You can look WM and BRD from this perspective.

[Gallus]

You can hardly be given more songs...BRD was (and probably still is) borderline op to the point all statics want at least one. You have party wide TP regen, party wide MP regen and a party wide straight magic damage boost, that's absolutely ridiculous... tell me exactly, what kind of song were you expecting that wasn't going to turn BRD into even something more mandatory than it probably already is?
Also, 1.5 cast can hardly be called a "cast stance". Most DPS spells have 2.5 seconds of cast, only heals have 1.5s, and really....they look almost instant. The difference between 2.5 and 1.5 is brutal...so comparing yourselves with a poor BLM (which by the way, are in a far worse spot than BRDs, imo SMN outshines them in pretty much everything atm) is not very accurate.

[Mhikail]

That could also be the part of the developers as well. When they say one thing, and the design choices they make does not follow up with what they said the class was. The bard community is still confused at what it really is to a group.

I felt like they tried to please those who wanted more damage and tried to appease to them and it just didn't turn out what everyone wanted.
Bard players themselves forget what they are is another problem.
Their job is to bolster their party. They are not suppose to be top tier damage dealers, never was.
Could of given us a Haste/Party Defense song [the current as an AoE], and a damage one.

[Wavaryen]

snip

I agree with you 100 percent, The skill of the class could have came from when we played our songs.

snip

TP and MP is powerful, but it is still limited to your MP pool. Giving more song options would let the bard still be support in other types of game play besides just raiding. I don't think it would make bards op because we are still slaves to our MP.

Like I said, I don't care how fast the cast speed is. To me, adding caster elements to bard, and not giving bards better elements to support groups, They could have went with tons of design choices, and still left the class play style near the same.

[LazyC]

i laugh anyone who says bard now requires thinking or any of the such now that WM has been added

the class is still eazy to play, stance dancing is nothing new for several of the classes, so that added nothing much (i mean i get any bard who litterally only played bard and nothing else but..well sucks for them i guess)

the class just feels clunky as hell with WM added, for me it was never about the damage or mobility, yes sometimes i would run around like a nut but most of the time i would just stand there, the cast time doesnt bother me, but the new skills added and the way bloodletter and straight shot procs just feels so slow and awkward is what annoys me, i really hope SE can figure something out with this or just outright remove WM if they cant.

Anyone acting like the class actually got harder is just fooling themselves and trying to bully bard players around for whatever reason. the problem is the clunkyness and nothing else

[Wavaryen]

snip

I agree with you. However, it is not really fair to call people out on what is hard, and what is easy to them. It all depends on the person. This is why I just stick with just talking about myself, and question why they feel like they do.

Myself, it is not about what is hard and easy. It is about what is fun to me.

[LazyC]

well thats more what i was getting at mostly, the clunkyness that has been added to the class is now making my secondary class less fun then it was, the smooth gameplay bard hard before what was i enjoyed, now everything just feels akward to me.

i believe this is what most bards are complaining about, the fun-ness of their class has been lowered because everything feels akward

[sucht]

but I personally welcome every change that adds a greater degree of complexity to my job and allows me to stand out from the other players.

yeah it is your "personal" thing, and maybe some others.

but the majority of players want to have fun playing the game, i can work in my RL Job but in a game i don't want to.
if i have to work to hard just to be someone in a game(to go on raids/dungeons) then the "fun" part is null and void, and i don't say work in a game can't be fun(rewarding) in a way, but if i come from work and want to have "fun" with nice people and some runs(raids/dungeon -duty finder?) with them then i want "fun" and not more work.
yeah i know i'm just a lvl 25 archer atm, but that does not change anything, and yes i know you people talk mostly about endgame stuff but the fact remains the same... it is about "Fun", take the "Fun" part and you will have that "chore" thing.

make a game to complex and you can close down the servers most of the time, because new player will read the forum and see whats going on(rota and stuff) and most of them will decide not to play at all, so there will be not enough revenue for Square and the so called "Data Centers/Server Farms" will get smaller and smaller, and in the end the game is no more. (or is my thinking wrong here?)

again sorry for my english, but i just wanted to say my one or two things. Goodby

dumb and stupid character limitation and a daily limit here on this forum Square... really?

[Syll]

You can hardly be given more songs...BRD was (and probably still is) borderline op to the point all statics want at least one. You have party wide TP regen, party wide MP regen and a party wide straight magic damage boost, that's absolutely ridiculous... .

Yeah you're right, Paeon/Ballad are actually SO over powered that I can go weeks without ever using them. A TP/MP regen buff is worthless when the relevant jobs don't need those things. Which is the vast majority of the time. It's still less impressive when compared to the support skills other DPS get w/o being penalized for it (piercing +10%, slashing+20%, ALL damage taken +10%, goad, Crit+15% etc)

I was in a dungeon today (Sohm Al) where the tank left after the first pull. We completed the entire dungeon w/o ever getting another one and the WHM -still- never needed ballad. And this was just a random DF group.

[AdamFyi]

Their job is to bolster their party. They are not suppose to be top tier damage dealers, never was.

They are free to remove Wanderer's Minuet as they see fit, but don't come crying saying that Bards are being excluded from content if they actually did. Machinists can do the support role pretty well, and they do pretty good damage to boot. :u

Could of given us a Haste/Party Defense song [the current as an AoE], and a damage one.

Due to the changes to how Haste-type buffs work with the expansion, they could give about 5% at best. Plus, Selene already fills in that role, and Scholars are already pretty sought for. Party mitigation can already be filled in by some roles. Dragon Kick, Sacred Soil, and Virus are notable examples. Even though they have quite low percentages, they have very strong effects. Adding more is just asking for trouble. :n

Edit:

I was in a dungeon today (Sohm Al) where the tank left after the first pull. We completed the entire dungeon w/o ever getting another one and the WHM -still- never needed ballad. And this was just a random DF group.

I call BS, until you have some proof to show for that. Mainly because most of the bosses there have high-hitting cleaves that absolutely wreck non-tanks. It may be possible, but I really doubt that anyone can manage to beat the final boss without a tank. Unless you call up Titan-Egi, then yes, it's possible. So correct me if it was a Titan-Egi. Still needs proof though. @_@

[Belhi]

You can hardly be given more songs...BRD was (and probably still is) borderline op to the point all statics want at least one. You have party wide TP regen, party wide MP regen and a party wide straight magic damage boost, that's absolutely ridiculous... tell me exactly, what kind of song were you expecting that wasn't going to turn BRD into even something more mandatory than it probably already is?
Also, 1.5 cast can hardly be called a "cast stance". Most DPS spells have 2.5 seconds of cast, only heals have 1.5s, and really....they look almost instant. The difference between 2.5 and 1.5 is brutal...so comparing yourselves with a poor BLM (which by the way, are in a far worse spot than BRDs, imo SMN outshines them in pretty much everything atm) is not very accurate.

By this argument, the very concept of a support style class is flawed and BRDs should just be pure dps. BRDs have inferior DPS because they are a support class. That's the price they pay. Yoshi has outright stated that before. To say BRDs class focus has to be limited to keep them from being mandatory is pretty unfair to BRDs. Its effectively saying 'your a broken design'.

I honestly don't mind WM but the BRD abilities gained this expac feel pretty uninspired. Most of them feel rather fluff when acturate damage scaling between classes is taken into account.

Due to the changes to how Haste-type buffs work with the expansion, they could give about 5% at best. Plus, Selene already fills in that role, and Scholars are already pretty sought for. Party mitigation can already be filled in by some roles. Dragon Kick, Sacred Soil, and Virus are notable examples. Even though they have quite low percentages, they have very strong effects. Adding more is just asking for trouble. :n

Your basically saying BRDs, a stated support specialist, cant get more support skills cause many other classes, who aren't stated as support and don't get penalised because of it, already offer that support.

You can see how screwed up that is for BRDs right?

People make a big deal of BRDs MP and TP regeneration skills but Ive rarely seen them needed outside of raiding and in most raiding its only needed to compensate for mistakes. I raid as a WHM and I've almost never needed it. Usually we avoid it to keep the BRD from getting hit with the damage reduction using the song causes.