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

[Rikkustrife]

I am a bard main who has played all classes to 50, enjoys black mage, white mage, and scholar, and I do have a problem with wanderer's minuet.

I main dragoon and bard, and bards have to dodge mechanics just as much as everyone else, the only difference was they could attack while dodging, which is why we have lower weapon damage, which was fine.
When I play bard, I usually stay at one spot unless I need to move out of AOE, so the issue with wanderer's minuet is not that I cannot run around while attacking, which I will miss in wanderer's minuet, but we do more damage in it, so it is a fair trade.
The issue with wanderer's minuet is that our attacks no longer flow into each as well as before, it feels clunky, we have 11 off global cooldowns to use in between attacks and the cast time effects all of that.
I'm not at level 60 yet so I cannot comment on this, but according to other bards our damage outside of minuet is low enough that it's a detriment to the group, and no one likes feeling like a detriment, which means we cannot play the way we always enjoyed to, and minuet takes away a gameplay style that some people find fun, which I don't see why people have a hard time understanding that.

There are other jobs like black mage and summoner who are dps with cast times, so I play those jobs when I feel like playing a caster job, and they don't feel clunky like a minuet bard does, but now no job plays like pre-minuet bard, which is the issue some people are having.

[Intellion]

Just curious, if a Bard actually likes the changes and can adapt to said changes, does that mean they aren't REAL Bards?

Because that's very clearly ridiculous.

Sorry. That wasn't addressed for Bards who like Minuet.

As I said in an earlier post, I don't like Minuet but if other Bards do, more power to them.

That post was addressed to NON-BARDS who kept spouting nonsense that "Bards are wrong to complain" since they think that "Minuet buffed = more DPS! There's no issue here! Lrn2play!" even though the majority of Bards who are dissatisfied with 3.0 Bard aren't even complaining about DPS.

My earlier, lengthy post shows exactly what a large number of Bards are truly complaining about, especially those who rolled the class for its core mechanics and gameplay (aka pre-Minuet).

[Lewtskie]

You can DPS with minuette, even if you are required to move, chances are it won't result in nasty consequences. You can't heal under cleric, you literally can't, unless you consider going from 2700 heals to 500 heals viable, so I can see one stance slightly punishing more than the other...

That's not completely true. Unless they've changed it, fairies aren't affected while under Clerics and you have Benediction and Lustrate under critical moments, yes?

[Rikkustrife]

That's not completely true. Unless they've changed it, fairies aren't affected while under Clerics and you have Benediction and Lustrate under critical moments, yes?

They change lustrate, it no longer has a % heal but has a potency now, so that is lowered under cleric stance.

[Rose-Wild]

Just give the same effect for standing still but without making it a cast. And for the love of god please revert the Sidewinder nerf. 100 potency nerf makes it a joke for a 1 min cd.
50 Potency or less would have been enough...

[Gallus]

Two things Gallus:

If a Healer doesn't feel comfortable popping Cleric's then they really don't need to; they can still throw spells, piddly damage as they are, but they'll still be optimized for Healing. It shouldn't be an absolute requirement for them.

Tanks a little bit more different. Being an off tank there's no pressure having a DPS stance on or being out of Tank Stance, but if you are playing a Tank and as the MT, then you'd want that Tank Stance more than anything. It gives them what they want as they chose that class and that role.

Lotta folks are in the middle of these two situations for Minuet. It certainly is required to use, but some just don't feel comfortable going into it all the time.

I've seen healers kicked out from groups because they were refusing to use cleric stance, so those groups were probably not happy enough about those healers "just being optimal at healing". In any case, we are talking about being optimal with your job/class, let's not turn this into a "but this isn't my role w/e". As long as a certain player doesn't use their entire toolkit and other players notice it and they feel that player is dragging them, discrimination will always be present, this isn't exclusive to BRDs. Whether BRDs in general are not happy that their mobility has been nerfed (not destroyed, nerfed, 10% damage reduction while moving doesn't equal to destroyed mobility, having to interrupt a 4k damage Fire IV because you have to move is no mobility on my book, this isn't BRDs case) is another story, but do realize this is more about "personal gamestyle" rather than real balance, because wanna bet something BRDs are still mandatory in Alex savage? (poor MCH, DRK, MNK and even BLM wished they could say the same).

[Lewtskie]

They change lustrate, it no longer has a % heal but has a potency now, so that is lowered under cleric stance.

Expected that to happen someday, lol. That 25% was going to be too stronk further down the line. But as it is the Fairy can still effectively provide its regen and healing buff while you want to dance like a Cleric.

[Rikkustrife]

Well it's both a buff and a nerf to lustrate, it can heal more on dps and healers, and goes up as our gear goes up, just not efficient in cleric stance, or to lower geared scholars.

[Shurrikhan]

By 3.01, Stance Dancing is actually heavily discouraged by SE, seeing that if you pop Minuet, you're stuck in it for at least 15 seconds.

Whether in dungeons, Bismarck, or Ravana, I've had trouble finding any point where there 15 seconds was truly harmful, though that's coming from someone who drops WM for 2 shots while moving and then repops it on the other side. WM might require you to stay in it a while, but at least it doesn't require you to stay out for any length of time. Though I guess that is, again, only a plus for those who don't at all mind WM.

Which brings me back to my point. For Bards to do "well" now, they are still forced to stay in Minuet most of the time. Doesn't matter if they can turn it off for movement; their raids will probably still demand them to pop it back on once movement is done. In other words, if they don't want to be booted or shunned, they have to use a gameplay they do not like (if they did, they would've rolled BLM or SMN for far superior DPS) and are not familiar with.

Though I actually prefer WM gameplay over non-WM gameplay, I will agree that the alternative is, especially with the last patch, a bit too large a loss to be viable in any case other than literally constant, non-staggerable movement.

Bards were built around highly mobile insta-cast weak ranged attacks supported by rapidly popping off chains of weak oGCD attacks and procs, with support songs added for party play. All of those added together makes up for their low DPS. Minuet destroys exactly that core mechanic that the class was built on, because with Minuet on, there's no such thing as insta-cast ranged attacks anymore nor is there rapid weaving of oGCDs. Nor is there any mobility.

That is why both JPN and ENG Bards still complain, and will do so until the class is hopefully returned to its core mechanics by 3.1 or 3.2.

Just a short note on weaving - what we deal with when double-weaving on WM is only barely worse than any caster deals with single-weaving after 2.5s or higher cast normally. Heck, at sub-50 ms, a 2.5 GCD melee could technically triple-oGCD losslessly (not including use of Jump or Pots). Of course, with another connection, even a single Jump or potion use could clip into your following GCD. Running around 100 ms myself, I still find double-weaving to be optimal at certain times in WM.

Our mobility is also far superior to casters. Casters can manage a lossless 1/4- to 3/4- second by moving at the tail of their cast (the 3/4 tail usually means they're laggy enough to lose time starting their next cast, though), while we can add another second of movement to each of our, due to the second-long gap between cast time and GCD (gap faintly condensed with higher SS). Long story short, this is sufficient for dodging almost every AoE. Most AoEs will also allow you to finish any cast that is over a half-second in progress (and if you're losing just a half-second... not too big an issue there either.)

To be honest, I don't feel as if any of our core mechanics have been lost here. Characteristics, maybe, but mechanics, no. Nor have the 3.0 additions been much from a mechanical standpoint, probably because, honestly, the mechanics were still fairly barebones before, and aren't much more than that now. As such this whole 'return to core mechanics' thing is going over my head a bit; I can only see it as a job still, likely constantly, in development, and find that its latest stages, while personally enjoyable, leave a bit to be desired for the sake of options.

P.S. Tbh, the only times I actually feel like a caster is when I can never get my Straighter Shot procs to go off on the following GCD, instead wasting 10 TP and 10 potency on an unbuffed Straight Shot or having to (equally wastefully) restart my cast.


Edit: Though I apologize for hinging this again on wordplay (e.g. 'mechanics' vs. 'characteristic') I feel like I ought to ask: if you were to add actual mechanics to the job that would make the job more interesting without turning us into casters, what would they be?

[Gallus]

That's not completely true. Unless they've changed it, fairies aren't affected while under Clerics and you have Benediction and Lustrate under critical moments, yes?

Benediction is on a 5 minute CD and lustrate is no longer effective under cleric. Relying on a fairy on intensive healing phases is commiting suicidal. If you mess up switching to cleric when you really don't have to, you can perfectly wipe your entire party. We can hardly say the same thing about BRD and minuette.