I chose BRD for swift gameplay, if I wanted to cast I would have chosen a Mage.

What If we could use all the new skills without WM it would already be a step forward to help my fellow Bards like their Job...hmmm i kinda like the sound of that idea. :)
I think SE should try that.

Sorry OP, it would piss me off seeing Bards just running around and jumping like damn tards. You want more damage? Steady your aim by standing still and shoot. This is the best I'm gonna get cuz SE is not gonna cut your damage or interrupt your attacks if you move.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Though I apologize for hinging this again on wordplay (e.g. 'mechanics' vs. 'characteristic') I feel like I ought to ask: if you were to add actual mechanics to the job that would make the job more interesting without turning us into casters, what would they be?

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If I was given the chance to expand on Bards without turning us to casters, I'd change it to something like this:

1.) Wanderer's Minuet = (Song. Insta-cast) Boosts the damage of all weaponskills by 20%. MP rapidly depletes while WM is turned on. Cannot be used with other songs. Mobility and auto attacks are retained even in WM. Skills are still insta-cast.

2.) Empyreal Arrow = Now usable outside of Minuet. Everything else can stay unchanged.

3.) Iron Jaws = Now usable outside of Minuet. Everything else can stay unchanged.

4.) Barrage = Returned to its 2.55 effects.

5.) Wide Volley/Rain of Death/Quick Nock = Returned to their 2.55 versions.

6.) Foe Requiem = Boosts caster damage by 30%. Buffed so that it doesn't get invalidated by the new Wanderer's Minuet.

7.) Mage's Ballad/Army's Paeon = Damage reduction can be increased to 20% again, just like 2.55, for balance purposes.

8.) Sidewinder = It can remain on its 3.01 version for balance purposes.

9.) Warden's Paean = Removed. Replaced by...

10.) Final Assault = Weaponskill. OGCD. Has a cooldown of 3 minutes. Depletes all of current MP to unleash an ultimate shot at a single target. Potency depends on how much of your max MP was depleted. For example, if 100% of your max MP is consumed, the potency would be 500. 99%-75% would be 300, 74%-50% would be 240, 49%-25% would be 170, and anything less than 25% of MP would only deal a measly 80 potency.

This core mechanic expansion forces you to sacrifice your MP either for party support or pumping out DPS, but never for both. If you choose to pump out high DPS despite already being a mobile run-and-gun class, you pay for it dearly with your MP and your party utility.


If SE changed Bards to this, I and many Bards would be happy because it expands on our core mechanics without making us overpower casters/melee or forcing us to become casters.

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Originally Posted by Lewtskie

I don't understand why you would pop Clerics anywhere near a healing intensive phase. And the fairy's buff easily evens out the load with the other healer until you can switch back out, and I'm sure Lustrate followed by a quick Adlo is sufficient as well. Bene you obviously want to save for shit moments, unless you like popping it just because.

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Why would you pop Minuet before a movement-heavy phase, then? I believe that particular poster was trying to draw that same comparison
- both jobs have to be careful about using a move that could penalize them if timed poorly.

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Sorry OP, it would piss me off that Bards just run around and jumping like damn tard. You want more damage? Steady your aim by standing still and shoot.

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What I was trying to say is that they don't have to go for the 30% damage up given by WM if they want to use the other skills.
WM would still be there but not necessary to use them.
Bards will still have to turn it on to get the 30% up.

Posting this for the wifey (hit her 20 post limit):

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

if you were to add actual mechanics to the job that would make the job more interesting without turning us into casters, what would they be?

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"My initial suggestion would be this. Make WM a casted song (much like foe's) that lasts as long as Foe's would last based on MP roughly. For the sake of this post, let's say that Foe's lasts roughly 30 seconds. Okay so make WM last for roughly 30 seconds. In that time we keep our mobility and everything works like 2.X bard, but we get a 10% (ish) dmg boost to ONLY the bard's abilities. This should only work on the bard. After the timer runs out, it should take a lengthy amount of time for WM to be recast. (basically however long it would take us to regen from 0MP to Full MP as an example)

However, since the ability would be linked to a timer, we could still be free to use Foe's or Mage's Ballad. This would give us a boost to dmg, w/o overpowering us. This is the idea I would have used in place of the current WM. Adjust our dps potency as necessary to keep us in line w/ other DPS but you get the idea. Instead of making us a caster, allow us to boost our own dmg for a short period and then have a lengthy timer to reuse it. Much like say, battle litany or something. Then just let us have lower potency attacks to keep our dps levels in check based on our utility."

She also agreed with Intellion's version.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Intellion

If I was given the chance to expand on Bards without turning us to casters, I'd change it to something like this:

1.) Wanderer's Minuet = (Song. Insta-cast) Boosts the damage of all weaponskills by 20%. MP rapidly depletes while WM is turned on. Cannot be used with other songs. Mobility and auto attacks are retained even in WM. Skills are still insta-cast.

2.) Empyreal Arrow = Now usable outside of Minuet. Everything else can stay unchanged.

3.) Iron Jaws = Now usable outside of Minuet. Everything else can stay unchanged.

4.) Barrage = Returned to its 2.55 effects.

5.) Wide Volley/Rain of Death/Quick Nock = Returned to their 2.55 versions.

6.) Foe Requiem = Boosts caster damage by 30%. Buffed so that it doesn't get invalidated by the new Wanderer's Minuet.

7.) Mage's Ballad/Army's Paeon = Damage reduction can be increased to 20% again, just like 2.55, for balance purposes.


If SE changed Bards to this, I and many Bards would be happy because it expands on our core mechanics without making us overpower casters/melee or forcing us to become casters.

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You are basically asking for BRDs to stay the same. Your new minuette is basically an illusion, because it would either triviallize foe's requiem or be useless on the first place (depending on which one brings more damage onto the table), which by the way brings me to my next issue...drama on every raid because the BRD is being an elitist jerk and is using minuette instead of foe because this way their own DPS is being inflated more despite foe adding more real raid damage. This is a scenario I know SE wants to avoid at all costs.

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Originally Posted by Gallus

You are basically asking for BRDs to stay the same.

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Yes, like all other classes that had something added to them. Other classes did not change completely.

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Originally Posted by Raiker

Yes, like all other classes that had something added to them. Other classes did not change completely.

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You may want to have a conversation with a level 60 DRG.

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Originally Posted by Gallus

I don't understand why you would pop minuette on a movement intensive phase.

See what I did there...

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Hey, I was just playing the fallacy on your overblown false claim. Besides, you started it with saying a Healer would pop Clerics during a healing phase, lol. Maybe you should relax a little.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gallus

You may want to have a conversation with a level 60 DRG.

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I have; they didn't change, just had stuff added. Post 50, had some positional stuff added under the effects of Blood of the Dragon which can be re-added using said abilities. But it didn't add a cast timer on to all of they're melee attacks if I'm not mistaken.

I said 'added' a bunch.

I think We don't have to touch Minuet as long as all the other skills we get in Heavensward are usable outside it.
And I don't really recommand changing the songs and skills we had in ARR since it will change everything we were talking about until now no?

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Originally Posted by Raiker

Yes, like all other classes that had something added to them. Other classes did not change completely.

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A new skill that is a boost to damage but could turn into a damage drop if you try to use when you need to be moving around. I'm glad they didn't add something like that to BLM.

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Originally Posted by Lewtskie

Hey, I was just playing the fallacy on your overblown false claim. Besides, you started it with saying a Healer would pop Clerics during a healing phase, lol. Maybe you should relax a little.

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The implication was that popping Cleric's without intensive knowledge of the fight (ie, knowing when there are lapses in incoming damage) would punish a healer FAAAAAAR more significantly than it would punish a BRD for mis-clicking or mis-timing a Minuet. This won't always be the case (a movement-heavy burn phase would be an example where it would not), but for the most part, 15 seconds of being trapped in Minuet is SIGNIFICANTLY less risky than 6 seconds of being trapped in CS.

Technically, CS is "optional", but it's less optional for healers playing at the highest level of endgame.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

A new skill that is a boost to damage but could turn into a damage drop if you try to use when you need to be moving around. I'm glad they didn't add something like that to BLM.

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You are correct. Don't get the validity here. Did something happen to them that if they moved while under the effects of Blood of the Dragon they stopped auto attacking? Or did they add a casting time to jumps or something?

See where I'm going with this. Besides, we're not discussing dragoon.

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Originally Posted by Raiker

I have; they didn't change, just had stuff added. Post 50, had some positional stuff added under the effects of Blood of the Dragon which can be re-added using said abilities. But it didn't add a cast timer on to all of they're melee attacks if I'm not mistaken.

I said 'added' a bunch.

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What's the difference between "changing" and "having stuff added"?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gallus

...which by the way brings me to my next issue...drama on every raid because the BRD is being an elitist jerk and is using minuette instead of foe because this way their own DPS is being inflated more despite foe adding more real raid damage. This is a scenario I know SE wants to avoid at all costs.

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I think my suggestion might still be interesting though, because it can potentially separate good Bards from bad ones. The good ones will know when to prioritize their MP for party support over their own DPS, the bad ones will just spam the new Minuet and Final Assault all the way through and be a hindrance.

Either way, at least my suggestion only adds to the Bard's core mechanics instead of changing us into a completely different character, something that I believe is what most Bards are asking for, not the one we have now. With my suggestion, whether a bard is good or bad, they can still play it the way most of them have always loved to play it: like Legolas.

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Originally Posted by Lewtskie

Hey, I was just playing the fallacy on your overblown false claim. Besides, you started it with saying a Healer would pop Clerics during a healing phase, lol. Maybe you should relax a little.

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The whole cleric thing started because a poster claimed that BRDs were the only job that had to go through getting discriminated for not using minuette, which is just...well...false. Then I compared cleric stance with minuette in the sense that both have a recast timer and need to be popped up in specific scenarios (cleric on less healing intensive phases and minuette on phases that require little movement). Both punish the user for not using it appropriately.

you want swift gameplay? join our ninja clan.

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Originally Posted by Evangela

you want swift gameplay? join our ninja clan.

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Already have. Thanks though, fellow Shinobi.

I'm a career Bard, but my sub is a Ninja. Hoping to get it from 50 to 60 soon.

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Originally Posted by Evangela

you want swift gameplay? join our ninja clan.

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Working on it, just got 33. :)

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Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo

This won't always be the case

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Exactly this. Not everything is always the case. But I honestly don't think Healers have it far worse, nor do I think bards have it worse. It's really all the same boat.

In a Light party so rarely are you facing a boss that is going to just rip all the health from the Tank, and in a full PT you obviously are not the only Healer. Under the circumstance that you are in a light PT and the Tank drops below enough, there are several factors that can secure yourselves from wiping if such a situation were to occur as the classes were so designed. You will always have a contingency so long as you know to prepare.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gallus

The whole cleric thing started because a poster claimed that BRDs were the only job that had to go through getting discriminated for not using minuette, which is just...well...false. Then I compared cleric stance with minuette in the sense that both have a recast timer and need to be popped up in specific scenarios (cleric on less healing intensive phases and minuette on phases that require little movement). Both punish the user for not using it appropriately.

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Fair enough, I've got no beef.

Only chocobo.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gallus

What's the difference between "changing" and "having stuff added"?

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Two examples: BRD (before) Could move around, lower potency, always attacking. BRD (now, with new ability active) Rooted in place to do damage, no auto attacks, cast bar to do everything.
DRG (before) Could melee, jump around, stab things, had a big stick. DRG (now, with new ability active) Melees, jumps around, stabs things, has a big stick, with Blood of the Dragon move to an enemies side or rear to do some new moves.

BRD = change, DRG = addition.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gallus

The whole cleric thing started because a poster claimed that BRDs were the only job that had to go through getting discriminated for not using minuette, which is just...well...false. Then I compared cleric stance with minuette in the sense that both have a recast timer and need to be popped up in specific scenarios (cleric on less healing intensive phases and minuette on phases that require little movement). Both punish the user for not using it appropriately.

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Oh, that's where that came from.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Evangela

you want swift gameplay? join our ninja clan.

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Except that it heavly depends on ping. I can't play ninja even if I wanted to. My DPS will always be way lower than anyone with a slightly better ping :c

Spam only one mudra and tell me how many you can get before Ninjutsu goes off. I can use 7~8 ><

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Originally Posted by Raiker

BRD (now, with new ability active) Rooted in place to do damage

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So don't leave it up 100% of the time, instead use it as a burst dps ability every minute or so. Then it becomes an addition.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gallus

Btw you may really want to reconsider what you say. Healers are too advertised as healers, yet there's something called cleric stance that gives them the potential to DPS (and activating cleric stance poorly can have very nasty consequences, far worse than a BRD activating minuette on the wrong time). Tanks are too advertised as tanks, yet they have stuff such as sword oath, deliverance and dots which make them push DPS. "No other class has to go throug this but bards" is very false.

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Activating cleric stance, sword oath, etc does not change how the class plays in any way whatsoever. All it does is lower healing in return for damage/ lower threat and defense in return for damage. You don't lose mobility, you don't have cast times change, you don't get an entirely different subset of abilities to use.

The statement that no other class has to go through that is 100% correct.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Raiker

And they never asked to be overpowered; according to various reddit posts and posts here, they want they're movement back and are willing to sacrifice a considerable amount of DPS if that's what it takes.

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I'm not picking on you at all, but isn't this precisely what happens by NOT using Minuet? This is why we say it's optional.

Optional yes. Practical? Not always. No more than constantly having Gauss/Minuet on.

You play a bard because Bows are cool! and because SE was lame enough to marry 2 jobs with absolutely noting in common using the flimsy idea that if you break and morph your bow you get a harp... yeah pretty stupid we all know this some are in denial. So suck it up and move on accept that things have changed and change with them because guess what it's not being changed back.

I'd love to see a branch of hunter that turns into beastmaster. Which is what hunter should have been all along.

I dont think WM is going away. Not in this expansion at least. Best case (for those missing the mobility) would be they tweak it to where we can at least cast Heavy Shot while moving without the 30% buff and maybe get our autoattacks back.

There are plenty of BRDs who either dont care or like the change (like me). No more healer LB, and a DPS stance (albeit imperfect) is a step in the right direction. I didnt pick BRD because of mobility, I never just pick a class because it "plays like this." I do it because, well, for BRD it was simply because its an Archer and (I was told) its supposed to be DPS. Running around and/or getting a head start on all AoE attacks without worrying about losing out on DPS is not only annoying to players watching BRD's bunny hopping across the screen, but I also always felt is was somewhat OP to all but bypass one of the main skill requirements in the game (or any MMO for that matter). I mean BRD's have to worry more about running into an AoE attack than running out of it.

P.S: We're still the most mobile class in the game so ...

I love how they say "mobility".

Then they realize the mobility they talked about was them twitching their character every two seconds when there were no aoe's or anything up. You'll be fine. So you have to move an inch over and start a cast bar. You'll get used to it. You got a buff already, if you don't want to use it then don't. They aren't going to take those skills away with over a year's worth of work.

In my opinion...What they should of done was gave us more SUPPORT SKILLS.
IE. A Haste song. The Damage buff song, that shield song we have...
Then the other two can be some really neat DPS. Or 2 songs of the first songs and 3 DPS skills.
Should of made MCH more of the Physical range DPS out of the two.
I honestly don't care about my damage, but since even in lore, they said people forget what bard's are suppose to be...
they missed the mark here a bit because they try to cater to those who wanted more DPS themselves and now ya'll broken lol.
At the end of the day, Bard's are a SUPPORT DPS, no matter how much you try to avoid it. I wouldn't mind my DPS if I could sing to up my party members.
It's way better that way.
I dunno how bard is post 50 but teaming up with two 60's in NR was kinda slow...but it wasn't horrendous.
Never exp 2 MCH lord help me.

I find it funny that everyone uses the same crap argument about mobility. What if I told you that not every BRD used to run all around the place, but loved the mobility because of fights like Ravana EX, Titan EX or T13. Also I loved to do bluefire in T12, because I could. Same goes for kiting Renauds in T7 etc. You think I will bother to do anything like that anymore? Think again..

BRD always was the mobile class that supported people, did moving mechanics and had the lowest DPS for me. Now the lowest DPS is just plain unbalanced sh*t.
Not talking about the reality that in fights like Ravana EX I still do much more DPS without WM turned at all compared to BRDs who turn it on just for non-movement phases. Seems like the 30% buff with potency nerf of some skills and still no ability to weave off GCD skills like a boss was really a nice fix for BRD.

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Originally Posted by Mhikail

In my opinion...What they should of done was gave us more SUPPORT SKILLS.
IE. A Haste song. The Damage buff song, that shield song we have...

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This, so much this. I was so looking forward to some new buffs and support abilities and all we got is "stoneskin" with such long cast time that it is not even usable. I have not used it a single time yet (finished Ravana and Alex a couple times, so idk where else I could use it) and I have not seen any BRD use it yet.

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Originally Posted by FallenArisen0990

Sorry OP, it would piss me off seeing Bards just running around and jumping like damn tards. You want more damage? Steady your aim by standing still and shoot. This is the best I'm gonna get cuz SE is not gonna cut your damage or interrupt your attacks if you move.

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plenty of ways to do that without adding casting time to every single ranged DPS in the game.

Was bard the only class that had its play style altered?

It’s a long one… Wholly wall of text

Personally I hate both WM and GB for both Bard and Machinist. Its clunky, feels out of place and completely butchers the original playstyle of the jobs. I have no desire to continue playing either class and have already switched to playing ninja which was my secondary, although I will be required to Bard/Machinist still due to my static raiding in which their support abilities will most probably be required.

To those that actually like the abilities, good for you but please understand that for most people this was not the playstyle that we signed up for.

Below are a few of the key areas that are the main issues:

Damage
Personally I never picked Bard for its damage, I picked it because I like ranged classes, I hate cast timers and I enjoy playing support rolls (And I loved Corsair in FFXI, so Bard was the closest thing at the time). The lower damage was never an issue for me but I can understand that some people want to be able to push out a little more damage especially in circumstances where our support abilities are of no use (which unfortunately is like 95% of the content).

How comparable we should be compared to other DPS is a wholly separate argument however that really has little to do with Wanderers Minuet and mostly comes down to various other issues that can be found in threads elsewhere for example (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...hould-be-lower)

Cast Times
This right here is the biggest issue that most players have with Wanderers Minuet. It just hits the 2.X bards in so many different ways that it practically butchers the original playstyle.

Where to start with the problems, well firstly, it’s clunky as hell. For a job that was designed from the ground up with almost all instant cast weaponskills and abilities, the addition of cast timers just doesn’t fit well at all and essentially turns us into what everyone likes to call the Bowmage. The playstyle drastically shifted from more closely resembling that of the melee DPS albeit at range, to more closely resembling the playstyle of a Black Mage or Summoner.

I signed up to be a bard based on the original playstyle but I would have been happy to make some adjustments that added to that playstyle. I am not happy to have that playstyle ripped out from under me and have a Caster playstyle forced down my throat.

And before all the casters come in with their “but we are casters and we do just fine, learn to adjust, learn to play, you are just bad, get good” comments, how about you stop and think that as casters, you CHOSE that particular playstyle and decided to stick with it and that was you prerogative. As a launch 1.0/2.0 bard, I did NOT CHOOSE this particular playstyle and am now having it forced upon us.

I can guarantee that if dragoon, ninja or monk players suddenly had all their skills turned from instant casts into cast timers, they would also be pissed off.

Another issue, and this one mostly concerns machinist, is the loss of potential procs due to cast timers. Now Black Mage has had to deal with this ever since launch and is a problem for them also, but in the case of Black Mage, they just miss out on extra DPS potential. Resource wise, Black Mage will have negligible effect due to the practically unlimited nature of their MP. Machinist on the other hand, they also miss out on the extra potential DPS, but on top of this they also waste 20TP. Now combine this with the RNG nature of the skill itself and suddenly 10 missed procs results in 200TP lost (and 10 is putting it lightly in some circumstances, my current procless record is 14 shots without a proc and to see that number encroach double digits is a surprisingly common sight for an ability that says 50% proc rate.)

That is a resource that unlike Black Mage is not practically unlimited and will probably result in a further hit to your potential DPS as you will probably be required to sacrifice your turrets DPS or a Bards DPS if you happen to have 1 with you in order to recover that wasted TP. Your DPS has now been hit twice in comparison to the once for Black Mage.

As for other arguments:
For those who claim “well don’t use the skill if you don’t want to”, consider the following. As a DPS class (we may be semi support but we still take up a DPS slot and that is still our main roll) our job is to perform at the jobs maximum output. If it is proven that using Wanderers Minuet is in fact more beneficial for DPS, well then you really don’t get a choice. Either you use it, or most parties will basically say GTFO. It would be the equivalent of bringing a Ninja to the party that doesn’t want to use their poisons or a Summoner that doesn’t want to use their DoTs, neither is going to make it very far in a party setup.

Movement
Yes during all of 2.X bards could run around in circles killing things if we really wanted to. No, most bards didn’t do this and most only moved when it was required of them. I would be perfectly happy to sacrifice my mobility for extra damage provided my mobility was the main thing that would be affected.

An example I used before which I based around 1.0 dragoons Power Surge skill and that I am told was similar to hunter from WoW (I can’t confirm since I was an FFXI player) was a passive skill that granted a damage buff after standing still and using 3 weaponskills and for every further 3 consecutive weaponskills granted a stack, stacking up to say 3 times.
Upon moving, the buff would be removed and a debuff would be placed on you preventing you from reacquiring the buff for say the next 15-20 seconds. This debuff might even prevent auto attacks or something if balancing required further repurcussions.

The above example achieves almost the same effect as Wanderers Minuet but doesn’t drastically alter the 2.X playstyle by introducing stupid restrictions such as cast timers.

As for the complaints from everyone that its unfair that we can move and have 100% uptime for damage, well we already take a penalty for this, both our weaponskills potencies and our weapon damage already take our 100% uptime into account by being lower then every other job, so it’s not really a valid argument

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Originally Posted by Fitzy

I would be perfectly happy to sacrifice my mobility for extra damage provided my mobility was the main thing that would be affected.

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So what exactly is the main thing being affected, having a cast bar? Only being able to weave in 1 oGCD skill between shots instead of 2?

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

So what exactly is the main thing being affected, having a cast bar? Only being able to weave in 1 oGCD skill between shots instead of 2?

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Someone who clearly didnt read the whole post to see the issues with how the cast times butcher the playstyle or how the example ability achieves the same result at the expense of mobility and mobility only.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fitzy

Someone who clearly didnt read the whole post to see the issues with how the cast times butcher the playstyle or how the example ability achieves the same result at the expense of mobility and mobility only.

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And you never explained how a cast bar butchers the playstyle for bard. You just call it clunky and rant about it. What do you sacrifice other than mobility with it?

Instant hits on mobs? You're still on the GCD so that only matters when you miss a deathblow.
Weaving 2 skills oGCD?
Anything else?