Bard - they broke my job

[Sessurea]

You WANT a cast time on what is essentially just a stance. Why? There has been such an amount of hurt done to bards this patch, we have never ever been in a worse situation. We could even be like smns in fcob now, where no1 wanted them. This isn't a big thing to ask for, nor does it stylistically take from minuet. What's the problem with this change?

Also, if raids were to actually have a lot of downtime, this means physical dps need our tp songs less, healers need our mp songs less, and.......tell me, why again was the bard brought along? to have his dps shred to bits by song cast times? Every bard should in the very least be screaming at the top of his lungs for this to be changed to cleric stance alike skill.

[Cetonis]

You WANT a cast time on what is essentially just a stance. Why

It's not about wanting a cast time so much as not-wanting a toggle. If it's easy to turn it on and off, that means it will be optimal to turn it on and off very very often. At minimum, every time EA is off cooldown you go WM -> EA -> IJ -> off.

You wouldn't leave it on, because your DPS is getting wrecked the rest of the time - SE packed all the benefit into those skills. So why even bother having it if it's going to be like that? You might as well ditch the song and provide access to EA and IJ full time, because there'd be no reason to be in the stance at any other point in time.

And if you give the toggle a cooldown, now it becomes even more marginal than it was. Because, again, every second you spend in WM not using EA/IJ is a DPS loss. The entire kit is built around having a cast time, it won't work if you just blindly slap a toggle on it without actually thinking it through.

[Sessurea]

It's not about wanting a cast time so much as not-wanting a toggle. If it's easy to turn it on and off, that means it will be optimal to turn it on and off very very often.

I'm totally cool with that. barrage off cd? pop wm and empyreal. Need to refresh dots and u don't have a bl proc/other ogcd? pop wm and ironjaw. seems sexy to me and would actually provide a flow to this horrendous bard change. What hurts most about 3.0 is that the skills are locked behind a 3 second cast .....

[elPresidente]

The changes overall are bad. I don't mind the cast bars on abilities as it does add a needed skill check to the class. However, casting our abilities interrupts the flow of cooldown/bloodletter weaving in dps rotation. Having literally all of the dps abilities we gained from this patch require minuet was a bad idea.

I would suggest any of the following changes:

-Allow bloodletter and/or abilities to be used while casting, limited by cast animations as before

-Reduce cast time of minuet and warden's paeon to 1 second

-Reduce base cast bar time induced by minuet to 1 second

-Allow E Arrow/IronJaws/Sidewinder to be used outside of WM, at the cost of either a tp increase, an added mp cost, a cast bar even though outside of WM, but not a potency reduction. A potency reduction would be incurred by default by not using WM

-As a cost to implement the other buffs, make minuet cost mp at a much lower rate than other songs, or have a ~15-30 second cooldown once dropped

[Nator316]

So its better then lv up Archer to get all Cross Class Skills then go Rogue instead since Bard is so bad

[Cetonis]

I'm totally cool with that. barrage off cd? pop wm and empyreal. Need to refresh dots and u don't have a bl proc/other ogcd? pop wm and ironjaw. seems sexy to me and would actually provide a flow to this horrendous bard change. What hurts most about 3.0 is that the skills are locked behind a 3 second cast .....

But having it as a toggle is the same as just removing WM entirely. Because you would -never- leave it on after your EA / IJ / maybe SW. It'd be plainly incorrect, and the WM toggle would just be a dumb hoop to jump through that has no reason to exist. What you're suggesting is strictly worse than just saying SE should get rid of WM outright (leaving the cast skills as casts).

[TanthalusGunthar]

I am totally on board with removing Iron Jaws from being gated behind minuet. I do not know if the sidewinder was intended to be gated as well, but currently does work correctly outside of minuet.

I think minuet needs some basic changes:
Auto attack reduced by 50% rather than removed
Iron Jaws automatically applies both DOTs while in minuet; functions as a refresher outside of minuet (removes needing to charge two dots to open or to refresh when lose focus to other mechanics)
Empyreal Arrow still only functions in minuet, but replaces Bloodletter and procs from DOTs critting - perhaps without the charge time as it has high potency.

I think its a start...or really tbh, just have minuet be a damage buff for melee damage so that a Bard has utility to affect damage output of either magic or physical damage. Then a Bard has to strategize on keeping up the damage buff vs replacing it with a tp or mana regen.