Bard pre-launch tweak wishlist

Hi! Having played with the current numbers a bit, there are some cool things about the media tour Bard design, and I'd have to say that overall I'm fairly pleased.

But hey, since YoshiP said they'll likely be tweaking Bard riiiight up until the last minute, I figured I'd offer up some small tweaks that I think would be helpful or desirable for various reasons.


1. Make Army's Muse 15 seconds - This would go in tandem with the broad concept of all song-related things getting a 50% increase. And for Muse in particular, 10s of Muse leads to some cursed timing scenarios at the end of WM that still exist with 45s songs.

Making it 15s will very stealthily make the WM exit feel better for the average player, and reduce random PP loss/ghosting or song drift/gaps, even though they won't understand the hows and whys.


2. Slightly buff DoTs or Raging Strikes - Having fielded Bard questions in The Balance for years now, I can tell you that players really like snapshotting plays. They're easy to learn, easy to execute, and give players that positive feeling of improvement.

The MT kit has a cool dynamic on this front, where you bridge IJs from the end of one Raging into the start of the next. I think it would be nice, and would make players happier, if that play had a little more of an impact, if possible.

In short, if there is space power wise to allow Bards to self-buff, I'd much prefer that space be used here instead. +5p to the DoTs would aim directly at the above play, while bringing Raging to 15% would have added effects of rewarding other plays more like holding Blast Arrow.


3. Do not touch Pitch Perfect's potencies.


4. If possible in the time frame, a second EA charge would do a little smoothing - The BL charges should do quite a lot in terms of making Mage's Ballad feel better around EAs. But, there's still a small (but not trivial) possibility of some wacky stuff going down surrounding BL's natural cooldown timer. EA charges would solve this, but it's more of a nice-to-have (I think, at this time anyway).


5. This is a pipe dream, but a 75s Radiant Finale cooldown would be awesome - Raid buff timings like 0-2-4-6:30, or 0-2-4:30-6:30, etc. are fairly common due to mechanic interference. 75s RF would be able to flex in those scenarios, while also possibly making it more clear to new players that it isn't meant to be a "90s buff".

I can't find too much to disagree with here. I don't mind the current Radiant Finale timings but 75 would really be nice to flex based on fight timings. That probably is the biggest pipe dream as you said though since apparently in a JPN interview Yoshi-P made it apparent that the intended use of the 90 sec timer was for it to be used at 2% for the opener and then held for the full boost at 2 minutes.

My one personal call for?

Buff the proc rate of Repertoire specifically only during Wanderer's Minuet to 50%
This one may conflict with not touching Pitch Perfect's potencies, as if they did do this it would require a hit to the potency to insure it remains balanced. The key thing here is to bring back some of that late Stormblood feel Bard had when it's opener was ripping off 8 fully powered Pitch Perfect's within the full WM time window. It REALLY felt good to hear that fully proced sound go off and then let it rip over and over again, often just between GCD's like a machine gun. The buff wouldn't be needed in Mage's Ballad as Blood Letter does not need three procs to need a use. And Army's Paeon only needs four procs to hit maximum benefit.

If a full 45 second song duration of 50% procs makes Apex Arrow and Blast Arrow to strong, then those could also be adjusted a bit, but I don't see that being the case. If it did though another option would be to only make the proc rate higher when Raging Strikes is active. That will keep the opener feeling nice and bursty along with the second window, but won't effect the rest of the rotation.

Personally agree on all fronts, all harmless suggestions which would enhance the job, all except EA charges

This is personally something I’m not liking about EW is seeing how Charge savy all the jobs get, considering how heavily scripted the content is the jobs aren’t designed to have this flexibility and just feels inorganic. Works for BL since they reset, works for support and utility like Sharp cast and Aurora. Doesn’t work for skills like EA, since they don’t reset and you don’t need to hold it at all as you wanna spam it naturally, you’ll never have 2 charges again unless it’s a longer AF transition. Just sounds slightly defeatist and somewhat pointless.

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Originally Posted by Rika007

Buff the proc rate of Repertoire specifically only during Wanderer's Minuet to 50%

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I kinda lean towards Army's Paeon for an increased Repertoire proc rate. I think everyone agrees that it's the weakest of the three Songs, and so it'd be nice if AP served as a way to quickly accumulate Soul Voice to ensure you're popping off a Blast Arrow during you 120s burst. WM for Pitch Perfect, MB for Bloodletter, AP for Apex Arrow and Blast Arrow. Although it does run into the issue of maybe dropping an Apex Arrow before the burst phase, but Blast Arrow can be held safely for 30s at least.

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Originally Posted by Rika007

Buff the proc rate of Repertoire specifically only during Wanderer's Minuet to 50%

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Probably abit overkill, I don’t wanna delude PP into a spam fest like say, Heat blast or Bloodspiller. I’m all for increasing the rates at lower levels, I’ll even take EA refilling all 2 procs instead of 1. Or maybe give Army some depth, in EW we don’t really need a cool off period anymore due to how long the songs are now and could use something.

Here are some things I would like to contribute to the wish list:

1) Change Empyreal Arrow back into an off-global weaponskill, like it was in Heavensward and Stormblood. Allowing skill speed, Army's Paeon repertoire effect, and the Army's Muse buff to reduce its recast may be a niche quality of life change, but it will smooth things out with avoiding potential drift during double- or triple-weave windows. It can also be streamlined so that it is the only single-target weaponskill to not use Barrage's effect, seeing how it is now meant to be used on Straight Shot/Refulgent Arrow.

2) Allow a single use of Pitch Perfect outside of the Wanderer's Minuet if the song ends with repertoire stacks available to spend. This will prevent losing uses of the ability when repertoire is generated at the very end of the song, which is an unfortunate loss of potential damage.

3) Add a stack spender for Army's Paeon. As it stands, the repertoire effect caps out at four stacks, so any further procs are lost to overflow or only contribute to Soul Voice generation. Having a stack spender, like granting stacks of Straight Shot Ready or a potency buff for example, would give us more options and activity for the song. This would be a good change due to the extended duration of songs in Endwalker.

4a) Return the River of Blood trait. Before Stormblood, the effect of resetting Bloodletter's recast (and Rain of Death's since Stormblood) was originally a trait. Since Stormblood, it was moved into a repurposed Mage's Ballad, where we only get the effect for the song's duration. The River of Blood trait should be brought back, which leads to the next item:

4b) Repurpose Mage's Ballad's repertoire effect. Should the River of Blood trait make a return, the repertoire effect of this song could be increased proc generation. This would allow for more Bloodletter/Rain of Death resets and a faster accumulation of Soul Voice. Ethos and Muse effects can be added as well, allowing a weaker version of the original effect carry over into the next song.

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Originally Posted by SlyRoyale

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2,3,4 here are almost definitely impossible in the context of a final tuning situation (as much as I wanted 2 as well).

They could probably swap EA's skill type, and you're right that it would essentially "buy back" a GCD of drift per cycle. I assume SE would rather give it charges though, in terms of addressing the related concern. Either would work.

I'm a new Bard so my opinion isn't worth much but I really like the extra charge of Bloodletter and more changes in that vein would be awesome imo. The number of all-or-nothing mechanics make the job rigid and stressful, but maybe that's part of the fun.

What do you all think about Wanderer's Minuet Repertoire going up to say 5 while Pitch Perfect still caps at 3? Or Apex Arrow spending 10-50 Soul Voice rather than all of it? Or a 3rd Bloodletter charge since 2 can still fill instantly with both dots lol.

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Originally Posted by Tulzscha

What do you all think about Wanderer's Minuet Repertoire going up to say 5 while Pitch Perfect still caps at 3?

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This is actually the motivation behind the third point in OP :) As it turns out, with PP2 = 220p, and PP3 = 360p, using PP at 2 stacks is effectively free - the risk of a double proc counters the added potency of PP3 almost exactly.

Similarly, using Apex at anything from 80-100 gauge is roughly the same potency per gauge. So you have some flexibility there as well.

I would like to see quick nock have some sort of token song proc coefficient to makeball songs more interactive for AOE.

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Originally Posted by Cetonis

This is actually the motivation behind the third point in OP :) As it turns out, with PP2 = 220p, and PP3 = 360p, using PP at 2 stacks is effectively free - the risk of a double proc counters the added potency of PP3 almost exactly.

Similarly, using Apex at anything from 80-100 gauge is roughly the same potency per gauge. So you have some flexibility there as well.

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Oh nice, didn't know that. :D

One tweak that I would love is making the Songs into GCD skills with more involved/longer animations. We could then have potency compensation elsewhere for the lost GCD. oGCD songs just feel like they are being swept under the rug between ARCHER PEWPEWPEW.

Yes this 100% this. While I have no trouble filling soul gage to 100% usually almost full with mages ballad and then peon I think for the times when its quite not there this would do wonders!!!

Quick nock is being replaced with the new skill.

A little car ride thinking, an alternative to EA charges would be just to do anything at all that makes BL and EA not have the same cooldown. That could be a 12s BL cd, a 20s EA cd, 30s BL, whatever really. The numerical balance can be altered to suit.

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Originally Posted by HappyHubris

One tweak that I would love is making the Songs into GCD skills with more involved/longer animations. We could then have potency compensation elsewhere for the lost GCD. oGCD songs just feel like they are being swept under the rug between ARCHER PEWPEWPEW.

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I’m almost certain this will be the case in 7.0 as we’ve been using the song animations since 2.0. Names would be like Wayfaring Minuet, Sorcerer’s Ballad, and Warlord’s Paeon. Shocked they didn’t do this in but the songs themselves could use some more interplay besides background noise for buffs and triggers which is just fine and all but more is better and BRD lost its more frantic dot shuffling and could use more tools

Should share this here too -

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...-z8bj_1SGaRNJA

Some of what's in here illuminates the thinking behind some OP points more. Haven't put BL-natural-cooldown stuff in there yet because it's a headache and I kind of hope for some change to not have to deal with it -.-''

Bumping to complain about 10s Muse in more detail :P


At a 2.5s GCD, if a player uses The Wanderer's Minuet at a normal time (right after their last GCD in Army's Paeon), they will only get 4 GCDs under the speed bonus (1.35s, 3.55s, 5.75s, and 7.95s into the buff).

Moreover, there will be a GCD 0.2s after WM ends, which means the player will need to do a PP-MB weave in the window before that, or else spend about a full second songless.

Newer Bards rarely ever want to leave WM early, so they typically take the songless route and leak song uptime over the course of a fight.

But even if they (correctly) cut WM early, it means giving up the last 1.5s of WM, which feels wrong. It's the kind of thing that makes people say the job is "clunky" with no ability to put their finger on why.


If the player is a little more advanced, and hold off on WM until the late part of the window, they can get five GCDs under the buff (assuming they don't try to double weave with moderate-high ping).

However, now there's a GCD about 44.25s into WM, which is even worse than the above. It tempts players into thinking they can get a PP off after the GCD when they can't, causing it to ghost at best.

Or, they can again leave WM 1.5+s early, using a late weave PP and then going to MB after the GCD, while spending the 1.5s in between watching PP procs show up that they can't use.


Nobody likes this. There's no positive to it, it just feels bad every time. The ghosting side of this makes Enhanced Army's Paeon almost feel like a nerf, rather than a beneficial trait.


The "solution" is to take some Skill Speed, to get to a GCD of 2.46 to 2.48s. This allows players using a delayed WM to get a fraction of a second that lets them get that end-of-WM PP off instead of ghosting it.

That works well enough, but it's unforgiving, and requires medium-high ping players to be very careful with their weaves. And it's still unclear to the common player what's going on, whether or why they want the skill speed, and they still need to know to do the delayed WM besides.


Making Army's Muse last 15s would make delayed WMs lead into a clean exit even at 2.5s. WMs used asap after the last Army's Paeon GCD would still lead to a dicey end situation at 2.5s, but they'd at least get the full slate of buffed GCDs out of it.

Not a perfect solution, but it'd be a nice improvement to a murky, irritating problem few players know about, but many of them feel.

Or, just rework Enhanced Army's Paeon to do anything-else. (random example: if it added 10% to straighter shot procs per stacks, the average player would be excited by it - even though it's actually a very small change numerically. There's tons of stuff like this SE could do)

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Originally Posted by Cetonis

Bumping to complain about 10s Muse in more detail :P

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Or, just rework Enhanced Army's Paeon to do anything-else. (random example: if it added 10% to straighter shot procs per stacks, the average player would be excited by it - even though it's actually a very small change numerically. There's tons of stuff like this SE could do)

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Yes please for the love of god yes. Muse is awful. I've been getting my Bard back on in anticipation for Endwalker and good lord am I reminded how terrible of a trait Army's Muse is. I personally would once again like to voice my want for higher pitch perfect proc rates, and just make it that Muse instead lasts 20 seconds (same duration as Raging strikes), and during those 20 seconds instead of a haste effect it grants a higher proc rate to repertoire in some way. Some trickery would need to be done to insure this is not a buff that is snapshot able since that would be pretty nuts with new DoT durations. But it would sure as hell make our 2 minute burst window feel MUCH more better and active. I just want to see 4 or 5 Pitch full power perfects during raging again more often. Or gods forbid actually make 2 stack pitch perfects more useable.