RIP Bard

[kyuven]

I said before I'm fine with there being a new method of DPS, just why did we have to waste a song? Why couldn't we have gotten a new support song and then gotten this stance as an Archer's CA? I love playing BRD for that support aspect and though this 'song' can integrate with the others, seeing nothing new to the table in that area is a bit disappointing.

There's not really much left to add as song abilities that wouldn't either completely unbalance BRD or be useless.
If they added a physical version of foe requiem, they'd be singing that all the time since there's ALWAYS physical going out.
If they added an HP song, same story
They've vehemently said no haste song
an accuracy song would straddle the line between useless and overpowered, with useless being more likely since if you need it, you're not geared correctly.
Individual stat boosts would require six new songs.
"bubble song" (DEF or RES) would either be useless or overpowered, and is being covered completely by the healers.

So yeah future songs, such as this one, will play more esoteric roles.

BRD really just feels like a parse machine more than anything.

Too bad they parse lower than other jobs, ESPECIALLY if they're doing their job right.

[Edellis]

There's not really much left to add as song abilities that wouldn't either completely unbalance BRD or be useless.
If they added a physical version of foe requiem, they'd be singing that all the time since there's ALWAYS physical going out.
If they added an HP song, same story
They've vehemently said no haste song
an accuracy song would straddle the line between useless and overpowered, with useless being more likely since if you need it, you're not geared correctly.
Individual stat boosts would require six new songs.
"bubble song" (DEF or RES) would either be useless or overpowered, and is being covered completely by the healers.

Yeah, this is another thing that steered me away. Bard's support capacity is eextreemellyyy situational. The vast majority of them aren't even useful unless your party is underperforming. Endgame, it's almost always just ballad. If not ballad, Foe for free. They have 3 AoEs, only one of which (quick nock) is ever practical, Rain of Death's debuff is very useful...again, only if your party is under-performing. Same with Paeon. Same with their limit break. Wide Volley is useless. The entire AoE proc chain is useless.

They are definitely useful, but it seems like the majority of their abilities was balanced around the fact they can free-roam, which in turn caused the rest of their abilities to just sit on this line of "useful but meh" where nothing specific can really shine. This new stance looks to directly change that, which is something i wish they had from level 50.

[Lewtskie]

The thing with the mobility was, pretty much every other job has a combo dmg stacking mechanic, but had they ever needed to move to avoid or reposition they'd run the risk of losing their place. Bard practically has none of that save for Straighter Arrow procs but they can maintain max damage while being able to easily reposition themselves anywhere. That, and since songs have a limited range you'd have to be able to follow people in case they just decided you had cooties or something.

The whole shoving mobility aside thing now really irks me. Seems like putting unnecessary new "tactics" on the Bard having to be particular about positioning, when they were the only class never having to worry about that. So just forcing this process of casting times on us is messed up. Yes, they can still move while under Minuet's effect, but maintaining maximum damage output like now will become impossible. They could have at least made it so you move slower while charging your arrows.

[Arkenne]

About movement

Well, I suppose the idea behind this is to give the BRD a mayor sense of awareness of its surroundings, just like the BLM must have it now with their new buff, or the DRG with their jumping timings.

Again, Minuet implementation doesn't mean BRD will no longer attack while moving, you just have to turn it off, which Im guessing will be instant, then you can keep attacking while dodging mechanics, just like you've been doing so far.

[Lillia]

snip for text space

If it turns off as fast as Cleric Stance does then we can just turn it off swiftly and do what we gotta do. Bard never had 'great' dps next to every other DPS and if off-global cooldown skills have a fix we don't know about then there's not much problems to be frank. The only issue would be if it turned off while we were mobile so that we aren't paused in the middle of movement/restricted but all of our other songs do so idk why this song would be different in that case.

But the only real concern should really be off global cooldowns like bloodletter, nothing else. If some bards say "but my deeps so no song aside minuet" well... it's not much different than what we got now anyways...seeing as some don't even sing ballad unless told by a healer.... ^^;