1/3:
Yeah, another one. I figure it's worth the extra thread if it means my "voice" can be heard and my old main job might get properly looked at. Prepare to read words.
<I'm focused on BRD, but I'd like to see all Support DPS discussion>
I notice BRD players are mixed on what they think of the job right now. Some people are content, more are upset, and I've counted more than a few threads on the topic, but I'd like to know the specific changes people wanna see with Support DPS for the role to be mostly where we want it. After I moan and groan a bit about how BRD currently functions, I'm gonna post a wishlist of ideas to spark discussion.
To put it bluntly, as an ex-BRD main from the start of Stormblood to the end, I'm shocked that the changes weren't shot down internally at the moment of proposal. I'm beyond disappointed with how the job's gameplay turned out in ShB. Patch 5.1's adjustments also felt like a straight refusal to...well I was gonna say "change anything at all," but people are waving parsed numbers around as if those affect our gameplay whatsoever, and calling it good. So I'll rephrase that to say, what was changed was not at all what needed to be changed in the eyes of most BRD players, as far as I can tell.
My understanding is that they gutted BRD at ShB launch because they wanted to kill party synergy (as a whole?) and center the new support class (DNC) around the concept as the support class...no, please abort that operation. It means that I'm expected to level another class to the cap if I want to continue emulating the job that I already capped out because I actually enjoyed it. Either way, I don't buy the "killing party synergy" thing at all, otherwise they wouldn't have kept and distributed more party buffs between several other DPS jobs. It looks like NIN just jacked BRD's soul stone and split it 50/50 with his new friend who likes flailing her limbs around.
Needless to say I'm a NIN main since they slaughtered BoReD, but before we got the patch notes I said to my friends, "I bet they're gonna make BRD and DNC complement each other! That'll be fun!" ...Oh boy, uhh, that didn't happen... Now I find myself asking, "Why not have BRD buff the party with songs of inspiration, and DNC debuff the enemy with dances of intimidation?"
Right now, after the opener it's just "Burst -> Burst -> Burst -> Oh cool Refulgent! -> Burst -> Burst..." till it's time to pop those longer CDs real quick, and go right back to Burst Shot. Wanderer's Minuet and Mage's Ballad help make attacking somewhat of a dynamic process, but it's the lack of necessary upkeep and active thoughtful party support that makes the periods of successive "Burst Shot -> Refulgent Arrow" feel exceedingly drawn out. In Stormblood, it was a constant mixup so you hardly felt like you were mashing the same thing for too long, even when you were begging for the Refulgent proc.
Now, onto the constructive post...
Let's look at Support DPS...
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11-06-2019, 04:30 AMLtPlebberoniLet's look at Support DPS...
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11-06-2019, 04:31 AMLtPlebberoni
2/3:
<Dumb BRD Ideas>
-MP gauge was basically changed to a percentage bar that any non-caster doesn't touch. It'd be a perfect fit for a Foe's Requiem resource like before.
-Reimplement [Foe's Requiem]. "Within an (x)-yalm radius, increase the party's firepower by (x)%."
-Reimplement [Refresh]. Even if it's made single-target, it would be an emergency supply of MP..
-Reimplement a skill like [Palisade] or add a HOT skill. A HOT would be cool if the Healer needs help keeping up, and it would contrast from DNC's burst heal.
I wouldn't propose adding both, that'd be redundant. One or the other.
-Reimplement a personal-buff skill. It could affect the Soul Gauge, or affect the proc rate of DOTs, or recover our MP in battle.
It'd keep us busy as a job without combo actions, and cover the repetitive [Burst Shot] window with a mixup that needs our regular attention. Most classes have a personal buff to upkeep, so should we.
-Merge [Caustic Bite] and [Stormbite] into 1 skill.
3 skills for 2 of 1 effect feels redundant. Both DOTs could be turned into Traits which get added onto this new skill, so you still get each DOT as you level the job, and it would retain both DOTs' identities.
You should always have both DOTs active anyway, and pressing [Iron Jaws] once every 30 seconds isn't hard. This would remove a GCD consumption for more or less the same effect and clears 2 skill slots.
-Repurpose Iron Jaws. Maybe refresh DOTs with your personal buff?
-Nerf [Quick Nock] a little to make way for an upgraded version via job level progression; Psst, this could be used to reintroduce [Wide Volley]'s animation.
-Revise the 3 song abilities and tie new buffs that activate with [Troubadour], this time providing a wider choice in party buffs.
--[Mage's Ballad] reduces the party's damage taken by (x)%.
--[Wanderer's Minuet] increases the party's Direct & Crit hit rates by (x)%.
--[Army's Paeon] shares GCD speedup with the party (Would this cause issues with other classes?).
-Repurpose [Battle Voice]: Increase the Soul Voice Gauge under a specific condition, like NIN's [Meisui] or MCH's [Barrel Stabilizer].
-Do something with the Soul Voice Gauge. Make [Troubadour] consume a chunk of it and reduce its cooldown to be timed 1 in 3 songs (90sec).
Apex Arrow is nice where it is. It would create a choice of burst damage vs [Troubadour]'s longer-term impact.
-Reimplement [Misery's End]. This time it could consume Soul Gauge, acting as a powerful single-target version of Apex Arrow.
-[Repelling Shot]. Does anyone use this? Good to know it exists as a clutch save button from enemy AoEs, but what if we had a "[Propelling Shot]" to leap into support range and apply buffs? We'd then use [Repelling Shot] to reform a gap between us and the enemy. -
11-06-2019, 04:33 AMLtPlebberoni
3/3:
Another idea: Tanks have a toggle ability for enmity generation. This toggle used to be a damage/defense trade-off system based on whether they were trying to pull as MT or just deal damage as OT. What if Support DPS jobs had a similar toggle which cuts their personal damage output but strengthens their otherwise-negligible party buffs? Deactivation of this skill would cancel any active buffs. Such a system would allow Support DPS to shine in parties without blowing the overall damage out of the water, and their default OFF option would be to hold their own in solo content.
Obviously balance is a major concern. Lots of adjustments to potencies, proc rates, and accumulation of the Soul Voice Gauge would need to be made to account for the utility and activity added by changes like these. The majority of complaints I see about ShB BRD are NOT necessarily concerned with keeping high skill potencies, but the fact that the job is just boring, unsatisfying, and not exactly worth playing now with its low overall contributions. That, and we have almost zero control over *how* we support our party.
EDIT: Of importance...
Quote:
Originally Posted by LtPlebberoni
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11-06-2019, 04:50 AMForteNightshade
I don't know who you have been talking to but no one "waving parsed numbers around" would describe 5.1 Bard as good considering its now the weakest job in the game even with its new passive utility. With that said, I have to shoot down your idea of a "stance" for any support job. You mentioned old Tank stance, but look how often it was utilized. People will not sacrifice damage for support unless said support is a gain for the raid—at which point, why does it even matter? They tried a pure support system back in Heavensward where Bard's old songs gave MP/TP at the cost of 10% of their damage. Bards refused to use it more often than not because it destroyed their damage output. Part of the reason they dropped this design from tanks is for that very reason.
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11-06-2019, 05:13 AMLtPlebberoni
"Waving parsed numbers" was referencing the few people I've spotted saying stuff like "this is good because I feel like I'm making everyone else do 1% more damage, it's a step in the right direction." They're around, just gotta look for 'em.
I see what you're saying though, and it's a fair reason to avoid a stance skill situation. -
11-06-2019, 05:36 AMHyoMinPark
Honestly, I’d rather them revert to 4.x BRD, and figure out a way to address the power creep that happened with our passive song support and crit scaling. I’d prefer Repertoire returning to where it could be manipulated once more to add another layer of optimization to the job. I wouldn’t want to see consolidation of DoTs or anything else like that—that’s basically what happened to the healers and their DoTs (sans AST), and no healer likes it (I miss Aero III).
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11-06-2019, 06:15 PMJandor
Songs that use MP as a resource would be nice.
One that transfers your MP to someone else, maybe one that puts a HoT on your target.
Be nice to get Foe's back too. -
11-06-2019, 10:06 PMRasikko
Does every buff have to add damage? Maybe give BRD something unique and new. How about haste? Obviously good enough where it doesn't screw with GCDs.
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11-06-2019, 11:00 PMDuskaneadding haste would still be adding damage in the long runQuote:
Originally Posted by Rasikko
and no it doesnt have to be about damage but people generally tend to ignore none damage boosting utility unless its PLD -
11-07-2019, 08:54 AMLtPlebberoniPretty much what I'm saying.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rasikko
In 4.x, BRD's more prominent support tools were split into straight damage and defense on their own separate cooldowns/resources. Our main defensive utility was a choice of 1 of 3; Magic defense, physical defense, or a weaker version of both, all attached to the same rather long cooldown...and that could have had more creativity put into it. Still, while that system wasn't perfect, it didn't detract from the joy of supporting the party whilst holding my own.
Next time, I'd personally like to see a way for the 3 songs to lean towards a choice of slightly furthering defense or damage potential, instead of the simpler-yet-functional system that we had before.
I know some people would argue, "Why would you ever not go for max damage potential?" I'd say it's okay to sacrifice a small Crit + Direct rate or even a Haste buff in favor of defense when the Tank + Healer are in trouble. Adding a few seconds can save a few minutes. -
11-07-2019, 11:01 AMHyoMinParkThe only issue with haste is that some jobs will not like it—I believe this would currently apply to NIN, MCH, and DNC. Not sure how SMN and RDM feel about Haste, but I’ve never heard them liking spell speed, so.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rasikko
It would depend on what haste applies to. Auto-attack would likely be fine. But if it directly affected the GCD like AST’s old Arrow did, it likely wouldn’t be that popular save for with certain jobs. -
11-07-2019, 05:27 PMCKNovelHaste could indeed desynch some rotation, MCH tends to go with a very fixed sks for the best Heat generation and Drill/Air Anchor cooldowns. One good example is that 2.48s GCD is the "norm" but 2.44s GCD is best for Levi to squeeze an extra Air Anchor before the first Maelstrom.Quote:
Originally Posted by HyoMinPark
NINs and SAMs have their fixed cooldown at 60s, extra sks would desynch their cooldowns, especially TA.
It would lead to more complex optimization, "What is my best GCD in this fight with this support".
The final goal is to deal damage, so damage is the best kind of support to go without annoying any other jobs. -
11-08-2019, 06:14 AMGrimoire-MThey can keep the current system and instead use Raging Strikes to increase the Repertoire proc rate by 10-25% for its duration without having to risk any nonsense like that again. I’d much rather give SAM/BLM crit scaling procs instead and let BRD lean more into buffing other classes.Quote:
Originally Posted by HyoMinPark
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11-08-2019, 08:37 AMdarcstar62
I can't see them ever adding different effects -- remember SB AST? They decided that "everyone just fishes for Balance anyway" and changed them all to straight damage buffs. (crying in AST)
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11-10-2019, 04:08 AMGruntlerThen you're not understanding the situation and if this is your core premise then everything after is going to come out wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by LtPlebberoni
They did not want to kill party synergy.
They wanted to kill Nin/Drg/Brd/Sch as the solid meta. They wanted to remove the 'Bard needs Dragoon to work' from the equation, they wanted to remove 'bard is a critwhore so stack crit buff jobs' as the meta. They wanted jobs other than bard to show up in the meta and be accepted as decent in groups for once in this god damn game's life. That's why they didn't abolish synergy, but why they changed the synergies that were specific to the BRD/DRG/NIN/SCH meta. -
11-10-2019, 04:30 AMAbelArchaniEAWell hopefully you feel better now..... or you just wasted a bunch of time rantingQuote:
Originally Posted by LtPlebberoni
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11-10-2019, 05:02 PMLtPlebberoni
I'm seeing some good logic in this thread that never even crossed my mind, especially from what Gruntler was saying--I actually didn't piece together that the current system makes things more fair for every job.
Annnd, oof... To clarify where I stand, since I did come across as a jackass in the OP:
My intent isn't to be a poopoo ranting with a closed mind. If I wanted to do that, I wouldn't have posted on an active forum dedicated to discussing the very thing I'm providing feedback on. Yes, I wanted to express my own frustrations toward BRD's identity shift, but my goal here is to get a better understanding of the current systems that are in place from people who have more extensive knowledge of the game/other classes than I do. With that, I'm looking to bounce ideas back and forth, even if it won't result in any actual job redesign.
I apologize; The way I chose to word things came off as more "ragey" than the "comically miffed" look that I was aiming for, and it likely drove away good potential for the discussion I was looking for.