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Hi guys,
I've stopped playing FFXIV for about 2,5 year and I'm back again. Earlier I played BRD a lot, but I didn't like the lack of dps and bad defence. But... the rest of it I liked very much.
How is the BRD nowadays?
Still most supportive or can we do more dps?
Are we still using balades and if so, which ones are important and useful?
Hope to get some information from you!
All of the bard toolkit is useful, the 3 main songs are rotated through to deal optimum damage.
It is not the most supportive class, only having minor passive support through their rotation and battle voice every 3 mins.
Currently it is the lowest dps class in the game even when taking buffs it gives to others into account.
Assuming 2.5 years ago was 4.0, Bard is largely the exact same but without Foe Requiem, any of the role skills with buffs, and a song gauge that somehow turns into an arrow (Something about shooting stray aether from songs? Since when did songs cause aether to just conveniently form around us while we sing and hang around until we’re ready to turn it into an arrow?).
Arguably we’re more focused on just our DPS than supporting the party compared to back then, since you don’t really have to use songs for the party anymore, you don’t need to check your MP or TP bar, and the Song Gauge job mechanic added at level 80 exists solely for personal DPS too. But at the same time, all of the support in 4.0 bar Requiem was oGCD anyway, so it’s not like we’ve suddenly lost support GCDs (that was after 3.0 lol). At least we still have Battle Voice lol. Minne and Paean still exist but Minne had its cooldown doubled - the effect remains the same, but the increase to healing received was increased and now affects off-cooldown healing. Paean remains identical to before. Unfortunately, if you get a chance to take a look at the healer forums you’ll see that they don’t normally need a lot of help anyway, so it’s not like you’ll see much use of them other than maybe counting how much healing the healer does so you can put it on the tank when they do get healed.
Bard are in a confusing place right now because they’re apparently super low on DPS in general content (comparative to their contribution), but then ultra overpowered in the new Ultimate content. I can’t speak to how ‘true’ either of these statements are, but in terms of overall DPS (accounting for the buffs they do bring).
From what I understand, it’s support abilities (Minne and Paean) aren’t ‘weak’ or pointless to use; they just don’t feel very fun to use or like they add much to the job (in my opinion). It’s not that they contribute nothing, but that I often find myself wondering ‘would anyone who isn’t a Bard main even notice if these abilities were deleted’?. And I mean, sadly I think there are definitely Bards out there who either don’t care or don’t know about using the abilities (or that they even exist lol). And you can see why, especially with how infrequent it is for status effects to be removable with Esuna/Paean.
Basically if you came to Bard hoping to play a support oriented class, you may want to look into playing Dancer. If you came to Bard just for the DPS, or don’t mind the ‘support’ being a small side thing, then it’s very likely you’ll enjoy the new changes. My post came out far more bitter than I hoped lol, but from what I’ve seen most people have responded positively to the changes (especially now that songs passively buff the party again) making the job more ‘personal DPS-oriented’, and it still remains very popular despite the issues it may have.
Lastly, just a disclaimer that this is just my perspective on the job currently as someone who mained it from 1.0 to the release of 5.0. Ultimately, I think the best advice would be; try it and see how it feels.
Thank you guys!
@Connor, your respond is hopeful! In every game I like to play that class that is wearing a bow. I really love the mobility, fluency, the great dps the most archers/hunters/rangers etc are doing. Especially the combination of a harp and a bow in FFXIV, beautiful! But I really missed the strong dps. And... it's not fun to die first most of the time ;) When I started playing again I rolled a BLM because of the strong dps, great. But then I switched to my BRD and well... I remembered why I liked playing my BRD so much. I really hope the new changes will make it better and stronger, it's worth a try!