Bard and how to fix it.

[Drekor]

Best thing I could think of would be to have bards have a song that increases group damage significantly but also increases resource cost significantly... compress the TP/MP chants into one so you'd basically go through cycles of signing to boost group damage then switching to resource generation when people get low. This way the bard is being a support by buffing damage but also causing the need for the resource chant itself as opposed to outside mechanics that would "require" a bard to be present to progress.

[RyuDragnier]

A lot of people who want to play like BRD or MCH are gonna leave this game if SE does nothing about them I think.

Hopefully the bad ones. I've seen enough bad BRDs and MCHs who can't DPS their way out of plastic bags to where they NEED to leave so I can see the good players again.

[AnnietheCat]

People not liking a nonsense skill doesn't make them bad players. Some of us have been playing for a year or more and we liked our old play style. Some of us hate how clunky the rotation feels not. So if a chunk of players unsub because square gave us a poorly implemented skill and refuses to fix it because they think a copy pasted skill added to an established job(as opposed to MCH which was built with GB in mind) is what balance means, we're bad players? It's like no one can dislike something about a job they've been maining for a year or more without being called a bad player in an effort to shut us up.

[ChalupaBatman]

It feels clunky for sure but BRD is a DPS class and WM is a significant DPS increase, that is enough incentive for me to want to use it.

If they remove WM then they would have to nerf the damage so it isn't significantly better than MCH which it turn will make taking BRD's pointless into serious groups since MCH would have higher DPS potential while having similar support utility.

Shitty design on SE's part since WM was their "lazy" way of balancing BRD's to keep them even with MCH but oh well.

[Syll]

Since SE's issue with bard seems to be mobility; they gave it a Caster's limitation (namely a cast bar). However, I'd rather they gave bard a melee's limitation... Which is to say no cast bar, but having to be within melee range of the mob to get the damage bonus.

[VorpalSpork]

I'd rather they just turned WM into a dps CD. Have it not affect mobility at all and just give a 10% (or whatever number makes sense) damage buff and use up MP. It would be exclusive of the other songs, so you have to decide whether to buff your damage or save those MP for one of the other songs. Makes it nice when you are running something where healers won't have mana issues and you can just go ahead and pop WM and do your thing. Don't see that happening, but I can dream.

[Ranen]

Since SE's issue with bard seems to be mobility; they gave it a Caster's limitation (namely a cast bar). However, I'd rather they gave bard a melee's limitation... Which is to say no cast bar, but having to be within melee range of the mob to get the damage bonus.

This! Or at least leave the cast bar for the WM abilities (iron jaws/Empy Arrow) and leave the older abilities instant cast. Hell I wouldn't even mind if VB and WB had cast bars, just leave our spam abilities without it.

[Kelevra]

When Minuet is running, and only when Minuet is running, some of the Bard's traits should be able to trigger additional effects. The one that should be improved/tweaked first is River of Blood.

Under Minuet: If BL/RoD are reset by WB or VB while off cooldown...it should increase in potency (up to 2 or 3 times---potency increase is indefinite, but resets after one use or if Minuet is switched off). Just like a select few have suggested already, some sort of addition like this to the River of Blood trait would help alleviate some of the problems folks are running into atm, when getting a steady stream of BL/RoD resets when in Minuet. I think so anyway.

[OnizukaBR]

Since SE's issue with bard seems to be mobility; they gave it a Caster's limitation (namely a cast bar). However, I'd rather they gave bard a melee's limitation... Which is to say no cast bar, but having to be within melee range of the mob to get the damage bonus.

Then the complaint would be "I would lvled a monk or drg if i wanted to play melee dps" instead of "if i wanted cast bar i would lvled a blm"

[Cinicus]

Blah blah blah....just give me Ranger already!