Who else is loving Bard now?

I've been playing bard since shortly after this games release and have been here throughout all the bard changes. I mained bard (reluctantly) through 3.0 heavensward, patiently waiting the changes in stormblood. Many people I spoke with about bard, would rant on that bard would never be changed & the bowmage was here to stay. I just have to say, I am so happy I waited and stuck it out... as bard is now hella fun again :)

I'm perfectly fine with our decreased dps, the party utility we bring is awesome! This is why I mained bard to begin with, utility & movement. I honestly don't have any bad things to say about the new 4.0 bard maybe slightly longer song time would be ok ? Idk .... everything flows great.

Hitting numbers over 3k on Lakshmi Extreme
So dps I feel is right where bards should be.
2500 - 3000 ish

I hope all the other bards are enjoying the class as much as I am :)

would be ok with our lower dps, if rdm wasnt way higher, with way better raid utility.

The buffs we have for the team is very nice, both offensively and defensively. Currently, I am trying to figure out when the defensive buffs should be used (apart from Traubador), especially warden's paean and nature's minne. My party never needed them... I am also not sure whether the offensive buffs that we provide covers the dps difference between us and other dps (apart from DRG and MCH) or not. I have seen calculations, and some say it does.

In terms of playstyle, it's fun, definitely. How much more than heavensward bard? For me, not so much, cuz I love both styles. And while people seem to love the movement return, I do not feel happy or sad about it :P

(I am currently doing 3k+ dps in both susanoo and lakshmi ex with ilvl300, and yes I have seen other jobs doing near 4k dps in those trials)

they cant make the defensive buff required because for some stupid reason we dont get our own Traubador buff.... we do not even get our own +2% buff.

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Originally Posted by eathdemon

would be ok with our lower dps, if rdm wasnt way higher, with way better raid utility.

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Way better raid utility?

Um. What?

Rising both hands, ME! I love the bard changes. I stayed as main BRD through HW but the cast bars made it annoying, I got used to them but I didn't like them in any way. Now it's fun and I love it! :D

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Originally Posted by Akashica

The buffs we have for the team is very nice, both offensively and defensively. Currently, I am trying to figure out when the defensive buffs should be used (apart from Traubador), especially warden's paean and nature's minne. My party never needed them...

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Warden's Paen can remove most status debuffs, I use it often during hunts and dungeons, if you get poinsoned or if you get sleep. Could use it on warrior for berserk... It's basically esuna.

Natures minnie I throw out on tanks if they are doing big pulls, aswell as pallisade so the healer have more freedom to dps.

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Originally Posted by Furious

Way better raid utility?

Um. What?

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Embolden for extra damage, being able to perform Dualcast Verraise makes for insane raid recovery and Mana Shift for healer support.

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Originally Posted by Arrius

Embolden for extra damage, being able to perform Dualcast Verraise makes for insane raid recovery and Mana Shift for healer support.

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If you think that is better than what a bard offers you have no clue.

2% permanant base crit.
15% direct hit for 20 seconds every 3 min (for all damage from every source, not just physical damage).
Refresh is an AoE mp regen ability, giving mana to both healers and all mana-using classes.
Tactician for TP classes, especially during AoE.
Palisade (20% physical damage reduction, targetable, 10 seconds every 150)
Troubadour (15%hp/10%phys reduction/10%magic reduction for 30 seconds every 3 min for everyone but the bard).
Nature's Minne (20% healing received increased buff for 15 seconds out of 45 seconds).
Foe requiem, 3% damage taken increased for ~20 seconds every ~2 minutes.

None of the above costs the bard any dps downtime like dualcast verraise or vercure do, besides a gcd for putting up foe requiem.

You're right, verraise and vercure are nice support when things go awry. To say that RDM have way better raid utility than a bard is patently ridiculous.

I haven't started leveling my Bard in Stormblood yet, but even with just its 60 kit I adore Pitch Perfect.

I've mained melee DPS for the entirety of the (admittedly short) time I've played and it took a single PotD floor 1-50 run with bard for me to fall in love with the job. Amazing mobility, amazing utility, incredibly fun playstyle, I've actually been playing it nonstop for the last three days. Damage is a bit on the low side and I'm not quite sure where exactly they stand as far as party support goes compared to other DPS classes but I am definitely dedicating all my time to learning the class.

Plus Peloton is a nice little thing to have just to move around faster and I love it very much.

I'm glad I have my Bard back. Missed her during HW. Class is fun again (for me.). I also think they could tweak the songs a bit...they seem just a bit too short to take full advantage of them. Not complaining though, I'm having fun with mine.

It's simply the most fun I've had playing a job since 2.0. Gone from MNK, to MCH in 3.0, and after not really liking the changes to MCH I've turned to BRD. I found it somewhat boring in both prior incarnations, but now....ugh, it's so so so good.

http://i.imgur.com/58hwqfv.png <- this right here is the most satisfying thing in the game. Midare Setsugekka? Fell Cleave? Wildfire? Pah! Pah, I say! :P

My only complaints:
*Songs going on cooldown without you getting the effect for missing / hitting an invulnerable target
*Army's Paeon is kind of meh....Ballad and Minuet are fun song-specific mechanics, going really speedy kind of throws off the rhythm of the job. Then again it's a less-reactionary stance which can be a nice break from being twitchy with PP and Bloodletter I guess.
*Troubadour not affecting the BRD using it. I can get over the crit buff thing, but considering the effect of Troub is a long cooldown raid-wide defense buffer it's just weird.

Legitimately the only complaints I can think of. Best BRD incarnation by far.

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Could use it on warrior for berserk... It's basically esuna.

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Warrior no longer have pacification on berserk ^_^

I've been thinking of going back to Bard. I leveled it to 50 in 1.0 and haven't touched it since, largely because I cannot stand the AF on male characters visually. I feel like a hybrid between a pimp and a cross dresser.. Other than that though Bard has always been fun to play, at least what I remember.

Bard is a good class

I miss the feeling of having a choice of support functions, rather than being Selene.

Also miss the feeling of all my oGCDs, and the added opportunities to use them in a given window feeling tactical and impactful.

The rest is... decent?

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Originally Posted by Aeliott

*Army's Paeon is kind of meh....

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In one of the earlier iterations, Peon was damage and haste. I hate that they changed it making it the least desirable song.

New to the job, enjoying it so far. I love that it has lots of utility buttons, that all have uses even in the leveling dungeon content. Often with DPS classes I find my contribution hard to wrap my head around as I'm just chipping some loosely defined portion of the bosses health bar away. Honestly, just having the two active tank externals would be enough, but that's not even half the support buttons this thing has.

The flow of the job is nice. I sometimes lose myself in the strict sequencing of combos of other classes, and bard feels more like it has a very simple core loop with some procs you need to respond to.

The different personal effects of the songs also gives the class a nice feeling of going through phases and a varied playstyle without getting overly complex.

I just wish that Mage's Ballad had a sound effect that went off when it procs a CD reset. The little flash on the music bar is a bit subtle for my tastes.

I didn't play bard in HW so I can't really compare the experiences.

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Originally Posted by Aeliott

Wildfire?

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Sadly, wildfire is far, FAR from enjoyable right now, as most of the MCH kit.

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Originally Posted by KaiSunstrider

In one of the earlier iterations, Peon was damage and haste. I hate that they changed it making it the least desirable song.

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It still exists giving both power and speed.... in its PvP version

For what it's worth, I'm enjoying it so far. Don't really see myself preferring another DPS from what I gathered about them.

i didn't mind the cast times from HW, but i can see why they changed the class back to all instant casts. I just wish they would make our buffs apply to us as well as our party.

Yes I love my bard. I was a BLM and dropped it so fast after messing around with my bard for an hour or so.

BRD isn't even close to my main or anything, but I think I can say with near-certainty that it's one of the few jobs where everyone can agree that it's an improvement over it's 3.x version. Numbers can be tweaked, so having the core foundation of the job be smooth and enjoyable for most of the people who play it is great IMO. I tried it at 60 on a few FATEs and really liked what I saw.

I've been a raid Bard since 2.0, and it's the only job I play seriously. I didn't mind being a bowmage either. On that note, while Bard is a very fun job now, I worry we (and Machinist) are generally too weak. We have too many abilities that will become obsolete throughout a patch cycle (troubadour, minne, our cross class abilities), our kit is too RNG reliant to have consistent burst openers, some of our best tools don't effect the user (passive crit, battle voice) and the Foe change, while nice, doesn't feel like it has any weight. Overall I just wish they gave us more options to feel empowered, instead we have a lot of passive/aura traits.

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Originally Posted by AkashiXI

I worry we (and Machinist) are generally too weak.

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If you look at target dummy numbers, then it definitely looks that way.
But our biggest advantage is that aoe and movement mechanics don't halt our dps.
So target dummies are actually a pretty poor way to measure job performance.

I think we're just going to have to wait and see what the new encounters look like.
The more movement effects there are in a fight, the more ground we make up against the other DPS.
If the other DPS classes lose even 5% of their dps (compared against target dummy dps) due to movement in most fights, then I think the numbers will show that we're tuned competitively.

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Originally Posted by Bardo

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I understand what you're saying, and there are raid fights that were good for 3.0 Bard. A7S, i.e, was very easy for casters and somewhat difficult for Melee during the ball phase. However, if you were to go through the entirety of our previous raid series, you'd see that most fights except three (A1S, A6S, A11S) don't have moments where they disrupt Melee's uptime on their timers. Everything else is straight forward, turret-esque fighting, and that doesn't help Bard at all.

I've made this mention on these forums a few times before, but it begs repeating: the further you get into a patch cycle, the less useful (and, thus, viable) Bard becomes. Most of our utility revolves around helping our party survive, and most of that goes out the window with iLV, experience, and outright skill. What we have left is minimal: a +15% direct hit rate increase for 20s every 3 minutes, a +3% to all damage that lasts roughly 20s, and a passive that increases your crit rate to +2%. Also remember that the only song that effects Bard is Foe Requiem, furthering the disparity of our DPS. The window between BRD and other DPS is becoming bigger.

Finally, while this is an indirect buff, Dragoon losing potency on its Disembowel (10% -> 5%) makes the shift of Bard/Dragoon being a great pick in raid, to only being a good/meh pick. Like it or not, when anyone was comparing Bard numbers in raid during 2.0/3.0, they were also factoring the piercing resistance Dragoon provided.

I'm actually enjoying the fuck out of BRD, but I don't know if I want to main it or SAM. Never played a proper support before, and the playstyle is fun as hell too.

It's taking a bit to gdt used to though, seems like there are 5 things to watch at once. But that's most likely my UI which is set up for SAM and not for BRD. What does your UIs for BRD look like?

I think I'm the only person that doesn't; BRD was the only DPS job I thoroughly enjoyed from early ARR to the end of Heavensward, but this new mess of more rotation management on top of the dual DoTs is just a disaster. I thought the goal in Stormblood was to streamline, yet here we are.

The cast times were reasonable, as was the damage for a bursty support class. The songs were fine, too; we just needed more of them.

About the only positive thing here is it's one less class to level and gear. :(

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Originally Posted by rachcouture

I think I'm the only person that doesn't; BRD was the only DPS job I thoroughly enjoyed from early ARR to the end of Heavensward, but this new mess of more rotation management on top of the dual DoTs is just a disaster. I thought the goal in Stormblood was to streamline, yet here we are.

The cast times were reasonable, as was the damage for a bursty support class. The songs were fine, too; we just needed more of them.

About the only positive thing here is it's one less class to level and gear. :(

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So.. you havent leveled the class and you think the rotation is a mess? How would you know?

The dots go from 18 seconds to 30 seconds, and you use refulgent instead of straight shot on procs. The rotation gets easier by 70, not harder, and it's absolutely not hard to begin with.