Anyone have bard as main?

I was wondering if the changes in 4.0 were gonna make the bard a bigger dps asset and maybe a bit easier to play? I say this cause I've only been playing about 3 months now and I'm lvl 54 so I don't have all the abilities yet and I definitely haven't mastered my rotation yet lol. I see ppl saying bard is fun I guess but haven't seen many say they main it. I just didn't know if I should look into maybe going drg or stick with bard.

I haven't lvled a drg yet for blood for blood so I will be soon. I just wanted to know what u guys thought so I'll know in mind some kind of path to to take in HS. I see cast timers are going away but I don't know the advantage or disadvantage of that as well. Sorry if I sound like a boob but I have been curious for awhile.

Well Its hard to say atm if bard will be a bigger dps asset atm without more info. I played BRD main in 2.0 and did not in 3.0 because I wasnt not a fan of the Bowmage playstyle. I figured if I was gonna be a caster, I might as well be a caster and rerolled to BLM. It is by far one of my fav classes in terms of support and what it brings to the table. In 4.0 they are going back to BRD being 100% mobile so no more standing still to cast which in turn will make it theoretically easier to play. I say theoretically because obviously from the SB actions trailer the song mechanics are changing and could be adding some nice depth to the class, but the changes have def excited me to the point of reconsidering it as a main when I was unwilling to touch it at all in 3.0

Hope this helps

Don't level dragoon unless you're interested in playing the job. Blood for blood is going away as a cross class skill in 4.0.

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Originally Posted by bounddreamer

Don't level dragoon unless you're interested in playing the job. Blood for blood is going away as a cross class skill in 4.0.

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OH yea def, you no longer have to level other classes to get access to cross role skills in 4.0. You automatically have access to all of them just being a bard so unless you plan on doing major amounts of content in 3.0, id hold off on leveling anything else unless you just want to

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Originally Posted by Recklessfun

I was wondering if the changes in 4.0 were gonna make the bard a bigger dps asset and maybe a bit easier to play? I say this cause I've only been playing about 3 months now and I'm lvl 54 so I don't have all the abilities yet and I definitely haven't mastered my rotation yet lol.

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playing bard is about keeping your dots (Windbite and Venomous Bite) and straight shot up, hitting bloodletter every time you use an ability because for some reason there is no visual or audio cue a reset triggered by river of blood has occurred.

Use Eympyreal Arrow whenever it is up, pair it with Barrage any time you can. Throw down fire arrow for anything that is going to live through it or if you need to aoe stuff down fast. Everything else is pretty self explanatory.

its pretty straightforward, but if you don't stay consistent with it you can have some abysmally low numbers as bard damage per hit is actually pretty low so you have to make your hits count.

I've mained bard since 2.05 all the way through 'til now, and will probably keep it up through Stormblood. It's hard to say whether or not Bard will be any easier or more difficult to play when Stormblood comes out, but I can at least tell you one thing for certain; Bard will play completely different in 4.0 than it did in either 3.0 or even 2.0. Dragoon, on the other hand, looks like it'll simply be an upgrade to it's 3.0 counterpart.

So if you're willing to relearn your job when the new expansion comes out, might as well stick with Bard and start getting some gear ready when you reach 60. Otherwise, if you want the job to feel somewhat familiar from 60 - 70, go with Dragoon.

Lol wow I'm sooooo glad u guys said something about that blood for blood cross skill change. Would have been alot of wasted time... Well maybe not wasted but u know what I mean.

And yeah hopefully I can get use to my rotation better. It's not that it's that hard it's just that on ps4 it's a lot harder to keep track of all the buttons and cooldowns then on PC. I played WOW for 2yrs and as a hunter actually but everything was on a single long line not had it is now. And I might not be the best dps but alive dps is better then dead dps right lol?

I don't believe the bard will be easier to play.
At least not optimally.
Bard currently has one of the easiest rotation, and the cast time hardly makes it harder.
You need to keep 2 dots that you can refresh with one skill, there is no combo tree, you have 2 short cd dps burst, one buff to keep up and the bunch of 60sec+ cd.
On top of that, it's extremely forgiving. Nothing you do can screw up your dps. You didn't refresh your dots quick enough, just reapply them. You forgot to apply your buff, apply it.
Compare that to a BLM loosing enochian or failing a FireIV because AF expired 0.5sec before you finished your cast, Bard is few order of magnitude easier and forgiving.
(I'm not saying it is a bad thing, especially the forgiving part)


Anyway, going on with why I don't believe it will be the case

I believe the job will be more complex for three reasons:

1- Two of the 3 songs seem to have a ressource management. We could see some musical notes and arrows charging. Which means that on top of your actual rotation, you'll have to manage Something new. Especially the Wanderer minuet with the 3 Arrow things. I don't expect them to remove anythin from the current Bard since they're already one of the most simplistic job.

2- Song aren't aoe now, you need to target which ally and which ennemy you apply the song to. The ennemy part isn't annoying in itself as most fight will only have 1 target, but the ally one will require more management. Especially if the range isn't crazy long. On top of that songs have duration, we don't know the actual implication of this change. Do they need to "charge up"? We can expect song to be more than just "press and Watch your mana drain"

3- The removal of the cast time will technically make the job harder.
If you stand still, having or not a casting time doesn't change your rotation. Doing an instant and waiting 2.5 for the GCD is the same as casting for 2sec and waiting 0.5sec for the GCD.
Then, if you have to move, the casting time prevents you from casting, which means that for that movement period, beside your instant skills, you can't dps. You're on stand-by. And assuming you have to move for an extensive period of time, you can still remove the minuet and reapply it after. Some math can help you determine if it's Worth it or no.

However, if your skills are all isntant, you can always dps, dancing around the boss is basically NOT an excuse for lower dps. No matter what happens, you should be able to pull the same dps as if you were not moving. So every time you'll fail to use a skill while dancing around the boss, avoiding aoe and doing mechanic, you're basically not doing it right.

And you can be sure that you'll be balanced around this ability to do DPS 100% of the time no matter what.
A BLM can't do that, so they're balanced around having some down time which is why they do so much dmg when they can stay in turret mods the entire fight.

I'm not sure how this is going to make the job easier...

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

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1- Two of the 3 songs seem to have a ressource management. We could see some musical notes and arrows charging...

2- Song aren't aoe now, you need to target which ally and which ennemy you apply the song to. The ennemy part isn't annoying in itself as most fight will only have 1 target, but the ally one will require more management. Especially if the range isn't crazy long. On top of that songs have duration, we don't know the actual implication of this change. Do they need to "charge up"? We can expect song to be more than just "press and Watch your mana drain"

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So they said that the songs aren't AoE but single target? This is interesting, it would mean that they could make them stronger and do more powerful things since you're not buffing an entire party.

I noticed they all had a 30 second timer, do you think that timer is now a solid 30 seconds or do you think it is based off of the Bards current MP?

Maybe this is wishful thinking but I see three songs and three roles. I'm wondering if they aren't individual buffs depending on which you have. Mind you I'm going off of songs not being AoE.

Things like E. Arrow could go from "only while under minuet" to using the charges.

Lots to speculate. What makes me happy and pointing me back to my bow is not loosing bloodletter procs.

Foes and The Warden's Paean I would like to know more about. I always thought that Paean would be nice if they worked like the spells in FFX-2, absorbs the first spell which would be the first debuff for most things. This way it would absorb say Petrify but not absorb stacking boss buffs that might require tank swaps. This way it doesn't solidify bard or mch into raid slots because they can delay damaging debuffs on tanks.

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Originally Posted by Leigaon

I noticed they all had a 30 second timer, do you think that timer is now a solid 30 seconds or do you think it is based off of the Bards current MP?

Things like E. Arrow could go from "only while under minuet" to using the charges.

Foes and The Warden's Paean I would like to know more about.

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Well, for the 30sec duration I can't answer you as we've never seen the action bar while he was changing song. At this point no matter what I "believe" would be the case is very personal and purely based on what I would expect them to do.


First, It shouldn't be based on the Bard current mp as each time he changes to a new song, the new song has 30sec. Which suggest that 30sec is the default basic duration.
Now, do the song have cooldown? Hard if not impossible to say.
Maybe their cooldown is related to the time you used the song.
For instance, you used the song 10sec, then it has a 10sec cd. You used 30sec, it has a 30sec cd. (very unlikely tho)

The 3 song are
Wanderer Minuet: DPS
Mage Ballad: MP recovery
Army's Paeon: TP recovery

Now, army's paeon is interesting because it currently recover TP. But in the video there is a musical note ressource which isn't there for the Mage Ballad.
This highly suggest that army's Paeon and Mage Ballad have now different roles and different mechanic tied to them, one only requiring time (and probly mana) and the other one having a stacking ressource.

Now, what this ressource does is up to one's guess.

We see the Bard consumming an arrow when he cast his super laser arrow stuff. So we can safely guess that Minuet is still the dps song that you'll need to activate to do some of your highest pewpew.

Concerning Foe and Paean, they seem to be gone. (Foe at least)
But again, SE has reworked A LOT of skill and merged many together.
With the removal of Esuna as "basic skill" from healers, maybe Paean will also be reworked or removed.