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

[Gallus]

If I was given the chance to expand on Bards without turning us to casters, I'd change it to something like this:

1.) Wanderer's Minuet = (Song. Insta-cast) Boosts the damage of all weaponskills by 20%. MP rapidly depletes while WM is turned on. Cannot be used with other songs. Mobility and auto attacks are retained even in WM. Skills are still insta-cast.

2.) Empyreal Arrow = Now usable outside of Minuet. Everything else can stay unchanged.

3.) Iron Jaws = Now usable outside of Minuet. Everything else can stay unchanged.

4.) Barrage = Returned to its 2.55 effects.

5.) Wide Volley/Rain of Death/Quick Nock = Returned to their 2.55 versions.

6.) Foe Requiem = Boosts caster damage by 30%. Buffed so that it doesn't get invalidated by the new Wanderer's Minuet.

7.) Mage's Ballad/Army's Paeon = Damage reduction can be increased to 20% again, just like 2.55, for balance purposes.


If SE changed Bards to this, I and many Bards would be happy because it expands on our core mechanics without making us overpower casters/melee or forcing us to become casters.

You are basically asking for BRDs to stay the same. Your new minuette is basically an illusion, because it would either triviallize foe's requiem or be useless on the first place (depending on which one brings more damage onto the table), which by the way brings me to my next issue...drama on every raid because the BRD is being an elitist jerk and is using minuette instead of foe because this way their own DPS is being inflated more despite foe adding more real raid damage. This is a scenario I know SE wants to avoid at all costs.