Bard is support right?

I was memory farming and was in Dravanian Hinterlands all by myself and grinded alone on my bard. We all know bard sucks but I still love the job. Why don’t my songs work on myself? Really SE? Dancers dances work on themselves but my songs don’t work on me? Why am I even called a bard then.... this is ridiculous. You stripped bard of all support when shadowbringers came out to give dancer the leg up then after the outcry from fans of the job you gave us back pathetic excuse for support... like none of my songs work on me. The support isn’t worth it anyway but I take what I can get. Bard needs help bad. Especially in the support department. Job shouldn’t be called bard if we can’t support ourselves well or even others.

Your songs still play, and you can use any of the skills they proc, but the buff they grant only goes to party members.

I'm not sure how that means they're not support based...

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

Your songs still play, and you can use any of the skills they proc, but the buff they grant only goes to party members.

I'm not sure how that means they're not support based...

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I’m talking about the buff with the songs. The buffs aren’t good anyway. They need to be buffed to even be worth it. In my eyes anyway.

Bard is physical ranged DPS with support skills. Also "support" is typically what you do to other people, not yourself. Claiming that something isn't support because it doesn't support itself is silly...

Bard and Astro need to go back to they way they were in SB and then add stuff to them from there.

Bard is support in it's lore only. Plenty of other jobs that don't even have a support centric lore are actually far more supportive of the party then Bard is at this point in the game, too much of it's kit was gutted from Stormblood and not enough given back to make up for it. But in reality it's song's not buffing the caster itself is not really a part of the problem. Neither Battle Voice or the Songs buffed the user in Stormblood either and Bard was very strong back then. But Bard also had crit Synergy, piercing debuff and foe's Requiem back then to boost its power. None of those things exist now so hence the drop in power and the more ridiculous it feels to not get buffed by its own songs. It's also even crazier when you consider that the Songs and Battle Voice are the ONLY two offensive buffs in the game that can in no way be used to affect the one that casts them.

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Originally Posted by LeonKeyh

Bard is physical ranged DPS with support skills. Also "support" is typically what you do to other people, not yourself. Claiming that something isn't support because it doesn't support itself is silly...

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Hmm well let’s see. Astro can give itself cards and dancer can increase its own dps with standard and technical step. Bard however can’t receive its own buffs at all. So next time you try to come for me make sure you have your facts straight. Have a nice day.

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Originally Posted by VictorTheed

Bard and Astro need to go back to they way they were in SB and then add stuff to them from there.

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I agree with you.

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Originally Posted by Rika007

Bard is support in it's lore only. Plenty of other jobs that don't even have a support centric lore are actually far more supportive of the party then Bard is at this point in the game, too much of it's kit was gutted from Stormblood and not enough given back to make up for it. But in reality it's song's not buffing the caster itself is not really a part of the problem. Neither Battle Voice or the Songs buffed the user in Stormblood either and Bard was very strong back then. But Bard also had crit Synergy, piercing debuff and foe's Requiem back then to boost its power. None of those things exist now so hence the drop in power and the more ridiculous it feels to not get buffed by its own songs. It's also even crazier when you consider that the Songs and Battle Voice are the ONLY two offensive buffs in the game that can in no way be used to affect the one that casts them.

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Exactly. Totally agree with you. Bard and Dancer are practically neck and neck in dps but dancer is killing bard in the support department. That’s not good at all. Square needs to buff our support. Point blank. However I don’t think they will do anything groundbreaking for bard until 6.0, so I won’t hold my breath for patch 5.4. If they do buff bards support in 5.4 I will be very shocked.

I wont deny that Bard could use a buff, but you do realize that the party buff is supposed to be a byproduct of the songs main effect on the Bard. Bard gameplay is "fine" if you know what I mean, it's just it's potencies need a bit of an adjustment. I think the biggest potency buff they need now if a more streamlined Apex arrow, and the song potencies increased. Bard is well balanced within the ranged role, but not alongside other DPS, when support skill are considered.

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Originally Posted by Eloah

I wont deny that Bard could use a buff, but you do realize that the party buff is supposed to be a byproduct of the songs main effect on the Bard. Bard gameplay is "fine" if you know what I mean, it's just it's potencies need a bit of an adjustment. I think the biggest potency buff they need now if a more streamlined Apex arrow, and the song potencies increased. Bard is well balanced within the ranged role, but not alongside other DPS, when support skill are considered.

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I agree with you. I have only been speaking on terms of the support. Bard and Dancer are on par with each other damage wise and that’s totally okay. I also agree with you about Apex arrow being a bit off. Im speaking specifically about the support aspect. The percentages on the damage increase, crit and direct hit from the songs are just way to low. Also bard doesn’t benefit from the song buffs themselves. This seriously needs to change.

I agree, and I don't agree.

I agree because BRD's passive song buffs are so ridiculously low it wouldn't make a difference to have the BRD itself benefiting from them.

I don't agree about...the above being a relevant factor when considering if BRD's support kit is ok or not.

The problem is we have too many support jobs and skills.
Dancer, Bard, AST, then there's Trick Attack, Eye of the Dragon, Chain Stratagem, etc.
Because these can all stack together, they can't have too great an effect or their buffs will quickly snowball out of control and it'll either be too powerful, or the jobs personal damage output will have to be nerfed down to barely anything.

Why would you care that you dont get your own song buffs if one makes you a burst god for 30s, the other turns your bow into a rapidfire arrow-gun for 30s and the last one is basically you after arm day for like 30s?

Apart from minor potency adjustments or some change about Apex Arrow, BRD looks fine to me.

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Originally Posted by Reinhardt_Azureheim

Why would you care that you dont get your own song buffs if one makes you a burst god for 30s, the other turns your bow into a rapidfire arrow-gun for 30s and the last one is basically you after arm day for like 30s?

Apart from minor potency adjustments or some change about Apex Arrow, BRD looks fine to me.

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Burst god? It has the lowest average 30s opener of all 3 physrange while simultaneously having the lowest possible 30s burst due entirely to RNG. That alone tells me you have no idea how Bard works.

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Originally Posted by Darsien

Burst god? It has the lowest average 30s opener of all 3 physrange while simultaneously having the lowest possible 30s burst due entirely to RNG. That alone tells me you have no idea how Bard works.

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Thank you! Which I why I didn’t even respond to it. Has no idea.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

The problem is we have too many support jobs and skills.
Dancer, Bard, AST, then there's Trick Attack, Eye of the Dragon, Chain Stratagem, etc.
Because these can all stack together, they can't have too great an effect or their buffs will quickly snowball out of control and it'll either be too powerful, or the jobs personal damage output will have to be nerfed down to barely anything.

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Then they should just call the job ranger and call it a day. Bard is about support. That’s the fantasy definition of it. I do agree with you when you say to many jobs have support but bards is just way to low and not very impactful to the group whereas dancer, Astro, trick attack, chain stratagem and eye of the dragon are. It’s not fair to bards. Square should correct this.

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Originally Posted by SweetPete

Then they should just call the job ranger and call it a day. Bard is about support. That’s the fantasy definition of it. I do agree with you when you say to many jobs have support but bards is just way to low and not very impactful to the group whereas dancer, Astro, trick attack, chain stratagem and eye of the dragon are. It’s not fair to bards. Square should correct this.

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Natrues minn, Troubadour and battle voice are all chopped liver than

just bring back Foe's Requiem lol

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Originally Posted by Jirah

Natrues minn, Troubadour and battle voice are all chopped liver than

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Yes, yes they actually are. Trobadour is a shadow of what it used to be back in Stormblood where it required you to use actual thought and have to communicate with your static when the best use of it was and how the fight lined up with your rotation, now it's just a simplified generic defensive buff that is essentially a glorified role action that was handed out to the other two ranged jobs, just another part of Bard's identity ripped away to make Dancer shine more. Nature's Minne was 'buffed' to allow for it to work on all healing. YAY! But it's cool down timer was double so you get to use it less then half of the time, aka less support usage and chances to flex your play as a support during a fight. Booooo....

Battle Voice is a solid offensive buff yes. But it pales compared to every other offensive buff in the game. It has a longer cool down timer then every single other offensive buff in the game save Devotion and Battle Littany (one of which is a flat damage buff and the other of which is a crit buff, both arguably far stronger stats to be boosting then Direct Hit in all but a few select situations). Trick Attack, Standard Step, Technical Step, Dragon Sight, Brotherhood, Devilment, AST Arcana, Chain Strategem, are all on far shorter cool downs and outside of Dragon sight provide the same if not more benefit than Battle Voice, and EVERY SINGLE ONE of the above abilities I just mentioned, all provide a benefit to the caster of said ability. Battle Voice is the only damage utility in the game that provides the user with NO benefit at all. So not only is it's benefit average or poor compared to its contemporaries, not only do you only get to use it two to three times a fight, but you don't even get anything out of it. It's worse than chopped liver. It's the fat that should have been stripped off the steak.

And before you mention the consistent damage songs let me just put it this way, 95% of Bard's going into Shadowbringers if told they had to axe 2 of the 3 damage buffing support abilities they would have selected the songs first, then Battle Voice second, (and then asked for a new ability to compensate the loss of those) and told the devs to stay the hell away from Foe's Requiem. Cause the songs do nothing for gameplay. They were removed, then added back on, and both changes literally changed nothing about how a Bard plays the game. They don't engage the player or change up anything about what the job does. They are a placebo to try to make Bard players ok with what they loss, and they do a poor job of it.

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Originally Posted by SweetPete

Hmm well let’s see. Astro can give itself cards and dancer can increase its own dps with standard and technical step. Bard however can’t receive its own buffs at all. So next time you try to come for me make sure you have your facts straight. Have a nice day.

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You have a fairly loose definition of facts... Where did I say that Astro and Dancer can't give themselves buffs? Nowhere. You do you though guy.

Foes, charges in empy/BL, these are two things that need adding to start and resolve bard

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Originally Posted by LeonKeyh

You have a fairly loose definition of facts... Where did I say that Astro and Dancer can't give themselves buffs? Nowhere. You do you though guy.

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I said what I said and I stand by it. Have a nice day. Guy.

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Originally Posted by Wyakin

Foes, charges in empy/BL, these are two things that need adding to start and resolve bard

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I agree with you. Also the song potencies need to be buffed and they should affect the bard as well.

BRD's songs really should work on themselves. I think part of the issue with BRD's party buffs is that they're sort of ill-balanced for group content in a way that tends to just make it better to bring a DNC most of the time. Maybe increase the DPS buff for DPS somewhat while having healers and tanks be affected differently? Like having an MP regen or vuln down buff applied instead. I don't know, something to diversify their utility a bit while still allowing their damage to be raised without it being overly imbalancing.

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Originally Posted by Veloran

BRD's songs really should work on themselves. I think part of the issue with BRD's party buffs is that they're sort of ill-balanced for group content in a way that tends to just make it better to bring a DNC most of the time. Maybe increase the DPS buff for DPS somewhat while having healers and tanks be affected differently? Like having an MP regen or vuln down buff applied instead. I don't know, something to diversify their utility a bit while still allowing their damage to be raised without it being overly imbalancing.

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I really like this idea. I don’t want dancer and bard having the same type of party buffs. A friend of mines told me that bard song buffs are so low because they buff the entire party 100% of the time while dancer only buffs their dance partner 100% of the time while only having technical step for the entire party every 2 minutes. I mean I understand that but bard songs potencies are just way to low. They should bring back mp regen for bard and like you said just unique buffs to make it stand out from dancer.

I don’t really care how SE addresses the ranged conundrum. As long as the overall dps of all three is increased by 3%

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Originally Posted by Darsien

Burst god? It has the lowest average 30s opener of all 3 physrange while simultaneously having the lowest possible 30s burst due entirely to RNG. That alone tells me you have no idea how Bard works.

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My apologies then, at least to my gut feeling Wanderer's Minuet feels as fine as ever since Stormblood. Frankly speaking I didn't base it on any data, so I'm glad you correct me there.

However, based on a single side-jabbed comment to just say "you have no idea how bard works" is pretty disingeniuous. I didn't spend the majority of my playtime in savage on it, but I get the idea and have played it on occasion. At best I felt like making a joke, at worst my perception of how impactful BRD's is a tad twisted.

But apart from that, my point still stands - BRD's songs give everyone small buffs while doing something bigger for BRD via Pitch Perfect / Bloodletter / haste procs. Sure, giving BRD access to these party buffs as well may give BRD the dps boost it needs, but wouldn't potency changes accross the board or related to song procs do the same?

I think the SE balance team is hesitant to just straight up give BRD its' own buffs sincethat means they need to take into account these buffs into future calculations. So at least based on my gut feeling they will sooner boost potencies.

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Originally Posted by Reinhardt_Azureheim

My apologies then, at least to my gut feeling Wanderer's Minuet feels as fine as ever since Stormblood. Frankly speaking I didn't base it on any data, so I'm glad you correct me there.

However, based on a single side-jabbed comment to just say "you have no idea how bard works" is pretty disingeniuous. I didn't spend the majority of my playtime in savage on it, but I get the idea and have played it on occasion. At best I felt like making a joke, at worst my perception of how impactful BRD's is a tad twisted.

But apart from that, my point still stands - BRD's songs give everyone small buffs while doing something bigger for BRD via Pitch Perfect / Bloodletter / haste procs. Sure, giving BRD access to these party buffs as well may give BRD the dps boost it needs, but wouldn't potency changes accross the board or related to song procs do the same?

I think the SE balance team is hesitant to just straight up give BRD its' own buffs sincethat means they need to take into account these buffs into future calculations. So at least based on my gut feeling they will sooner boost potencies.

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I’m specifically talking about support that bard gives. It sucks. Dancer is killing it in the support department. Dancer has a heal, 100% uptime on dps, a 5% dps increase for the entire party every 2 minutes as well as Crit and direct hit buff to their partner every 2 minutes. Bard just sucks and if procs aren’t on your side when you sing then it’s even more worthless. Square needs to take bard to the drawing board and give us a healthy amount of support and dps 50/50 like dancer. Right now bard is like 80% dps and 20% horrible support. That’s not good at all.

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Originally Posted by SweetPete

I’m specifically talking about support that bard gives. It sucks. Dancer is killing it in the support department. Dancer has a heal, 100% uptime on dps, a 5% dps increase for the entire party every 2 minutes as well as Crit and direct hit buff to their partner every 2 minutes. Bard just sucks and if procs aren’t on your side when you sing then it’s even more worthless. Square needs to take bard to the drawing board and give us a healthy amount of support and dps 50/50 like dancer. Right now bard is like 80% dps and 20% horrible support. That’s not good at all.

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Technically BRD has a few "equivalents" to support skills of DNC, but I admit - Minne isn't nearly as impactful as Curing Waltz, Technical Step feels like a second Trick Attack compared to Battle Voice and the buff windows are at least reliable and aligning with other buffs better than BRD songs.

Perhaps personally I dont take issue with it being like 80/20 mix, but I get where you are coming from.

Technically BRD's support kit isn't bad, but it feels outdated.

This thread shows the divisiveness of the Bard community. Half of you want support for your Bard. The others want to be viable dps. You can't have both.

No wonder SE has this class identity all jangled up. They don't know which side to listen too.

But lets be honest, until you get a 4th physical range class that can be selfish like Machinist, allowing Bard and Dancer to be competing range buffers, Bard is going to suffer. So unless they will back to back add a physical range in 6.0 (and I don't think they will), this issue won't be resolved until 7.0 at the earliest.

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Originally Posted by Kesey

This thread shows the divisiveness of the Bard community. Half of you want support for your Bard. The others want to be viable dps. You can't have both.

No wonder SE has this class identity all jangled up. They don't know which side to listen too.

But lets be honest, until you get a 4th physical range class that can be selfish like Machinist, allowing Bard and Dancer to be competing range buffers, Bard is going to suffer. So unless they will back to back add a physical range in 6.0 (and I don't think they will), this issue won't be resolved until 7.0 at the earliest.

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Then you miss the point. To get viable dps there are two choices. Option A: more support. Option B: more personal dps. All three ranged need a generic 3% dps buff to be where they should be. For bard it’s simple, add foes and charges to BL and empy

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Originally Posted by Wyakin

Then you miss the point. To get viable dps there are two choices. Option A: more support. Option B: more personal dps. All three ranged need a generic 3% dps buff to be where they should be. For bard it’s simple, add foes and charges to BL and empy

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How I see it is, if they keep the support as it is then I don’t see why the songs needs to be on a timer to bounce between them. Make mages ballad and wanderers minuet toggles. Like mages ballad could be the song for dungeons on trash mobs while wanderers minuet can be used on boss fights. These are just examples so don’t crucify me. Army’s Paeon they would just have to change this song to make it competitive with the other 2. Maybe it can be a small regen song on a timer so it won’t be OP. So maybe 30 seconds it gives a regen effect then goes on a cool down and you can end it early if you want if you toggle on another song. Bard is a very busy job as it is so that can take some of the pressure off too from remembering to bounce between songs every 30 seconds. I know other bard abilities would need to be adjusted if this was to be implemented but I truly believe it could work.

BRD used to be used as support in Raid groups back in the day. The songs actually had effects on the Party, like granting MP Regen, TP regen, etc, while also lowering BRD's own damage by 20%. Now, the songs provide more ability uses for the BRD itself while giving the rest of the party SOME support.

I liked how the old BRD was. I didn't like when BRD had cast times on skills. I like BRD now, because songs pushing it's damage more.

BRD was my first dps in the game back in 2013, so I generally stay up to date on her, and would love some of the old skills returned (Rain of Death used to lower target's Attack). Wide Volley was hella nice for speed runs.

I don't understand?
The first noob song mage ballad gives shitty buff to others but let you refresh bloodletter? Isn't this far better effect for bard anyway?

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Originally Posted by SweetPete

We all know bard sucks

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says who? No job in ff14 is useless even ranged with "weaker" attributes hardly matters when absolute mastery of your job and the fight are far more important, if they dont care about numbers and dislike dots and songs thats highly subjective. Dont be force feed the negativity without valid points any job can perform well, much to the disdain to those who treat them like trash because of numbers sake

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Originally Posted by SweetPete

How I see it is, if they keep the support as it is then I don’t see why the songs needs to be on a timer to bounce between them. Make mages ballad and wanderers minuet toggles. Like mages ballad could be the song for dungeons on trash mobs while wanderers minuet can be used on boss fights. These are just examples so don’t crucify me. Army’s Paeon they would just have to change this song to make it competitive with the other 2. Maybe it can be a small regen song on a timer so it won’t be OP. So maybe 30 seconds it gives a regen effect then goes on a cool down and you can end it early if you want if you toggle on another song. Bard is a very busy job as it is so that can take some of the pressure off too from remembering to bounce between songs every 30 seconds. I know other bard abilities would need to be adjusted if this was to be implemented but I truly believe it could work.

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like the fists right? a novice idea which will render Bloodletter useless since Mage is pure AOE now. I dont like this idea as itll trivialize BRD and make it more boring to play. to loose momentum is to strip away the party of buffs and you without Soul procs, having it just be Wanrderers would make it incredibly boring to play as theres no variety anymore. if it were implemented the new rotation would be Armys for speed than wanderers then once Armys ethos expires back to wanderers which is only 10 secs which is my best guess

BRD is busy becuase it has nothing else to worry about , no cast bars, no positional, free movment, its not the hardest ranged the other two are pitifully easy worrying about even less than BRD. If they did the First approach they need to completly revamp BRD and i dont think thats required unless SE feels like slaughtering another job