Bard - they broke my job

[MajikNET]

As a completely uneducated and casual-player look at the job, my guess would be that they've tried hard to introduce a chain of abilities that "need" each other (e.g. trying to justify themselves within the context of the story they've built / mechanics they have or intend to implement in the future). I can understand the penalty aspect; they're giving us something to make our current tools more potent along with the addition of some new tools, so they've tried to balance that out against how much we can use it - fine.

Overall, though, the penalty just doesn't seem to fit the play-style. I suspect the cast-timers came into play because, you know, they'd already set that as an expected form of control, so people already know how it "works", but for me (as it seems for others too) that's ultimately 'broken' what I understand as the style of play. The complexity and depth to the BRD in 2.x came from the weaving of GCD and oGCD abilities based on what DoTs, effects and party status is at any given point in time. It's that understanding of managing those aspects that adds depth to the role and the fluidity of the play-style means that as a solo you can chain things along nicely and finish an encounter while still in control, while in parties you have to adapt to the makeup and abilities of the rest of the party, while still timing and weaving ("playing", for want of a less musical word) everything together and trying not to run out of TP.

What I wonder, is whether there's different 'penalties' that they could apply to the job while under WM that still makes it useful but keeps the dmg and utility decisions under control. The thing that comes to mind here would be to keep the cast time on WM (it's a song, we have the expectation that to sing you have to stop and focus - fine), but while under the effect your GCD abilities are buffed (maybe more than 20%), but your GCD timer is longer - say by an extra .5 - 1 second. This way we hit much harder with our GCD abilities, and we can still weave our un-buffed oGCD abilities into the mix, but we can't spam our heavy-hitters for uncontrolled dmg (our characters fire an expensive round, and then have a longer 'refocus' period before they're ready to do it again). The bonus we'd then get for being in the stance, would be to have the new utilities, such as IJ, available to extend the effect over time of our buffed abilities (although perhaps using something like IJ should then force us out of WM stance, or decrease the WM buff over usage to keep it from being a "god-mode" so that we then have to manage the choice of doing buffed heavy-hits, or extending DoTs depending on the scenario).

The overall dmg output aspect, while annoying, is much simpler for the devs to fix and tweak, but the play-style is what's going to hurt this more than anything over time. So, SE, my feedback to you would be; please, please, please re-invest in understanding how the job plays and don't be afraid to slip-in some new play-style mechanics in order to manage the mitigation of overpowering a job though new abilities. While you've got established mechanics for controlling output (cast timers), they don't fit with the job role and play-style you're trying to attach them to, so you could do with finding something that does fit and applying it appropriately.

</uneducatedRant>

[Warlyx]

a way to fix bloodletter procs could be , changing how bloodriver works inside WM , lets say everytime a bloodriver procs , instead of resseting BL u get a buff that boost your next heavy shot by 150 , so even if u cant cast BL u still get the benefit , now u are moving and BL procs back to back , now u get 300 potency on your next heavy shot (buff duration 10s so u cant save it for later phases).

[Misery1337]

I thought about it last night and I came up with this change...

Remove WM and give this new skill in its stead.

Level 52: Focus Fire Each weapon skill used adds a 4% stacking buff of Precision. Precision stacks up to 5 times giving a total of 20% damage buff. Effect lasts for 30 seconds and is cancelled upon movement.

Level 54: Empyreal Arrow Delivers an attack with a potency of 240. For each stack of Precision, adds 12 more potency giving you a total of 300 potency attack with all 5 stacks of Precision. Using Empyreal Arrow will consume all stacks of Precision. This weapon skill does not share a recast timer with any other actions.

Rest of the skills remain exactly the same except that they would be free to use without requiring a ridiculous 3 second cast time song.

Oh and Warden's Paean Cast time reduced to 1 second.

What do you guys think?

PS: The skills I suggest require no cast time on any skill except for a 1 second cast time on the Warden's Paean song.

[yamochan]

@misery means u skill want casttime on all other skills?

[Misery1337]

@misery means u skill want casttime on all other skills?

No cast times on any skill. I suggested to remove WM altogether and replace with those suggested skills. With that change, BRD playstyle will remain exactly the same as 2.0, they won't be OP and they will still be competitive with a better chance at getting a raid spot.

[Snowaeth]

I don't see Wanderers Paean being used much with cast time to begin with even without cast it would still have minimal use but could at least be put as a pre-emptive shield in time.
So my suggestion would be to add a cleanse effect to it and leave it with cast time.
This way it would actually see use.

Or rework the whole darn skill into something useful.

[Viar]

I don't see Wanderers Paean being used much with cast time to begin with even without cast it would still have minimal use but could at least be put as a pre-emptive shield in time.
So my suggestion would be to add a cleanse effect to it and leave it with cast time.
This way it would actually see use.

Or rework the whole darn skill into something useful.

BRD's Esuna you can't use on yourself...? Did anyone actually try to use it to circumvent healing debuff mechanics?

[SethLex]

250 replies, 25 thousand views in 5 days - why is this not answered by SE?

[ChloeGrace]

250 replies, 25 thousand views in 5 days - why is this not answered by SE?

Because they obviously don't think it's broken, and don't care enough to address it.

[Duelle]

Remove WM and give this new skill in its stead.

Level 52: Focus Fire Each weapon skill used adds a 4% stacking buff of Precision. Precision stacks up to 5 times giving a total of 20% damage buff. Effect lasts for 30 seconds and is cancelled upon movement.

Level 54: Empyreal Arrow Delivers an attack with a potency of 240. For each stack of Precision, adds 12 more potency giving you a total of 300 potency attack with all 5 stacks of Precision. Using Empyreal Arrow will consume all stacks of Precision. This weapon skill does not share a recast timer with any other actions.

Rest of the skills remain exactly the same except that they would be free to use without requiring a ridiculous 3 second cast time song.

Oh and Warden's Paean Cast time reduced to 1 second.

This is a good place to start.

To present an alternative, you could keep the idea behind Wanderer's Minuet, but definitely require a redesign. If the devs are hellbent on adding cast times and increasing BRD DPS while using some sort of trade-off, I'd change it to this:

- Lv52 Wanderer's Minuet: Increases damage dealt by 15%. Cast times are added to select archer and bard weapon-skills. Cannot be used with other songs. Effect ends upon reuse.

By "select", I mean pretty much Heavy Shot, Misery's End and Wide Volley. You'd still be able to auto attack and everything else would still be instant. To compensate for this, damage reduction on Mage's Ballad and Army's Paeon would go back to 20%. This in effect allows BRD to still stance dance and keep some of the intended mechanics introduced with 3.0 You'd see an increase in DPS, still be able to move most of the time and implement cast times on abilities where it makes sense. So you'd be in WM during the course of a fight until the raid leader calls for Paeon/Ballad, at which point you've be lowering your damage to restore group resources in according to BRDs intended design.

To go in conjunction with this, I would change Heavier Shot into a proc that does the same called Sharp Eye. Then I would proceed to do this:

- Lv56 Iron Jaws: Delivers an attack with a potency of 80. Can only be executed while under the effect of Sharp Eye. Additional Effect: If the target is suffering from Venomous Bite or Windbite inflicted by you, the effect timer of each of those skills is reset.

This in effect turns Iron Jaws into a proc to be juggled. I originally wanted to tie it with River of Blood, but I don't think that would work out since the procs have very different effects.

Empyreal Arrow and Sidewinder can be left as is.