Why do bard songs need a target?

I don't get why with the amount of times bosses become untargetable, bard songs still need a target. It breaks the song rotation and ends up being punishing for no reason. I guess cheesing could be a problem with songs being no target required, but then it could just be made to only be useable in-combat. It would be great if they could not need a target instead.

Because they are attacks...They all deal unaspected damaged for 100 potency.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

Because they are attacks...They all deal unaspected damaged for 100 potency.

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I think that's part of their question: Why they include the unaspected damage element at all, when for the most part they're cycling buffs on the user and their damage is negligible anyway. If you removed the damage (and distributed it elsewhere in the rotation), you'd see negligible difference in how the job works.

I think the answer to that question is in how the songs work during downtime... but then again, what benefit do they have without a target anyway?

If I had to guess, its to prevent pre-pull stuff, especially since the buffs proc without dots now.

Technically, I think it might be because all GCDs require some kind of target, but it could be changed to be more like an AoE around the player (like Medica GCD) instead for usability. It's just BRD is a DPS so it's rare you would not be targeting an enemy at all times outside things like Nature's Minne so I'm not sure what the problem is.

Never mind, I think it's an OGCD? I can't test right now and BRD is literally my second least played job hahah.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

If I had to guess, its to prevent pre-pull stuff, especially since the buffs proc without dots now.

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Sure, but as OP suggested, they could easily go on the same system we see with abilities like Aetherflow that cannot be activated while out of combat anyway, preventing any sort of pre-pull.

As I was saying, being able to cast without a target would only affect downtime periods where enemies can't be targeted, and in that scenario (or even including pre-pull), without a target to uncap Bloodletter on, the most you would get is... pre-charging Army's Ethos, or maybe a single Pitch Perfect? Either of which is already a potential waste of buff uptime anyway...
Which frankly, the idea that a Bard doesn't get any sort of downtime effect, even just humming to pause their song timers, is already kinda curious.

It makes things very frustrating if you drift songs between boss transitions, would love to see them become a AOE or just remove the damage

Every job has to deal with drift. Its actually extremely bad on BLM with their thunder proc. The design is intentional to make you adjust your rotation.

Stuff that only works in combat can be weird in terms of how long it takes for the game to realize that you're "in combat". But you're right that aside from that fact, it would be a clear improvement to just have the songs not deal damage and be combat-only. Personally, I would also accept an 80s cooldown on MB and AP, which I think overall would do more good.

SE just hasn't prioritized Bard QoL concerns, is all. Other than, for some reason, making a couple changes nobody asked for in 6.1, while ignoring issues that are actually frustrating people.

Presumably SE just doesn't have the bandwidth to properly care for all 20 jobs at this point. It's a guessing game of which jobs they're going to decide most need attention at any given time, and then a second stage of guessing at whether they actually understand what a job's needs are.

Honestly it is weird, when you consider that dancer doesn't (and its dance does way more damage in an AoE)

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Originally Posted by Ransu

Every job has to deal with drift. Its actually extremely bad on BLM with their thunder proc. The design is intentional to make you adjust your rotation.

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The difference is Black Mage doesn't lose access to it's kit when they let things drift or when unfriendly timers force downtime. Bard's do.

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Originally Posted by Rika007

The difference is Black Mage doesn't lose access to it's kit when they let things drift or when unfriendly timers force downtime. Bard's do.

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Uh....yes they do lol.

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Originally Posted by Cetonis

Stuff that only works in combat can be weird in terms of how long it takes for the game to realize that you're "in combat".

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Possible work-around is disallowing Repertoire generation, specifically, outside of combat, although I don't know how difficult that would be to implement from a programming perspective.

Codas would still be an issue, but they could honestly just remove/rework that mechanic?

It would also make lingering songs weaker in cases of non-combat downtime (e.g. dungeon traversal).

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Originally Posted by Ransu

Uh....yes they do lol.

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No they don't. Black Mage has downtime tools like umbral soul that allows their Astral and Umbral rotations to keep ticking when the boss is untargetable. They can hold or use their most powerful GCD due it's stacking mechanic so that they don't lose potency if a burst window has to be delayed by 30 seconds because of unfriendly raid mechanics.

Bard has none of these things. If a boss becomes un-targetable they can't use their songs. Which can completely throw off their burst rotation and misalign Wanderer's minuet. If it makes sense for a raid to delay their burst window then their are times that a Bard literally has to go songless, thus entirely locking a Bard out of their rotation. They can't spend their most powerful GCD if it overcaps, they just have to hold it and deal with overcapping because of lost potency. These are not things a Black Mage has to deal with.

Literally one of the things people always list as a strength of Black Mage is how flexible it's rotation is, how much easier it is to recover from a death, or recovering from drift. If you had said a job with more strict rotation timers like Ninja or Summoner sure. But Black Mage is one of the more flexible jobs in the game when it comes to it's rotation. Bard is probably second to only Summoner in rigidity.

A better question would be. Why are attacks songs?

Only the buffs should be songs. Everything else should be an attack.

It doesn't make sense but long answer,

If songs wouldn't need a target, you could use them and build your Finale. Building that Finale would be mandatory because its a significant damage boost. They could fix it by saying you need to be under combat to get your stickers but it would also very likely spawn a very cursed opener where you'd pop a song and wait like 35 seconds and nobody wants that.

Short answer; to prevent cursed openers.

The 'song' is actually coming from the enemy. You shoot it with a rusty arrow causing it to cry out in pain for 45 seconds, which inspires nearby allies.

Hmm.. guess they could make them like a non target proximity aoe that for damage over time instead. Same range as the buff so as long as its damaging you build guage? Sort of like mch flamethrower but without the movement lock...

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Originally Posted by AxelDH

The 'song' is actually coming from the enemy. You shoot it with a rusty arrow causing it to cry out in pain for 45 seconds, which inspires nearby allies.

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Can we make this official lore? lol.