I chose BRD for swift gameplay, if I wanted to cast I would have chosen a Mage.

[Intellion]

Let me add (typing from my phone, so no editing), that no, I don't yet have Bard to 60, nor do I need it to know what I'm talking about. Having never moved much outside of mechanical-necessity, Minuet would NOT be a huge game changer for me. And no, I DON'T even have Minuet yet, but I did the 30-60 MCH, so yes I got the "complete fundamental change" at one point too. . . Nothing changed at all. Took some adjusting to, naturally, but largely what I do, and how I do it is still the same.

Perhaps it's due to having leveled healers and casters, or just a generally good sense of adaptation? Still, don't discredit someone simply for not being that job, not when their job is built on your "complete fundamental change".

The true issue here is gameplay, unfortunately.

It's true that people who've played casters might not see a problem with Minuet. However, there are those people who rolled Bard back in ARR because they love playing like Legolas (and mind you, there's nothing wrong with such a reason) and the 2.X Bard played exactly as such. People then learned and mastered that class for years since that's what's fun for them. Sure, DPS was on the low side, but they didn't mind (at least most BRDs didnt... although, yeah, there are THOSE few Bards...) since they loved the gameplay, and fun should be the priority over anything else in a video game.

Then 3.0 came, and while other classes simply got expansions of their pre-existing unique gameplay, Bards didn't. What Bards got was a forced and slapped-on mechanic that effectively takes all they've learned and what they've loved about the class and just tosses it out the window. It's not an expansion of their core mechanics; it's effectively a forced job change into a "Black Mage Trial Edition." If those Bards complain that if they wanted high DPS at the cost of casting, they would've rolled a BLM, they are mostly justified in saying so. Because as I said, the changes to Bard isn't just as simple as adding positionals or gaining a few new skills, it's more in line with main-ing Zangief for your entire Street Fighter career, and then in one patch, Capcom destroys Zangief by making him play like Guile now. Sure, he still has the same attacks, but to pull them off now, you HAVE to play like Guile. THAT'S how drastic and jarring the change was, which can only be truly understood by career Bards who have spent a LONG time with the class.

That is the problem here. SE turned their class into something MOST of them don't find fun. You could easily say "just find a new job," but tell me: which class do they switch into now if run-and-gun DPS is their specialty/forte?

And the argument that "Minuet is optional" isn't really true, because NOTHING is ever optional in FFXIV. That's another problem here. Bards can just keep Minuet off if they dislike it (Like I do), but now they will be shunned and discriminated against just because of playing the game the way the class had been advertised to them. No other class has to go through this but Bards. Either play the way you love, but get hated for it, or F*** your own enjoyment and playstyle for the sake of others' convenience.

That is why ACTUAL Bard experience is needed for credibility, because these are things you WOULDN'T understand if you've never mained Bard or spent a good amount of time learning its core mechanics before 3.0. or before Lv 52. Without credibility, it's so easy to spout nonsense like "Minuet = higher DPS. What's the problem here?" or "Minuet got buffed! BRDs are fixed! Hooray!", but REAL Bards will know that THOSE aren't what the true issue is.