Right now I'm "reacting" to an extra mob, with second wind and a potion.

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When I have cooldowns I use them to go faster, not withhold them to deal with situations that almost never arrise, but I can see how that would be a problem if you did. You also still have Raging Blows and Barrage.

I like Bard changes in Stormblood. The only two things I would like to change is to have an additional dot timer on our song UI as well as a sound notice nearing the end of a song.