Let's discuss some problems Bard has, despite being incredibly fun

Coming from a player that has been through the thick and thin on ARR and HW, I very much enjoy the current iteration of Bard. I was also keen of the Bowmage playstyle in Heavensward and had some top-end parses during Creator. However, for all the fun it is playing the class right now, it is not without problems that need(?) addressing.

Any changes suggested below are just general thoughts in the vacuum, further adjustments may be necessary for them to be actually balanced. Also this is talking from mostly a gameplay point of view so please refrain from any: nuuu but MCH sucks already dun buff BRD comments since balance discussion as a whole is another can of worms that should and will be addressed.




First and foremost, the class is somewhat inconsistent due to the nature of it being extremely heavy on the RNG procs. Especially the very nature of Refulgent Arrow is problematic, due to it being the best thing to pair Barrage with. While it does add a modicum of desirable decision-making in terms of spending either spending GCDs to fish for it or saving your earlier proc to pair with Barrage, it is still very inconsistent to get the combo off. There are several things we could do to make the interaction more consistent, and here's a few suggestions:

1.) Make Empyreal Arrow also give you a Heavier Shot proc, making your next Heavy Shot cast also proc Straighter Shot and thus also Refulgent Arrow. This change would fit very well with both the current iterations of the currently recognized Bard openers while making the interaction feel somewhat fluid altogether.
2.) Make Heavy Shot proc progressive, giving an additional 10% chance to proc a Straighter Shot upon consecutive casts. Base chance could be reduced to 10% to compensate for the additional effect of it.

These are just quickly thought suggestions of mine to fix something I see as a very annoying interaction atm. I'm sure someone might have thought of more exciting interactions between Refulgent Arrow procs. However, as is, I think the current interaction needs changes. It feels more relieving than rewarding to land a Barrage+RA combo atm, and having to pair it with Empyreal Arrow due to a quirk of RNG feels just bad.

As for being inconsistent in general, I have some dummy parses up to around 4k over 3minutes as a i315 Bard with a very nice streak of proc-luck, with the lowest being around 3,5k with some absolutely horrible RNG. We're not talking about some minor fluctuation here. However, I wouldn't really like to touch the gameplay outside of RA interactions too much. One suggestion made in another thread I liked, however, was changing Raging Strikes into additional Crit Rate instead of additional Damage. This would interact much better with the way Bard procs work, as well as make double dot clipping worth it again even without additional buffs. It would definitely add a nice flavor to the gameplay I think, while also making the procs more consistent.




Second major problem I have with the class is the lack of meaningful sources of Piercing Debuff. With Dragoon in the gutters so to speak, getting a Dragoon for serious statics is a no-no unless 4.05 is going to swing the pendulum yet again. However, I don't see this dependence of Dragoons as a healthy design in the long run and would appreciate some changes to make our DPS less reliant on having them in the parties. Here are some suggestions I have been thinking of:

1.) Give the BRDs and MCHs a way to apply the buff themselves. This goes in line with all other DPS classes applying their own flavor debuffs and makes us less reliant in someone else enabling our full potential as DPS classes.
2.) Give the Piercing debuff to some other classes to make more meaningful synergy options. Pigeonholing us to pair with only Dragoons is not the way.
3.) Remove the Piercing synergy from Ranged completely and make our damage categorized as merely Unaspected Physical Damage. If this suggestion is seen as a problem, some kind of small potency increase could be done to our base damage to compensate. Piercing as it is right now is just a pretty problematic debuff to have from a competitive aspect. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And this is not even counting the fact that Dragoons offer the very best party buff for us, the Battle Litany, which is super good with the way our procs work. Although that is fine by me, and the actual problem I have is with Piercing Debuff. In a meta with no Dragoons, everyone else in the party can play (nearly) up to their maximum capability. Compositions without Dragoons atm severely gimp ranged players and make them somewhat sad to play from a competitive viewpoint.


On the core of things, the class is very fun to play and I very much like the current iteration of Bard. I would not like to see major changes happen to the class that seems to be loved by many people now. I think it should get some minor tweaks, however.

I dont particularly mind the BRD DRG synergy but seeing as DRG isn't necessarily ideal atm, I can see where the lack of piercing debuff can be a problem. Honestly, with the massive overhaul to classes, I dont know why square thought they should also nerf disembowel before knowing exactly how each class would stack up in terms of personal dps. Every single class that has a debuff is 10% yet Dis is now 5% to prevent the MCH/BRD synergy being what it was in 3.0. Honestly all they really need to do for DRGs is revert the DIS changes. That 5% equates to around 6% damage for the DRG and based on current numbers, thats somewhere around a 200-250dps gain for the DRG not to mention a 2-4% damage buff for the bards and more for MCH. That small change would again open DRG viability for any Bard/MCH containing group (which is pretty much all of them atm). Yes I would love to see our buffs apply to ourselves and for the MP drain on Foe req to be a bit smaller, but in reality, there are other small changes that could go a long way.

It would be really nice if RA had a chance to refresh our SS buff too since we dont naturally do it with SS procs anymore.

I think our benifit from songs are enough, im ok with not getting the 2% crit buff. I think BV should affect us though.

Our class is very RNG songwise atm, but like many classes in other MMOs that have crit based mechanics, it's gear dependent. Early expac when stats are low, the procs are unreliable and sometimes cause major dps swings. Later expac, if left untouched, those mechanics become monsters and we have procs pouring out of our ears. I've noticed major changes going from 1500 crit raiting to 1800+ in terms of procs, especially with CS.

This is a personal problem, but one of the things that keeps me from getting into bard is the sheer number of buttons that I have to have on my bar and use fairly regularly. Heavy Shot, Split Shot, Bloodletter, both DoTs, Empyreal Arrow, Pitch Perfect, all three song attacks, Iron Jaws...And that's just at 60. Granted, at 64, the DoTs and Iron Jaws will see less regular usage, but they still get used regularly. Add in Rain of Death and Quick Knock, plus Refulgent Arrow at 70, and...it's just too many different buttons I have to use. I don't mind having to monitor multiple things at once, it can be fun, but it just feels so bloated.

I'm absolutely in love with BRD, but I do wish there were a few things. The RNG is great at times and horrible at times. I would love at the least BV to affect us, and I'm noticing the absence of DRGs a LOT. They're literally our partners in crime, they give us crit buffs and the piercing debuffs that we so crave.

I would love Raging Strikes to be Crit based instead of pure power based too.

The piercing debuff is the bigger issue here imo. It's hurting Bard, Machinist and also Dragoon - in the latter case because SE counts the debuff as contributed damage for Dragoons while balancing, even though they also have to assume the debuff's presence when balancing Bard and Machinist. In that way, they're "double counting" the debuff and hurting all three jobs.

The reason the slashing debuff works, is that there are 3 jobs that apply it and 2 jobs that need it, of which you will always have at least one. Because it's easy enough to get - run either a WAR or NIN or SAM - SE doesn't need to "credit" the granting class with the damage it provides to PLD / DRK. They can just assume it will be there when balancing PLD and DRK and call it a day.

In order to fix piercing debuff, you would want to avoid trivializing it - giving it to BRD and MCH is -not- an option because then the debuff might as well not exist, in other words.

With the slashing debuff there are still two jobs that don't apply it, even if they're tanks, so it serves as a group-building restriction in that way. And with MNK being the only blunt damage job, it's fine just to have DK be what it is. But having 3 out of 3 piercing jobs give the same debuff just so that it exists (as opposed to just buffing the jobs' base numbers separately) would be kind of silly.

So with that said, I think the options are:

1) Remove the piercing debuff from the game. Make Disembowel a self-buff of some kind for DRG, and buff BRD and MCH in some way to make up for the loss.

MCH is easier because you can just make Hot Shot 15% (when you might have just made it 10% otherwise to close the MCH-BRD gap). For BRD, you don't reallly want to buff SS enough to make 5% up (it'd need to go to 20%), so I'd try putting SS at +15% and AP at +8% since AP could use some sadness reduction anyway.

2) Give the piercing debuff to RDM. Possibly on Impact, with the 30s duration, and then make its dash-in combo deal (~5% less) physical piercing damage. This may be a small nerf (RDM likes MNK all of a sudden, but they can't Embolden their big combo) but it would add a little wrinkle to a job in RDM that could use one.

Then, you can stop counting the debuff as part of DRG's contribution, and just imagine it will be there when balancing BRD/MCH. "Bring RDM or DRG" is a littttle restrictive when you have 9 DPS for four slots though, so you'd need to feel really good about the balance of the remaining five after BRD / MCH (or just cede the +5% on your ranged physical dps, or don't bring one).

3) Flip the script by giving BRD and MCH a +10% piercing debuff that overwrites Disembowel's. With 2 jobs granting and one job needing the debuff, you'd have a more-okay arrangement where BRD / MCH become a "must" when you have a DRG whereas they're just a nice-to-have without.

I'm fine with them giving the piercing debuff to rdm. but the real question is why is this still a mechanic? Why are bards and MCH still the only physical dps classes that rely on another class to provide our "vulnerability" debuff. It feels like at this point, that SE should just change the debuff to "physical vulnerability" and get rid of blunt / piercing / slashing resistance downs altogether. It would make it MUCH simpler to balance the classes.

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Originally Posted by KalinOrthos

This is a personal problem, but one of the things that keeps me from getting into bard is the sheer number of buttons that I have to have on my bar and use fairly regularly. Heavy Shot, Split Shot, Bloodletter, both DoTs, Empyreal Arrow, Pitch Perfect, all three song attacks, Iron Jaws...And that's just at 60. Granted, at 64, the DoTs and Iron Jaws will see less regular usage, but they still get used regularly. Add in Rain of Death and Quick Knock, plus Refulgent Arrow at 70, and...it's just too many different buttons I have to use. I don't mind having to monitor multiple things at once, it can be fun, but it just feels so bloated.

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It literally cramps my wrists and I play on gamepad. Like it's a pretty fun job, but man it kills me physically.

Even though I completely agree with the issues OP addressed, I do not agree with the Empyreal Arrow solution that the OP has come up with. It would make Empyreal Arrow too strong/important really. As for the piercing debuff, while it is a good addition to BRD's dps, I feel that not having it would not really harm us heavily, as other skills we have ("utility") compensate that loss. As for the buttons, I don't think it's really a problem for me. Not going to go in specific about the buttons needed to press for all skills, the HW bard also has a similar amount of skills for pressing.

Overall, apart from RnG problem, I don't think Bard has any major issues that is needed to be addressed. Besides, RnG doesn't seem to pose us a huge problem currently apart from having fluctuation in dps.

Nice ideas. Taken together these changes would make BRD OP, but I suppose that reducing the potency of a couple of skills would be enough to avoid it.

I don't think the RNG is a super real problem, it's fine to have a job that's like that imo. My mostly-QoL wishlist (after of course the piercing debuff being dumb) would be:

1) Make Refulgent proc quicker. Having it occur at the tail end of the HS animation makes it difficult to impossible to react properly if you need to shuffle your oGCDs in reaction to a proc, i.e. you were expecting to Bar-EA, then RA procs and now you'd much rather EA-Bar - but because you didn't react in time to avoid pressing Bar first, you have to leave EA sitting there until the next GCD because you can't use it before RA once Barrage is up.

2) Change Pitch Perfect to a 1s cooldown. The gripe here is that at the end of WM, if you have ~2 GCDs left and use a 3PP in the first, the 3s cooldown prevents you from using a follow-up proc before WM expires. And even when it doesn't, it prevents you from being able to PP-MB in that oGCD as desired and you either clip into a GCD, forfeit the PP, or drop song for a second or so, a dilemma that exists for no actually good reason.

3) Make Army's Paeon less sad. This would invariably be a buff of some kind, so any MCH buffs would need to be enlargened to compensate. As for the nature of the buff, I think AP could go as high as 8% and it wouldn't be a problem of any significance. That'd at least make it better than MB in non-crit-buffed situations. Alternately or additionally, the stacks could increase your RA proc odds, if we're digging for a way to get BarRA more reliably. I'd kind of rather not see the pvp version where stacks add % damage, because IJ snapshotting math is convoluted enough as it is.

I really really loathe Refulgent. Pitch perfect is nice I kinda like it, but I wish straight shot just turned into Refulgent with the proc and also gave us the critical buff...Pitch Perfect is at least OGCD so it's easier to get your head around...but no matter how hard i try when I see the SS proc...I just use SS...its muscle memory, I need training...operant conditioning xD

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Originally Posted by KalinOrthos

This is a personal problem, but one of the things that keeps me from getting into bard is the sheer number of buttons that I have to have on my bar and use fairly regularly. Heavy Shot, Split Shot, Bloodletter, both DoTs, Empyreal Arrow, Pitch Perfect, all three song attacks, Iron Jaws...And that's just at 60. Granted, at 64, the DoTs and Iron Jaws will see less regular usage, but they still get used regularly. Add in Rain of Death and Quick Knock, plus Refulgent Arrow at 70, and...it's just too many different buttons I have to use. I don't mind having to monitor multiple things at once, it can be fun, but it just feels so bloated.

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People said the same about MCH in 3.0 (my main), and here I am now playing BRD because MCH feels EXTREMELLY boring to me. Please, don't want every class to be 1-2-3. please.

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Originally Posted by KaiSunstrider

Our class is very RNG songwise atm, but like many classes in other MMOs that have crit based mechanics, it's gear dependent. Early expac when stats are low, the procs are unreliable and sometimes cause major dps swings. Later expac, if left untouched, those mechanics become monsters and we have procs pouring out of our ears. I've noticed major changes going from 1500 crit raiting to 1800+ in terms of procs, especially with CS.

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This is a good point. In the long run, the RNG is going to even out to a degree, alleviating the fluctuation as our procs get more consistent. However, the current design of Refulgent Arrow would keep it kind of a hit-or-miss type of a proc that can not be affected by external means or actions aside from the number of GCDs spent "fishing" for it. Whether or not it's within the boundaries of healthy RNG is arguable, but I wouldn't mind having more meaningful options for player interactions with the Refulgent proc.

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Originally Posted by Cetonis

In order to fix piercing debuff, you would want to avoid trivializing it - giving it to BRD and MCH is -not- an option because then the debuff might as well not exist, in other words.

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Thanks for bringing this up, it is something I overlooked as I was on the on the fastlane of mindflow during writing my opening post. I agree with the sentiment that if we add Piercing Debuff to ranged, it should bring a new flavor to add somehow - either via a rotational sense or by affecting in a somewhat different manner than the Dragoon variant of it, like possibly being slightly stronger to emphasize the synergy from another, more lenient aspect in terms of class-pairing.

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Originally Posted by Cetonis

I don't think the RNG is a super real problem, it's fine to have a job that's like that imo. My mostly-QoL wishlist (after of course the piercing debuff being dumb) would be:

1) Make Refulgent proc quicker. Having it occur at the tail end of the HS animation makes it difficult to impossible to react properly if you need to shuffle your oGCDs in reaction to a proc, i.e. you were expecting to Bar-EA, then RA procs and now you'd much rather EA-Bar - but because you didn't react in time to avoid pressing Bar first, you have to leave EA sitting there until the next GCD because you can't use it before RA once Barrage is up.

2) Change Pitch Perfect to a 1s cooldown. The gripe here is that at the end of WM, if you have ~2 GCDs left and use a 3PP in the first, the 3s cooldown prevents you from using a follow-up proc before WM expires. And even when it doesn't, it prevents you from being able to PP-MB in that oGCD as desired and you either clip into a GCD, forfeit the PP, or drop song for a second or so, a dilemma that exists for no actually good reason.

3) Make Army's Paeon less sad. This would invariably be a buff of some kind, so any MCH buffs would need to be enlargened to compensate. As for the nature of the buff, I think AP could go as high as 8% and it wouldn't be a problem of any significance. That'd at least make it better than MB in non-crit-buffed situations. Alternately or additionally, the stacks could increase your RA proc odds, if we're digging for a way to get BarRA more reliably. I'd kind of rather not see the pvp version where stacks add % damage, because IJ snapshotting math is convoluted enough as it is.

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Never had a problem with the RA procs when they *do* show up, but aside from that, I agree with all of this. Army's Paeon definitely needs some kind of work, as currently it doesn't really even have its own niché where it's consistently better than the two other songs under specific circumstances, it is simply used as a filler song in-between lining up your better songs. Not to even mention it's (in my opinion) pretty much of a snoozefest to be stuck on. The effect is too small to make a significant difference, the song just feels too slow and doesn't really have meaningful interactions going on for it.

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Originally Posted by Shunye

I'm fine with them giving the piercing debuff to rdm. but the real question is why is this still a mechanic? Why are bards and MCH still the only physical dps classes that rely on another class to provide our "vulnerability" debuff. It feels like at this point, that SE should just change the debuff to "physical vulnerability" and get rid of blunt / piercing / slashing resistance downs altogether. It would make it MUCH simpler to balance the classes.

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This is something I've been trying to get my mind around. They give all the other DPS classes meaningful ways to apply their flavor debuffs, but pigeonhole ranged classes to synergize with Dragoons only. It is a silly, restricting design that not only hurts us but the Dragoons also as Cetonis outlined earlier. It makes balancing dumb, synergy options limited and playing on high-level feel very unrewarding if you don't happen to have a Goon friend in your raid team to enable your damage potential. Obviously having support options should cost you in personal DPS, but gating a very significant portion of it behind arbitrary debuffs handed out by a single other class is not the kind of design we want to be encouraging. Especially when no other class really has to struggle with synergy-options being so limited or having an effect to as drastic a degree.

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Originally Posted by Exterium

People said the same about MCH in 3.0 (my main), and here I am now playing BRD because MCH feels EXTREMELLY boring to me. Please, don't want every class to be 1-2-3. please.

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Oh, no one wants an extremely dull class to play, that's why I dropped monk and dragoon, they just weren't fun. And bard shouldn't be like that either. MCH in SB feels actually a lot more dynamic because of heat management, necessitating the need for proper Cooldown usage and far more regular use of Wildfire, plus of course the lower cooldown of Reload makes it feel a lot more engaging.

What I don't like about bards in SB, and the only thing I don't like about them, is that there is too much that I have to do.

Wished they made Army's Paeon stacked crit chances like 1/2/3/4% or 2/4/6/8% increment instead of the current skill speed. Since we Bards are so reliant on crit procs.

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Originally Posted by Pomelo

I wish straight shot just turned into Refulgent with the proc and also gave us the critical buff...

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Yea, I think Bard currently suffers from a bit of Button Bloat for sure.
Have you played Bard in PvP at all?
It's so streamlined compared to PvE. (even more-so for MCH, which is insanely fun and actually seems well thought out in PvP)

It would be amazing if they simply took a couple of the concepts from PvP mechanics and applied them to PvE skills.
For example:
As you suggested, Straight Shot could turn into Refulgent upon Straighter Shot proc and Refulgent could refresh Straight Shot buff. Bam, one button gone and the functionality doesn't change at all.
Stormbite/Caustic Bite could function like a combo where Stormbite turns into Caustic Bite after it's used, then reverts to Stormbite after Caustic Bite or when changing targets. Bam, another button gone.
There's probably a lot more that could be streamlined with all the short cooldown situational skills we have that depend on a certain song or proc, but even just these two changes above would be a huge QoL improvement I think.

I totally agree with the fact that, despite bards being today really awesome with its rework, some little adjustement should be done due to its random dps output.
The difference is far more important than before. While I don't mind the RNG system, bard had always been like this with Blodletter procs, having now pitch perfect, bloodletter and more importantly Reful Arrow, you sometime end up having no chance at all and get a lower dps while it's not your fault at all. The most frustrating part is of course the opener when you don't have Reful Arrow that make a big difference.

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Originally Posted by FateAudax

Wished they made Army's Paeon stacked crit chances like 1/2/3/4% or 2/4/6/8% increment instead of the current skill speed. Since we Bards are so reliant on crit procs.

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This would be kind of a weird change, imo. Bards are reliant on crit procs, but that's mostly due to the effects of the songs being triggered by dot crits, and if Army's gave us extra crit chance, it wouldn't be able to actually help us out with Mages/WM since the songs are mutually exclusive, it'd only help its own stacks (which can max out pretty quickly regardless). Its only usage would be if the bonus crit could snapshot onto our DoTs as we transition into other songs, but afaik the extra SKS we get from Army's doesn't actually snapshot onto our dots so I wouldn't expect Army-crit to either.

Army's Paeon doesn't increase your Skill Speed statistic, so of course it wouldn't affect DoTs. It just affects your recast time and auto-attack delay.

The crit chance stacking becomes an interesting idea in the sense that it'd make you want even more to stick with a (WM -> MB -> AP -> repeat) cycle, but I don't know if pushing a clear best cycle like that is a good decision. I'd rather they just make AP stand on its own better, and make Bards feel less-bad about alternate song arrangements (to line up AoE phases, or Troubadour etc) instead of more-bad.

I think the change to Raging Strikes adding crit instead of damage would have a grossly OP snowball effect. Combined with Battle Voice, straight shot and innately high crit, the number of procs would virtually guarantee 3 stack pitch perfect spam for the duration of the Wanderer's, or Rain procs for Ballad.

I can hear it now. You say that like it's a bad thing!
Well, it is. If bard can push out spike dps, as a support job, that shames pure dps in comparable gear, then it becomes a serious balancing issue.

As for the Empyreal auto proc-ing Straighter/Refulgent, I would add a condition that it only happens when you're under the effects of Troubadour. Having it tied to a 3 minute cooldown timer forces you to pick and choose when to use it.

The main problem Bards have is this creepy guy that carries a defunct rifle about, constantly breathing over their shoulder about how they are 'just as good' as them.

My problem with bard? Too many buttons. That is pretty much it.

I don't get why some people say that BRD has too many buttons. It has as many buttons as any other job in the game, maybe even less since caustic bite and stormbite replace the previous dots so basically lvl 70 brd is the same as lvl 60 brd with the addition of refulgent proc and a couple support skills.

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Originally Posted by Lastelli

I don't get why some people say that BRD has too many buttons. It has as many buttons as any other job in the game, maybe even less since caustic bite and stormbite replace the previous dots so basically lvl 70 brd is the same as lvl 60 brd with the addition of refulgent proc and a couple support skills.

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It is because I got too manage a ton of procs/things going on with songs. My eyes is all over the screen.

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Originally Posted by Wavaryen

It is because I got too manage a ton of procs/things going on with songs. My eyes is all over the screen.

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if you read the live letter, the team member who worked on all the specific class ui's specifically mentioned the bard ui and that they are considering making improvements so you dont have to watch multiple places on your screen for procs. that being said, if you think bard has alot of buttons, you should never heal, tank or play any melee dps.

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Originally Posted by Lastelli

I don't get why some people say that BRD has too many buttons. It has as many buttons as any other job in the game, maybe even less since caustic bite and stormbite replace the previous dots so basically lvl 70 brd is the same as lvl 60 brd with the addition of refulgent proc and a couple support skills.

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It's not so much too many buttons, as too many criteria to respond to (with their own separate buttons). Paladin has more buttons than bard, for example, but the way paladin responds to a given criteria is largely the same (it doesn't matter which kind of damage is coming in, you're going to go to rampart and anticipation first, for example).

There are cooldowns going everywhere when it comes to bard now, thanks mostly to the rotating songs. All of them are vital to dps, and not only does it matter that you use them mainly on cooldown, but what your current buff state is, what your song state is, and what your other cooldowns are at. You use empyreal arrow on cooldown... but not before bloodletter in mage ballad, not if you're at 2+ stacks in minuet, not if you're above 3 stacks in paeon and about to switch, not if barrage is about to come off cooldown and you don't have straighter shot proc... etc etc.

I don't think it's necessarily the number of buttons, but rather the rate at which you have to respond to information and use those large number of buttons.

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Originally Posted by Shunye

if you read the live letter, the team member who worked on all the specific class ui's specifically mentioned the bard ui and that they are considering making improvements so you dont have to watch multiple places on your screen for procs. that being said, if you think bard has alot of buttons, you should never heal, tank or play any melee dps.

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As per above. Paladin has more buttons, but it is FAR more simple to play than bard is in the stormblood iteration. I don't play melee dps, but I'll warrent you that the 10 seconds I spent on ninja in potd made me want to shoot myself. Healers (other than scholar) have comparatively extremely few buttons and the difficulty in that job is more related to judging how long you have to spend on a certain action without risking the group.

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As per above. Paladin has more buttons, but it is FAR more simple to play than bard is in the stormblood iteration.

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there is a difference between playing, and playing well. a GOOD paladin puts out nearly double the damage of a garbage paladin, while at the same time, positioning the boss so that dps can have an easier time. There are alot of bad players in this game that think all you do is run up to the boss and spam your emnity combo over and over and don't worry about boss positioning.

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Originally Posted by Shunye

there is a difference between playing, and playing well. a GOOD paladin puts out nearly double the damage of a garbage paladin, while at the same time, positioning the boss so that dps can have an easier time. There are alot of bad players in this game that think all you do is run up to the boss and spam your emnity combo over and over and don't worry about boss positioning.

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And yet, my point still stands.

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As per above. Paladin has more buttons, but it is FAR more simple to play than bard is in the stormblood iteration.

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After doing a bunch of dungeons where you're expected to use aoe constantly it's getting really annoying looking over at mages being on cooldown. I'd really like to kill the cooldown on songs, even if they still only last 30s and require us to re-up them. I'd also like some kind of audio cue that only I hear that tells me a song is about to end.

so bard involves lots of buttons? but how come its considered as an easy class to play given that you have to respond to certain situation for your songs? is it because they are less punished with mechanics that makes them an easy class to play?

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Originally Posted by Furious

It's not so much too many buttons, as too many criteria to respond to

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By "too many criteria" do you mean "pitch perfect at 2-3 stacks when singing WM and bloodletter when singing ballad" during a otherwise silly and super easy priority system? Sorry but I cannot agree on this. Take these 2 things away and brd goes back to being the braindead pew pew job we had in arr. You simply need to be a little more reactive and that's it. The current brd is actually pretty easy.

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Originally Posted by schulz8

so bard involves lots of buttons? but how come its considered as an easy class to play given that you have to respond to certain situation for your songs? is it because they are less punished with mechanics that makes them an easy class to play?

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BRD is not punished at all by mechanics since it has total mobility. Also, "responding to situations" may sound complicated but it's not. Simply put, 2 out of 3 songs will make 2 skills proc, 1 for each song. When they proc you simply press a button to use those skills (with a little caveat for pitch perfect, but nothing complex). End of the story. Same goes for refulgent arrow. When it procs you use it and that's it.

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Originally Posted by schulz8

so bard involves lots of buttons? but how come its considered as an easy class to play given that you have to respond to certain situation for your songs? is it because they are less punished with mechanics that makes them an easy class to play?

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BRD is by far not a easy class to Play well.

Doing damage with BRD? OK, quite easy.

However, doing good dmg with bard while using all the support skills for the group and the support for the tank especially? Like target swaping to the tank to apply that 20% heal/10% less dmg-buff on the tank while the Songs procc at the same time and scream to you "USE YOUR SKILL NOOOW!!!"? maintain all the dots while check for teammates TP/Mana to Play at the right time? Casting Requim at the right time, once the others started their burst Combos? Not easy at all. At least in my opinion, playing BRD well is not an easy taks.


That said, I have been in several dungeons now with bards, that don't care for the Support skills at all. Not a single buff was put on the tank during the whole dungeon. That is no good BRD.

Bard is a support-DPS class which has so many utilities. If your problem is being competitive with the other class, then you don't seen to understand the concept of the job itself.
If bard can dish out the same damage as SAM or RDM, with all their utilities intact, everyone would play bard. Bards have to have some kind of weakness (in this case less damage and non-meta job synergy).
All the thread opener suggestion are basically things that can make BRD consistently deals more damage. Maybe the consistency is fine, but no no to increase damage.

^pretty much

The class is called support for a reason, you help your party by giving buff and utility in the mid fight, crit up, mp regen, tp regen, cleanse, you support them and deal damage at the same time.

If brd dps is the same as core dps, the next thing i know Healer will go riot because they want their dps on the same level as blm in healer thread

while I know that bards are not supposed to be better than the melee dps in game the rng makes the un consistent in the damage department, yes they have a lot of support but at the end of the day they are a dps class(unless that SE make a support role for df/pf and change the icons).

bards and mchs need more dps because with better gear the gap between the two is going to be noticeable. the only thing I ask is to have better dps without that much rng

Refresh needs to be way faster. ..or are we no longer considered a support class?
One more aoe of anykind would be nice.

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Originally Posted by Talec

However, doing good dmg with bard while using all the support skills for the group and the support for the tank especially? Like target swaping to the tank to apply that 20% heal/10% less dmg-buff on the tank while the Songs procc at the same time and scream to you "USE YOUR SKILL NOOOW!!!"? maintain all the dots while check for teammates TP/Mana to Play at the right time? Casting Requim at the right time, once the others started their burst Combos? Not easy at all. At least in my opinion, playing BRD well is not an easy task.

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make macros for your tank supporting abilities. you can have two macros for 8man groups and 1 macro if you are just doing 4mans. in the macro you just assign the ability to the specific party slot, which should always be 2/3 for the tanks. that way you never have to change targets to instantly buff people.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shunye

make macros for your tank supporting abilities. you can have two macros for 8man groups and 1 macro if you are just doing 4mans. in the macro you just assign the ability to the specific party slot, which should always be 2/3 for the tanks. that way you never have to change targets to instantly buff people.

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I would love for that kind of macro. Sadly, I am sort of clueless on how to make macros in this game so a layout of this macro would be very helpful.

I love playing bard just hate how the smallest mess up seems to make my dps completely irrelevant

All I want to see is:

Refulgent Arrow either to give +10% Critical Strike Chance and replace Straighter Shot completely upon proc
or
Straighter Shot, as a trait, is replaced by Refulgent Arrow, meaning that maintaining Straight Shot during a proc no longer wastes Refulgent Arrow. There is no longer a Straighter Shot after RA's acquisition.

As for RA, a proc, being too desirable vs. the more consistent Empyreal Arrow, I'd simply suggest that the "Additional effects added only once" clause on Barrage be removed. This would make Barrage-EA viable at low Repertoire on Army's Paean and Wanderer's Minuet.