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

[the-kuponut]

Problem is fun falls into the subjective category. My SCH too has changed in 3.0. Fairy scaling is pretty bull now, and SCH is like 90% of the heals now while fairy is only like the 10% (fairy was more relevant in ARR). We could argue about how that kills the essence of SCH since the fairy has been triviallized a lot...or SMNs;...same story, most of the damage comes from the SMN now, pet's damage is very little compared to ARR, also, SMN rotation has drastically changed. I don't see however, any SMNs or SCHs complaining...

The way you play SMN or SCH is still the same
Turning BRD into a mage is the same as turning SMN into melee

It's like instead of the new SMN abilities you get this:

"New SMN ability ! You can now only dps from close range and you can't use ruin or stack aether flow but hey you can use these two new abilities*

*two new abilities can't be used when not in melee stance"

[Warlyx]

The way you play SMN or SCH is still the same
Turning BRD into a mage is the same as turning SMN into melee

It's like instead of the new SMN abilities you get this:

"New SMN ability ! You can now only dps from close range and you can't use ruin or stack aether flow but hey you can use these two new abilities*

*two new abilities can't be used when not in melee stance"

BEASTMASTER ....is that u? *_*

[SendohJin]

Problem is fun falls into the subjective category. My SCH too has changed in 3.0. Fairy scaling is pretty bull now, and SCH is like 90% of the heals now while fairy is only like the 10% (fairy was more relevant in ARR). We could argue about how that kills the essence of SCH since the fairy has been triviallized a lot...or SMNs;...same story, most of the damage comes from the SMN now, pet's damage is very little compared to ARR, also, SMN rotation has drastically changed. I don't see however, any SMNs or SCHs complaining...

the only thing that changed about SCH playstyle is that we can't Lustrate in Cleric Stance, and that is annoying. everything changed about BRD in WM.

to compensate for the change to Lustrate SCH got an awesome AOE Cure, a better offensive spell in Broil, and Selene got a massive buff with an AOE Esuna. BRDs got other things they can do in WM and a song that's useless.

[Mintyfresh]

BRDs have been and I swear they currently are the most mandatory class in every piece of serious content...yet they are the ones who complain more.

DRGs was useless for months, BLMs were subpar for a long period of time. WARs tanked less than a BRD under blood for blood at the beginning of the 2.0. SMNs drained their mana with a couple Ruin II.

BRDs have never had to go through stuff such as "no BRDs" in PF parties and the like. They were insultingly op at i90 and ridiculously strong at i110-i135. And now, they are still mandatory (wanna bet something first savage clears have a BRD?).

That just makes you sound bitter, salty and petty.
Probably not a good position to be in when trying to engage in a discussion because your input will hold no merit or demand any respect.

Cheers-
Axe

[Mintyfresh]

I think the reality is that people want to play what they enjoy.

People play this game as they enjoy this game.

That can be further extended into the class/job category. People choose various classes due to the fact that they like a certain role/playstyle.
I for example love healing so I chose healer.

For bards, many of them chose bard not to do top-notch dps, they already knew they weren't going to do that.
They did so because they heard about/exprienced it's mobility and liked it.
I can guarantee that for many bards, infact most of them, mobility was the biggest reason for picking the bard.

Reason they are upset is because the very factor they chose to play the class has been taken away. And no, it's not optional.
Do I agree with a lot of people saying, deal with it and move on, sure, to some extent yes.
But do I agree with a lot of people being very unhappy with it, very much so and I support them whole-heatedly.

[Shurrikhan]

In theory it would force a BRD to think ahead, though I guess it also places a restriction on certain things (hitting WM, then hitting Heavy Shot 4 times expecting to hit verse V, but in the middle of all that you get a Bloodletter proc and before you know it you find yourself on verse I). It is indeed far from perfect. XD

Almost word for word an example I was going to give, oddly enough... There are some oGCD uses that come natural to us, and some that, even knowing when and how we want to use them, don't. I don't know which this would be, but as there's nothing in the Bard set currently that feels like it could ever go wrong (assuming your net can double-weave flawlessly), I'm wary as of yet.

There are situations where you're not going to be using your songs for the full duration, and I figured song usability would be a decent trade-off for more DPS uptime, especially since you'd be sacrificing the overall strength of the song in question in addition to access to it because of the cooldown. The 2 minute song cooldown is more for balancing, but it could be reduced if necessary.

I totally agree with you in most of that -- I just think I might prefer to see something a bit freer or more immediate than your current version of Invocation, especially if to be attached to a gameplay style that is more 2.0 in characteristic than 3.0/WM. On top of that, I just still feel that a job sold as 'Support-capable' shouldn't be locked out of Ballad for another 90 seconds when all hell comes loose on your healers' mana through intensive damage and resurrections.

Invocation's cooldown does seem a little long, but what I wanted to prevent was making WM-related Invocation effects something you basically weave in all the time. You make the cooldown too short and it will most likely get in the way of procs and the rotation as a whole. Make the cooldown too long and you basically guarantee that it'd be used only when stacking DPS cooldowns and only with verse V (AKA Barrage + Hawk's Eye + Raging Strikes + Wanderer's Minuet V + Sidewinder).

If you end up going that road, you might as well remove WM and give cast times to certain shots. I'd probably add a cast time to Windbite and Bloodletter while boosting their overall damage/potency. That way you'd have cast times for Bloodletter, Windbite, Empyreal Arrow and Sidewinder while Heavy Shot, Straight Shot and Venomous Bite would remain instant and still keep your auto attacks. If you want to be creative, allow the cast bars to fill while the BRD is moving, but have those cast bars fill slower than if you were standing still.

I completely get what you mean with the Invoke CD balancing; that problem alone has eaten up so much time in any of my more concrete suggestion packages...

I wish I could find some of the links to the discussion of longbow vs. shortbow stances that were being suggested back in 2.0. What was interesting was that even back then many of the Bards wanting additional options were asking for some mode (e.g. longbow / bow enchant / bowsong / whatever) that would bring in an element like cast times for bonus power, but in each suggestion the purpose was to weave it either according to longer term rotation or movement, inviting synergy and strategy, aimed at making the player feel rewarded rather than punished (which is, more often than not, like trying to get someone to think their glass is half full rather than half empty). I feel like a couple of the suggestions I had seen there or heard from friends online actually did a much better job with dance-able stances than current WM / non WM, but I'm still trying to find/remember them all.

Just a few lines of suggestions I do remember for a sort of 'longbow / long draw' stance, though each from a separate package:
- Extended animation time, acting more or less like a cast, with a few different versions (some of the possibilities may stack)
1) Allows movement, but movement is slowed and must ramp up and/or comes at cost of accuracy.
2) Charged casts - the longer you hold, the more damage dealt. Best dps is done at about 1.5 or 2.0 seconds hold, but it can be charged further for additional damage and accuracy (and TP cost) where burst might be needed. (If merely queued, rather than held, would release at time optimal for long-term / average dps.)
3) Pre-charged during stationary time, rather than upon target and ability selection, so that you can prepare for an add that is about to spawn.
4) Charges faster when standing still, again ramping (albeit quickly - half-second or so) into full movement speed

(An especially lenient idea simply gave additional, continuous (every .1 seconds or so after coming to a halt until moving, as to appear completely fluid) mana regen while standing still, but this was packaged with mana-use on certain moves.)

A lot of these suggestions also only tied the charge system to Heavy Shot or perhaps also unbuffed Straight Shot. Some also modified Bloodletter to take on stacks for burst usage, or modified Barrage to its 1.0 / 3.0 version only when in longbow stance. I remember stacking buffs coming up as well, where the stacks were generally most useful to the stance that generates them, but rotationally (about the frequency of Empyreal Arrow, for instance) more ideal for the other.

[Talking with one friend, borrowing names from other games, called one stack set, and its modifier to Bloodletter/Barrage 'Magnum' (see below) and the other 'Wild Quiver' (Wrath WoW MM mastery). Also renamed Bloodletter to Flicker Shot, reduced its animation time and potency, gave it a max of 2 stacks, caused its refresh to work more off of direct damage than DoT crits alone, and gave it 'loose threat' which would be added to the threat of any ally leading by a significant margin (including yourself) and stolen via Provoke (after the original threat-matching) while working DoT crits into another proc/modifier separate to each DoT. Complex package but I think it pretty good.]

In conversation, the Magnum ability from Vindictus's Kai character has come up a couple times, a 3-stage charge-up ability that has a built in Repelling Shot / jump-back and enemy penetration at the 2nd stage, doubled at the third.
e.g. [Tips n' Tricks] Vindictus - Releasing Two Grabbed Members with Magnum

[Atrious]

Good lord no. If you want that, go play WoW. Marksmen Hunters literally have exactly what you want and its bloody terrible there.

The cast time is fine.
Learn to play.

If you hate it so much then just turn off Minuet and keep doing crap 2.x style dps.

This would be fine if the new skills weren't locked behind it.

[Gooner_iBluAirJGR]

Yup. They could have given us a song that makes us choose between dps and support (by using mp)

I guess. . .wait. . .what? Are Mages Ballad and Armies Paeon not songs anymore?

p.s. they're useful in dungeon speed runs too.

[Cirgellon]

I guess. . .wait. . .what? Are Mages Ballad and Armies Paeon not songs anymore?

p.s. they're useful in dungeon speed runs too.

I think you completsly missed the point...

[Reinha]

I guess. . .wait. . .what? Are Mages Ballad and Armies Paeon not songs anymore?

p.s. they're useful in dungeon speed runs too.

You misunderstood my point. Let me elaborate. In my opinion, WM should have been something like this:

Wanderer's Minuet
Cast Time: 3s
Cooldown: 2.5s
Description: Increases your damage by X%. MP is drained while singing. Effect ends upon reuse. Cannot be used with other songs.

Is this more clear? A simple damage song that doesn't stop autoattack and temporarily increases our damage to what casters deal in a raid environment but not enough to beat them on a dummy. In long fights bard damage would average lower than a caster because they couldn't keep the song up at all times, but in dungeons (short fights) they would be closer to a caster depending on how fast the tank is pulling. It would expand on the bard playstyle instead of changing it. No cast times added so mobility is maintained. Bards would have a song to use in content/groups where nobody needs requiem or resource points, but in progression raids they would most likely need to save their mp for support songs. -> A choice between dps and support (as it was before), instead of a choice between dps and mobility.

Also I want to repeat that I don't mind bards being support, in fact I wish they gave bards similar party buffs to what they gave astro. Something that's useful everywhere and not just raids or a specific party composition. It just annoys me that they were given such a badly designed dps stance and allowed the base damage (weapon damage etc) scale so badly that it's not viable to avoid using WM.