I agree that it is pretty discouraging oh bad Bards new abilities are, true that BLMs have been dealing with cast times all the time, but the difference is that when one of their ability hits, it makes up for any interruption they need to do when dodging things around.

For Bard, missing Iron jaws because an aoe forced you to move, its a dps kill, and we do so little dps as it is, it only gets worse and worse on fights that involve a lot of moving. True we can just turn off wanderer's minuet and go back to bard old style, but this doesn't help much at all, the dps is still pitiful compared to all over damage dealer classes.

Like really, warriors are out dpsing bards, so it is logical for a tank to have crazy high dps, as good as most damage dealing classes (not counting bard or machinist) but it is illogical for bards to have good dps because they are a "support" class.

Our Support abilities aren't even something we use a lot, and if we are thinking of Foe Requiem, Ninja's Trick Attack is much better than foe, they are also able to silence and stun and got binds and heavy aoes. But are Ninjas a support class? no

Please give some love to Bards, we might be needed as a MP/TP regen class, but it starts to feel like we are being throw into this support class role with not a lot of tools to use, and give it some time, but I wouldn't be surprised if people starts rejecting any bard or machinist that joins their party, only because all they are good for is their regen abilities, and really I have done fights were healers are always mid/high MP, and as for TP, seems it is more manageable now.