ShB Bard wishlists?

Hopping on the bandwagon except...

In all honesty, SB Bard has been perfect for me, but I'm curious to hear what other people want to see for Bard in Shadowbringers.

Personally, I was hoping that the removal of TP (and presumably Tactician) would free a slot for Bards to have Diversion, but since the cross-role system is being reworked iirc, I'm just hoping we get something like Quelling Strikes back. It's the only thing I think I need or want.

As for Foe's, I can kinda see it becoming a long oGcd like Battle Voice.

What do you guys want to see?

For the most part... QoL buffs.

Such as The Wanderer's Minuet button becoming Pitch Perfect while active.

Maybe merge Raging Strikes into songs? (Would increase the uptime... So would have to be balanced around that)

Reworking how Foe's Requiem functions (Cast time and MP drain) potentially working it into Battle Voice.

Refulgent Arrow replacing Heavy Shot while under Straighter Shot.

You know, mostly just cleaning up button bloat. Allowing for more freedom to add new skills as well as making it less annoying to try and organize action bars as a whole.

Outside that kind of thing, I'd be looking at stuff such as:

* Repelling Shot being altered slightly. So that when cast outside of the 5 yalm range it's currently restricted to, that it reduces enmity by 50% instead of jumping backwards (While when cast within 5 yalms it's the same jump back)

* Army's Paeon being reworked. So that it provides a more useful effect. SkS is of limited use for BRD... (Also, it has a hard cap on useful procs... Once you have the full stacks, additional procs do nothing. Meanwhile, MB and TWM allow you to keep using new procs for their entire duration)

Maybe reworks or boosts to Nature's Minne/Warden's Paean respectively to make them more interesting skills to use?

Other than that, I don't really know. BRD is currently in a pretty good place. Both the fantasy of both Archer and Bard are pretty well represented and mechanically, they have their place in the game as a supportive DPS, with DPS rotations that make sense. Really just a bit bloated on buttons with a few skills that are a bit "Ehh..." on the whole.

I really enjoy Bard as-is right now, so I don't envy the task of the devs to add more abilities. I already feel like we're pushing buttons a lot, so I'm not sure what new things I would add. I like most of the suggestions here so far, but I do have my own spin on a couple of them...

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Reworking how Foe's Requiem functions (Cast time and MP drain) potentially working it into Battle Voice.

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I would be okay with this only if they removed Foe Requiem's ability to hit unclaimed monsters (perhaps they'd just add a flat +3% damage boost to the Battle Voice buff, rather than making it a debuff).

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Refulgent Arrow replacing Heavy Shot while under Straighter Shot.

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I would much prefer it if Refulgent Arrow replaced Straight Shot (and maybe even have Refulgent Arrow renew the Straight Shot buff). It's not uncommon that I find myself delaying Refulgent Arrow a couple of GCDs if Barrage is almost ready (I'm open to critique, however, if someone's done the math that says this is a bad idea), and I use Heavy Shot while I wait.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Maybe reworks or boosts to Nature's Minne/Warden's Paean respectively to make them more interesting skills to use?

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Sorry to hear that you don't like them, but they are fantastic abilities. If they are modified, I hope they don't diminish the effects they already have.


And my own QoL suggestion:
I think BRD should be affected by their own Battle Voice.

Most of these suggestion are basically what I had in mind.

However I agree with raid I woulndt make RA replace HS.
There are plenty of occasion where you might need to delay it.

Army peons needs a rework indeed. I personally thought they could keep it the same but add a new skill that makes use of the proc. Perhaps an actual cast. I know many player dont want the bow mage to be back but having 1-2 cast every 1,5min woyldnt be so bad and would definitely make the song stand out .

Something like "Sniper Shot"
5s cast、each stack of Army Peons thingy (forgot the name) reduce casting time by 10%.

Anyway you get the idea.
Then you just make it a dps gain with something like 3 or 4 stack (so that the end of the song doesnt feel wasted if you didnt go back to 5stack)

Minne is actually an amazing tool. you wouldnt believe the difference it makes healing wise. Warden is a bit bad because most boss don't apply any debuff. (It'd be nice if it could remove one weakness debuff)

Otherwise i agree、nothing much to change. I actually don't expect Bard to change all that much

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Originally Posted by Raldo

I would be okay with this only if they removed Foe Requiem's ability to hit unclaimed monsters (perhaps they'd just add a flat +3% damage boost to the Battle Voice buff, rather than making it a debuff).

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As I recall, they're fixing that at some point soon.

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Originally Posted by Raldo

I would much prefer it if Refulgent Arrow replaced Straight Shot (and maybe even have Refulgent Arrow renew the Straight Shot buff).

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It's kind of awkward I guess... Given that there are reasons to delay (Barrage, or about to get other buffs/debuffs) but at the same time, Straight Shot is necessary to have access to in order to maintain the buff in the case that Straighter Shot procs at an inopportune time.

Though, tying it to something else would be nice, to reduce button bloat.

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Originally Posted by Raldo

Sorry to hear that you don't like them, but they are fantastic abilities, please don't take them away.

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Warden's Paean is great, I like it a lot. But really, when it comes down to it, there's 0 point having it on my action bar because of how few bosses actually use debuffs and the ones that do, often can't be removed... So a slight boost to its defensive capacity might not go amiss. I was personally thinking like maybe a 10% max health shield on the target or something.

Nature's Minne is pretty bad. Outside of fishing for Critlo shields to spread with Tactics, increased healing on a single target is meh. I say this as a Tank main whom has this effect as a self CD (As well as a defensive stance that provides it). Even as a skill, it's literally just inferior to MNK's Mantra (Since that is AoE which means it can be somewhat useful for helping with AoE healing which isn't as easy as a full heal on a single target with 1-2 oGCD skills)

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

Army peons needs a rework indeed. I personally thought they could keep it the same but add a new skill that makes use of the proc. Perhaps an actual cast.

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Mmm... I really don't like the idea of having a cast on BRD. Given how much the job focuses around its oGCD skills. It's why I hate even Foe Requiem's meagre 1.5s cast, it feels like an eternity.

Then if it was just another skill proc that's oGCD it'd feel a bit too much like TWM...

I dunno... It's hard to think of something unique that would actually work with BRD's existing kit.

Perhaps something like procs give a Repertoire buff that causes your next AA to deal bonus damage?

Sticking with the theme of being a completely passive song as well as one that enhances AA's (Sure, SkS does effect Empyrean Arrow too, but given that CDR is not retroactive it's not normally a noticeable boost to the number you get out over its duration...)?

So then you'd have MB that wants you to mash BL/RoD a ton, AP that is a fire and forget DPS boost and TWM that gives you the extra oGCD skill to weave into your rotation.

Make BRD scale on direct hit or have its own internal proc system (base proc chances with maybe RS and another cooldown boosting your song phases), and give it piercing. Foes needs a rework and I could see it retuned as an independent song that boosts your current song's proc rates while applying the same AoE debuff as it does now, as an example. Otherwise I'm happy with it as is and look forward to what they do with it.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Mmm... I really don't like the idea of having a cast on BRD. Given how much the job focuses around its oGCD skills. It's why I hate even Foe Requiem's meagre 1.5s cast, it feels like an eternity.

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Well what I had in mind would be akin to Perfect Pitch where you would only be able to use a fully charged a few times (with 5 charges instead of 3, I thought of perhaps 1-2 cast per song, 3 eventually if your DoT crit a lot with SCH + DRG buff)


Definitely not a fan of casting during the entire song either.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Then if it was just another skill proc that's oGCD it'd feel a bit too much like TWM...

I dunno... It's hard to think of something unique that would actually work with BRD's existing kit.
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Yup, which is why I thought about a cast (which thematically speaking works well with repertoir "Skill Speed")

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Perhaps something like procs give a Repertoire buff that causes your next AA to deal bonus damage?

Sticking with the theme of being a completely passive song as well as one that enhances AA's

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But that's the thing I hope they change, the fact that it is a passive song. It is Litterally the boring song.

Anyway, I know most people wouldn't like the cast anyway x)

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

But that's the thing I hope they change, the fact that it is a passive song. It is Litterally the boring song.

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Ehh, sometimes it can be nice to have a boring song. I mean, between boss mechanics and BRD's natural chaoticness with oGCD's and Straighter Shot procs and both other songs having their extra oGCD usages on procs, having a bit of breathing room can be a nice change of pace.

Especially if Warden's Paean/Nature's Minne are adapted and/or new support skills are added to BRD so you can use the passive song to put some additional focus on to using these kinds of support skills as opposed to "OMG I KEEP PROCCING BLOODLETTER RESETS HELP!" kinds of ridiculous proc streaks to watch for.

To say nothing about how such a thing would help ease the learning of BRD for newbies. Having a song, especially an early one like AP (As opposed to TWM) that doesn't have procs to manage, that doesn't suck completely like current AP, would be nice.

Especially given that if necessary, you don't even have to use the "Passive Song" for a considerable amount of time anyway, given how realistically you main 2 songs and only use the 3rd as a filler between the others (Due to the way the durations/CD's align)

As a side note: I still would like bowmage, just I'd rather it come in the form of Sniper rather than BRD ;)

I feel like BRD and MCH have way too much mobility over casters, they need to tone it back a bit, maybe slow down their rotation and make it so some of their skills have cast times or something. I just hate that they are the only role that can move around the entire battlefield without stopping DPS, it feels a bit unfair

I'm kidding, I do not want this, please ignore me

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

I feel like BRD and MCH have way too much mobility over casters, they need to tone it back a bit, maybe slow down their rotation and make it so some of their skills have cast times or something. I just hate that they are the only role that can move around the entire battlefield without stopping DPS, it feels a bit unfair

I'm kidding, I do not want this, please ignore me

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How about NO
I like my mobility as it is. We had castbars in heavensward and seeing they are gone again tells us something about how they were received.

Warden's Paean is actually situationally useful and can make the difference between someone living and dying in the right hands. It's the only instant cast Esuna-type skill in the entire game, and the only one that outright blocks those types of debuffs ahead of time. It was a big factor in enabling me to successfully tank Mist Dragon without dying last week. I've saved a lot of people in the 24-man raids with it, in situations that a healer would have a very difficult time reproducing with Esuna. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

As for wishlists... I assume the three songs are going to get enhanced in some way. My guesses:

- Mage's Ballad is upgraded to have a 'magic quiver' system, which lets you store up to 3 Bloodletter/Rain of Death charges for the situations where you get procs faster than you can use them, so you end up with less 'wasted' procs.
- Army's Paeon is upgraded to enhance critical hit rate per repertoire stack (up to +8% crit rate, +2% per stack). Most importantly, it is given a 'linger' effect that transfers the song buff to the full duration of the next song activated.
- Wanderer's Minuet is upgraded to store up to 5 repertoire charges, although you can still only expend up to 3 at once with Pitch Perfect.

Other things:
- Have Flaming Arrow come back in some way, maybe as a wind-element damage field since bards are rather wind-themed now.
- Heavy Shot to be upgraded/adjusted so that critical hits have a 50% chance to proc Straighter Shot instead of the base 20% rate. (Or using Barrage force triggers the Straighter Shot buff, but that's less interesting and too easy, as the critical hit suggestion is meant to synergize with Army's Paeon.)

Vicious Mockery.

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Originally Posted by Valdima

Vicious Mockery.

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Okay, this I can get behind.

Maybe give it a stun effect, or damage reduction. Or have it force the next enemy attack to miss if we want DnD accuracy, but that'd be utterly broken.

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Originally Posted by Valdima

Vicious Mockery.

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Alright, yeah, I want Vicious Mockery. It's even the name of my Bard gearset...

Really liking the suggestions atm. There's a few QoL things here I hadn't thought of.

The 3 buffs BRD can cast party wide depend on the song that is currently playing, I wish you could simply just cast them whenever you want to, keeping the long cooldowns though....

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Originally Posted by SaitoHikari

Warden's Paean is actually situationally useful and can make the difference between someone living and dying in the right hands. It's the only instant cast Esuna-type skill in the entire game, and the only one that outright blocks those types of debuffs ahead of time. It was a big factor in enabling me to successfully tank Mist Dragon without dying last week. I've saved a lot of people in the 24-man raids with it, in situations that a healer would have a very difficult time reproducing with Esuna. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

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But there you said it, in mist dragon... an expert.

This is somehow the core of the issue, the skill is only usable in casual content but requires expert hand (because a casual barely knowing what he's doing will never use it)

If they were to put more debuff (and reduce Esuna recast time to its cast time...) that would definitely be a good skill. But it currently isn't, because no situation makes it useful.

Another example would be Dismantle. Dismantle is a very powerful tool because you can stack it with Reprisal and it makes a lot of difference in late Savage (looking at you Ion Flux).

However, if no attack in the game would do more than expert level damage... then... what would be the point of dismantle?
No one would care, it would just be a trash ability because there's no need for damage mitigation.

A great tool is useless if you can't use it, and this applies to a lot of things, like WHM "over abundance of heal"... well great... but we don't need CureIII spam... so what's the point?

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

A great tool is useless if you can't use it, and this applies to a lot of things, like WHM "over abundance of heal"... well great... but we don't need CureIII spam... so what's the point?

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To follow on from this, it's a similar thing for Vercure too.

Vercure is a powerful skill and I've saved countless lives with it. In casual content.

It also has massive potential, because if a clutch Dual Cast Vercure can prevent someone dying (Long enough for a healer to react and bring them back from the brink of death) then it's super impactful, as it means you don't need to use the MP sink that is a Raise skill, nor does that person then have to suffer the Weakened debuff penalty from being raised.

But at the end of the day, in content where such bonuses actually matter, it becomes too niche.

WP suffers from the lack of debuffs being used in encounters. Just like Nature's Minne suffers from the fact that healing a single target just isn't an issue (For the most part healing increases like Minne/Convalescence and Largesse are notable for AoE "healing" through getting massive Critlo shields to spread off of a WAR with tank stance bonus to boot)

That said, as I mentioned prior, I don't think the skill needs a complete rework so much as just enhanced utility. Something else to go along with the cleanse effect that can make it be useful in some more situations. Hence the proposition of a 10% max health shield on it. Since 1) It already mentions "Shielding" an ally as part of its debuff protection mechanic and 2) You'd now have some minor utility with helping someone stay alive a bit, be it using it on a tank to give them 10% EHP for a Tank Buster or similar to a clutch Vercure you can pop it on a low health ally to buy a second for the Healers to get their cast(s) off to recover the target.

It would still retain its niche use for anti-debuffs in the situations where that actually matters, but now you also have a few more niche situations in which you can use it (Or at the very least, slap it on the MT to get some free LB generation)

Nature's Minne is the niche utility skill that I'd look for a complete rework for. Due to how mediocre heal increases actually are when you consider just how high healing throughput is even with just oGCD skills - To say nothing about trying to actually time the use of a heal increase skill as a non-Healer as you have no idea what tools the healer has available and is planning to use at a given moment in time. I.e. Someone might be getting low on life but the healer is planning on full healing them with Tetra/Dignity as soon as they finish their cast anyway before they then get hit by an Adlo to shield them from further damage and so bonus healing is not necessary.

As for what to work it into, I don't really know exactly. A random idea would be to try and recreate the common tool available to Bard characters in most other games and have it be a HoT effect for the party. Possibly as a trait that causes your songs to give small ticks of healing. Though, even this would be suspect given how healer throughput works where they're very bursty so sustained healing diminishes in value. (To say nothing of the massive enmity generation such a thing would provide...)

I dunno, I don't think this is all that hard. It's easy enough to add things onto the kit without changing the core.

Whatever they do with Foe, they could add a second song with similar properties (i.e. if Foe becomes an oGCD but still drains MP, make a second song like that).

If they keep MP draining as a thing that happens in Bard's kit, they could add things that interact with that - i.e. a skill that's only usable at low MP, or an additional way to gain MP back besides Refresh, etc.

Adding a cooldown that's usable at 4 AP stacks is an easy enough way to do something with AP that doesn't involve a rework. I'm sure the current design as a "cool off" skill is intentional and probably a good thing overall regardless of veteran grumbling, but I could envision SE adding just a little more spice to it.

A random oGCD that deals damage are easy enough to slot in. If it has a DoT element that procs repertoire, it would be a sensible addition. If it was AoE, maybe kinda a fiery arrow of some kind, that'd be cool...

And there's always the ability to add other narrow support skills, maybe something that fusses with song cooldowns so you can re-arrange them more plausibly, a means to force Refulgent, maybe a second buff besides Raging Strikes, or a trait that makes Raging Strikes do something additional, really I could list at least a dozen easy skills/traits they could add that would be interesting but not mess with the core kit.

Their own Bane and for Straight Shot to proc at opportune times rather than when the boss jumps.

I personally hope they do not touch brd too much in fear of them mucking it up. I love the SB take on Brd and personally would not change a thing about it.

It's been a while since I've played Bard, since the rework in HW, and I haven't felt comfortable when trying it in SB. I really like OP's suggestions, and these are some of the things I'd wish to have as well:

- Iron Jaws turn into Sidewinder after use when Sidewinder is not on cooldown, to reduce button bloat.

- Enhanced Barrage (trait): Barrage has X% chance to nock and release an additional arrow.
- Enhanced Barrage+ (trait): Barrage has a reduced cooldown by 15(?) seconds, down to 65 seconds.
- Barrage Mastery (trait): Barrage also work with Aim skills/abilities.
- Aim Mastery (trait): Unlock the potential of using Aim/Charge skills. Changes Quick Nock to Aim:Traveler.

- "Aim:Concentrate" (skill) - Charge up the next single target attack with explosive power like a Bombard, affecting nearby enemies in a radius, applying a status effect if the skill causes one. Rain of Death not affected.
Additional effect: Immediately have an effective radius of 3y. After 2.5 seconds have an effective radius of 5y with 2.5% increased potency to first target. After 5 seconds, have an effective radius of 8y with a 5% increased potency to first target.

- "Aim:Traveler" (skill) - Charge up a sniper shot. Next single target weaponskill also pierce through and affect enemies in a straight line. Rain of Death not affected.
Additional effect: After 2.5 seconds, activated weaponskill damage increases by a stack of 1% for each enemy hit, with a maximum of 5%.
Additional effect: Last enemy gets hit by blunt damage.

Both Aim may be too complicated. Skill names combination of Archer Technicks from FFXII, and abilities from FF Tactics and FF Tactics Advance. I don't remember seeing any BRD use Quick Nock in Stormblood, so I'm thinking it could use an upgrade/a change for later levels, that's why I'm proposing e.g. the Aim:Traveler skill. The Aim skills would also give several enemies the Caustic Bite and Stormbite DOT at once. If anyone have a take on the Aim/Charge skills I'd like to know :)

In case they don't change Battle Voice back:

- Tuning Arrow (skill): Attune to last applied select applied status effect when Tuning Arrow was used, and applies the Tuning Fork status effect. Additional effect: Songs have a stronger effect on target. Tuning Fork can only be applied to one target at a time.

Then combo with either:

- Resonant Arrow v.1 (skill): Apply status effect attuned by Tuning Arrow to target, by applying the Harmonic/Achilles status effect. Additional effect: Songs have a stronger effect on target. If applied to the same target as Tuning arrow, has X% chance to get a stack of Oscillate pr. tick. After 3 stacks of Oscillate, will consume the status effect in a single burst and remove both Tuning Fork and Harmonic. Does not stack with Resonant Arrow or similar effects. Effect ends if outside range of Tuning Fork.

- Resonant Arrow v.2 (skill): Fires an arrow into the ground, woven with the power of song attuned from the Tuning Arrow. Applies the status effect recorded by Tuning Fork to targets within the arrows range, at 50% potency to first target, 40% to second target, 30% to third, and 20% to remaining targets. Effect removed if outside of range of Resonant Arrow or Tuning Fork. Additional effect: Songs have a stronger effect on affected targets. Does not stack with Resonant Arrow or similar effects. Radius: 5y

Otherwise I like the earlier suggestions posted before me :)

Bard is honestly near perfect right now. Only things I would want is guranteed refulgent procs, and for refulgent to apply the crit up buff just like straighter shot.

Lets see...

- Give warden's paean a cure 3 AOE radius
-Nature's minne to have paloton's radius w/ a minor MP cost added
- QOL improvements to earlier levels
- A mechanic that would auto cast the defensive buffs w/ easily met conditions
- RA to replace straighter shot proc and share a button and refresh the crit buff
- an gcd to ignite windbites in a chain that would inflict a 12 second burn DOT (windbite will remove brn dot, and it will also work with repetiure procs). Just so multidots are way quicker
- return wide volley as an upgrade to quick knock
- return 2.0 shadowbind
-a mechanic that would reward players for switching songs with buffs or carrying over effects into the next song (ex: carrying over armies paoen effect or restoring 13% of parties mp after ballad)
- Change battle voice to a passive trait
-change paloton to a passive trait

- to balance give summoners a W summon type ability that they must feed by a charge shot gauge mechanic, or maybe abilities that would add more potent dmg abilities along w/ the existing abilities. and give blackmages a void trance and group void plain shift abilities used by the acsians.

Give us the ability to apply piercing resistance down ourselves

Well I actually really like minne and I think it's quite potent.
+20% on nearly all my aspected benefic (diurnal) helps. It help topo g tank after à tb, adlo deploy. It has many use and unlike WP, it's very new bard friendly. It last long enough so that even if your bard use it on cd, it will be used on a few spell there and there.