Bard - they broke my job

[ShaneDawn]

wrong post*****

[Vickii]

So I just hit 50 and haven't got to this yet but I can't say I'm looking forward to it.

Honestly, I'd rather do less dps than something that stands and cast, but be able to shoot instantly and move around without interruption than stand and cast with more dps. It's why I took this class to 50 and not BLM.

I'll do less dps anyway because i'll have to stop casting to move out of these insta-kill aoe's which are constant and annoying.

[xyaie]

just hit 60 today. my last "main" was a blm, followed by mch (raid needed) and then i fell in love with bard.

everyone keeps talking about how the change has turned a bard into a black mage

the following is my opinion, but this is 115% incorrect. They feel NOTHING alike. a black mage truely is 100% immobile. 99% of your rotation is done while casting, re-positioning is almost always a DPS loss and the slight times that you can move are procs, then you need to have the proc up at a certain time in your rotation. your rotation is very tight, meaning a slight movement doesnt just equal "oh i canceled a spell" it is often roughly the equivalent of both your DoTs dropping and not being able to put them back up for the next minute.

conversely a bard can usually move for 1s every 2.5s (more as it lets you move before you finish your cast). the only real tight part of the rotation movement can screw you on is iron jaws. even with WM up i feel extremely mobile, then something crazy, i can sacrifice some DPS and move 100% of the time till i feel its safe to stop again, vs my black mage which loses close to 80% of his DPS if i to keep mobile.

[Shunye]

Honestly, I'd rather do less dps than something that stands and cast, but be able to shoot instantly and move around without interruption than stand and cast with more dps. It's why I took this class to 50 and not BLM.

Why people would "choose to do less dps" makes absolutely no sense to me. This game has significantly harder mechanics for dps than pretty much any mom i have played, and you are already punished enough for not being perfect on some classes.

Being able to run around and shoot is fantastic. But the makers of this game decided that it was time for bards to do damage equal to other classes, and the trade off is that bards get the same weaknesses as casters. Unfortunately there are a lot of bards that don't like the change because it raises the difficulty level on the class significantly.

[Duelle]

Being able to run around and shoot is fantastic. But the makers of this game decided that it was time for bards to do damage equal to other classes, and the trade off is that bards get the same weaknesses as casters.

I thought BRDs and MCH were parsing at the same discrepancy BRD had during ARR compared "pure" DPS. If the idea was to increase BRD DPS, they already done goofed there. Even then, the increase in DPS doesn't justify what the developers have implemented (specially considering bows already have relatively poor damage scaling).

Unfortunately there are a lot of bards that don't like the change because it raises the difficulty level on the class significantly.

This has nothing to do with difficulty, since ability-wise BRD didn't get anything too altering (WM notwithstanding). Flow of gameplay is different than what it was at 50 and to make matters worse it inserted an element some people purposely rolled archer to avoid.

It's kind of like, if you want to tank and want timers to manage + active mitigation, you're going to roll WAR. If you want to tank and like straightforward gameplay, you're going to roll PLD. WAR players would be angry if they turned it into PLD, and likewise PLD players would get angry if they were suddenly saddled with stuff that drove them away from WAR.

[RiceisNice]

Being able to run around and shoot is fantastic. But the makers of this game decided that it was time for bards to do damage equal to other classes, and the trade off is that bards get the same weaknesses as casters. Unfortunately there are a lot of bards that don't like the change because it raises the difficulty level on the class significantly.

WM/GB does not increase their dps to be higher than it was in 2.0, relatively speaking compared to other classes. All classes are balanced around 3.0 DPS thorugh adding an extra layer of skill utilization whether it's maintaining buff uptime or an additional stacks... or imo lack of thereof for MCH/BRD.

They could have done better with the implementation for new skills for BRD espesically, but instead they opt out for WM, which seems while it's sound in concept, it doesn't work too well with bard animations in general or their 2.0 toolkit, it is extremely lack luster (their "extra skill layer" is standing still whereas other classes get more timers, stacks to manage etc), especially when you consider the fact they also gave it to MCH.

[ckc22]

conversely a bard can usually move for 1s every 2.5s (more as it lets you move before you finish your cast). the only real tight part of the rotation movement can screw you on is iron jaws. even with WM up i feel extremely mobile, then something crazy, i can sacrifice some DPS and move 100% of the time till i feel its safe to stop again, vs my black mage which loses close to 80% of his DPS if i to keep mobile.

Completely agree. My Bard is about to hit 58 but coming from a player who mains mages - stutter stepping on a 1.5s cast is piss easy.

[seorin]

I've put a good amount of time into BRD, BLM, and SMN, both at 50 and 60. BRD mobility at 60 feels similar to BLM at 50 - moving can cost you DPS, but you have ways to mitigate that loss. SMN 60 feels even better, losing little to no DPS from occasional movement. WM definitely makes BRD feel more like a caster, it's just not as bad as 60 BLM (no coincidence that a lot of BLMs are unhappy, too). If you picked BRD because it wasn't a caster, you have every right to be upset.

I think a good compromise would be a straight DPS increase for BRD. Make WM a toggle between a full DPS class and the "lower DPS but more mobile" BRD of old. Having to sacrifice mobility to still lag behind other DPS classes just feels like crap. I wouldn't even mind if WM were exclusive with other songs in that case, as long as it feels like we get something out of it instead of giving up something to be just as good as we were at 50.

[LathusWHM]

Okay so imagine this all you BLMs out there. Imagine if all your cast times from every skill were removed, you could freely move or even jump around the entire arena while casting ANY spell at your disposal instantly. Would you be happy? Yes? I thought so, now imagine all that happiness...are you imagining it now? Good! Imagine the same level of anger and frustration and that is what us Bards are feeling at the moment.

New job: bow mage

[Erudito]

Why people would "choose to do less dps" makes absolutely no sense to me. This game has significantly harder mechanics for dps than pretty much any mom i have played, and you are already punished enough for not being perfect on some classes.

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Well, its because choosing a job is more about being able to do all these mechanics and content while enjoying yourself fully in said job. If the job itself puts people in an uncomfortable spot due to its own mechanics then they will probably not enjoy the content and more often than not making people change job.

Personally, I think Bard feels very clunky now. Yes, it can do plenty of DPS, do all the content and whatnot, I will not deny that. There are people that love it, there are those that do not as we can plainly read in this very board. I would have preferred more interesting song choices for Bard in the expansion. I still dream of the day we get Life's Anthem and Heroes March. Heck, even making it so that new songs require you to sit still while you sing it would have been perfect.

Oh well, doubt they will change it back. Its either grow to love it or change jobs at this rate.