Bard - they broke my job

[FireHands]

After start burst you just reapply buffed dots and ignore WM for the rest of the fight. Thats pretty much it until they tweak it somehow. I was supposed to roll as a bard for our static in the expansion, but WM being completely useless I dont know what to do anymore. Geared DRG can pull off 1200parses, and it feels like we are completely left behind.

I still think bards can do like 800-900 dps with gear, just dont use that silly song outside of the opener and pew pew my bard mate!

[nuyu11]

I'm just start this game about 3 month +
And I only have bard for the class lvl 50+
This change totally making me hard to adapt, but I'm trying.

So far I don't like it and still trying to figure it out what is the best rotation.
Hoping after reach lvl 60 everything will change with new skill.

[FireHands]

I'm just start this game about 3 month +
And I only have bard for the class lvl 50+
This change totally making me hard to adapt, but I'm trying.

So far I don't like it and still trying to figure it out what is the best rotation.
Hoping after reach lvl 60 everything will change with new skill.

The skill at level 60 can be used outside of Wanderers Minuet !

[Itseotle]

Wanderers minuet increases damage by 20% and disables auto attacks... Guys... our auto attacks are around 20% of our damage. And to further make it even worst, we can only use 1 off global per GCD which means in an overall fight we're doing even less dps with Minuet.

You can never efficiently use all off gcds under Minuet... fitting blunt arrow/repelling shot/ buffs/ bloodletter/flaming arrow/sidewinder/empyreal arrow just leaves us with not using stuff right away which is a further dps loss.

Wanderers Minuet is only useful for start burst to buff empyreal arrow damage, after that... it's useless.

Make wanderers minuet a full support song and give us empyreal arrow without the need to have minuet up. Lets be honest... Bard was never designed to cast with how many off globals it's built on.

Actually, Auto-attacks account for 25% of Bard DPS, so the 20% trade-off is even worse than it may seem. Here's an example of Turn 13:

[FireHands]

Thank you very much, I didn't bother testing to find the exact number but yeah I knew it was around that number...

So yeah, im really not sure what all these bards saying "OH MINUET IS SO GREAT, MUCH DPS" are talking about.

Btw, I think it's more like 20% now with how barrage has been changed.

[Misery1337]

Shout out to FireHands, Grats on Bismark Ex kill and reaching 60 before me. Work pops up at the unlikeliest of times QQ

Yay! People who understand! Even with the ability to refresh DoTs with just one skill and a high potency oGCD skill on a low 15 seconds cooldown, using WM anywhere outside the opener will most likely always be an overall loss in DPS as it is currently. You like it? Go ahead and use it by all means but just know this that every time you get your cast interrupted by having to move out of an AoE or the mob moving out of range, your DPS just went downhill.

I've actually never said this before but I'll say it now...SE tweak please :3

[Shurrikhan]

What I'd like to see but am very unlikely to:
- Increase the WM buff to 25% (AAs alone make it equal at best otherwise).
- Make WM abilities usable outside of WM. Given the potency values on SW and EA, the 20% buff finally nearly outdoes the loss of Auto-attack, so WM will still be optimal for all but Iron Jaws. [Technically, even then they require Barrage to outdo the loss of AA, as 20% of the 240/300 values still falls well short of AA's 80 potency per 2.5 seconds (or 100 per 3, actual hits adjusted for weapon speed but always around the 100/3s value).]
- Improve the ability to swap in and out of WM. Like Oaths, swapping should cost enough to be undesirable except on a by-phase basis, but the 3.0 (not modified by skill speed) cast time seems a bit excessive. As it stands, if dropped, it's pretty well a dps loss to bring it back up except during a phase shift unless your full CD arsenal is about to come back up (most notably Barrage). Stacks or some similarly damage-ramping mechanic (perhaps transferring but not out of WM) would be decent, especially if paired to no cast time on WM. You would simply lose some damage temporarily (maybe 10% atop the WM difference, regained over, say, 5 GCDs) to run about if you don't want to deal with movement as other casters do.
- [Universal] have SS affect animation times.
- Reduce base Bard damage as necessary after the above.

On a more general note, I really like the feel of the Heavensward Bard so far (level 58) outside of two minor qualms (aside from those listed above): Iron Jaws feels just a little too good/spammable, and maybe even a bit too directly 'magic'-related considering the absence otherwise of it from our arsenal. I'd love to see it somehow play into some other sort of resource so I'm not simply loading up 3 mobs with DoTs, IJing the first, rebuffing SS, IJing next, Wide Volleying, IJing the last, or even more, with complete impunity. It just somehow doesn't feel to me like something that ought to be so easily spammed. I like that it can be used in rapid succession, but it just feels like it's missing some restraint that makes it stand out, whether a shared resource with some other ability, a CD but with multiple charges and a bit more direct damage, or whatever else. That and singing still feels disjointed, especially in the case of the two new songs, WM and WP. This seems partly due to the cast time, and partly due to our inability to make any more focused effects out of the songs (occasionally giving a single physical dps in greater need of TP a double or triple tick of Paeon, a short burst of additional magic vulnerability via Foe, or whatnot).

[Dyneren]

The new skills look not bad, but I strongly dislike the fact that SE virtually forces us to play BRD in a "spellcaster" manner. There are nice mage classes for those who want to play this way. And if the new "wanderer" mode provides more DPS, then how can you not to use it? You'll be sneered at. And if DPS is about the same, and you choose to stick to the old BRD playstyle, then what new skills do you get? Only one, because the rest of them are for the "wanderer" mode. I'd prefer the new skills to be not an "alternative" but were consistent with the traditional BRD playstyle.

And I'd add that forcing players to change the playstyle they are accustomed to is utterly disrespectful towards them.

[Boss_Koivula]

The top post of the subreddit for today was a post asking bards to chill out, and to wait for endgame rotations and theorycrafters to give the final verdict. I come to you as an i179 endgame BRD to reaffirm why we're angry.

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Damage Per Second



You wanted to do more damage like a black mage. You got exactly what you wanted.

Talk about strawman. I don't recall any BRDs, or at least any respectable number, complaining about our damage. We were largely happy with our role, and we understand that as a support class our numbers won't be on top. We never cared. I still strove to eek out as much DPS as possible, and hung around the rest of the group.

Style & Diversity



Their utility was paramount before, but now [...] isn't a requirement for end-game raiding anymore.

It became very apparent to me early in the Heavensward discussion that the FFXIV team was looking to homogenize the classes. This makes sense in the context of class viability. There are 2 slots for healers and tanks, and 3 different varieties. If WHM kept their stronger Protect, and SCH kept their ability to heal effectively while in Cleric Stance, there would be a clear disincentive to use AST. Yoshi & Friends wanted to make any combination of healers be effective, thus the stances with AST.

There has always been a complaint, or maybe an observation, that BRD was pretty much required for any serious endgame raiding. I can already hear you tripping over yourselves to proclaim how you cleared all of final coil with a 4 SMN party, so please save your breath. Either you felt it was required, and it still is due to the utility that BRD / MCH still provides, or you felt it wasn't and it still isn't. No matter which side of the argument you came from, the only thing that has changed from 2.X is the introduction of MCH as a possible alternative to that required support DPS slot. Foe's Requiem is still as good as it ever was.

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A Jarring Change



Throwing off your rotation because you have to avoid an aoe, isn't that what basically every other dps job has to deal with?

There's a reason we chose BRD. We accepted the lower DPS numbers and begrudgingly play our Mage's Ballad or Army's Paeon, but I'd rather play a song that reduces my DPS by 50% than cancel casts and become a stationary Bard Mage. You can try justifying how other classes have to deal with this, and it's a perfectly reasonable change, but this is a rude shift that basically throws away everything you've learned and loved about BRD so far. We are now seemingly forcibly pushed into being a BLM with worse DPS and some utility. There's a reason my BLM is 30, and I am loathe to level it any farther. I simply don't like BLM play style, period. Many of the people you hear complaining feel the same way.

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The Illusion of Choice



Can only be executed while under the effect of the Wanderer's Minuet.

Anybody experienced with MMOs might be familiar with this concept, perhaps in the context of gear. Some games out there might offer a seemingly horizontal array of gear, with different stats to compliment your play style. When this is poorly implemented, and hard numbers dictate that one particular set of gear is definitively better, the rest become noob traps. The different choices purport themselves as being equally viable, while this is just not the case.

20% increased damage at the cost of auto-attacks, by itself, is the definite correct choice. Iron Jaws and Empyreal Arrow are only able to be used while in this stance, and the tooltip for Sidewinder says it can only be used while in WM, but currently can be used outside of WM. These skills (4/5 of your total new skills for this expansion) further drill home the fact that being outside of WM is incorrect and you will feel bad until you can return to WM.

This is not a choice, this is not an optional play style. Wanderer's Minuet is always the optimal stance, period. If there are extended periods of moving, you have to decide if it is worth it to turn off WM to keep using skills, or if the 3 second time to turn it back on is not worth just not damaging the boss during that time. This is something that will be learned in raid progression, but it just feels bad. Call it a skill cap, fine, it just isn't the job I signed up for.

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Fluidity



[...]why choking a double-oGCD class into single-oGCD mode is irritating people.

BRD has forever been a double-oGCD class, meaning you could pop 2 buffs, or a Bloodletter and a Blunt Arrow, or any match-up of 2 oGCD skills in between GCD skills. With a cast time now, you only have room for 1 oGCD, and with the current amount of skill speed that is now expected of BRD, even using a single oGCD delays your GCD and feels clunky. BRD has always relied on Bloodletter spam and quickly spotting Straighter Shot procs to maximize your DPS.
•Seeing a Straighter Shot proc next to your character, and queueing a Straight Shot during your current GCD will cast a full-channel non-proc Straight Shot, while the buff is applied right after you start casting.


This means you either let the cast ride, which is a waste of TP and DPS, or you cancel, wasting time and DPS. Or you can mash Heavy Shot again, wasting another potential Straighter Shot proc. The only way to win here is if you were going to use Emp. or another oGCD, but even then DPS would be more efficient if you could fire the Straighter Shot before that oGCD. You are being punished for quickly recognizing that Straighter Shot proc, which was what previously separated good BRDs from great BRDs.
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You miss out on potential Bloodletter procs by not being able to spam it while channeling other skills.

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Unable to queue Flaming Arrow while channeling. You lose time and DPS by dedicating that second or so to use the skill and place it.

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Using Repelling Shot, landing, then queuing your Heavy Shot spam, the Heavy Shot will be interrupted, and you'll have to recast it.

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After applying your dots the first time, you have to pause before using Sidewinder, or else it won't proc as having both DoTs. Inefficient use of cooldowns.

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Unable to queue Flaming Arrow while channeling. You lose time and DPS by dedicating that second or so to use the skill and place it.

•
Currently a bug exists locking you out from casting skills for 1~10 seconds.



Summary

Black Archers still do great damage, and are still all-but-required for endgame raiding. We just aren't happy about having the carpet ripped out from under us. Stay salty Bow Wizards, don't let them silence you.

Found this great post from reddit.

[The_Last_Dragoon]

Bard's been my main job since the start of 2.0, so I can definitely feel the hurt when it comes to limiting Bard antics. What's really funny though is that Wanderer's Minuet is quite literally the saving grace of the Bard now since they've reduced auto-attack damage and changed Barrage to affect your skills. I'll tell you the truth, I'm only level 55, mostly because I've worked the past 3 days, and the damage output is absolutely insane for Bard now. People seem to forget that Bard's had absolutely horrible dps in ARR, and if you actually did get 1st on the parser list then it spoke volumes about either the boss fight or your other dps. There were literally people dropping out of dungeons because double Bard dps was "too weak."

I'm not sure if you realize or not, but you can actually make very subtle movements in the single second between the end of a cast and the end of the global cooldown, and while you have Straight Shot proc'ed you can move freely since it becomes an instant cast again. Not to mention that Iron Jaws is a literal godsend to single target damage since you can keep up your damage over time with a single ability and you have two new moves, one is a 240 potency while the other is a 350. The 20% damage buff is quite nice, and as long as you rotate your self-buffs accordingly you can very easily out-dps other classes without much trouble at all. Not to mention, have you used the new Bard dps LB? I quite literally never had it on my Bard until around 2.3 where I started getting this uncanny knack of outliving the healers.

If anything has been completely ruined on the Bard it's Quick Nock, since there's really no reason to keep it on your action bar anymore. Not only is there no proc from either Wide Volley or Rain of Death, but it does the exact same damage as Wide Volley with the caveat that you deal damage in a cone. So really, Bard dps has been reduced to Wide Volley spam + ogcd Rain of Death (Though now there's a reason to keep Venomous Bite on your main target).

In reality, Bard was pretty powerful (and they kinda still are) in their ability to kite other enemies. I distinctly remember killing enemies 10 levels higher than me on ARC/BRD since it was so easy to abuse enemies who couldn't invoke ranged attacks. I don't know of any other class that can do the same without getting help from someone else.

EDIT:

•Seeing a Straighter Shot proc next to your character, and queueing a Straight Shot during your current GCD will cast a full-channel non-proc Straight Shot, while the buff is applied right after you start casting.



Currently a bug exists locking you out from casting skills for 1~10 seconds.

I've noticed these happening to me frequently, the lockout especially is jarring, but I thought it was due to me losing target for some reason. Hopefully these issues and the others get fixed soon.