BARD 2.1 change [requesting letter from the producer explanation]

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Originally Posted by Wolfhammer

If thats the case then I'd like some songs that are actually needed and a wider variety... Its rare I play a song since my end game groups seem to get along fine without them. Makes me feel warm n fuzzy when one is actually required or asked for its so rare.

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I agree with more songs, even let brds equip an off hand to play 2 songs and drop the aoe around bard for songs. It would be easier to fix it now than later. If the game lasts and they release more ranged classes this could create a balance issue. So say they decide to bring out ranger it would be the dps class.

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Originally Posted by Wolfhammer

Well if Bards have too many pieces of the puzzle, then you aim to take away a piece or pieces. So what piece(s) are you taking please?

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As I said before I hope they make brd 2nd class cnj and remove either mnk or drg. This would help it fit the support class. Now at the same time he needs to fix cure 1 or pld so pld's have more survivabilty and at the same time if they change brd 2nd class to cnj fix it so cure 1 actually dose do cures (not as strong as whm for either). When patch 1.23 hit brd and pld could actually cure for a decent amount it worked fine but for whatever reason he gimped pld and completely took it away from brd, this should not have happend. Currently we have 2 jobs that can put out great heals but.. it dose put a lot on those healers, where as even if pld and brd had cure's they could keep themselves up a bit longer if there was an issue with the whm/s not be able to cure for a min.

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Originally Posted by TanpaNama

We are Rangers with a few supportive abilties. Bard just sounds cuter! :)

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No brd is definitely not ranger, no matter how you look at it it dosent even comes close. Ranger is a seperate job and it should be made as a dps class and brd the support class. There is room for both and dose open up opportunities for new jobs.

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Originally Posted by Maxthunder

Makes no difference he messed up and needs to fix his mistake.

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That's cool. Here's a thought: How about, until he "fixes his mistake," they not turn us into a glorified safety net?

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Originally Posted by Maxthunder

BOOHOO seriously? BRD is a SUPPORT job PERIOD.

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lmfao. I don't care what you think it should be. I've played the job since its release in 1.2x and played it to how it was designed then tossing cures, stoneskin, raising members in battle, and songs to help my party.

There are 3 Roles in ARR. DPS, Tank, Healer. Sorry, SE changed ARR to try to appeal to a broader base and BRD was changed also. CNJ Cross-Class is gone. You keep going against the current state of the game saying BRD is support, songs are the priority for the party, but in a fight it takes up very very little of our time. Where damage dealing takes up the large majority.

You want the 1.23 BRD, refuse to accept the changes made, and on top of it blame the community when the Dev Team redesigned it this way. I've moved on and adapted to change and will if the job is completely overhauled in the future for a different role.

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They rushed 2.0 and it shows, they didnt take the time to think things thru. A lot of players look at brd as support and that is what it is. It is also the easiest class to dps on so we also know why others are complaining about loseing your dps, but thats not an issue. Learn to play a real dps and not something that is suppose to be a support class, but you and others dont want to play support that is what it comes down to. This has nothing to do w attracting broad audience, it is a about others just wanting easy street with little to no effort and that fits into what brd dose best. At least if they make it into what it should be players will actually have to play the job properly, even know we have players that cant even use the job properly and it is by far the easiest in the game.

Maxthunder,
You seem pretty damn sure that Bard in FF14 ARR is a support. Yet the job is described and categorized as a DPS be it by the game or by the developpers themselves.
You even went as far as saying THEY messed up and that they need to fix their mistakes! Meanning u do believe to hold the very deep truth about a class u don t even play yourself, and that coz of that, SE itself have to modify their own game and class system.
It must be close to 10 posts in a row now where you claim to be something like a prophet to us all Bards out there " Know the truth my poeple, you are not on EORZEA to fullfill a DPS role, but to be a full support class!!! and this, because i say so!!! "
Ofcourse i m exagerating a lil bit, i do see the point that on some other FF that existed years ago, Bard was a mostly support class. But people like you seem to completly miss the point that FF14 2.0 is a game by itself, with a dynamic that doesn t allow pure support classes, and were Bards are indeed classified as DPS. This is a fact.

Now please, stop the nonsense and let the thread go back on topic... all Bards want are precise answers... even if it s clear now that we won t get any before the patch. Some ppl just never loose hope.

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Originally Posted by Camate

Greetings, everyone!

Based on fan translations of the interview Famitsu held with Yoshi-P recently, there seems to be a misconception about what was said regarding bard adjustments in 2.1. Contrary to the rumor that an ability would be taken away from bard and moved to a different job, bard will not be losing a main ability.

This confusion appears to stem from Yoshi-P comparing party formations to a puzzle and the jobs being the puzzle pieces. The goal for balancing the game is to make sure that no single job could complete the puzzle alone, and he feels that bard was given too many pieces of the puzzle.

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I don't know about you, Camate, but the quote below is more along the lines of "Oops, that is too strong for you so we'll take that away even though we are buffing other dps anyway.":

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During the previous LIVE letter I made a comment about adjustments to bard, which I think many of you are worried about. The reasoning for adjustments, as mentioned previously, is that bards tend to take away from other jobs that could be used in certain instances. This is due to their ability to deal steady damage in addition to supporting using job abilities. As such, we will be making adjustments to their cross-class abilities. There will be no changes made to archer or bard themselves. Please also rest assured that we will not be removing their ability to silence enemies.

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It isn't so much that they are taking away from brd/arc what they get naturally that has people worried, it is the fact that what the job lacks due to lower weapon damage, no potency upgrades through position/combos, no dps limit break, and that when some of our "pieces to the puzzle" are used it adjusts our damage lower anyway....devs are now saying that they made a mistake with cross-class abilities because they messed up on the fight mechanics end making it seem a brd can fill in the role of another DPS? (Which they can't, sorry..another real melee DPS that knows the mechanics of the fight and how to play their job to full potential will always trump brd dps output. Pld gains access to silence also and once geared up appropriately songs become exceedingly less necessary.)

How is it brds fault that devs made bigger boss do attacks that cause other dps to constantly reposition/move out of range cause they hit melee too hard?

How is it the brds fault that server checks aren't frequent enough causing artificial lag when trying to avoid certain AOE for melee?

As most have already said, when you leave a statement like that, which the 2nd quote was taken from the Dev translation of the live letter and not the possibly "mistranslated community release" it isn't so far fetched that people would like to have information about exactly what they plan to change about brd. It is better to have that out in the open then leave it for interpretation. As far as most can see we are going to most likely lose access to: Blood for Blood, Internal Release, or invigorate. Taking any of these away can be a significant drop in DPS or even utility for brd if other adjustments aren't planned to properly counter what would be lost.

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Originally Posted by Kitkat

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Thank you for a more organized approach with the current issues and state of play in the game with BRD. All they are doing is confusing ppl more and more with this new statement. You released provisional War info in testing, showing BRD provisional changes would have helped clarify some direction SE and provided more input.

Regardless of what you or I want they will do whatever, the fact is everyone I have spoke too would like brd to do its support role, and no we cant go by the number of likes on this forums as the majority. Change is one thing but we do need support jobs like it or not and brd is a support job like it or not. Why do you think you have songs to cast? Why is the community wants everything to be dps? Why isit the easiest job in the game is brd? That answer is because you dont have to think you just press buttons and you can do it in your sleep or with your eyes closed. Even now we use brd as support for for all the high level fights, it dose help if players will actually use them.

Why not try a real dps job that isnt as easy you will have a lot more fun than just running around with your head cut off pressing buttons?

Easy or difficult, some of us just like playing range DPS.
At this point, Bard is our only option.
Most parties, don't really need or want my songs.
I play them anyway because I feel they do help, but nobody seems to care.
I have never heard "Thank you so much Bard, your foe requiem really saved the day!"

bards tend to take away from other jobs that could be used in certain instances. This is due to their ability to deal steady damage in addition to supporting using job abilities. As such, we will be making adjustments to their cross-class abilities. There will be no changes made to archer or bard themselves. Please also rest assured that we will not be removing their ability to silence enemies.

From reading this quote it seems that there is no problem with our damage cross class abilities. From what I can see the true problem is out support abilities (IE: Mantra Haymaker Feint). Admittedly maybe not so much haymaker because of the dodge requirement. But the healing bonus from mantra or 20% slowing effect from Feint may be what they are saying is too much and causing monks/dragoons to be overlooked since a bard can bring those support abilities instead.

I've never really been fond of nerfs, but I don't mind losing a crossclass skill like B4B since I don't use it (everyone should have invigorate). If anything I think it would be better to bring other classes up through advanced skills for lv.50 available through quests with equipment level requirements or through phil/myth/seal purchases like:
MNK: Wave fist (ranged MNK-tech from FFT), advanced second wind (all classes, increased heal version of Second Wind), and maybe Feather foot 2, a way to restore second wind instantly (20-30% chance), or an advanced FoE (greater def increase), a tech to cut down on cooldown times

BLM: Make cast time uninterruptable except by status effects (passive), W-Magic (the ability to cast two spells at once on the same target for no extra cost, cool down)
SMN: W-Summon (the ability to summon two pets)
DRG: Sound Barrier (passive, greatly reduces damage received during jump techs, possible weakness to magic) with maybe an increased damage output
BRD: Regen song, and maybe some crossclass support skills like sleep
SCH: an ability to reduce TP and MP costs (10-20%) for the entire party for a duration of time. Possible LB.

All or most of those would probably break the game, but I think it's better to break everything to some degree if balancing proves to only create more problems.

Hmmm....

If support is "NEEDED", why are there Coil groups where Bards never even use their songs at all? Seems like support "helps" but I'm not sure if you want to say it's "needed".

If Bards are so easy to play, what can you say about Black Mages? I'm pretty sure they have the same easy rotation, their only difficulty is when they have to move. I think all the DPS jobs have it easy. The only "difficult" part is moving/dodging while keeping your rotation up. Now that I think about it, I would think SMN is the only difficult one as it's hard to keep track of all the DoTs and renew them. But all the other DPS classes only need to worry about themselves and their own buffs.

Bards can move and keep their damage consistent, I think they should keep that cause that's kind of our niche or mechanic. What I think Yoshi-p is saying is that in the puzzle, instead of Bard fitting it's own piece, you can kind of fit many pieces. We can silence, we can AoE, we can refresh MP/TP, we can sort of "tank" by kiting, and we have good DPS. From some of the interviews and letters and stuff I've read from Yoshi, it seems that he's really trying to make the classes different to a sense where every class brings something to the table. That will discourage class stacking. But currently, it just seems like Bards are bringing a lot to the table. I was afraid they were going to take Raging Strikes from us but thankfully they won't. I really feel like they are just going to reduce our Burst damage. Let's just see how it turns out.

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Originally Posted by Maxthunder

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You can make all the assumptions you like. I'm not.

• I am actively playing and gearing my BRD/PLD/DRG in coil each week and go the role I'm needed.
• I play jobs I enjoy, regardless of difficulty.
• I am in no rush getting all 9 jobs to 50.
• Current coil lockouts/myth caps restrict ppl from gearing all 9 jobs effectively.
• Focusing on my 3 jobs with the current state of the game makes more sense.

People's opinions are opinions. If it effects the game, I've already stated numerous times. Whatever direction Bard goes, I will go.

Bard is currently a DPS that can apply one song at a time.

Nothing stat/gear wise for BRD effects those songs but Piety (MP = Length of Song) and there is zero non-slotted endgame gear for Bard with Piety. Battle Voice is an ability, not a stat. Bard is all DPS focused gear.

I am done arguing with someone that thinks the Job should be this, but it is infact nothing like it. Argue with the Devs.

Bard won't lose one of its abilities but I bet it loses blood for blood.

They stated that they are unhappy with additionals they can bring that dissuades people from taking another damage class. Bards as it stand are already on the lower end of the potential damage spectrum and melee classes are confirmed to be getting an approximated 10% potential damage increase to balance out their risk/reward situation. So nerfng bard damage seems rather redundant. That is why I feel bards will lose one or both of the SUPPORT abilities that a Monk/Lancer bring. IE: Feint and Mantra

I like using mantra on bard. Sure its crazy weak outside of monk, but it makes me feel more of a support role when I toss it up along with songs.

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Originally Posted by Luso

I like using mantra on bard. Sure its crazy weak outside of monk, but it makes me feel more of a support role when I toss it up along with songs.

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This game could use more raid-wide support/buff abilities across the board.
Mantra, Songs, Selene. I think we could use more stuff like this, even if Bard still leads the support.

It really makes the raid feel more connected when dps are all affecting the general group, stacking buffs or spacing them out.
You're making the raid a fluid sort of force, rather than just doing your own thing.

Magic users do have some degree of this with keeping Virus and Eye for an Eye up.
Really much more interesting experience when you have to manage yourself and the group at the same time.

Yes much like bard in FFXI would be great, where you can play multiple songs to benefit the different jobs in the party.

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Originally Posted by LunarEmerald

Bard won't lose one of its abilities but I bet it loses blood for blood.

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More sad about losing invigorate, but melee is getting a 10% buff and mages already hit like a truck. So that is a damage nerf to bards
Which I probably be more ok with. If the removed the CD on blunt arrow and the damage nerf from songs.

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Originally Posted by Maxthunder

Change is one thing but we do need support jobs like it or not and brd is a support job like it or not. Why do you think you have songs to cast? Why is the community wants everything to be dps?

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That's horrible logic, you know? By this logic, WHM and SCH are actually DPS classes. We have 4 songs that we can choose from; WHM has 6 DPS spells; and SCH has 8 DPS spells. Doesn't change the fact that the game queues them as heals and us as dps.

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Originally Posted by Maxthunder

Why not try a real dps job that isnt as easy you will have a lot more fun than just running around with your head cut off pressing buttons?

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Like a black mage, you mean?

Sleep, Apocastasis, Lethargy, Virus, Eye for an Eye, Physick... oh my god, black mage is a support class, too?

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Originally Posted by Masimo

Yes much like bard in FFXI would be great, where you can play multiple songs to benefit the different jobs in the party.

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In 1.0 Brd used to be like this, where you dropped songs on the specific party members that needed it. However, back then we didn't start off with TP, didn't regen tp/mp in battle, and also had higher cap on TP cause actions cost more to use if not in a combo (combo actions used to cost no tp so long as they were used in appropriate chain). Arguably, there were a good deal of things that Devs changed from 1.0-1.20 that they should have kept when rebuilding the game, and other than having access to cnj cross class abilities we still retain access to most everything we had before.

I don't understand why every time they have chosen to say something about Bard, it's leaving us with just as much vague information as the last time they said something about Bard changes. Why the secrecy? I don't understand it. They were quick to spill ALL the info on Warrior, but almost zero on Bard. I think they're really considering how much this change may or may not piss off the Bard fanbase. I am ok with DPS lowering...whatever. Just increase my support abilities at least so that people still want Bards in the party.

From the patch notes, it looks like the only change that will affect our dps is the reduction of Internal Release to 10% from 20%.

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Originally Posted by Rasix

From the patch notes, it looks like the only change that will affect our dps is the reduction of Internal Release to 10% from 20%.

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BfB has been reduced to 10% too.
That seems like it.

Bard wasn't nerfed much at all. Summoner got made worthless

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Originally Posted by Allyrion

BfB has been reduced to 10% too.
That seems like it.

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Originally Posted by Nemhy

Bard wasn't nerfed much at all. Summoner got made worthless

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There is actually a pretty MAJOR nerf is coming in the change to Rain of Death's effect. :(
Reduces enemy evasion instead of enemy damage = practically worthless now.

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Originally Posted by Bardo

There is actually a pretty MAJOR nerf is coming in the change to Rain of Death's effect. :(
Reduces enemy evasion instead of enemy damage = practically worthless now.

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Yea, that is pretty sad and I believe they're moving that to a more pvp related ability.
It's a slight support nerf. Most of the fear was about a major damage nerf or moving around the cross class though.

I love how you can just tell who in here is and isnt clearing Turn 5 on a a weekly basis. I bet 90% of the people saying RoD nerf isnt a big deal have never lived through a gigaflare on Twintania.

I'm freaking mad about this nerf. I don't mind the changes of BFB or Internal Release but it's really stupid to change RoD!!! Why do you want to make bards less useful? we will do less dmg of all dps and the only thing that we can do to help party is to play some songs and nerf our dmg again.

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Originally Posted by Emblemelite

I love how you can just tell who in here is and isnt clearing Turn 5 on a a weekly basis. I bet 90% of the people saying RoD nerf isnt a big deal have never lived through a gigaflare on Twintania.

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You're right, but it's still a much different type of nerf than anyone expected.
Talking about nerfs before were specifically about damage nerfs because that's what this whole thread was crying about.

First step is acknowledging that damage wasn't hit that hard. Then you can talk about the support of RoD.
Whole different topic.

Bards did not receive any direct nerfs to their damage but they did receive an indirect nerf in the form of melee buffs, but this affects ALL range DPS, not just bards. The only direct bard nerf is to their utility, as Rain of Death is pretty much useless now unless they release new contents that would require its use. Honestly though, there are so many bards who don't even use Rain of Death because it would hinder their own personal DPS, kinda like those who don't use Ballad til the party yells in their faces.

RiP BRD. In comparison with other classes past 70 ilvl we are at the bottom rung of the totem pole. These changes exacerbated that. Here is to hoping they fix bows wep dmg. :(

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Originally Posted by PenutButter

Bards did not receive any direct nerfs to their damage but they did receive an indirect nerf in the form of melee buffs, but this affects ALL range DPS, not just bards. The only direct bard nerf is to their utility, as Rain of Death is pretty much useless now unless they release new contents that would require its use. Honestly though, there are so many bards who don't even use Rain of Death because it would hinder their own personal DPS, kinda like those who don't use Ballad til the party yells in their faces.

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Wouldn't the evasion down effect from the new RoD lessen the accuracy requirements for hitting the mob?

When I heard the bard was getting damage nerf I thought it made sense because SE was going to give them more of a support role by maybe adding something useful party wise, the Rain of Death nerf is the exact opposite. Instead of propare balancing all Bards got is the future of a half-baked support and half-baked DPS. Only usefulness now is the Mage's Ballad one trick ponies yay! Oh and they still have Blunt Arrow at least they didn't take the silence away.

Would it be feasible to actually dump some level of accuracy itemization in favor of relying on RoD being up for most of the fight?

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Originally Posted by PenutButter

Bards did not receive any direct nerfs to their damage.

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Well, they did, albeit fairly minor ones. Untraited B4B and IR both got their effectiveness cut in half.

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Originally Posted by Sylari

Would it be feasible to actually dump some level of accuracy itemization in favor of relying on RoD being up for most of the fight?

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Since it costs 200 TP, does like, 100 potency damage, i'm going to go with "hell no".