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

[Kayote]

I dont think WM is going away. Not in this expansion at least. Best case (for those missing the mobility) would be they tweak it to where we can at least cast Heavy Shot while moving without the 30% buff and maybe get our autoattacks back.

There are plenty of BRDs who either dont care or like the change (like me). No more healer LB, and a DPS stance (albeit imperfect) is a step in the right direction. I didnt pick BRD because of mobility, I never just pick a class because it "plays like this." I do it because, well, for BRD it was simply because its an Archer and (I was told) its supposed to be DPS. Running around and/or getting a head start on all AoE attacks without worrying about losing out on DPS is not only annoying to players watching BRD's bunny hopping across the screen, but I also always felt is was somewhat OP to all but bypass one of the main skill requirements in the game (or any MMO for that matter). I mean BRD's have to worry more about running into an AoE attack than running out of it.

P.S: We're still the most mobile class in the game so ...

[DeadRiser]

I love how they say "mobility".

Then they realize the mobility they talked about was them twitching their character every two seconds when there were no aoe's or anything up. You'll be fine. So you have to move an inch over and start a cast bar. You'll get used to it. You got a buff already, if you don't want to use it then don't. They aren't going to take those skills away with over a year's worth of work.

[Mhikail]

In my opinion...What they should of done was gave us more SUPPORT SKILLS.
IE. A Haste song. The Damage buff song, that shield song we have...
Then the other two can be some really neat DPS. Or 2 songs of the first songs and 3 DPS skills.
Should of made MCH more of the Physical range DPS out of the two.
I honestly don't care about my damage, but since even in lore, they said people forget what bard's are suppose to be...
they missed the mark here a bit because they try to cater to those who wanted more DPS themselves and now ya'll broken lol.
At the end of the day, Bard's are a SUPPORT DPS, no matter how much you try to avoid it. I wouldn't mind my DPS if I could sing to up my party members.
It's way better that way.
I dunno how bard is post 50 but teaming up with two 60's in NR was kinda slow...but it wasn't horrendous.
Never exp 2 MCH lord help me.

[StrejdaTom]

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.

In my opinion...What they should of done was gave us more SUPPORT SKILLS.
IE. A Haste song. The Damage buff song, that shield song we have...

This, so much this. I was so looking forward to some new buffs and support abilities and all we got is "stoneskin" with such long cast time that it is not even usable. I have not used it a single time yet (finished Ravana and Alex a couple times, so idk where else I could use it) and I have not seen any BRD use it yet.

[SendohJin]

Sorry OP, it would piss me off seeing Bards just running around and jumping like damn tards. You want more damage? Steady your aim by standing still and shoot. This is the best I'm gonna get cuz SE is not gonna cut your damage or interrupt your attacks if you move.

plenty of ways to do that without adding casting time to every single ranged DPS in the game.

[Wigett]

Was bard the only class that had its play style altered?

[Fitzy]

It’s a long one… Wholly wall of text

Personally I hate both WM and GB for both Bard and Machinist. Its clunky, feels out of place and completely butchers the original playstyle of the jobs. I have no desire to continue playing either class and have already switched to playing ninja which was my secondary, although I will be required to Bard/Machinist still due to my static raiding in which their support abilities will most probably be required.

To those that actually like the abilities, good for you but please understand that for most people this was not the playstyle that we signed up for.

Below are a few of the key areas that are the main issues:

Damage
Personally I never picked Bard for its damage, I picked it because I like ranged classes, I hate cast timers and I enjoy playing support rolls (And I loved Corsair in FFXI, so Bard was the closest thing at the time). The lower damage was never an issue for me but I can understand that some people want to be able to push out a little more damage especially in circumstances where our support abilities are of no use (which unfortunately is like 95% of the content).

How comparable we should be compared to other DPS is a wholly separate argument however that really has little to do with Wanderers Minuet and mostly comes down to various other issues that can be found in threads elsewhere for example (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...hould-be-lower)

Cast Times
This right here is the biggest issue that most players have with Wanderers Minuet. It just hits the 2.X bards in so many different ways that it practically butchers the original playstyle.

Where to start with the problems, well firstly, it’s clunky as hell. For a job that was designed from the ground up with almost all instant cast weaponskills and abilities, the addition of cast timers just doesn’t fit well at all and essentially turns us into what everyone likes to call the Bowmage. The playstyle drastically shifted from more closely resembling that of the melee DPS albeit at range, to more closely resembling the playstyle of a Black Mage or Summoner.

I signed up to be a bard based on the original playstyle but I would have been happy to make some adjustments that added to that playstyle. I am not happy to have that playstyle ripped out from under me and have a Caster playstyle forced down my throat.

And before all the casters come in with their “but we are casters and we do just fine, learn to adjust, learn to play, you are just bad, get good” comments, how about you stop and think that as casters, you CHOSE that particular playstyle and decided to stick with it and that was you prerogative. As a launch 1.0/2.0 bard, I did NOT CHOOSE this particular playstyle and am now having it forced upon us.

I can guarantee that if dragoon, ninja or monk players suddenly had all their skills turned from instant casts into cast timers, they would also be pissed off.

Another issue, and this one mostly concerns machinist, is the loss of potential procs due to cast timers. Now Black Mage has had to deal with this ever since launch and is a problem for them also, but in the case of Black Mage, they just miss out on extra DPS potential. Resource wise, Black Mage will have negligible effect due to the practically unlimited nature of their MP. Machinist on the other hand, they also miss out on the extra potential DPS, but on top of this they also waste 20TP. Now combine this with the RNG nature of the skill itself and suddenly 10 missed procs results in 200TP lost (and 10 is putting it lightly in some circumstances, my current procless record is 14 shots without a proc and to see that number encroach double digits is a surprisingly common sight for an ability that says 50% proc rate.)

That is a resource that unlike Black Mage is not practically unlimited and will probably result in a further hit to your potential DPS as you will probably be required to sacrifice your turrets DPS or a Bards DPS if you happen to have 1 with you in order to recover that wasted TP. Your DPS has now been hit twice in comparison to the once for Black Mage.

As for other arguments:
For those who claim “well don’t use the skill if you don’t want to”, consider the following. As a DPS class (we may be semi support but we still take up a DPS slot and that is still our main roll) our job is to perform at the jobs maximum output. If it is proven that using Wanderers Minuet is in fact more beneficial for DPS, well then you really don’t get a choice. Either you use it, or most parties will basically say GTFO. It would be the equivalent of bringing a Ninja to the party that doesn’t want to use their poisons or a Summoner that doesn’t want to use their DoTs, neither is going to make it very far in a party setup.

Movement
Yes during all of 2.X bards could run around in circles killing things if we really wanted to. No, most bards didn’t do this and most only moved when it was required of them. I would be perfectly happy to sacrifice my mobility for extra damage provided my mobility was the main thing that would be affected.

An example I used before which I based around 1.0 dragoons Power Surge skill and that I am told was similar to hunter from WoW (I can’t confirm since I was an FFXI player) was a passive skill that granted a damage buff after standing still and using 3 weaponskills and for every further 3 consecutive weaponskills granted a stack, stacking up to say 3 times.
Upon moving, the buff would be removed and a debuff would be placed on you preventing you from reacquiring the buff for say the next 15-20 seconds. This debuff might even prevent auto attacks or something if balancing required further repurcussions.

The above example achieves almost the same effect as Wanderers Minuet but doesn’t drastically alter the 2.X playstyle by introducing stupid restrictions such as cast timers.

As for the complaints from everyone that its unfair that we can move and have 100% uptime for damage, well we already take a penalty for this, both our weaponskills potencies and our weapon damage already take our 100% uptime into account by being lower then every other job, so it’s not really a valid argument

[StouterTaru]

I would be perfectly happy to sacrifice my mobility for extra damage provided my mobility was the main thing that would be affected.

So what exactly is the main thing being affected, having a cast bar? Only being able to weave in 1 oGCD skill between shots instead of 2?

[Fitzy]

So what exactly is the main thing being affected, having a cast bar? Only being able to weave in 1 oGCD skill between shots instead of 2?

Someone who clearly didnt read the whole post to see the issues with how the cast times butcher the playstyle or how the example ability achieves the same result at the expense of mobility and mobility only.

[StouterTaru]

Someone who clearly didnt read the whole post to see the issues with how the cast times butcher the playstyle or how the example ability achieves the same result at the expense of mobility and mobility only.

And you never explained how a cast bar butchers the playstyle for bard. You just call it clunky and rant about it. What do you sacrifice other than mobility with it?

Instant hits on mobs? You're still on the GCD so that only matters when you miss a deathblow.
Weaving 2 skills oGCD?
Anything else?