Compression of Bard Job Skills

As I understand it, SE combined Pitch Perfect and The Wanderer’s Minuet into a single skill chain for the purpose of freeing up a skill slot on the bard hotbars. Unfortunately, because of the way most people probably have their bard skills arranged, with the songs clustered together for an easy rotation and the attack skills clustered together for easy chaining, the result has been that most bard players have likely just replicated The Wanderer’s Minuet on their hotbars to maintain their current arrangement and preserve muscle memory, consequently, negating the intended skill slot savings. (I, like some others, think SE should just reverse this change, as it hasn't really done anything other than add extra coding work for the devs).

Examining the bard skills, I think a better way SE devs could have accomplished the compression they may have been intending would have been to use skill chaining, the conversion of one skill into another skill on the hotbar under certain conditions, to combine several skills into one and to combine the two separate DoT skills into a single DoT skill. Below, I propose the following changes that will result in freeing up 4 skill slots for bard as well as streamlining the overall action rotation for bard:

1. Remove Venomous Bite and Windbite (and, consequently, their upgrades, Caustic Bite and Stormbite) separately and combine their effect into Iron Jaws as a singular skill that either applies both DoTs at 15 and 20 potency, respectively, for 45 seconds or a singular DoT with 35 potency for 45 seconds. In conjunction, increase the potency of Iron Jaws from 100 to 145. To account for the upgrade in the skills at level 64, can introduce a new skill (Steel Jaws, maybe?) with potency 230 that either applies both DoTs from Caustic Bite and Stormbite at 20 and 25 potency, respectively, for 45 seconds or a single DoT with a combined potency of 45 for 45 seconds. In total, this change affects a savings of 2 skill slots on the hotbar and greatly streamlines bard action rotation.
   
2. Make Straight Shot/Refulgent Arrow no longer assignable to hotbar. Instead, Heavy Shot/Burst Shot will transform into Straight Shot/Refulgent Arrow whenever they become Straight Shot Ready. This will save 1 skill slot and streamline bard action rotation.
   
3. Make Shadowbite no longer assignable to hotbar. Instead, Quick Nock/Ladonsbite transforms into Shadowbite whenever they become Shadowbite Ready. This will save 1 skill slot and streamline bard action rotation. It must be noted that, while Shadowbite has a longer range than Quick Nock/Ladonsbite, because the only way to become Shadowbite Ready is through use of Quick Nock/Ladonsbite, the player is often forced to be only 12 yalms or closer to his/her intended target. So, the longer range of Shadowbite is often unused.

I think this would be a better set of changes to save on skill slots on the bard hotbar compared to combining Pitch Perfect and The Wanderer’s Minuet.

BRD button bloat is not a thing.

Can we please just have a job that has just a single "Attack" ability so we can direct all the whiners trying to destroy other jobs to it?

Having 2 DOTs that you can refresh with one skill is just the game rewarding you for maintaining awareness of your rotation. It entirely changes how you want to prioritize your DoT refreshers, where with something like the healers the design is that it's not a big deal if you lose a few seconds of DOT uptime. Bard being a DPS class means not maintaining your output should have bigger consequences.

Also the entire point of a proc based rotation is that you have to pay attention to your procs, if you just automatically use them without even having to look at the screen there's no point to having them. If you want a mindless single button spam SMN and the healers are right there.

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Originally Posted by Azuri

Can we please just have a job that has just a single "Attack" ability so we can direct all the whiners trying to destroy other jobs to it?

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Just have them play healers, we’ve had that gameplay for 2 expansions now.

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Originally Posted by Bonkleberry

BRD button bloat is not a thing.

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Not suggesting there is bloat. I'm just throwing out a suggestion based on I what I perceived was the direction SE was trying to go with the class. Also, I think by freeing up 4 skill slots that makes way for new skills to be added.

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Originally Posted by Azuri

Can we please just have a job that has just a single "Attack" ability so we can direct all the whiners trying to destroy other jobs to it?

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Wow! Calm down! I'm not whining, here. I'm just making a suggestion. I'm honestly happy with the current bard, but that doesn't mean that there can't be some changes that might lead to later improvements.

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Originally Posted by ThorneDynasty

Having 2 DOTs that you can refresh with one skill is just the game rewarding you for maintaining awareness of your rotation. It entirely changes how you want to prioritize your DoT refreshers, where with something like the healers the design is that it's not a big deal if you lose a few seconds of DOT uptime. Bard being a DPS class means not maintaining your output should have bigger consequences.

Also the entire point of a proc based rotation is that you have to pay attention to your procs, if you just automatically use them without even having to look at the screen there's no point to having them. If you want a mindless single button spam SMN and the healers are right there.

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There's still plenty of room for awareness, still. You still have to pay attention to whether your DoTs are indeed still up on the target, and you still have to pay attention to whether Straight Shot Ready has procced before using Barrage. By compressing 4 skill slots, one makes way to add new skills that could introduce more utility and ability to the class. Plus, you're still having to pay attention to the procs on your oGCD skills and choosing the correct one to maximize dps. However, with the skill-chaining, you could have cross-chains where one has to pay attention to the order of execution of different chains in order to use effectively, requiring you to be aware of which chains have procced and when. Aion was like this and required significant skill to play effectively. So, there can still be a lot of skill required even though there is compression. It would just require shifting to a different gameplay style from the one currently implemented.

That being said, if there is a reduction in the need to stare at one's hotbar searching for procs, that may open the possibility to shift focus more to paying attention to encounter mechanics rather than hotbar procs (I've had more than one player comment to me that the problem they have playing bard is that they stare hotbar more than they pay attention to what is happening in the fight because they are having to hunt for what's currently procced or ready).

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Originally Posted by DioK

As I understand it, SE combined Pitch Perfect and The Wanderer’s Minuet into a single skill chain for the purpose of freeing up a skill slot on the bard hotbars. Unfortunately, because of the way most people probably have their bard skills arranged, with the songs clustered together for an easy rotation and the attack skills clustered together for easy chaining, the result has been that most bard players have likely just replicated The Wanderer’s Minuet on their hotbars to maintain their current arrangement and preserve muscle memory, consequently, negating the intended skill slot savings. (I, like some others, think SE should just reverse this change, as it hasn't really done anything other than add extra coding work for the devs).

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Im only addressing this as I personally got no beef with the rest of the post, no matter how non-sensical I find it.

1.) The decision to why this actually was done is because unlike Refulgent Arrow and Shadowbite, Pitch Perfect is essentially locked behind an ability with a 120 second cooldown upon activation. While not ideal, you absolutely have the choice of holding your procs from Refulgent Arrow and Shadowbite, whereas you have a 45s window to use Pitch Perfect, then it is 75s downtime for it.
2.) Players choosing to bind another Wanderer's Minuet where their Pitch Perfect was does not negate the implementation. Players who wish to use the old layout do this, but players like me who like the consolidation have a cleaner setup for themselves. This is literally a "best of both worlds" scenario, you are complaining for complaining's sake.
3.) You are assuming it is extra coding work for the devs when the reality is more likely that the framework for this has been created years ago. Using engine and tech already in the game, this is literally a non-issue, this is more a question for the combat / job design team rather than the coders.
4.) If there is anything more costly than resources spent on features / implementations it is removing them without an actually critical reason.

With SE's stance on DoTs over various jobs (they don't want any), this might just happen sometime.

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Originally Posted by DioK

Also, I think by freeing up 4 skill slots that makes way for new skills to be added.

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Please consider that the devs aren't too keen on adding things anymore. For example people were looking forward to seeing more things being added after they scrapped a ton of skill from MCH and turned all healers into glare bots back in Shadowbringers and 4 years down the line they've added nearly nothing to make up for all that. This is why you'll see a lot of pushback against removing abilities in general now. I feel a complete rework is more likely to happen than 4 whole new skills being added to a single job.

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Originally Posted by Reinhardt_Azureheim

Im only addressing this as I personally got no beef with the rest of the post, no matter how non-sensical I find it.

1.) The decision to why this actually was done is because unlike Refulgent Arrow and Shadowbite, Pitch Perfect is essentially locked behind an ability with a 120 second cooldown upon activation. While not ideal, you absolutely have the choice of holding your procs from Refulgent Arrow and Shadowbite, whereas you have a 45s window to use Pitch Perfect, then it is 75s downtime for it.
2.) Players choosing to bind another Wanderer's Minuet where their Pitch Perfect was does not negate the implementation. Players who wish to use the old layout do this, but players like me who like the consolidation have a cleaner setup for themselves. This is literally a "best of both worlds" scenario, you are complaining for complaining's sake.
3.) You are assuming it is extra coding work for the devs when the reality is more likely that the framework for this has been created years ago. Using engine and tech already in the game, this is literally a non-issue, this is more a question for the combat / job design team rather than the coders.
4.) If there is anything more costly than resources spent on features / implementations it is removing them without an actually critical reason.

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You may have some reasonable points, although calling my suggestion non-sensical seems a bit harsh. I will concede that it is possible my presumptions are in error (that SE is looking to gain some savings on skill slots, which is particularly beneficial for those who play on controller); however, there is one point with which I do have to take exception. I'm not complaining or whining, here. I'm merely making a suggestion based on what I thought SE might be trying to do with bard.

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Originally Posted by Hezhi

With SE's stance on DoTs over various jobs (they don't want any), this might just happen sometime.



Please consider that the devs aren't too keen on adding things anymore. For example people were looking forward to seeing more things being added after they scrapped a ton of skill from MCH and turned all healers into glare bots back in Shadowbringers and 4 years down the line they've added nearly nothing to make up for all that. This is why you'll see a lot of pushback against removing abilities in general now. I feel a complete rework is more likely to happen than 4 whole new skills being added to a single job.

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I wasn't expecting any further additions throughout the 6.xx set of expansions. This would be something more for 7.xx or 8.xx in the future. I think having the extra 4 skill slots would give them more breathing room to make any sort of rework.

To clarify for those who think I'm whining or complaining, I'm not. I'm merely making a suggestion. You may think the suggestion bad, which, so far, you all do, but that is all it is, a suggestion based on a presumption I had (the validity of which is reasonable to be argued), not a complaint.

BRD is the last DoT job in the game and it's barely hanging on, I really don't want to see the DoTs removed or just combined into Tri-Disaster lite. I think they're likely going to remove 1 DoT and Iron Jaws in 7.0 and just roll the potency into the other DoT, but hopefully they don't and instead lean back into the DoTs. With the merging of Wanderer's and Pitch Perfect, BRD easily has 2 spaces it can fill for two new buttons in 7.0 without getting rid of anything I think, but if they wanted to merge the Refulgent Arrow button with Burst Shot I wouldn't mind at all. I'm not a high level BRD player by any means so I can't say if there's ever a reason you'd want to hold Refulgent procs, but as far as I can tell there's not really?

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

BRD is the last DoT job in the game and it's barely hanging on, I really don't want to see the DoTs removed or just combined into Tri-Disaster lite. I think they're likely going to remove 1 DoT and Iron Jaws in 7.0 and just roll the potency into the other DoT, but hopefully they don't and instead lean back into the DoTs. With the merging of Wanderer's and Pitch Perfect, BRD easily has 2 spaces it can fill for two new buttons in 7.0 without getting rid of anything I think, but if they wanted to merge the Refulgent Arrow button with Burst Shot I wouldn't mind at all. I'm not a high level BRD player by any means so I can't say if there's ever a reason you'd want to hold Refulgent procs, but as far as I can tell there's not really?

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I'm definitely not advocating removing the DoTs, however, since BRD DoTs no longer matter toward our skill procs, what is the reason for maintaining the complexity of 3 separate buttons for managing them. The last thing was that Sidewinder did damage based on the number of DoTs the bard had up on the target; now, it just does a flat 300 potency. So, previously, there was a gameplay/game-mechanical reason to have the separate DoT skills and refresher button. However, that's no longer the case, and, as I said, DoTs no longer matter toward our skill procs. Perhaps I am missing something, but it just seems to me that maintaining 3 separate buttons for managing DoTs that no longer have any gameplay/game-mechanical effect other than extra damage is complexity for the sake of complexity.

Even so, like you, I don't want to see the DoTs removed, but I do see reason and possibility to streamline their use and activation.