As a Bard that hates WM, but accepted that he will have to either use it or choose another job (hello, SMN):

After the hotfix on WM, I'm back on being top DPS on most of the fights (fuck A4, though). I feel that at least cooldowns should be able to be used mid-cast. But in all honesty, our huge amount of oGDC skills don't mix too well with the cast times. The way I'm playing, I'm giving priority to EA, SW and BL even over my weaponskills. I'll keep them off CD, unused, if I have a BL proc. It's the same potency and gives me movement. Of course, SS and DoTs priorities still exist.

Another thing that pisses me off a little bit is that cast times are MUCH MORE sensible to latency than insta-cast. I've had my BL interrupt my SS and my Barrage interrupt my EA so many times.

And the SS proc feels clunky with the cast issue. Maybe it could proc as soon as you started casting, but lose the proc if you interrupt or miss the hit. Or just get rid of it and we use SS only for the buff and use our BL procs plus other oGCDs for movement.


I don't think it's the optimal way of playing BRD right now, but it's working for me. And I don't claim to be the best BRD alive either, but I do have experience using it.