Bard - they broke my job

[Inferiae]

You just gotta deal with it, like all the other BS in the game .

I guess, but I never had this problem before, which made me like BRD, and now I'm just getting frustrated.

[twoheadedenby]

How is "just deal with it" useful advice anyway? The BRD changes have created problems all over the place where none previously existed, especially for otherwise hard-working players for whom 2.X BRD represented their only path to dealing with latency adequately.

Higher damage (and, as has been pointed out over and over again, BRD's numbers are barely higher relative to other players than they ever have been) are irrelevant to these changes. Numbers can always be adjusted and this was never about increasing BRD's damage output anyway.

[falberto]

How is "just deal with it" useful advice anyway? The BRD changes have created problems all over the place where none previously existed, especially for otherwise hard-working players for whom 2.X BRD represented their only path to dealing with latency adequately.

Higher damage (and, as has been pointed out over and over again, BRD's numbers are barely higher relative to other players than they ever have been) are irrelevant to these changes. Numbers can always be adjusted and this was never about increasing BRD's damage output anyway.

This ^

Hope they make some adjustment in 3.1

[Ehuxley]

I'm really not happy with the changes to high-level Bard either. I had a great time leveling Bard and really enjoyed how it played in all the level 50 dungeons and early Heavensward, but the second I got to 52 the entire thing was flipped on its head and it felt like the entire purpose and niche of the Job was removed. It really feels like I've wasted a whole lot of time, and like a pretty major bait-and-switch for me to have leveled this class specifically because I wanted to play a ranged and didn't want to cast, only for it to become a caster with no in-game warnings that it would happen until as far in as level 50.

And I'm fairly new to this game. I can only imagine how much more frustrating and disappointing it is for people who fell in love with and invested all of their time in Bard in A Realm Reborn, only to find their main Job pretty much gone in the expansion.

[Kitkat]

Honestly, I'm a little perturbed they made off cool-downs a bit harder to weave - far more clunky to use than they should be. This is especially counter intuitive considering they increased the proc rate for bloodletter. I find myself in many instances where weaving in repelling shot is actually less worth the effort needed for the clipping into other abilities it creates. I do however love the fact they made Rain of Death similar to blood letter as it compliments multi-dotting in larger pulls or groups in raids. Couple this with Iron Jaw and those mechanics mesh well....but on single target, the higher proc rate for River of Blood ends up with a decent amount of clunky or inability to use every proc to ones advantage.
The Turret style play doesn't bother me at all honestly. Dodging and getting my attacks off isn't hindered much at all. I'm mostly annoyed there weren't any new passive traits gained at all in these 10 levels as another +10% tack on to Action damage or even a trait that increases potency of DoT's under WM would have gone a long way. I still believe that Sidewinder was over-nerfed too and still needs readjusting to slightly higher values than it currently is. All in all though I'm not overly mad about how brd was changed as I never ran around willy nilly like a ninny pre-3.0 either. You move as much as needed, but not more than that and the turret style still compliments that mentality, so those complaining about it are still complaining about the wrong damn thing.

Lastly, the damage scaling is starting to make the gap larger between the hybrid dps and full on dps. This also has an impact on how these jobs can perform just as much as any other job. I'm not asking for exact same base damage, but more so a couple points higher than what we currently have. I can see the purpose of having some disparity in comparison to other dps, but if that gap exceeds 15% then it is too much. 10-15% is an ideal disparity for support capabilities.

[twoheadedenby]

I never ran around willy nilly like a ninny pre-3.0 either. You move as much as needed, but not more than that and the turret style still compliments that mentality, so those complaining about it are still complaining about the wrong damn thing.

It's possible to complain about both. I've focused on mobility because it's the change that made the entire game less fun for me, but it's true that WM's incompatibility with Bard's oGCD-heavy toolkit makes it play horribly.

I ran around "willy nilly" in 2.X not because I was an idiot doing it for the sake of it, but because with my latency if I was standing still and I started moving as soon as an AOE appeared I would still get hit by it.

It was this that allowed me to get my clears for T5 and the EX primals in ARR. I worked my butt off to get those clears, just like everybody else, and Square Enix's changes to Bard's mobility have now locked me out of doing the same in Heavensward.

[aabe]

.

because memorizing a boss's rotation is too hard
because flipping off WM or using feint to move is too hard

I'm sure you'll notice that big DPS loss on your 800 parse (lol like 400 lower than what you should be at anyway) at the end of your run.

[Sleigh]

I think what I'd like to see from 3.1 BRD is Straight Shot getting changed. I'd want it to go from ...

Current BRD Straight Shot: 70 TP, 20% proc chance from Heavy Shot, 140 potency

to

Theoretical future Straight Shot: 60 TP, 40% proc chance from Heavy Shot, 120 potency

I think this would solve a LOT of BRD's clunkiness and issues. You'd be able to use oGCDs cleanly much more often, as well as having a more reliable movement tool for planned movement, and it'd be a very slight TP buff so BRD wouldn't go OoT faster than most. To compensate, since I think BRD's DPS is quite fine where it is in raw output, tone down the potency so that much more frequent Straight Shots and less clipping with oGCDs wouldn't necessarily give BRD a DPS boost. This is also a change that wouldn't require any mechanical tinkering with the class, since as we all know SE doesn't do changes beyond number shifts in the extreme majority of their balance patches.

[RiceisNice]

Theoretical future Straight Shot: 60 TP, 40% proc chance from Heavy Shot, 120 potency

.

Even with the increased proc rate, it doesn't address the fact that the proc itself won't occur until after your weaponskill has finished it's cooldown. Spamming straight shot (or using more than necessary outside of procs or refreshing buff) in this case would still be detrimental (loss of potency) and it occurs because of the late proc detection.

[Hontaro]

What about weaving 2 oGCDs after Heavy Shot, cutting into the GCD? Of course there is a small dps loss if there's no proc, but then you could use the proc right after Heavy Shot and it makes room for other oGCDs later on in your rotation.