Bard and how to fix it.

[Sen_Terrechant]

snip

It sounds like you should have never rolled Bard to begin with. Bard has ALWAYS been support DPS, before ARR even came out it was known they would be a support DPS. Furthermore you never really needed to run around like a headless chicken bunny hopping, and you still have the option to do that during movement heavy portions (WM is now a toggle with a 15 second cooldown). Furthermore every GOOD group doing REAL PROGRESSION will bring a BRD or MCH. Why you ask? Because they bring the BEST SUPPORT in the entire game, TP song alone would justify their existance by allowing the highest DPS in the party to keep DPSing. Foes is a HUGE boost to casters, and does not affect their damage in the slighestest (and the Physical debuff by MCH is amazing as well).

Not to mention if you are a good player and can adapt to WM, your closer then ever % wise to straight DPS damage then you were pre 3.0.

If you get kicked out of raid content, you might just be a bad player.

[Blaste]

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"Clearly" you know what your talking about considering there are 4 roles in the game....OH WAIT...no theres not, DPS, TANK, and HEALER....NO support, and someone that isn't even BRD shouldn't even be saying anything, otherwsise you'd know that regardless of your songs most groups still require you to use WM, a playstyle we didn't sign up for is being forced onto us or we have to hang up our bows. There is no being a good player, when you've adapted a playstyle that you've used for 2 years to only have the mechanics completely turned on its side.

[Snowaeth]

How would people feel if Wanderer's Minuet would make our attacks 3yalm (melee range) instead of giving it cast times?

[Blaste]

I just don't want to use WM, I just want to have my old bard back, even just with a 10% dmg increase overall but let us keep our mobility....I feel like I spend all my time watching the hotbar to time my attacks to the time it takes to cast, Im not having fun anymore D:.

[Rikkustrife]

How would people feel if Wanderer's Minuet would make our attacks 3yalm (melee range) instead of giving it cast times?

Or they could do more damage in melee range and go down when farther away, that would be great

[Inferiae]

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.

[Blaste]

After the hotfix on WM, I'm back on being top DPS on most of the fights.

Im not sure if its my rotation or that Im not timing my attacks correctly in relation to the cast times, for example Id cast something like Heavy shot>>Straight shot and when Im able to as the cast bar is almost filled I cast another skill like EA or my dots, basically trying to get it so that Im always attacking despite having the cast bars...is that how its done? Like heres my typical rotation if Im fighting a boss Foes>> Blood for blood>>Hawks Eye>>Internal Release>>Blood letter>>Flaming circle>>heavy shot>>>straight shot>>windbite>>viper shot>>>By then Blood letter is up and then I use it, now I will try to throw in EA and Sidewinder whenever possible, obviously use SW when the enemy has both dots on them, and Barrage>>EA for extra damage, I don't find I use iron jaw enough to reapply dots, but thats my basic rotation, there something else I should be doing?

[RussW]

I got the game about 3 weeks before HW came out so I played as the old school bard for a short time but of course in roulettes that are under the level for WM. Personally I really like WM. Its pretty easy to maximize damage with it on, you may have to prioritize things that normally synced up very well but you should now be focusing on emp arrow, sidewinder, renewing dots with iron jaw and using your instants like blood rage and straigher shot when they are up while chucking out lots of heavy shots. Your own combat awareness helps you figure out when to cast a heavy shot then move out of the way of an attack and get off an instant like blood rage or straighter shot. We also now have some really nice burst for adds and things that need to be blown up to get back to the boss. You also need to figure out your own latency because you can start moving right before the end of the cast bar and still get off an attack.

[Sen_Terrechant]

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Did you just ignore the other three letters after the word support. I didnt say straight support, i said a support DPS. They can do both, the devs themselves have stated on multiple occasions that Bards as a SUPPORT DPS. As in both of those words.
Now im not trying to be a dick here, but you and the other people in this thread are picking and choosing what you want to listen to and ignore.

So what your mechanics were turned on its side? If your a good player you adapted, hell good players could play many different classes with differing mechanics. Your just pissy because someone isnt jumping on the BARD SUCKS bandwagon. Bard is in an excellent spot right now if you can just get over it, better then they have been DPS wise for almost all of ARR (Not counting the very start where BRD was the strongest class because they could outdps everyone while still supporting.. a state it seems that all of you want them to return to).

At this point it really is a get over it or find a new class type of thing, if you are a good player it really shouldnt be that hard to adapt or change. At this point the only things you should even expect is very very minute QoL changes.

Right now BRD/MCH bring the most valuable support in the game for progressing, while bringing better DPS then they ever have been, and that isnt good enough for many of you. Frankly its hilarious.

I can understand being irked at playstyle changes, but it happens. If your a good player you will adapt, because that is what good players do. If your not aparently you take it to the forums and cry your eyes out.

[Inferiae]

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That's what I do:

I open with:

Foe > Warden's Paean on WAR (gotta love dat no-pacification berserk) > BV > QS > HA > RS > BL > SS > BfB > IR > WB > Barrage > EA > VB > FA > SW

Then I keep my DoTs up with IJ, and priorities as follow:

IJ > SS > SW > EA > BL > FA > HS > BA > RS

If HA/BfB/Barrage are about to get off cooldown, I wait to use EA with it. Same with RS and EA.