In Defense of Bard DoTs

After 1500+ hours as a Bard, I have a lot of feelings about the job. It's my favorite, and it probably always will be, but I'm worried.

I understand the move away from DoTs. In most jobs, they don't do a lot of damage and they end up feeling like a bit of a chore to maintain throughout the fight, while not really doing a ton of damage. But DoTs and slightly unpredictable oGCD abilities are Bard's thing.

Yes, the RNG DoT procs for song abilities like Pitch Perfect and Bloodletter in Shadowbringers could be frustrating at times, but they were the heart of the job. Dropping DoTs felt much more punishing, not just because of the DPS loss of the DoTs themselves, but because you would also miss out on building up your Soul Gauge and proccing your abilities. Now, with the song themselves proccing their own abilities, DoTs are much less vital. I miss strategically DoTing enemies in dungeons to build up my Song Gauge before the next boss. Now, other than the occasional Straight Shot proc, they're just another timer to keep track of. So here are my suggestions:

1. Go back to DoTs proccing song abilities. If the RNG percentage for a proc becomes lower than it is now, then let the procced abilities hit harder, give them a slightly higher potency. That way, even if it takes longer for that 3-stack Pitch Perfect, it feels like it was worth the wait.

2. Let us use songs without targeting an enemy. With the DoTs proccing song abilities again, this would reward players for thinking ahead in situations like P3S where a boss will become untargetable. I think it would be fun to allow players to DoT a boss, maintain their song flow while the boss is untargetable, and still be building up Song Gage and ability stacks in the meantime. This will allow players to choose whether or not to go into a mini-burst window as soon as the boss returns, or save the burst for adds or the next burst window. This may result in overcapping, but I think that's a fun choice to let players make.

3. Lean into party utility. It's ok for Bard to not have the highest DPS, but I think in return it needs to get more party utility. Honestly, I would love to see Bards get a raise ability. I've heard legends of ye olde Bards with a Healer LB3 in the past, and I think that's so cool!! Let us sing a song so moving that it revives our comrades and gives them the will to fight again.

4. Embrace the chaos. Let Bard be a little weird. If any job could pull off being just a little funky, it would be Bard. It doesn't need to keep competing with other Phys Ranged if it has its own identity. Not everyone has to like it for it to still be a good, interesting job to play!

What I've heard from long-time Bard players is that the job has been in a weird place for a while. It needs to find its identity, and I think it really has something going for it as The DoT Job.