Bard and how to fix it.

[RyuDragnier]

Personally I'm just finding bard no longer the 'fun' class to play that it was for the last 2 years. If I wanted to play BLM I'd have played BLM. It feels like they ran out of time getting Heavensward out the door and brd wasn't done yet, so they said "@#% it, give them the MCH stuff and call it a day" but it really doesn't work. You have all the problems of BLM with their procs plus the unique problems of BL procs in the middle of cast times, and none of the benefits of MCH when using the stance.

If you want to expose every weakness of the FF14 combat system play brd the way it currently is with WM. You get hit with every combination of bad proc synergy, bad proc timing, OGCD timing failures, and ground targeting weakness / bugs, and even the ability that interrupts itself now (bye bye repelling shot)! yet you get no benefit in DPS for dealing with it all either, you're still a 3rd rate "support" dps but you just lost the #1 class defining ability of 'doing it all on the run'

Yeah, because it's not like you can toggle WM on and off. WHY didn't they add a toggle switch to the move!? Oh wait...they did.

[Aiselia]

Yeah, because it's not like you can toggle WM on and off. WHY didn't they add a toggle switch to the move!? Oh wait...they did.

Because it's not like they made it so that Bard's DPS is now balanced around having it on, leading to a DPS loss when you have it off. Oh wait... they did.

[RiceisNice]

Yeah, because it's not like you can toggle WM on and off. WHY didn't they add a toggle switch to the move!? Oh wait...they did.

Their dps is balanced around using WM. I felt like you skimmed off very specific points for movement, and did not mention the clunkiness that comes from having a cast bar.

[RyuDragnier]

Their dps is balanced around using WM. I felt like you skimmed off very specific points for movement, and did not mention the clunkiness that comes from having a cast bar.

Aside from a oGCD taking a little longer to use after certain finished casts than others, I haven't noticed any clunkiness while casting. Then again, I have almost every class at least at level 51 (save for Astrologian, still need to level that one) so I'm used to cast bars.

[RiceisNice]

Aside from a oGCD taking a little longer to use after certain finished casts than others, I haven't noticed any clunkiness while casting. Then again, I have almost every class at least at level 51 (save for Astrologian, still need to level that one) so I'm used to cast bars.

Try using two oGCDs inbetween a weaponskills, using bloodletter as soon as it comes off cooldown, and catching straighter shot procs as soon as it pops. I played blm, and firestarter aside, blm still flows coherently and smooth compared to how bard is with how fragmented it can get with oGCD resets and catching straighter shots ( when ss is also a regular part of our rotation, it leads to you hard casting ss worth the buff active, losing both dps and tp).

It's not breaking to the point that it's that much of a detriment to dps, but it's clear enough that they haven't done any play testing to see how wm actually interacts with bards skill set, versus slapping it on them because they gave it to mch as well. It's just not fun, esp when mch plays pretty much the same with GB but is designed around it.

As a bard main that enjoyed their fast-flowing moveset and reactive procs, it's incredibly cumbersome to try to catch procs (bloodletter specifically) that occur either during the middle of my cast or after I used a oGCD, I have to either delay my oGCD or next weaponskill. You get that moment of time where you're not casting anything despite your GCD being off cooldown, pauses where I'm literally standing there unable to do anything due to animation locks or a internal CD that prevents you from popping two oGCDs at the same time or too close to each other. It's a complete pace-breaker and really could've been handled better, like giving oGCDs a cast time (such as empyreal arrow) or redoing the function of river in WM. It'd keep the overall pacing of bard similiar to how it was 2.0; constant uptime with no fragmented pauses inbetween because of procs.