Bard - they broke my job

[vp_cmc]

They also should give us some ability on GCD that has an instant cast under WM. BLM has Scathe, SMN has RuinII, but if BRD has to move out of AOE and he has no luck with some procs he.. just runs?

[Smeggles]

I had to register an account just to add my voice to this discussion. I have played Bard since 2.0ARR release.

What we have now, is NOT Bard. I dont really mind that we don't do the best DPS (being comparable would be nice, but thats just balance) what I HATE is that they changed how the job plays. No more double GCD weaving, movement causing DPS loss, clipping on cast times due to being moved (pushbacks etc) all adding up to an extremely unenjoyable playstyle. If I wanted to stay put and dps I would be a blackmage.

If I choose not to use WM (Which I have had to do so it still feels like im playing Bard) then I don't get access to new abilities except Sidewinder (once a minute......)

Get rid of WM, give us access to EA and IJ without WM, old Barrage and give us a lower cooldown on SW and I would be content. You can take away WM and our 3 second pre-emptive Esuna (what a joke of an ability) and just leave us with 3 new ones.

[Ooshima]

And most off all close to useless. The gap between us and the other jobs is huge. I just saw my friends clear Bismarck with 3 tanks monk drg and smn ...... Ravana too.
.

I ran The Vault with 2 tanks - DRK and WAR, and a ACT as healer with me as MCH. Tearing through the trashes as if speed run lmao.

On a side note, just raised MCH to 60 and I can say MCH is much smoother.

[FateAudax]

snip-

Heck, I wouldn't even care if they took away WM and Warden's Paean with nothing in return. Will gladly have EA, IJ, SW and Bard's mobility back.

[Nanga]

My thoughts, after leveling up, gearing up, and clearing ravana-extreme already:

- Empyreal Arrow should not have a casting timer. It already has a medium recast. This should be enough.

- Iron Jaws also should not have a casting timer.

- Wanderer's Minuet should be a 30% damage increase, to offset the huge damage lost for the older, main DPS skills having a casting timer.

- Remove the shared recast timer for Rain of Death, but keep it under Wanderer's Minuet.

- Wide Volley: there's absolutely no reason to use this ability anymore. It's either Rain of Death, or Quick Knock. Wide Volley should now chain Quick Knock.

[FateAudax]

snip-

My contribution to your very good list of improvement would be Barrage.
If WM is not active, Barrage should function as before back in ARR but with WM active, Barrage should work the way it is now.

This would give us Bard players an option whether to use or not use WM without losing our past playstyle/dps.

[Edellis]

Wanderer's Minuet:
1) Either a) allow battle voice to affect it, or b) increase it to 30%. Minuet itself isn't really the problem though.

Empyreal Arrow
This is the real problem. The move is mainly supposed to be offseting your auto attack loss, while the 20% on your abilities covers the remaining difference. But this is half the reason why Minuet is underwhelming as an ability -- reclaiming the lost AA damage is taking up way too much of your effort while using it.


So, buff Empyreal Arrow to about 450-475 potency. This way, as long as you're using it, you shouldnt really be worrying about your AA loss. 14 seconds worth of auto attacks is roughly 500 potency worth of damage a bard is losing in the stance. And every second you leave Empyreal Arrow up without casting it, you're wasting even more AA damage. Even considering optimal conditions for both stance and off-stance, there is no reason why using minuet as intended should provide only marginal DPs increases.

Sidewinder
Does it need to be 60 seconds? Can we make it like 30ish? With everyone else throwing out ridiculous combo attacks, and our best damage being tethered to Barrage, i dont feel like this is strong enough to be on a 60s cooldown. Plus, if we're intended to stay in Minuet during high-mobility fights, we need access to all the instant cast we can get.



OR:

While minuet is up, have every successful cast shave some seconds off Barrage's timer.

[JohnMccain]

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Minuet is a problem though. The fact that you have only a small window to weave in so many abilities (including an ability that resets randomly) is the problem. Increasing potency numbers isn't going to make the class fluid like it once was. I see two solutions: let us use abilities during casts or rework the whole Wanderer's Minuet idea entirely into something like Sniper Training from WoW.

[Wishles]

I say rechange WM altogether and make it a party song buff. Change Keeper's Paeon to also be a party-wide buff as well. That would make Bard truly valuable in helping the party.

[Viar]

- Empyreal Arrow should not have a casting timer. It already has a medium recast. This should be enough.

Thus denying us Barrage'd EA. Haha, no.

Iron Jaws also should not have a casting timer.

Removing a cast time on a weapon skill that shaves off a GCD already doesn't help the problem.

- Remove the shared recast timer for Rain of Death, but keep it under Wanderer's Minuet.

The point being?

Under 1000 char, I didn't quote changed that I'd agree with. But I'm definitely interested in the reasoning behind what I quoted.