Bard in the party... thoughts?

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

And then throw out casters? Giving BRD a piercing debuff doesn't even make sense because it's not going to level them to where MCH is. Again, Yoshi's stance on BRD/MCH is that they both sahre the same role of "support" dps. MCH is not a full dps job as much something as the melee/casters are.

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The response wasn't to make it seem like casters would be less important or not needed as much. All I was trying to say is maybe people wouldn't always have to default to the common dps composition of Melee, Melee, Ranged, Caster all the time if Brd had access to the piercing debuff. Maybe. You say giving Brd a piercing debuff doesn't make sense and won't help them.....before those Mch changes, I didn't think an additional 5% to Hypercharge and the Gauss Round change would help them as much either.

I've given my suggestions earlier, but I don't think Brd needs all the buffs for improvement (I want a few improvements, just not something 'overkill' like stated earlier). Just one thing (or two) to help it out a bit. If not the piercing debuff then, adjust Foe's. If not that, then something else.

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Originally Posted by Slyqc

@RiceisNice
Are you drunk? I think I probably mentionned the DPS gap like once or maybe twice if you count the moment I have bring concrete proof of that DPS gap, after that we just discussed about it without really pointing it.

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It may be true that the kit of machinist could be considered better for the encounters in midas savage currently but outside of hardcore endgame progression, and i'm talking top world, it hardly matters. Also, you would really be surprised to know how many times you specifically compared bard and machinist damage in this thread alone, not including the times where you simply didn't directly say the word "damage" or "dps." For the top world players often the difference isn't even 200%, and that includes the same person playing one class or the other, which is imo a pretty good way to compare.

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Originally Posted by Kelevra

The response wasn't to make it seem like casters would be less important or not needed as much. All I was trying to say is maybe people wouldn't always have to default to the common dps composition of Melee, Melee, Ranged, Caster all the time if Brd had access to the piercing debuff. Maybe. You say giving Brd a piercing debuff doesn't make sense and won't help them.....before those Mch changes, I didn't think an additional 5% to Hypercharge and the Gauss Round change wouldn't help them as much either.

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Giving brd a piercing debuff doesn't make any sense in their placement in a party composition if they're competing with MCH. It doesn't make sense from a damage perspective either because at that point, they'd probably balance bard dps around having the debuff (it doesn't make contextual sense by saying DRG does more damage because of the piercing debuff, because that's part of their kit and would be part of their inherent, personal damage). Nearly every example in this discussion has been directed to a MCH that has a DRG in their party for piercing debuff, giving that to BRD wouldn't change a thing in this regard because as of now, any BRD that wants to maximize their dps would have a DRG anyway for the piercing debuff.

But if you want toe encourage a BRD/MCH composition, then you're effectively throwing casters out of the equation unless you're looking at a triple ranged dps group, because MCH directly benefits BRD through hypercharge as well.

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

snip.

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Again, if not a piercing debuff (which would allow the Bard to hit harder w/o a Drg while still benefiting casters and healers that want to dps with Foes)...then something else. Several things they can improve or adjust on Brd to help the job.

@RiceisNice
I really don't see why you're so upront about not balancing BRD, I mean you are right by saying MCH was falling behind with Gordias just as much as BRD is falling behind with Midan now.
But if I remember correctly, MCH did got balanced, now you're upfront refusing the opposite? Why?

Also I really don't get what more proof you need, everything is shown on FFLogs, you say this is patched damage, well you look at top 2 from both class and both got Ninja, DRG and AST in their team comp, so yeah... both are patched.
The only fact that there's twice more MCH that made it through A6S proof how easier it is to clear that place with a MCH instead of a BRD and as you said so yourself there is more BRD than there are MCH.

give bard piercing, less incentive to bring DRG, more to bring casters
don't give bard piercing, 1 spot for caster in the current meta, more incentive to bring DRG

Honestly what's the difference. Not much if you ask me, just please 1 crowd over another. Hypercharge vs Foe's isn't really all that big a deal to be honest. the 200 dps difference is. Sure as somebody said earlier, a raid who would kick the bard to bring a mch for 200 dps wouldnt' likely be a pleasant raid group to be in. But as a bard, knowing your supposedly equiv in the meta is actually superior because they simply do more dmg kinda sucks.

I started leveling mch on my own, because of that. I'm sure so did many people on fflogs

@ashwich

I'm pretty sure the reason why Bards are beeing ignored in Midas is for A6S second boss mainly, not really for the little DPS difference, even though that 200 DPS CAN do the difference between getting the enrage or not, still shouldn't be that much of a problems if mechanics are executed correctly and no one dies.
Of course using a Bard can still make it through (My previous static and I made it), but why would you complicate your life so much if you can make everyones job a lot more easy?
The first 4 Alphas are pretty easy to destroy and shouldn't be a problem, the last 6 are a lot more complicated, by adding a 40% heavy on 1 orb and a 2 seconds stun, you make everyones life a LOT less complicated.

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Originally Posted by Slyqc

@RiceisNice
I really don't see why you're so upront about not balancing BRD, I mean you are right by saying MCH was falling behind with Gordias just as much as BRD is falling behind with Midan now.
But if I remember correctly, MCH did got balanced, now you're upfront refusing the opposite? Why?

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Because honestly speaking, BRD and MCH are both close together enough that they can be competitive to each other. The factor is the fights that design to favor one or another (which has been the case since 2.x, and has nothing to do with job balance honestly, espesically when the two are interchangable). You can look at the logs right now and see that the top BRD/MCH are actually by the same player, and the instances where the MCH does more has numerous factors from clear times to buffs that are in the MCH's favor (specifically the absence of an AST)

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Originally Posted by Slyqc

Also I really don't get what more proof you need, everything is shown on FFLogs, you say this is patched damage, well you look at top 2 from both class and both got Ninja, DRG and AST in their team comp, so yeah... both are patched.

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What? Did you even look at the fights? I'll grab an example right now with A5s. The top MCH is at 1,740 with a 4:30 clear time, the top BRD (who happens to be the same player who is the top MCH) is at 1,630 with a clear time of 5 minutes...but the latter doesn't have an astro. The second highest BRD would be around 1,580-1,600, also doesn't have an astro, and the fight took 6 minutes which is going to lower the overall measurement of dps as the fight drags on. The trend continues on and on, and at that point you're comparing the dps of a BRD who probably has it as their clear attempt versus a MCH who has it on farm. You keep bringing up the 200 dps difference, but don't see why it's there, but instead assuming that MCH is straight up better than BRD from a dps standpoint.

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Originally Posted by Slyqc

@ashwich

The first 4 Alphas are pretty easy to destroy and shouldn't be a problem, the last 6 are a lot more complicated, by adding a 40% heavy on 1 orb and a 2 seconds stun, you make everyones life a LOT less complicated.

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Your summoner has miasma, miasma II, while blackmage has blizzard and lethargy. Even if you were to take in a BRD, your group still has means of putting out heavy, which isn't on cooldown. The balls also spawn in intervals from each other, you're not delaing with 6 at the same time, and melee stuns are more than enough. I won't disagree it helps, but that's going into fight mechanics that favor MCH (which can round about to having fight mechanics which favor having a BRD, like say having cleanse debuffs). The solution is not to homogenize the two jobs just for something like this, because something like having a stun of 2 seconds when your party is capable of doing at least 4 stuns of equal/longer just by the offtank and melee dps by itself isn't going to be the huge factor of clearing brawler. Not to mention BRD has more higher potency oGCDs at their hand that makes it easier/more ideal to shoot down adds, as well as the cooldowns that also helps in that regard (because wildfire is entirely useless for something like this)

@RiceisNice

Stop looking at A5S please, A5S is easy and doesn't necessarily favors any class, look at the next 3 floors.
Just like said previously more bards cleared A5S... dropping to so low, MCH have twice more clears in the next 3 floors.
Also, don't just look at top 1 but at top 10.

My static had BRD (She is the RL fo the static and she had been playing BRD since ARR Release), but when 3.2 patch notes was released i suggested her to change to MCH and I knew nothing about Midas, but with the changes to hypercharge it was pretty easy to see that MCH was going to become very OP with 2 meles comp. It's not about A6S second boss.

I totally agree with Riceis, BRD and MCH are pretty close, but MCH is great with 2 meles comp and Midas's encounters are pretty good for MCH. No one can say "MCH is better than BRD"...that is not rigth.

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Originally Posted by Slyqc

@RiceisNice

Stop looking at A5S please, A5S is easy and doesn't necessarily favors any class, look at the next 3 floors.
Just like said previously more bards cleared A5S... dropping to so low, MCH have twice more clears in the next 3 floors.
Also, don't just look at top 1 but at top 10.

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Even if you look at top 10 or the other floors, the same context still applies. The only thing I can agree and that is shown with fflogs is that there are less BRDs that have cleared A7s than there are MCH, but that by itself doesn't mean a whole lot in the job's actual performance.

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Originally Posted by Greywolfamakir

I totally agree with Riceis, BRD and MCH are pretty close, but MCH is great with 2 meles comp and Midas's encounters are pretty good for MCH. No one can say "MCH is better than BRD"...that is not rigth.

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The wild factor for foe's effectiveness has always been the healers and how much damage they can contribute, doubly so with the higher accuracy requirements and RoD. When hypercharge was at 5%, it didn't really hold much of a candle to foe even if it did technically affect "more" of the party, because both the uptime and potency was lower than what foe to bring, and factoring in healer dps would completely dwarf it at that point (esp in a raid tier where dps check was king). On the other hand, the "wild factor" for hypercharge is tank dps, and this is also when they adjusted str/vitality with tanks that their overall effective damage is a bit lower than what it was before; it's not necessarily clear cut just by looking at the values of the debuffs.

Fights favoring one class or another has always been a thing, and that's exactly why direct balance changes shouldn't be made unless it's huge and not exclusive to the encounter in mind. I'd expect (or at least hope) that MCHs wouldn't cry foul over a mechanic that requires cleansing a debuff or spot healing is required, in which case paeon/second wind would be incredibly helpful. I digress though, this is mostly a meta thing with group compositions, but in the end it doesn't make or break anything significantly unless you're that concerned with world firsts.

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Originally Posted by Mature

Wonderes Minuet ruins the whole point of being a Bard.... it's like playing with a complete new character. Damage might of improved but Bard is not about sitting with a casting bar.

I'm just very disappointed with what they are trying to do with bard.

I can get used to it but might as well play with something else. Which is a shame cause I was having a right good time Barding until Wonderes minuet was introduced.

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Wanderer's Minuet ruined Bard for a lot of people.

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Originally Posted by Alitasan

2.0 Bard is dead, 3.0 bard is some undead abomination thing. The job is completely unfocused on what it's doing and is no longer unique in any respect other than it uses the visual of a bow. It doesn't need a buff, it needs to go back to alpha and be completely reworked from the ground up.

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^This. Please please please fix Bard, SE. Bard has been such a complete mess since Heavensward. You can tell that MCH was designed to be a certain way from the ground up, then they got to Bard and got lazy and had no idea what to do other than shoehorn Gauss Barrel-- uh, I mean, Wanderer's Minuet into it. Why are our two ranged physical DPS classes just clunky carbon copies of each other? No other similar classes are like this. SMN and BLM are completely different. The three healing classes are completely different. The three tanking classes are completely different. The melee classes are all different. Why take a class that was so beloved in 2.x and not only drastically change the gameplay style to something that so many people dislike, something SO foreign from what they've learned and enjoyed for 50 levels, but also shove their DPS to dead last? So many people walked away from Bard, even some walked away from the game, because of this. Please, SE, tell me that in the next expansion that Bard is getting a total rework.

Also when you do empyrial arrow+rain of death skills combo, bard's legs are doing 360 degree spin around body. I didn't pay attention to this before, but after I got pointed to it, I can't ignore this.

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Originally Posted by Rowyne

^This. Please please please fix Bard, SE. Bard has been such a complete mess since Heavensward. You can tell that MCH was designed to be a certain way from the ground up, then they got to Bard and got lazy and had no idea what to do other than shoehorn Gauss Barrel-- uh, I mean, Wanderer's Minuet into it. Why are our two ranged physical DPS classes just clunky carbon copies of each other? No other similar classes are like this. SMN and BLM are completely different. The three healing classes are completely different. The three tanking classes are completely different. The melee classes are all different. Why take a class that was so beloved in 2.x and not only drastically change the gameplay style to something that so many people dislike, something SO foreign from what they've learned and enjoyed for 50 levels, but also shove their DPS to dead last? So many people walked away from Bard, even some walked away from the game, because of this. Please, SE, tell me that in the next expansion that Bard is getting a total rework.

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http://www.mydirt.ca/wp-content/uplo...4/lie1.600.jpg

well dont want to sound like a downer, but let be honest here. if they wouldve make BRD any diff they wouldve already lol, so for "anyone" that dont like BRD the way it is then its best to just move on to another class sadly. I know there are still plenty of people who still enjoyed their BRD, if you enjoy the class ull do ur best to make the class worth for ya.

The main problem with Bard is that its gameplay changed a lot for the previous mains and it was no longer the class they loved. Wanderer's Minuet was the game-changer that Dreadwyrm Trance was for SMN. Coming from a previous WHM main, I didn't have any problems adapting to HW BRD (enough to make it my new main) and in fact like it a lot even if I rarely break 1.1k DPS (yes, I'm working on it). I WOULD love if WM didn't take away my auto-attacks, though.

Although, really, having used a bow irl, it DOES take a few seconds to nock an arrow, aim and fire it, so...

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Originally Posted by WhiteArchmage

The main problem with Bard is that its gameplay changed a lot for the previous mains and it was no longer the class they loved. Wanderer's Minuet was the game-changer that Dreadwyrm Trance was for SMN. Coming from a previous WHM main, I didn't have any problems adapting to HW BRD (enough to make it my new main) and in fact like it a lot even if I rarely break 1.1k DPS (yes, I'm working on it). I WOULD love if WM didn't take away my auto-attacks, though.

Although, really, having used a bow irl, it DOES take a few seconds to nock an arrow, aim and fire it, so...

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Not for Legolas!
Hey look, it's a door.
----->[]

Honestly those still on the "i hate WM" or "WM ruined Bard" bandwagon just need to move on already, no point of playing as something you do not love.

Having played both Bard and Machinist (MCH is only 52 so bear with me) I've gotta say the sudden addition of having to charge your shots works for them HOWEVER I think a traditional 1.5s cast time is a bit much, honestly, I think a 1s cast time would be more appropriate for both, given that before hand both classes are pretty fast paced and it's fun to be able to dance in circles around the boss and enemies. with a 1s cast time you'd still be able to move and re-position yourself as needed, but it wouldn't feel nearly as rooted as playing a caster dps does

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Originally Posted by LilLemay

Having played both Bard and Machinist (MCH is only 52 so bear with me) I've gotta say the sudden addition of having to charge your shots works for them HOWEVER I think a traditional 2.5s cast time is a bit much, honestly, I think a 1s cast time would be more appropriate for both, given that before hand both classes are pretty fast paced and it's fun to be able to dance in circles around the boss and enemies. with a 1s cast time you'd still be able to move and re-position yourself as needed, but it wouldn't feel nearly as rooted as playing a caster dps does

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But...it isnt a "traditional cast time" they are given??? They are given a much shorter cast time than actual casters. You can still move around plenty with how fast it is. You just cant run around like an idiot for no reason like so many bards used to do in ARR

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Originally Posted by Zari

But...it isnt a "traditional cast time" they are given??? They are given a much shorter cast time than actual casters. You can still move around plenty with how fast it is. You just cant run around like an idiot for no reason like so many bards used to do in ARR

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Sorry my bad, I meant 1.5 cast time in my original post. And even then if you're playing with a Bard that's sprinting in circles like an idiot with WM on, they're doing it wrong. Yes they're much more mobile than a BLM or a SMN, but you lose quite a bit of DPS if you're running around just to run around.

I'm not saying here that BRD, and even MCH with Gauss Barrel, aren't more mobile than casters. It's just you get a full 86% of the way through the class, being able to strafe and run around and do as you will and then you hit 52 and it's like BOOM time to stand still most of the time

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Originally Posted by LilLemay

Having played both Bard and Machinist (MCH is only 52 so bear with me) I've gotta say the sudden addition of having to charge your shots works for them HOWEVER I think a traditional 1.5s cast time is a bit much, honestly, I think a 1s cast time would be more appropriate for both, given that before hand both classes are pretty fast paced and it's fun to be able to dance in circles around the boss and enemies. with a 1s cast time you'd still be able to move and re-position yourself as needed, but it wouldn't feel nearly as rooted as playing a caster dps does

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You can start moving your character around when your cast bar hit around 65% and it will not disturb your casting. So in the end the cast time is somewhere around the 1 second, only thing is even if you can move you can't start using other skills (Empyreal Arrow, Bloodletter, etc...) until the cast has ended. ^^

^ Pretty much what Sly has said, i have used this same ideal on blm. Machinist i will say feels more mobile then Bard though to some extent.

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Originally Posted by Slyqc

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I'm aware you can do that, I'm only talking about the fact that it's very jarring that at level 52 the game suddenly decides to tell you ''you're a caster now, you've got to stand still to cast" I think it'd be nice if they brought our cast times down to a point where by time you register ''hey I've pressed that button'' your bar is already at/past the point where you can start moving and not disturb yourself.

From what I hear, most of people's main complaints with Bard/Machinist is that you suddenly become a caster and the DPS they put out, and I don't want to completely throw out the cast time thing since I think it makes sense (at least for BRD) I think it'd do a lot to quell people's complaints if that transition to pre-WM play and post-WM play wasn't so jarring.

Also, who knows a slightly faster cast time might even help the DPS of both classes? I don't know about that one, that's for people who have the time to do the math to figure out.

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Originally Posted by LilLemay

Also, who knows a slightly faster cast time might even help the DPS of both classes? I don't know about that one, that's for people who have the time to do the math to figure out.

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Your amount of skill that you can use is still limited to your GCD, a faster cast time wouldn't help BRD or MCH in that case (and they wouldn't be able to fit two oGCDs inbetween either without clipping, you need at least more than a split second for an oGCD)

There's so many issues surrounding the gameplay of MCH/BRD, but the biggest one I have to say is that there's no sense of a traditional physical-ranged dps in the game anymore. They're all casters to an extent rather than following the trend of a physical class with auto attacks and instant weaponskills.

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

Your amount of skill that you can use is still limited to your GCD, a faster cast time wouldn't help BRD or MCH in that case (and they wouldn't be able to fit two oGCDs inbetween either without clipping, you need at least more than a split second for an oGCD)

There's so many issues surrounding the gameplay of MCH/BRD, but the biggest one I have to say is that there's no sense of a traditional physical-ranged dps in the game anymore. They're all casters to an extent rather than following the trend of a physical class with auto attacks and instant weaponskills.

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Thank you for answering the DPS question :p

So it wouldn't help unless they reduced both the cast time and the recast time then

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Venomous Bite Potency of the venom effect has been increased from 35 to 40.
Windbite Potency of the wind damage over time effect has been increased from 45 to 50.
Blunt Arrow Potency has been increased from 50 to 100.
Flaming Arrow Potency has been increased from 35 to 40.
Mage's Ballad Damage reduction on self has been changed from 15% to 10%.
Cast time has been reduced from 3 to 1.5 seconds.
Army's Paeon Damage reduction on self has been changed from 15% to 10%.
Cast time has been reduced from 3 to 1.5 seconds.
Foe Requiem Cast time has been reduced from 3 to 1.5 seconds.
Battle Voice Recast time has been reduced from 300 to 180 seconds
Empyreal Arrow Potency has been increased from 220 to 230.
Sidewinder Potency when target is suffering from both Venomous Bite and Windbite has been increased from 250 to 260.

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Thank you Square Enix.

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Originally Posted by Slyqc

Thank you Square Enix. (Those massive Bard buffs)

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Such overkill. Though now we'll indisputably be seeing the preponderance of Bards mentioned in the OP.

...and this is coming from someone who prefers and used to main Bard...

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Originally Posted by Slyqc

Thank you Square Enix.

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I'm one of the ones that believed Bard did need help, but really didn't think they were gonna do potency increases across several skills. I was thinking something like readjusting Foe's so it'll just recognize Windbite and Flaming Arrow as elemental dmg. That or changing Rain of Death's debuff from evasion down to piercing resistance down.

Not really complaining. Glad Bard finally got something.

boys and girls get ready to see MASSIVE brd players LOL, i wouldnt be surprise if there are 3-4 BRD in a RAID/TRIALS or even 2 BRD in light group lol. those buffs are a bit TOO MUCH for BRD tbh, people kept complaining about how bad BRD is, they are bad because players doesnt know how to play it "properly".

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Originally Posted by Kelevra

That or changing Rain of Death's debuff from evasion down to piercing resistance down.

Not really complaining. Glad Bard finally got something.

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Prior to most healers melding to accuracy cap by themselves, I feel like that would have been a raid DPS loss, actually, not a buff. Prior to those melds, a Bard could easily pull the kind of raid DPS support that a NIN would even without a caster, just because of all the healer dps it could allow by decreasing the accuracy needed to hit enemies. If not for MCHs handling the mechanics of this tier so well, you'd likely have seen a lot more healers go only to maybe an extra 3% accuracy in melds, preferring extra healing and offensive strength through Det/Crit melds instead, and while using Rain of Death for the rest.

Bard already outperforms MCH slightly in the hands of a good player against a dummy or with minimal movement. This level of buffing just was not needed, and breaks many of the previous equivalents between them and MCH. A MCH still roughly loses 80 potency per GCD for promoting its Rook turret, or 60*enemy_count for Bishop, while BRD loses only 10% damage (typically up to 39 potency AoE or an absolute max of 150 potency ST).

I truly would not be surprised if these changes bring BRD back in line with the overpowered beast it began as...

Se went to the extreme with the buffs. I totally agree with the songs cast time reduction. But buffing potency on everything across the board is a an overkill. The balance is broken once again.

Turrets are about 13% of our all dmg. While bard only loses 10% when singing.

Bard will be once more the favored support as of 3.3 it will be the superior job. Rip mch.

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Originally Posted by Empty-handed

Se went to the extreme with the buffs. I totally agree with the songs cast time reduction. But buffing potency on everything across the board is a an overkill. The balance is broken once again.

Turrets are about 13% of our all dmg. While bard only loses 10% when singing.

Bard will be once more the favored support as of 3.3 it will be the superior job. Rip mch.

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Maybe, maybe not. I think Mch will still have the better burst and the better option for killing things that need to die quickly. And the turrets can be toggled between auto attack and support "instantly" still. A case of gnarly burst or better sustained. And if Machinist 'sustained' dmg becomes an issue in the future...then I think SE should consider removing the rng from their 1-2-3 combo (w/o ammo, just make it so the last two hits always proc but aren't instant cast) instead of nerfing Bard again.

Brd, even though the songs got needed changes, still need time to cast. That and Foe's still uses mana when wanting/needing to buff elemental dmg. Hypercharge doesn't use mp at all when wanting/needing to buff physical dmg. That and most groups will still probably default to '2 melee, 1 ranged, 1 caster' comps anyway in endgame content they're looking to progress/clear.

+silence +stun +mattack down +pattack down + gravity too and you can move freely for 6 GCDs under Reload, so no I would not say RIP MCH

MCH is not dead at all, from what I'm seeing the class should be pretty much equal now, except that going for Bard + SMN + BLM is really worth now (180 seconds CD Battle Voice)
I showed earlier on that post that MCH with same team comp usually have around 10% more DPS than bards, the buff bards had is approximatively going to fix that 10% DPS difference.
On the other hand though MCH still have a stun and a slow that Bards don't have. Mechanics wise both classes have their advantages now but at least in term of DPS they should be closer to each other.
I'm glad to see the Ninja buff too, this class needed more help than bard and seeing that 70 potency up on Katon is going to make a huge difference, shadow fang is also going to make them usefull in PvP once again.

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Originally Posted by Slyqc

MCH is not dead at all, from what I'm seeing the class should be pretty much equal now, except that going for Bard + SMN + BLM is really worth now (180 seconds CD Battle Voice)
I showed earlier on that post that MCH with same team comp usually have around 10% more DPS than bards, the buff bards had is approximately going to fix that 10% DPS difference.

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But shouldn't any changes made with particular compositions in mind aim to buff the raid DPS contribution to the other members of the composition, not the ranged dps's own output? The easiest way to do that would be to simply not have so overbuffed Hypercharge as it applies to all-melee compositions in the first place. (Heck, Army, Ballad, Foe, and Hypercharge together all give significant advantages to near-pure caster or pure-physical compositions, which may just be an inherent design flaw. I'm not sure what the alternative would be—say, Ballad and Army as one, or Hypercharge affecting both physical and magic damage with the same turret at some duration loss—but there are certainly other ways to go about designing these things that wouldn't be obviously centered on trying to remove an entire song or Hypercharge type from your playlist so you can focus on the other.)

Short of that, if they wanted to bring the compositions closer, all they really needed were near-QoL changes -- the songs' cast duration decrease, to be more on par with instant oGCD placement and Promotion, and reductions to the lock-in time for Wanderer's Minuet and Gauss Barrel both (say, to 8 or 10 seconds, scaling with skill speed), the former seeming more important simply because Bard has only 2 mobile weaponskills, down from 3. Or they could allow up to two stacks of Straighter Shot (too homogenized, imo, but a totally fair solution). Decrease the song penalty to 12-14% to be in line with turret loss outside of Hypercharge. Have Foe apply to Flaming Arrow, Windbite, and perhaps even a couple more among Venomous Bite, Sidewinder, Empyreal Arrow, Bloodletter, or Iron Jaws' direct damage, to give it a similar self-boost to Hypercharge. But by no means did Bard need more pure damage. It just needed certain factors leveled out.