Bard - they broke my job

[MrYaah]

The WM buff/EA+SW nerf translated to an about 50 dps increase for me with my likely subpar rotation. I didn't like WM when I first got it but by the time I hit 60 I accepted it and the dps was clearly higher so it was worth it to me. It does the change the rotation but that isn't necessarily a bad thing, its just something new and something we have to learn to play with and optimize.

For those of you bitching and moaning about WM just don't play with it on then. Outside of hardcore raid situations it won't matter if you have it or not. The only people that are really forced to learn and live with WM are the ones that will be doing hardcore raiding and looking to squeeze out every bit of dps from their class. With my own testing the dps difference between having WM and not having it on is about 100 dps.

The ppl who complain about about minuet's dps don't know what they're talking about and should be ignored. The problem with minuet has nothing to do with dps, its playability. It interferes with ogcds, bl in particular, in a really unsatisfactory way and sometimes you're forced to completely ignore the bl proc or fuck your rotation and it literally kills me inside.

[yamochan]

well with the patch WM at least became somewhat playable im not saying that i like it but now its at least not completly bad. its finally respnsive as well it felt very clunky before and it gives us about 100 dps more than before.
so now lets see the bad things:
our playstyle is still not fixed as long as we still have cast times i will not stop complaining ^^
the dps is now around 1000 from the reddit posts, around 900 for the average bard (and thats considering standing heavy fights) so that brings us a bit closer to the rest but we are still the bottom of the table and since we are damage dealers thats not acceptable.

the conclusion is: bard is still pretty much useless but at least we can now go bismark without getting kicked hurray for boobys

[ChloeGrace]

our playstyle is still not fixed as long as we still have cast times i will not stop complaining

Agree 100%. Bring back the play style we had for the first 2 years and 50 levels. I'm fine with gating the new abilities behind WM, just get rid of casting times.

[StrejdaTom]

I will quote my reply to another thread because I believe it fits in here too. It is just my opinion on the new BRD, even after the "fix".

I find it funny that everyone uses the same crap argument about mobility. What if I told you that not every BRD used to run all around the place, but loved the mobility because of fights like Ravana EX, Titan EX or T13. Also I loved to do bluefire in T12, because I could. Same goes for kiting Renauds in T7 etc. You think I will bother to do anything like that anymore? Think again..

BRD always was the mobile class that supported people, did moving mechanics and had the lowest DPS for me. Now the lowest DPS is just plain unbalanced sh*t.
Not talking about the reality that in fights like Ravana EX I still do much more DPS without WM turned at all compared to BRDs who turn it on just for non-movement phases. Seems like the 30% buff with potency nerf of some skills and still no ability to weave off GCD skills like a boss was really a nice fix for BRD.

[Argentt]

well with the patch WM at least became somewhat playable im not saying that i like it but now its at least not completly bad. its finally respnsive as well it felt very clunky before and it gives us about 100 dps more than before.

Bard with WM up is no less clunky than it was before patch. Weaving in off-gcds still doesn't flow very well, especially when using Straight/Straighter Shot. At least the MCH was built from the ground up designed around their barrel stances. WM was plainly just bolted on to keep Bard equivalent to MCH with very little consideration of the way the abilities flow and the frequency of off-gcds.

[yamochan]

Bard with WM up is no less clunky than it was before patch. Weaving in off-gcds still doesn't flow very well, especially when using Straight/Straighter Shot. At least the MCH was built from the ground up designed around their barrel stances. WM was plainly just bolted on to keep Bard equivalent to MCH with very little consideration of the way the abilities flow and the frequency of off-gcds.

what i meant with that was the activation of WM sry if i misspelled that or you got it wrong (not rly an native english speaker)

also parsing around 930 on a dummy with nearly max itemlvl are not good they are actually rly bad if consider what other dps classes bring to the table

[Boss_Koivula]

It interferes with ogcds, bl in particular, in a really unsatisfactory way and sometimes you're forced to completely ignore the bl proc or fuck your rotation and it literally kills me inside.

Well said. I'm just gonna try to live on with it and hope one day we get our old playstyle back. At the moment I will be forced to run as a bard when Alex Savage comes, but I cant wait for the time we dont need a BRD anymore so I can switch to DRG. Playing with WM feels so clunky and I have always hated casters, so this situtation is anything but enjoyable right now.

On that note I would like to see a new thread for Bards where we could focus on theorycrafting instead on these pointless debates which keep going round and round.

[Aiselia]

So I was thinking about how Dragoons got BotD and BLMs got Enochian and how those work, and I was thinking...

Why couldn't WM work like that?

Lasts X seconds, increases damage, doesn't put cast times on abilities.
BUT
Empy increases duration of WM and has a 2.5 sec cast time, still requiring you to stop moving at least for that.

While we're at it, you could then gate Sidewinder behind WM, have it take off WM duration like Geirskogul, increase damage to balance.

Doesn't completely reverse how Bards played for 51 levels. It only expands on what they already did by giving you something extra to maintain to up your damage.

[Leonus]

So I was thinking...

BotD abilities also have really low potency when landed outside of position.

From 290 down to 100. A 190 potency loss.

I think that's as absurd as the cast times behind WM. So if SE fixes the cast times, they should fix our potency loss too.

The mechanic itself I think is cool, though plenty of Drgs don't like it.

[Aiselia]

they should fix our potency loss too.

To be frank, I think they should remove positional requirements from everything period and just normalize the damage of the attacks to a balanced average between the two potencies.

The positional requirements are pretty much the only thing keeping me from loving Monk since I feel punished every time I try to solo something in the open world as a Monk because monsters do tend to not like me circling behind them.