Can you tell me bards why so much hatred....

[Kemas]

Personally (raid brd since first coil through final coil) I entirely changed my main to PLD because BRD was so drastically modified from its prior form. Turning it into a sort of caster made all the appeal disappear for me. :/

[Duelle]

If I recall I quit Retribution Paladin because of the bar system they put in place for it. Wasn't fun to deal with and I switched classes because of it. WoW's intents were to make things interesting, some worked, some didn't. Just like this game.

Depends. I was perfectly happy with the Ret first-come-first-serve priority system it had in Wrath because it created windows of opportunity to use that utility the job boasted. Exorcism had a long enough cooldown that I could spend Art of War procs on insta-cast Flash of Light when needed. It also gave opportunity to use stuff like Lay on Hands and Hand/Blessing of Protection.

What pissed some people off about Holy Power was that it turned ret into a holy rogue, since Holy Power v1 was a copy of rogue combo points and a chunk of the DPS was gated behind Inquisition, just like rogues were gated via Slice 'n Dice. The funny thing is that Holy Power was added because the 2-bit Rets that weren't using the full extent of the spec complained that the spec was too easy and boring because they were tunnel-visioning the DPS buttons without using the utility the spec had access to when needed. As a result, Blizzard took the spec I loved and made it play like a class I didn't roll because I didn't like that class' gameplay.

The main thing is that Holy Power was terribly implemented at first and could have been a lot better. When I realized what Blizzard was trying to do, I started chanting one mantra that did partially reach them: "Holy Power has to behave like an actual resource that can be pooled to work. Also Inquisition is garbage and has no place in Ret gameplay". It took them two expansions to improve Holy Power enough for me to want to play Ret but it eventually happened (one for them to turn it into a resource that can be pooled, another to get rid of inquisition).

I personally wouldn't want BRD players to wait as long as I did with Ret, for one. I won't deny it is a very similar scenario, and it is likely why I'm here instead of ignoring the topic of BRD.

It is if the other jobs are much harder to play. It is an imbalance if one job is much easier to play. More players jump to that job and end of lacking in others. More balanced your jobs are in the skill roof department, the easier it is to choose based on preference more than resistance.

You shouldn't throw variety in gameplay to the wind. There are gameplay elements that certain people will not like, no matter how much you try to force it on them. Yes, more people will roll the easier classes, but that's sort of the point.

969 Prot paladins were very common during Wrath since they were very easy to play, but as a whole it was a good thing because it swelled the number of tanks that were capable of clearing content. I'd rather have more people doing something they enjoy over increasing the chance of failure because you're designing everything around a certain skill/dexterity level. I feel part of the reason so many people in this game "fail at DPS" is because certain DPS jobs have contrived mechanics that have gotten worse with the expansion. Sure, you'll have the occasional ice mage RP'er (AKA a BLM that will only spam Blizzard spells), but that does not excuse some of the designs in place.

[twoheadedenby]

I'd rather have more people doing something they enjoy over increasing the chance of failure because you're designing everything around a certain skill/dexterity level. I feel part of the reason so many people in this game "fail at DPS" is because certain DPS jobs have contrived mechanics that have gotten worse with the expansion. Sure, you'll have the occasional ice mage RP'er (AKA a BLM that will only spam Blizzard spells), but that does not excuse some of the designs in place.

Beautifully worded. The operating thesis for 3.0 seems to have been "Don't like movement mechanics? Too damn bad".

It's not even so much about sheer difficulty (nobody who hates or struggles with movement mechanics will be doing high-end raid content), but that it narrows the focus. Putting ALL of the difficulty into movement mechanics makes the game less accessible and less interesting.

[Linadae]

I didn't want to start a post of bard is bad... just like... give me an really good excuse based on why you hate bard.... if you don't ok... but I really don't get why they keep saying its a bad class

It's not that it's a bad class or bad idea. It's just horribly implemented. For one thing you don't have a class play a certain way for 51 levels then yank the rug out from under them with an ability that changes the entire play style. It would be like having ninja go pure ranged at lvl 52 it changes everything that some people liked about the class. Add to it that cast timers are forcing us to miss bloodletter and straighter shot procs and it negatively affects people who chose bard because it's mobile playstyle compensated for higher latency and you have a formula for very angry players.