Bard - they broke my job

[RiceisNice]

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.

You could do that, but that's part of the problem on why I hate bard's (lack of) natural flow to their skill execution. If I'm doubling up oGCDs, its a period of time where my GCD is ready but I can't use any other weapon skills. It seems very counterproductive to have a job that's oriented toward double weaving oGCDs (because of river of blood's effect) gain cast times (which works against double weaving oGCDs, SMNs know this when they choose to use ruin II in place of I to weave in fester)

[Snowaeth]

Something I haven't seen mentioned, but that becomes rather annoying after many hours of raiding which is another consequence of WM.
The darn songs can't be turned off during casts X_X

I ended up overplaying songs that didn't turn off because my button press happened to clip the end of a cast and then I'd have my next cast already started making me stuck with the song for another GCD or longer if I didn't notice in time.

I literally have to cut into my GCD to turn OFF a song which already took me 3sec to cast to begin with :S

[giantslayer]

My opinion is the changes they made to Bard make it too much like Machinist. When they talked about Machinist before release, it was like "Machinist has a thing they can do to sacrifice mobility for more DPS." I thought, "oh, that would be an interesting contrast with Bard." I figured that would be a MCH thing and maybe they could out-DPS Bard of they can park their butt long enough, and lose out to Bard if they have to move enough.

No, instead they did Wanderer's Minuet and made Bard and Machinist a little too similar IMHO.

[Kolaina]

No, instead they did Wanderer's Minuet and made Bard and Machinist a little too similar IMHO.

but i honestly dont think this is necessarily a bad thing. all tanks feel quite similar when i play them. i can just utilize aoe far more easily with drk, be more defensive as pld, or play war like i would a dps. but essentially they are mostly pull > 1,2,3 > 1,2,3. the problem i think is mch was built from the ground up, where minuet was just slapped on brd and felt implemented so sloppily in accordance with their river of blood among a few other things

[Rowyne]

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.

Well said. There are indeed many career bards from ARR who have turned to other classes because the job that they loved is now gone.

My opinion is the changes they made to Bard make it too much like Machinist. When they talked about Machinist before release, it was like "Machinist has a thing they can do to sacrifice mobility for more DPS." I thought, "oh, that would be an interesting contrast with Bard." I figured that would be a MCH thing and maybe they could out-DPS Bard of they can park their butt long enough, and lose out to Bard if they have to move enough.

No, instead they did Wanderer's Minuet and made Bard and Machinist a little too similar IMHO.

I couldn't agree more! It doesn't make sense to try to shoehorn a drastic playstyle change into an existing class and potentially alienate players. Not when they could have chosen to only make MCH play this way, and if players didn't like it, they could walk away with minimal time invested. Instead, they made two classes practical carbon copies of each other with no choice of another ranged physical DPS if you didn't like it.

[Dzique]

I wonder, does devs really read all this complains, ideas and suggestions or we just talk about how they break Bard, but in the end nothings going to change. Like, is it even possible to reverse Bard back to pre-hw state, with different approach?

[Rowyne]

I wonder, does devs really read all this complains, ideas and suggestions or we just talk about how they break Bard, but in the end nothings going to change. Like, is it even possible to reverse Bard back to pre-hw state, with different approach?

Gods, I hope so. Nothing would make me happier than if they reverted the bard playstyle to ARR and reworked the post-50 abilities.

Mess with machinist all you want, but give us bard back!

[Neela]

Atm im getting used to stance-switching and that makes Bard interessting for me again... good training-grounds f.e are A3 or Neverreap endboss addphase imo... where mobility comes in handy again. The only thing they could change is the reactivition-time from Wanderer's Minuet... if you could change instantly from WM stance to normal stance without cooldown, i would getting used to it even more. :3

[ruskie]

I stopped switching in neverrreap ages ago(though first few times I usually turned it off after 50% mark) and never did it in a3 at all. Plenty of time for all.

[Duelle]

The only thing they could change is the reactivition-time from Wanderer's Minuet... if you could change instantly from WM stance to normal stance without cooldown, i would getting used to it even more. :3

Assuming macros work like I think they do, you'd end up with BRDs making something like:

/ac "Wanderer's Minuet" <me>
/ac "Empyreal Arrow" <t>
/ac "Wanderer's Minute" <me> (or cancelaura if that exists here).

I get the feeling this is the reason stances in general have cooldowns.