How to fix 3.0 Bard.

So after browsing these forums and seeing a lot of (justified) anger towards the "new" Bard (Wanderer's Minuet), I myself couldn't help but agree with all of those complaints. And this is coming from a Bard who has defeated all EX Primals and Coils in ARR.

Since trying to turn a class whose core gameplay revolves around mobility and control into something that it's not (a caster) ended up being a terrible idea, I have come up with a potential idea on how Bards can be fixed.

1.) Remove Wanderer's Minuet. Or turn it into a damage buff that boosts the damage of your next attack skill by 20%, but has to recharge for a long time after said skill is used (similar to the new Barrage).

2.) Make Empyreal Arrow and Iron Jaws usable anytime, even while moving.

This is all they have to do to enhance Bards while staying faithful and true to what the class is from the start and even now: an archer, not a caster. Think Legolas, not Gandalf.

You guys are stuck with WM just like MCN is stuck with GB. I think the only thing I could with for is a higher multiplier so I do more damage while under its effect.

All they had to do was Buff the dmg and add a cast time to EA but SE can't do anything right when it comes to Ranged Classes like bard, They broke ranger/Cor for years in FFXI.

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Originally Posted by Ephier

You guys are stuck with WM just like MCN is stuck with GB. I think the only thing I could with for is a higher multiplier so I do more damage while under its effect.

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Yeah, I know we are stuck with WM.

That's why a fix like the one I posted is very much needed.

If PLDs were forced into becoming healers, that would be breaking its core gameplay.
If MNKs were given casting times, that would be breaking its core gameplay.
If BLMs and SMNs were forced to go to melee range to use any of their spells, that would be breaking its core gameplay.
If BRDs had their speed and mobility taken away, that would be breaking its core gameplay.

People would most likely protest if PLDs, MNKs, and casters got the forced changes above. Yet somehow, they think it's A-OK to take away a BRD's core gameplay.

I don't understand, really.

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Originally Posted by Intellion

Yeah, I know we are stuck with WM.

That's why a fix like the one I posted is very much needed.

If PLDs were forced into becoming healers, that would be breaking its core gameplay.
If MNKs were given casting times, that would be breaking its core gameplay.
If BLMs and SMNs were forced to go to melee range to use any of their spells, that would be breaking its core gameplay.
If BRDs had their speed and mobility taken away, that would be breaking its core gameplay.

People would most likely protest if PLDs, MNKs, and casters got the forced changes above. Yet somehow, they think it's A-OK to take away a BRD's core gameplay.

I don't understand, really.

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They don't understand it for one simple reason, because they don't get that BLM can move and still do a huge DPS. But when BRD moves now, he doesn't do good DPS at all. That is the only reason why people use WM only for an opening rotation, because the 20% isn't enough when you compare it to autoattack, mobility and ability to cast 2 Off GCD skills between GCDs.

so you're saying WM could simply be another buff that makes our next skill 20% stronger with say...a 1 minute CD? could be cool, and remove all cast times and allow all new skills to be used while moving. Yes, i would be happy.

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Originally Posted by StrejdaTom

They don't understand it for one simple reason, because they don't get that BLM can move and still do a huge DPS. But when BRD moves now, he doesn't do good DPS at all. That is the only reason why people use WM only for an opening rotation, because the 20% isn't enough when you compare it to autoattack, mobility and ability to cast 2 Off GCD skills between GCDs.

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I currently understand that I am playing the most underpowered class in the game, machinist. Seeing you bards cry like babies over a new toy you do not even have to use is quit irksome when MCN dmg is low and we have to deal with the same thing.

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Originally Posted by Ephier

I currently understand that I am playing the most underpowered class in the game, machinist. Seeing you bards cry like babies over a new toy you do not even have to use is quit irksome when MCN dmg is low and we have to deal with the same thing.

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Except when MCH procs (or force proc with ammo) its instant cast in GB so they are more mobile then what brds will be, I think brds do more dps though

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Originally Posted by Ephier

I currently understand that I am playing the most underpowered class in the game, machinist. Seeing you bards cry like babies over a new toy you do not even have to use is quit irksome when MCN dmg is low and we have to deal with the same thing.

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And only because your class is even worse, we cannot ask for BRD fix? Should everyone who is unsettled with BRD being what it is now just stop trying to make SE fix it and rather beg for MCH fixes? Usually when they do class fixes, they fix almost all at the same time. Don't worry, they won't decide to "balance" only BRD when the fix comes out, there will be time for you too. So there is no need to undermine BRDs only because they are doing a bit better than you.

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Originally Posted by StrejdaTom

And only because your class is even worse, we cannot ask for BRD fix? Should everyone who is unsettled with BRD being what it is now just stop trying to make SE fix it and rather beg for MCH fixes? Usually when they do class fixes, they fix almost all at the same time. Don't worry, they won't decide to "balance" only BRD when the fix comes out, there will be time for you too. So there is no need to undermine BRDs only because they are doing a bit better than you.

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You guys have a personal problem with play style. We have a problem with lack of damage. Which do you believe is more of a problem? Fun or viability?

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Originally Posted by Ephier

You guys have a personal problem with play style. We have a problem with lack of damage. Which do you believe is more of a problem? Fun or viability?

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The two are not mutually exclusive

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Originally Posted by Ephier

You guys have a personal problem with play style. We have a problem with lack of damage. Which do you believe is more of a problem? Fun or viability?

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Oh, so you think that playstyle is the only problem?
Check parses of 60 level BRDs who tried rotations with and without Wanderers Minuet, then talk about MCH being the only class with DPS problem.
If even on dummy doesn't minuet shine, I am really curious how it is going to shine in raids where we will have to dodge aoes every few seconds..

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Originally Posted by StrejdaTom

Oh, so you think that playstyle is the only problem?
Check parses of 60 level BRDs who tried rotations with and without Wanderers Minuet, then talk about MCH being the only class with DPS problem.
If even on dummy doesn't minuet shine, I am really curious how it is going to shine in raids where we will have to dodge aoes every few seconds..

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Seeing as how they probably will not be able to take it out any where close to now, I would ask for more damage (20% is not enough to compensate for auto attacks) and then see what they say. Currently, you can choose between play style on BRD without loosing too much damage, with empyrean arrow (I think its this one) being able to be used without minuet, you still have access to a new big damage skill. If they raise minuet damage, sadly you will really be pigeon holed into using the skill a lot more than you are now. I really am interested to see how they handle this.

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Originally Posted by Ephier

I currently understand that I am playing the most underpowered class in the game, machinist. Seeing you bards cry like babies over a new toy you do not even have to use is quit irksome when MCN dmg is low and we have to deal with the same thing.

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I'm not sure if you have comprehension problems.

Your profile says main class pugilist so I presume you main a MNK. You have chosen to be adventurous to try out a ranged DPS, moving away from your usual melee punchings. You knew that you are going to try something different and you willingly stepped into it.

On the other hand, players who main a BRD signed up for the job because they want to be able to move and pewpewpew. They understood that they are going to be at the bottom of the DPS ladder for that and be the mechanics bitch in raid. It is a job that we have been familiarized with, theorycrafted with and perfected with over the past 2 years of ARR. And overnight you realized that WM forces you to re-think at least half of what you knew about your job. Is it that difficult to comprehend? LOL.

And you want to talk about DPS problem?

We used to be 2-OGCD job. We weave 2OCDs in between and sometimes we have to do it because our CDs are short and also BL procs. Now? We can only weave 1 OGCD because of casts. Having repelling shot, blunt arrow, sidewinder and bloodletter all up at the same time? You're so f**ked because that takes 4 GCD cycles to fire them off. Oh wait, you used BL and BL procs again? Congrats! More DPS losses!

I don't even want to go on the list with SS procs and BL bugs and what not yet.

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Originally Posted by Ephier

Seeing as how they probably will not be able to take it out any where close to now, I would ask for more damage (20% is not enough to compensate for auto attacks) and then see what they say. Currently, you can choose between play style on BRD without loosing too much damage, with empyrean arrow (I think its this one) being able to be used without minuet, you still have access to a new big damage skill. If they raise minuet damage, sadly you will really be pigeon holed into using the skill a lot more than you are now. I really am interested to see how they handle this.

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It is sidewinder, it does 350 potency if you have 2 dots active, but has quite some cooldown.
Honestly if the DPS boost from Minuet was high enough, I wouldn't even mind being unable to move. Problem is, that according to some parse charts autoattack could be even 25% of BRDs DPS with old barrage buff. It is less now but still definitely huge portion of our damage. So if we have 15-25% dps from autoattack and then add the DPS lost with movement, unability to use off global cooldown skills so often like before the 20% are just a joke. In high aoe fights like EM primals and Raids I can imagine that even 30% wouldn't be worth it except initial rotation. Unless they make the Minuet instacast.

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Originally Posted by Ooshima

snip.

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From my current understanding, BRD and MCN has a similar usage for their turret stance. Splurge on opener and drop it and proceed to mobile pew pew. I definitely agree that blood letter pacify bug needs to be addressed that is game changing.

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Originally Posted by Ooshima

Intelligent person speaking.

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I really like your post and would love for it to stay in this thread, that's why I would suggest you to replace the offensive words with something less offensive, so no one will report you. :-O

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Originally Posted by Ephier

From my current understanding, BRD and MCN has a similar usage for their turret stance. Splurge on opener and drop it and proceed to mobile pew pew. I definitely agree that blood letter pacify bug needs to be addressed that is game changing.

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I believed that SE actually intended that the turret stance is the correct stance to use for both BRD and MCN, but then their play testers are such skrubs they failed so hard to understand the jobs and we get a half-assed kit of skills that forces us to conclude that the turret stance is for opening bursts and at times when it is logical to do so, instead of a long term stance as intended.

I mean the evidence is glaring. I've touched on the 2OGCD aspect of BRD. It was so fluid as before because our weaponskills were instant and thus SS proc/BL spamming was fluid. That was the basics and basic kit of a BRD. Once you changed it to a cast you are essentially making it something like a BLM, but BLM only has F3/T3 procs to weave in between and RS as a CD. BRD have way more OGCDs to weave in and BL certainly procs more than B3. That alone causes problem in firing them off properly, and failing to do so is a loss in DPS. And silly things like Repelling Shot requires you to be in melee range so that means you have to move, but WM doesn't want you to move too much, and that silly thing about repelling shot causing your next cast to be interrupted etc shows all the glaring mistakes, un-thoughtfulness and un-polished WM is. The idea isn't that bad really but the implementation and how it integrated to our basic kit is another story. It's terribad.

MCH's Gauss Barrel feels less clunky than BRD's Wanderer's Minuet imho, simply because MCH was designed with GB in mind and they have a skill that lets you instant cast it for your Wildfire combo everytime it's up. I'm pretty sure they wern't planning on adding Wanderer's Minuet when they originally designed bard and it's playstyle.

I also don't see any real lack of damage for either of them... MCH parses about the same numbers as bard and they've always been below the "full dps" in return for having high mobility and strong support aspects.

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Originally Posted by StrejdaTom

I really like your post and would love for it to stay in this thread, that's why I would suggest you to replace the offensive words with something less offensive, so no one will report you. :-O

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Nothing is offensive in a debate, I am not a baby. o7

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Originally Posted by StrejdaTom

It is sidewinder, it does 350 potency if you have 2 dots active, but has quite some cooldown.
Honestly if the DPS boost from Minuet was high enough, I wouldn't even mind being unable to move. Problem is, that according to some parse charts autoattack could be even 25% of BRDs DPS with old barrage buff. It is less now but still definitely huge portion of our damage. So if we have 15-25% dps from autoattack and then add the DPS lost with movement, unability to use off global cooldown skills so often like before the 20% are just a joke. In high aoe fights like EM primals and Raids I can imagine that even 30% wouldn't be worth it except initial rotation. Unless they make the Minuet instacast.

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That I can agree with 100%. I like gauss barrel and I really want to use it, but the effort does not seem to reward and sometimes seems to be lower with it on, although the aoe potential is insane. Also for MCN we get rapid fire which makes GB instant cast, but it does not say so on the tooltip, you guys do not have a skill that works in a similar fashion?

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Originally Posted by Ephier

Also for MCN we get rapid fire which makes GB instant cast, but it does not say so on the tooltip, you guys do not have a skill that works in a similar fashion?

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No, and if we did, it might help us fit in the WM burst and not be awful.

I'm no bard but maybe WM would be smoother if it was insta-cast to enable and automatically switched off if you moved.

Run somewhere, flick it on, splurge cooldowns and WM specific skills, set off running again.

Edit: also, in WM stance your lower body should be permanently doing /stepdance :)

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Originally Posted by Ephier

I currently understand that I am playing the most underpowered class in the game, machinist. Seeing you bards cry like babies over a new toy you do not even have to use is quit irksome when MCN dmg is low and we have to deal with the same thing.

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Interesting that you accuse the BRDs here of whining, while having a link to a NIN Mudra whine-thread in your Signature yourself, and passively whining about MCH. Hipocrite much I say.

The design of WM is the most questionable I have ever seen in a MMO expansion handsdown.

I really only have one main job, its BRD, been playing it for a while. here is my take. for what its worth.

yes, the new cast time took and was difficult to get used to, but instead of rushing to 60, I have slowed down, and working on rotation, button placement, and understanding how the new song works.

many other classes have had to deal with cast timmers, and if you want to be mobile then, don't use it. it does boost damage however I think not sufficient, as auto attack is turned off, and I feel they should re-instate auto-attack would boost the over all dps to something more likeable. just my .02

however I am kind of enjoying, having to make some more skilled decisions over all we have had very little to manage, this skill make us manage a little, imo. is the dps low, I would think so.

Over all I still enjoy it

if you really want to cry about a job, MCH needs some work..

:) peace

Hm, give wanderer's minuet a 1 sec cast just like swiftsong, take it off GCD, and it'll be fine. Immense QoL improvement. Give it some MP cost or something to counter-balance this.

As far as I'm concerned, BRD and MCH are in the same boat, so instead of arguing about it, we should focus on fixing the problems plaguing both classes. There's broken mechanics here for both jobs that fall along the same line of thinking-- which is loss of mobility combined low dps output. Also a lack of real support. Yes, MCH can slowly restore mana and tp with turrets, but other abilities like Disassemble are really bad. 5% physical damage reduction for 10 seconds on a 90 second cooldown is near useless.

1) reduce the recast of Barrage to 30s so it can be used with every other Empyreal Arrow (or maybe 45s)
2) reduce the recast of Battle Voice as well as give it an additional/seperate effect for Wanderer's Minuet...an additional 10-15% dmg boost when used 'after' Minuet is activated or maybe something like increased potency for all weaponskills/abilities
3) Iron Jaws (if it works like this already, then disregard) should make it so any buffs that are initially applied to Venomous and Windbite diminish little by little after each use (completely gone after 3 or so duration resets). It shouldn't remove all initial buffs completely after resetting DoT duration once.
4) Lastly, overall increase in dmg boost granted by Wanderer's Minuet. I'm in the minority and like the idea of standing still, focusing attacks to push out higher dmg. But when I think 'higher dmg,' I'm not thinking just on the lvl 50 striking dummy. I wanna see it in dungeons and raids...where it counts and is more easily noticeable.

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Originally Posted by StrejdaTom

Oh, so you think that playstyle is the only problem?
Check parses of 60 level BRDs who tried rotations with and without Wanderers Minuet

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Are these parses of always on WM vs always off WM, or stance dancing? In either case, it's playstyle you've become used to by doing it for over a year vs new toy you've had for a couple days.

I would agree the cast time should be cut in half, but some of the various requests seem a little over the top.

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Originally Posted by Kelevra

1) reduce the recast of Barrage to 30s so it can be used with every other Empyreal Arrow (or maybe 45s)
2) reduce the recast of Battle Voice as well as give it an additional/seperate effect for Wanderer's Minuet...an additional 10-15% dmg boost when used 'after' Minuet is activated or maybe something like increased potency for all weaponskills/abilities
3) Iron Jaws (if it works like this already, then disregard) should make it so any buffs that are initially applied to Venomous and Windbite diminish little by little after each use (completely gone after 3 or so duration resets). It shouldn't remove all initial buffs completely after resetting DoT duration once.
4) Lastly, overall increase in dmg boost granted by Wanderer's Minuet. I'm in the minority and like the idea of standing still, focusing attacks to push out higher dmg. But when I think 'higher dmg,' I'm not thinking just on the lvl 50 striking dummy. I wanna see it in dungeons and raids...where it counts and is more easily noticeable.

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Bard doesn't need buffs, they need to fix the class. You need to be able to use bloodletters freely as they proc, this is the core to bard and to doing dps as a bard. So long as you're forced to choose between delaying a bl or delaying a gcd bard is going to be a broken and unfun class. Either wanderers minuet needs to be ogcd instant cast so that you can micro like crazy and just use wm to pop iron jaws and empyreal or they need to remove the cast time from all the abilities or they need to some how let you cast bl during the casts for your gcd. Literally anything that addresses THIS specific problem will put bard back into a healthy spot.

All they have to do is take out WM and put in something like Sniper Training from WoW. In case anyone doesn't know what Sniper Training does, it gives a damage buff if you stand still for a certain amount of time.