UN-RIP Bard

There are a lot of great abilities they showed off for Bard, and it looks like cast times have gone the way of the dinosaur. It's going to be weird for a bit again since Bards will have to completely relearn how they play (again), but we'll have our instant casts back.

Hopefully I didn't do what I did last time and failed to notice some other major detail like it being an ability that makes everything an instant cast for 30 seconds...

Hopefully they addressed bard's op lack of movement penalty, otherwise we'll have a repeat of 2.x where it was nerfed into oblivion to compensate.

I didn't know the bard was dead O.o

I dunno', if you took the time to actually master it HW bard is a ton more fun than ARR.

Yoshi and company outright said bow mage and gun mage were dead entirely, so this isn't some temporary buff thing.

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Originally Posted by SaitoHikari

Yoshi and company outright said bow mage and gun mage were dead entirely, so this isn't some temporary buff thing.

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Really? like they entirely removed the casting time thing?
Well, from what I've seen on all fr, eng and jp forum, most people were either unhappy or didnt care too much. So I guess this is a good thing.

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

Really? like they entirely removed the casting time thing?
Well, from what I've seen on all fr, eng and jp forum, most people were either unhappy or didnt care too much. So I guess this is a good thing.

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They noted on the stream that a lot of players left bard (and didn't pick up MCH).

There were enough complaints. These forums are just rife with 'git gud' and 'not a problem for me, l2p!' and so on

And it was also addressed many times before as to why Bard had needed changes. They had all the mobility + very good damage.
HW Bard with WM is fine, people just did not like the idea of so called "cast times" and refused to adapt or even give it a chance.
The new changes do seem nice with the songs i will say

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Originally Posted by Maero

And it was also addressed many times before as to why Bard had needed changes. They had all the mobility + very good damage.
HW Bard with WM is fine, people just did not like the idea of so called "cast times" and refused to adapt or even give it a chance.
The new changes do seem nice with the songs i will say

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I'm not going to say mobility + damage wasn't/isn't a balance concern, but consider this: There's already casters in the game. One in particular that rewards you with big numbers and good DPS for going turret mode, and another that has middle ground mobility while still maintaining very high DPS output and excellent AoE characteristics. And it was always more than what a bard of the same skill/gear level could do.

It's more about playstyle. Those that liked casters already had options. Then SE made BRD a low damage version of the above. So why play it? If you like the caster playstyle, go for the much more rewarding jobs. And SE did buff BRD/MCH damage towards the end here, but then that's its own problem: Ok, now why bother with the traditional caster jobs if bow/gun mage outclass everything?

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

I'm not going to say mobility + damage wasn't/isn't a balance concern

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It isn't. WoW's hunter has had damage and mobility for roughly a decade now and while it's had its ups and downs as the game evolved, it showed us that you can have both and still be balanced.

Besides, it's not like people will just run around spamming shots and topping meters. You have to manage your dots, your songs, your song bar, and whatever other cooldown it has. Good players will still shine above the rest.

Un-RIP my bard. Say you love him again.

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Originally Posted by jameseoakes

I didn't know the bard was dead O.o

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it's more of a callback to this thread that I made 2 years ago. Honestly, the cast times were okay if you approached them as a challenge, but it just turned a class that made it easy to learn fights into one that required you to know when you had some breathing room where you wouldn't need to move for a while.

As a former bard main who didn't play much this xpac, this made my decision on whether or not to buy stormblood and I just pre ordered.

Just to clarify:

NO MORE CASTING GAUGE FOR BRD AND MCH.

I'm happy the Ol' Bard community is getting their fix finally. I played MCH for much of 3.0 and GBarrel cast felt natural to me so it weird they are pulling it from MCH.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

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But Bard was basically eazy mode...
It did have mobility plus great damage and all the support. It was one of the jobs not affected by mechanics like others were.
Bard is and was never low damage like it has been made out (very exaggerated it was) to be it is just that the general Bard community has bad players.
Myself i had no issues with WM when first came out as i knew how to sidestep, etc.. as i main blm and Bard was my 2nd.
People still do not realize there is a point when your cast is still going and you can move, lol

not only that but the cast time isn't even the full gcd. however, I don't mind bard without cast bars or bard with cast bars. I do hope that they really do bring out the support aspect that they seemed to emphasize with the songs and the flute stuff in the live letter! i'd love that because i love support! although hopefully i'll be able to play sam this expansion >.>

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Originally Posted by Atmora

I dunno', if you took the time to actually master it HW bard is a ton more fun than ARR.

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This. Bard in 2.0 had ResidentSleeper tier of gameplay and was the "go to class" to those who wanted easy gameplay and the potential to hide behind the excuse of being a "support DPS". Although funnily enough, Bards were still able to dish out respectable numbers while being able to handle most mechanics with zero or close to no DPS loss at all. Minuet added an interesting new floor and ceiling of skill to the class and made it feel a lot nicer to me.

I'm hopeful for the song revamp though; I hope it's not a trivial mechanic, but rather an interesting new system with a possibility of an added layer of skill and decision-making. If the class will be a glorified 2.0 Bard with a couple more buttons to press, then meh.

I am very excited for BRD having WM removed and I am certainly very excited to re-learn the new system in 4.0

Woot!

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Originally Posted by Maero

But Bard was basically eazy mode...
It did have mobility plus great damage and all the support. It was one of the jobs not affected by mechanics like others were.
Bard is and was never low damage like it has been made out (very exaggerated it was) to be it is just that the general Bard community has bad players.
Myself i had no issues with WM when first came out as i knew how to sidestep, etc.. as i main blm and Bard was my 2nd.
People still do not realize there is a point when your cast is still going and you can move, lol

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well im playing Brd since Shiva-update and there was indeed a time Brd dmg was way lower than it is nowadays - on the other hand its undeniable that especially the ARR-Brd community were full of laziness yeah... im really looking for the "regained" mobility maybe I'll play Brd again more often than ^^

People have grossly exageratted on Bard damage though and i have played Bard since 2.0.
Lower damage then at some point is one thing but players are stating that Bard is low damage and weak when it is not and was not Pre-Hw.

All this aside though i think the new changes will be good for Bard, now the question remains if Bard's will yet bother to use songs or not

Considering the songs look like instant casts, there's no reason not to anymore.

I just hope they haven't made the job "too easy." I enjoy a good challenge. May have to go monk or samurai if it becomes that way.

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Originally Posted by Maero

People have grossly exageratted on Bard damage though and i have played Bard since 2.0.
Lower damage then at some point is one thing but players are stating that Bard is low damage and weak when it is not and was not Pre-Hw.

All this aside though i think the new changes will be good for Bard, now the question remains if Bard's will yet bother to use songs or not

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if you look at the video, it seem like bard are going to have to use songs, ballad/army and WM are all affect the target, so am just going to assume that ballad reduces enemy magic resist, army reduces armor resist and who knows what WM does lol.

So... what happened to Foes?

I see a meter for Ballad, Paeon and Minuet, but Foes??

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Originally Posted by Arkenne

So... what happened to Foes?

I see a meter for Ballad, Paeon and Minuet, but Foes??

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Im assuming that new WM is the new foe req. Im more curious as to why Army and WM have icons that seem to be fulfilled by doing certain abilities while Ballad does not. If songs are temporary (30sec duration it seems), hopefully they wont have dps reductions along with them as you wont be able to maintain it infinitely.

It doesn't sound like that's going to be a problem, Yoshi-P said they were getting rid of the casts for Bard and Machinist altogether!

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Originally Posted by xNewbx

Considering the songs look like instant casts, there's no reason not to anymore.

I just hope they haven't made the job "too easy." I enjoy a good challenge. May have to go monk or samurai if it becomes that way.

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I guess rotations are gonna be the same but without the silly caster gauge.
I think the difficulty is gonna come when toggling songs I guess

Just curious, with bard:

* Do we know what the songs do? Someone mentioned in another thread that they're no longer AoE? Are they single target?

*

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Originally Posted by Arkenne

...I see a meter for Ballad, Paeon and Minuet, but Foes??

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Same, I'd like to know more. I'm not getting into this damage dealing stuff with bard. Hold that off for later people.

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Originally Posted by KaiSunstrider

Im assuming that new WM is the new foe req..

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I was hoping not, if the single target song buffs are a thing maybe minuet is a DPS buff that you can use stacks in. I'd like to have a song that could compliment each role and keep Foes. But your guess is actually a lot better than my hopes.

* All the songs seem to start at a 30s cooldown, and two(?) have some sort of stacking. Are they all now a base 30 seconds or do you think that's just the time limit with the MP that the bard had in the video?

The "casting" part never bothered, but the bloodletter proc's I missed because I was telling the arrow that I was about to use it was special and unique to any other arrow for E. Arrow (I just assume that's what we were doing for Minuet whisper to our arrow "Don't anyone tell you that you're not special..now fly..") is a nice change back. This has me interested, so might be time to put away Bahamut, sit that book on a shelf and pick up my old glamour and bow from 1.0. Flute > Bahamut!

Hrm, I also wonder what changes will be implemented on Empyreal Arrow.
Will it still be a GCD with 15s CD thats affected by Skill Speed? or a full blown OGCD related to the songs?? Maybe Minuet stacks means the amount of times you can shot them in a row.

BRD/MCH OP mobility CAN be designed into the upcoming CONTENT. So I'll have to wait and see how much dmg they do and how much their mobility simplifies content progression.

P.S. Sprint cost no tp.... image a BRD/MCH sprinting around the arena while maxing dps .......

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Originally Posted by Arkenne

Hrm, I also wonder what changes will be implemented on Empyreal Arrow.
Will it still be a GCD with 15s CD thats affected by Skill Speed? or a full blown OGCD related to the songs?? Maybe Minuet stacks means the amount of times you can shot them in a row.

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if you watch the job action video you'll notice its still oGCD with a cast time.

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Originally Posted by javid

if you watch the job action video you'll notice its still oGCD with a cast time.

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Oh right, it is there, however no idea still if its affected by Skill Speed from it, and it doesn't have a cast time, it was instant.
The Arrow charging animation was actually Bloodletter.