Bard and how to fix it.

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

Their dps is balanced around using WM. I felt like you skimmed off very specific points for movement, and did not mention the clunkiness that comes from having a cast bar.

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Aside from a oGCD taking a little longer to use after certain finished casts than others, I haven't noticed any clunkiness while casting. Then again, I have almost every class at least at level 51 (save for Astrologian, still need to level that one) so I'm used to cast bars.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Aside from a oGCD taking a little longer to use after certain finished casts than others, I haven't noticed any clunkiness while casting. Then again, I have almost every class at least at level 51 (save for Astrologian, still need to level that one) so I'm used to cast bars.

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Try using two oGCDs inbetween a weaponskills, using bloodletter as soon as it comes off cooldown, and catching straighter shot procs as soon as it pops. I played blm, and firestarter aside, blm still flows coherently and smooth compared to how bard is with how fragmented it can get with oGCD resets and catching straighter shots ( when ss is also a regular part of our rotation, it leads to you hard casting ss worth the buff active, losing both dps and tp).

It's not breaking to the point that it's that much of a detriment to dps, but it's clear enough that they haven't done any play testing to see how wm actually interacts with bards skill set, versus slapping it on them because they gave it to mch as well. It's just not fun, esp when mch plays pretty much the same with GB but is designed around it.

As a bard main that enjoyed their fast-flowing moveset and reactive procs, it's incredibly cumbersome to try to catch procs (bloodletter specifically) that occur either during the middle of my cast or after I used a oGCD, I have to either delay my oGCD or next weaponskill. You get that moment of time where you're not casting anything despite your GCD being off cooldown, pauses where I'm literally standing there unable to do anything due to animation locks or a internal CD that prevents you from popping two oGCDs at the same time or too close to each other. It's a complete pace-breaker and really could've been handled better, like giving oGCDs a cast time (such as empyreal arrow) or redoing the function of river in WM. It'd keep the overall pacing of bard similiar to how it was 2.0; constant uptime with no fragmented pauses inbetween because of procs.

I think someone stated this earlier, but I'm going to repeat it again anyways. It seems you have a million buffs/bloodletter popping at the same time and you have to choose the lesser of two evils; Basically pick the best option at the time, which can be confusing because chances are they are all pretty good options. Example: You lose some dps if you skip bloodletter to say, pop another damage cooldown to renew your dots at a higher damage potential, and while this is happening another bloodletter procs. So it's almost like they are dangling candy in front of us, only to snatch it away.

As a couple others have stated, I would love it if they removed the casting and instead required you to stand still to get the damage bonus.

I would vote for standing still 1.5 seconds - as that is the length of the cast time - for the 30% damage bonus to apply.

You could leave WM and the skills requiring it the same, your skills would not conflict with each other as they would go back to being skills instead of spells and you would still have to stand still for the 1.5 as if you were casting w/o the need for cast bars.

If this meant people would be using WM all the time, or simply too much, they could make it mp dependent or only active for a set time - though I don`t see a problem with it always being active (like sword oath, for example).

If the numbers didn't make sense you could push the stand still time towards 2 secs and the damage bonus down to 25% or whatever it took to make the numbers appropriate.

I believe this:

- is one the smallest amounts of change to the current WM system

- solves the bowmage problem (If we wanted to main a mage we would have.)

- solves the proc interference problem

- (with numbers adjusted accordingly) would still retain the dps ratio to the other dps classes

- distinguishes our class better from mch

(I realize that because of my brd's lvl (51) some may say that "I have yet to try it as it is so how can I say i dislike it?" I'll tell you: I had blm at 50 it wasn't good or bad but it was the most enjoyable for me at the time though I didn't find it spectacular. Then nin came along and I loved it while lvling but I found that latency impeded by ability to play it optimally so I leveled bard.

Playing brd was like a sustained epiphany. I loved it so much more than nin and especially blm. The thing I loved was the ability to be a ranged class without cast bars.

I had played exclusively brd since that day (until 3.0 when I read the bs and picked up mch before learning about its similar nature and hence haven't really played at all) and grew to hate cast bars.

So, without playing it with its (short) cast bars, I can safely say the reason I loved the class was ruined with the addition of cast bars.)

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Originally Posted by Bogy87

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I like the above idea, however, it would introduce problems losing the buff when there is small amounts of movement. Currently small amounts of movement are fine because you still have a one second window in between casts to move without losing WM. If you lose WM upon movement even small amounts of movement will result in a dps loss. An example would be Ravana, where after doing his dashes he jumps back down to perform a liberation. Shortly after jumping, he will usually rotate a random direction and you will have to get behind him to avoid getting hit. This small amount of movement is easily done by "stutter stepping" as some call it, but you would totally lose WM under your proposed changes.
A quick fix would be to only drop the buff if you move for x amount of seconds, however, I don't really mind the casting times of Bard and I think it adds an extra depth to the class. The problem is oGCD's are cutting to much into our rotation. I would propose to add a stacking bloodletter to avoid missed procs, as stated by Snowaeth, or by making buffs castable while casting. Although from what I've read with the current mechanics of the game that would be very hard to do.

So, currently i184 BRD and parsing anywhere from 700-900, sometimes 1k ish depending on the fight, in A1-A4 PUGs. Usually I am among the top dps, oddly, especially over other BRDS (100-200+ more dps). However, I do notice when there's a good NIN MNK DRG SMN etc. their dps can be also be 200 dps+ more than mine. SO I was wondering, since BRD's have the unique ability to play songs, like Foe Requiem to boost mage DMG that drains MP (can't be used with other songs), but we don't always use it since sometimes there isn't a SMN or BLM in the group. Well, why not have a song that boosts our own damage further that drains MP? Maybe either another 5-10% increase DMG, increase in crit rate or skill speed (to boost our DoTs). Otherwise, we kinda sit at full MP. I think this may boost our dmg to be more competitive, especially on single target fights.Thoughts?

Currently the things I would like to see changed the most without suggesting how exactly.

Useless Skill
- Warden's Paeon. Make it something useful and if cast time is going to stay with whatever it is, it really should be worth that 3sec cast time.

Conflict with WM
- Bloodletter in WM, just look into this skill. Seeing 2nd proc before being able to fire off the first is not cool and using it forces any other ogcd buff/skill to be delayed or cut into gcd. It also causes buffs to misalign or cuts more into gcd.

Bug/glitch
- Repelling shot, if used just before a GCD will most of the time cancel out the GCD. I did suggest more changes to this skill in my suggestion post, but at the very least this part needs to be looked at.
- Flaming arrow, not being able to pre-cast during cast times, not always registering the placement which looses you the target and cutting into gcd if you wait too long. (please test this with 95+ ping not 5 ping)

This is after solid amount of BRD gameplay in WM and the learning part being out of the way.
Being able to top dps in pretty much any pug and A1S.
These 4 things just will irk me forever if not changed.

The straight shot issue would be a 5th, but that one at least can be played around in a normal way despite it being bad design.
Also Wide Volley has become utterly useless, but it had never been the better aoe option to begin with, so it's not as noticable to me.