A "new" perspective about these BRD changes

So, now that we have had a few months to play around and get acquainted to all the changes S-E did to Bards....any fresh thoughts from fellow BRDs?
personally, having mained BRD since FFXIV launched in the PS4, i have "grown" to love it again recently. i gave up on it initially, and moved to DRG due to it having bigger numbers and that cool HW trailer. i found 3.x BRD too cumbersome to play after spending so much time as a mobile support dps.
looking back at it, i realized that mobility was rarely really needed that much as long as you spend time to know the fights (raids specifically). like on T5, that mobility will not help you get through DBs any more than a BLM (but can dps on Twister casts though), or on T13 add phase, since you all will be grouped up in the center of the arena anyway. T12, BRDs mobility really shines though with mechanics dictating movement without sacrificing your dps.
3.x BRD seems to demand that you get to know the fight more and the skill needed to become better at the job now is raised higher than it was and is not as casual-friendly as it was with 2.x BRD. some might not enjoy it as much, some will do.
Don't get me wrong, i love my 2.x BRD and i still pay as 1 (for nostalgia), and it still needs a tweak or 2, but overall, i am more inclined to pew pew with my bow now than to poke things with my lance.

Eh I'm still not a fan of it. With the occassional latency issues when I raid and the rubberbanding of skills driving me up the wall(before if i had this issue I'd could just keep spamming my buttons not so much now since there is a cast cancel delay). Still issues with moving into a cast or repelling shot into a cast causing interrupts hurts on dps check especially if your working on progression. Another issue for me is that my analog stick is kinda janky so I auto walk from time to time and since casts cant happen with ghost walking you get the idea. Though I love iron jaws its just nice to not worry bout tp as much as before, I thinks that the only positive thing I can say bout 3.x BRD oh wait love the rain of death change multidoting is much more fun with it. Though targeting is still garbage in this game so missing a chance to iron jaws a mob over and over and over is infuriating but, thats an issue all classes share.

To say it like Dr. Seuss would: I do not like it, Yoshi-p. I do not like the new bard. I do not like it in heavensward, I do not like it in a dungeon, I do not like it in a raid. I do not like the new bard.

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Originally Posted by Kamote

So, now that we have had a few months to play around and get acquainted to all the changes S-E did to Bards....any fresh thoughts from fellow BRDs?
personally, having mained BRD since FFXIV launched in the PS4, i have "grown" to love it again recently. i gave up on it initially, and moved to DRG due to it having bigger numbers and that cool HW trailer. i found 3.x BRD too cumbersome to play after spending so much time as a mobile support dps.

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The class is still awesome. Movement was never an issue for me. Only thing I would like to see in the future is a combo move to HS along with SS.

Never had a problem. I thought WM was fine, even at the very beginning I was all "this will probably get a damage raise" and then what happened?
Damage raise.

I mean. If it HAD been a full GCD of casting that wouldn't have been okay but there is plenty to do with a second of time. Even with latency/lag.

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Originally Posted by Rusheel

Though I love iron jaws its just nice to not worry bout tp as much as before

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I disagree! Because bards have Empyreal Arrow - oGCD skill, that consumes TP, so each 15 seconds they use 60 tp more. If it is used after other cast, it makes gcd 3 seconds, and it makes situation with tp a bit better, but if you have proc-ed straight shot+empyreal arrow combo, while it is great for your dps, it means, that you've used 130 tp during one gcd, and it just kills tp. Do it several times, and you have to do a tp song after 2:40 of fight without downtimes (invigorate included).

is it considered an oGCD its a weapon skill and I don't think there is any oGCD in the game that cost resources. But, then again the skills doesn't play by the general GCD rules having its own timer. Regardless to clarify what I mean with the iron jaws making tp less an issue is the 60 tp refresh vs the 160 tp refresh from wind and ven.

i agree with the TP point. i actually do not run out of TP as much as before, apart from spamming Quick Nock on those Expert Roulettes, plus Iron Jaws for quick DoT refreshes and 1 less GCD to do something else. then we have the RoD change for a free AoE attack oGCD. BRD seems to be in a better place now than it was when 3.0 dropped.

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Originally Posted by Rusheel

is it considered an oGCD its a weapon skill and I don't think there is any oGCD in the game that cost resources. But, then again the skills doesn't play by the general GCD rules having its own timer. Regardless to clarify what I mean with the iron jaws making tp less an issue is the 60 tp refresh vs the 160 tp refresh from wind and ven.

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It is off-GCD because it isn't on-GCD, though I'll agree it is a weird skill.

Wind Bite and Venomous Jaws take 2 GCDs to apply or refresh, so to compare savings we really need to compare to Iron Jaws + Heavy Shot(in most cases). Before we were using 160tp total over 2 GCDs, we're now using 120tp, for a savings of 40tp(not 100tp is the point). We gain 90 potency of damage with IJ + HS(iron jaws is 60 potency less than WB + VB, due to less initial damage).

EA is 60tp every 15secs, though it does slightly push the GCD when not used with a proc'd straight shot. EA more or less negates IJ's savings.

The majority of TP savings is just due to clipped GCDs. Skill affects this to a degree, but so does skill speed. It is interesting to note that skill speed not only increases TP usage due to more skills used, but increases the number of off-GCD windows which in turn decreases the amount of clipping(basically the opposite of no-WM). Given how much our gear seems to be loaded with SkS at higher iLVLs, my TP drainage is only getting worse.

So OP basically followed the standard HW bard routine.

1) hate bard changes
2) complain heavily
3) switch mains
4) go back to bard
5) realize that all the mobility you 'lost' was always completely unnecessary
6) love bard again

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Originally Posted by Geardagas

So OP basically followed the standard HW bard routine.

1) hate bard changes
2) complain heavily
3) switch mains
4) go back to bard
5) realize that all the mobility you 'lost' was always completely unnecessary
6) love bard again

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Get 'em. All of 'em.

Mines more like this.

1) hate bard changes
2) complain heavily
3) switch main to DRG
4) love Drg more than i ever loved Bard
5) try synched 50 bard ... hate that too now
6) should have been DRG sooner

sounds more like wtj to me... sorry ;)

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Originally Posted by Neela

sounds more like wtj to me... sorry ;)

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I enjoy it more so i could not care less :P It was a toss up between the three melee jobs. I could just not wrap my head around Ninjas ninjutsus and Monk came a close second but Dragoon just out did it because a) i like all the oGCD skills, they look cool & b) we already had a Monk in our static.

Well and its the major-update class itself ;)

But im just joking, playing a new class time by time just let u think of a half-new game =)
I started my SMN 3 weeks before HW dropped - it was funny to get in touch with those new Bahamut-skills but after
DRK & SMN raised out of the dust on every corner, i lost a bit of motiviation to get the SMN eso gear complete.

Playing BRD again brought back the underdog-feeling too, noone expects anything from u – so easy life with randoms... just dont give a f*** ;p

BRD & SMN will co-exist in my end-content runs but i think i will focus on fisher & gourmet for a while now :)

LOL
Geardagas hit it right it the head! its why this is a new perspective after a few months with the patch updates! it seems to be the generic reaction though :) that Insta-cast WM definitely changed the game plus the added 10% damage in WM. 3.0 BRD was a mess still IMO.

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Originally Posted by Geardagas

So OP basically followed the standard HW bard routine.

1) hate bard changes
2) complain heavily
3) switch mains
4) go back to bard
5) realize that all the mobility you 'lost' was always completely unnecessary
6) love bard again

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Eh, as a 2.0 career bard, I still hate how bard functions to this date, especially when compared to machinist. It's not hte mobility, it's the lack of synergy or flow from their tool kit and cast times being slapped onto it.

Well I have no problems with WM except in A3 savage. I really hate the constant need to think if it is better for me to keep it or drop it down for a sec, especially in the last phase.

The only thing that really bothers me is Wanderers Paean as I have completely no use for it. We have WAR in static but the cast time is just too long to be worth it and I cannot even use it before pull as our WAR doesn't use Berserk so soon.

So yeah, my thoughts on BRD are still a bit mixed but that's because of difficulty raise in movement heavy fights not because of the WM itself.

Honestly the only thing bard needs is QOL changes. to fix some issues with procs etc.

Had QoL issues with it from the start of 3.0 still have the same issues.
Yea nothing changed other than me learning even more how to work around issues that I shouldn't need to work around.

Infinite mobility is not something needed, but it was something that was appealing to a lot of people in the bard job.
Lowering that doesn't break bard, it does however remove a part of the class that made it what it was.

Having cast times also doesn't break the bard, it does however change how it was played and what many liked about it. While on top of it brings a bunch of QoL issues with it.

QoL issues where you will always have the choice of sub-optimal options now and every choice feels like a punishment because the flow is not clean anymore.

Lack of own identity. That's what BRD is now. Its now another caster that isn't that much different from MCH and also less different from the 2 real casters than it used to be.
Rather than improving on the toolkit to appeal to a wider group it is now the same-ish toolkit for everyone and those that don't hate it can as well play either of the 4 casters anyway. Maybe in 4.0 we ll just have tank/heal/melee/caster as job choice.

The thing is, I never really had issues with cast times/lower mobility from a mechanical point of view.
I don't like the change because I prefer the mobile no cast bard, but those things don't make the class hard/unplayable for me, just less fun.

The cutting into gcd's, the missed proc's, the useless WP are the things that bother me from a mechanical pov.
The homogenization of the classes, the slapped on WM for the sake of MCH, the change of playstyle to BRD despite MCH doing the same-ish thing are still the things bothering me from a gamer pov.

I don't honestly understand why cast times needed to be added to BRD if they really wanted to limit mobility in the first place. They didn't need cast times, they just needed that WM would be removed when you move so you can't use it during heavy movement phases and when you do get a chance to stand still, you still play the same. It'd be a FAR less jarring change when you learn WM, and solve literally every QOL issue that cast times created.

The fact that initial translations I'd seen regarding announcements about the skill was pretty much exactly that, unless those translations were all way off, it pretty much suggests that they rushed it and just copy-pasted MCH without considering the issues with BRD. I mean, under the original version where it had a cast time, maybe it made more sense to them to do it this way so you wouldn't need to spend the cast times not attacking so much, but without a cast time now, it just makes sense to remove the cast times and just remove WM when you move.

It's not the loss of being able to run around that bugs me about "new Bard", it's the fact that issues were pointlessly created by doing something that had a much simpler solution that would have worked just as effectively but without making as drastic a change and without losing its identity.

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Originally Posted by Geardagas

So OP basically followed the standard HW bard routine.

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Guess I'm not the standard HW bard since it went like this for me:

1) Adjust to the bard changes.
2) Ask around and figure out how to get better with them.
3) Level other jobs after getting my bard to level cap.
4) Do raid content on my bard.
5) Recognize long before Heavensward that my freedom of mobile DPS only shines when I have to move, and still does but not like before.
6) Still love bard, the very job I decided on as my main before playing since phase 3 beta.

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Originally Posted by Kamote

So, now that we have had a few months to play around and get acquainted to all the changes S-E did to Bards....any fresh thoughts from fellow BRDs?

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Nope, still think it sucks. Next question.

lol ^^
said the lvl 35 Bard :)

TL : DR

I personally don't like the new Bard changes. I understand where they came from, but the execution wasn't done well. Am I "use" to it. Can I "maximize" my DPS, maybe, lol, but I just think WM is clunky. The charge/cast time mechanic, while still annoying, works on Machinist, because it was designed with that mechanic in mind from the start. With Bards it was an afterthought. I hope with 3.1 they adjust the issues people have with this/these skills. The biggest gripe is that we have a cast time for "minimal" DPS. We have to wait 1.5 seconds to cast a skill that does 800 damage, while the other (DPS) casters have to wait 2-3 seconds for a skill that does 1300+ damage, and some of those moves can or are instant too. Even the healer DPS is better in that regard.

Bottom line is our DPS is too low to have cast times. That is the issue that needs to be changed.

Hello, I'm a casual.
I don't use WM. EA/IJ are not on my cast bar. Problem solved. I also don't use food/potions.

I decided not to let the changes get me down. There are those who are bad at math that think that WM actually gives a straight 30% damage increase, without understanding the other factors that go into it. Those that have mastered WM are rightly outperforming me, but the vast majority of bards are not in that group (yet). For content I care to see (no savage), 2.0 BRD is more than enough. I have never received complaints about my dps and get my share of commendations.

Those that quit bard due to the changes... well, I hope they do savage content, because outside of that, 2.0 BRD is still a viable option and worth playing (versus other classes I have tried... so IMHO).

I may pick up WM and work out the kinks some day.

I did my share of complaining coming here from TERA and trying to get used to FF's inferior combat system. This change is minor in comparison.

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Originally Posted by Slevin_Impudicus

Those that quit bard due to the changes... well, I hope they do savage content, because outside of that, 2.0 BRD is still a viable option and worth playing (versus other classes I have tried... so IMHO).

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No it's not, even outside of Savage. Medium core content like the DPS checks in Bismarck and Ravana EX you need to be putting up maximum damage numbers. I hope you never touch those instances with 3.0 WM skills not on your hot bar or being used. You'll be getting kicked out of those parties.

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Originally Posted by technole

No it's not, even outside of Savage. Medium core content like the DPS checks in Bismarck and Ravana EX you need to be putting up maximum damage numbers. I hope you never touch those instances with 3.0 WM skills not on your hot bar or being used. You'll be getting kicked out of those parties.

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The primals are way dated that they're severely overgeared by eso weapons. Heck, they were still clearable with a BRD/MCH before 3.05 buffs to WM/GB (where it was actually the same, if not a damage gain to not use WM/GB after the initial burst.

I gave my perspective. Feel free to disagree.
Maybe don't go in to those instances at min iLvl.
WM gains are not so significant in single target fights. Once you get into larger groups, which neither of these instances have, you start to have a point.
I've been in RavEx and BisEx. Dps was never a problem... nor was TP (the other thing WM seems to help in theory).
Getting kicked was never a problem either, because I wouldn't pug that level of content.

Getting kicked would not be a reflection of the effectiveness of WM, it would be a reflection of the "kickers" who still think WM is a 30% increase over non-WM (even though Yoshi and company acknowledged* it was a dps LOSS before it went from 20 to 30). Still would suck, of course.
If the bard is putting up noticeably insufficient dps out of WM, then I guarantee WM won't improve things much.

*or so I read on the forums

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Originally Posted by Slevin_Impudicus

words

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Crys a little on the inside...

you ARE right though. If I got ya in a DF party in a dungeon I wouldn't kick you (if we got through the dungeon. I'm patient).
I would, however, silently judge you for eternity.

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Originally Posted by AskaRay

Crys a little on the inside...

you ARE right though. If I got ya in a DF party in a dungeon I wouldn't kick you (if we got through the dungeon. I'm patient).
I would, however, silently judge you for eternity.

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Honestly if he's still playing the job properly without WM, you're still looking maybe a increase of 3-5 minutes for the dungeon clear, especially this late into overgearing. A BRD that doesn't use WM won't see the same dps deficit as say, a ninja who doesn't even use huton or a DRG not using HT and jumps.

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

Honestly if he's still playing the job properly without WM, you're still looking maybe a increase of 3-5 minutes for the dungeon clear, especially this late into overgearing. A BRD that doesn't use WM won't see the same dps deficit as say, a ninja who doesn't even use huton or a DRG not using HT and jumps.

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That's why I say I wouldn't kick.. it's a silly reason to kick.
That still won't stop my silent judging.

To be honest I'd not kick those players either... just groan a lot. I try to be tolerant...as long as we get to the finish I don't care.