Bard - they broke my job

[RinchanNau]

I fixed timers. i was stubborn to think 1.5 secs = recast

Checking the second picture, your Iron jaw is near to be casted and Potion buff is 0. A delay due connection and you will fail to apply them.

If your latency is too high or skill speed to low you can easily switch to a 2 HS version of the same opener. My ping is normally around 25-30ms so it's not a factor in my planning.

This is also where the freedom of this opener can pay off. Depending on procs you may end up replacing a heavy shot or two with a bloodletter. This eases the timing but is not guaranteed. While not the norm I've had openers with 5 buffed Bloodletters.

[rappa]

My latency was 130-160 before the migration to Europe. I tested a lot of rotations and Iron jaws was ever unbuffed with potions and buffs :/.

With servers in canada, i lost one tick from both dots once i reapply with iron jaws. The situation i didn't lose a tick was when i used iron jaws after both dots went down.

I guess your rotation is more flexible once you have more gear and crit rate. I had a lot of openers without any chance of Straght shot proc or bloodletter proc.

Latency is a big problem in a job where you have castbars more short than recast and you have to use oGCD between them. Delaying weaponskills will lose damage.

BTW: I am enjoying the conversation :3 i think i saw you in Vidula and shamanarks streams. Probably one day we could talk ^_^

[Shurrikhan]

I put my dots on all three striking dummies we have in our FC house and they all ticked at the same time. Is it because it's a small sample, so I couldn't really see the difference?

[On the "global" DoT tick and effects of IJ on BL (waste)]

I went ahead and headed over to the four striking dummies outside of Idyllshire, popped Army's Paeon, left WM off, and tested tick timings by cycling DoTs through all four while maintaining Straight Shot's crit buff to up the average tick rate.

It took a while but I eventually got 3 refreshes in a single GCD (around the 10 minute mark). That being said, the vast majority of refreshes happened around 3 seconds of each other (and, more often than seems entirely coincidental, seemingly right at almost exactly a GCD, rather than 3 seconds[?] -- this could just seem that way due to reaction time and net latency though), and the visuals show them all ticking at once, so I'm not entirely certain what's happening.

Going to test with split DoTs vs. IJed DoTs in a bit. Will edit when I'm done.
...
Edit: After testing for ~12 minutes against a single target dummy, I didn't get a single Bloodletter between the 3-second tick times. As such I suspect even split DoTs are in fact ticking together. There should be no additional chance of wasting BL from using IJ (and its stacking the DoT durations/starts/ends). [<--this much certain]

My best guess is each enemy has its own 'global' (or personal, all-debuffs-together) DoT tick, rather than there being an true, single, global tick for all DoTs on the battlefield. [<--still not sure on this part]

What I noticed as BLM is that everything shares one tick timer. I never ever got 2 Thundercloud procs (which are btw even worse then BL procs imo) in quick succession, while I once got 4 Thundercloud procs on one single tick (from 4 different enemies).

That was my assumption going into the test as well (for which reason I've gone so far as downloading global tick timers before for DoTs as well as mana), but I definitely was able to fire 3 consecutive Bloodletters within a single GCD, which shouldn't be possible with a true global tick unless--and this might actually be the case--some weird quirk of latency and ability queuing. I put up all my DoTs, got a tick, used it, and about 2 seconds later got another, used it, another popped as I hit it, clipping the first's animation (which, by itself, is common enough if you delay on using a Bloodletter until up against the tick timer, but that wasn't the case here) and then a third, again clipping the prior's animation. The queuing for all three was probably done within... .7 seconds?

That said... while there were a couple other time in that long test where I thought I saw two bloodletters in the same GCD, but it took the entire test just to produce that one result that pointed anywhere definitively (which may well have been some strange anomaly). If I tested for 30 minutes straight, I might have gotten some clearer evidence, but even just fifteen minutes of that felt plenty tedious...

[Shurrikhan]

Going to go ahead and throw out my two cents here:

I get that we're pretty much stuck with whatever we've got, and by now most of us are pretty well used to it. I myself like WM; I just think it was also a bit of a wasted opportunity to do something far less makeshift and more Bard-like. But I don't think it's a waste of breath either to discuss what we'd like to have seen in order to better understand what we'd like to see in future job evolutions.

Imo, if there were to be an addition that dramatically changes gameplay according to stance, this really should have hit around level 30 or so in the base archer skills (it would be a natural extension of the split Marksman/Elezen/Greatbow vs. Hunter/Miqo'te/Shortbow styles of archery). Nor should that one stance, which likely should be more dance-able than our current WM, be the only option giving us variance. As a Bard, I feel like this would have best come from integrating, in various ways, the songs into our combat effects. This would also allow for some of the other requested changes from A Realm Reborn such as more interesting rotations, more immediate song usability (ways around the clunky 3s cast), and more dynamic and versatile song effects (with uses not limited to caster compositions or progression content).

E.g.... change Swiftsong to Windsong, give it some in-combat use that can give us reason to zip past party members who may need a short speed boost, with particular abilities benefiting both our mobility and dps (likely... Windbite). Give it enough unique effects to alter our priorities somewhat or build a different dynamic for preparing for some incoming task (be it mobility, mass-DoTing, or quickly killing off a low-health add). Maybe even swap out our proc-shot (Bloodletter) with different songs (Flicker Shot [default], Wind Shot [Windsong], Spare Shot [Paeon], Bloodletter [Foe], etc.). Make each song start instantly but ramp up via its integration with our combat abilities. Give us more ways to sacrifice dps on demand (e.g. spend a GCD singing) for support in balance with weaving party-helpful but personal-dps-hindering songs between CDs (I personally like that aspect, though there are many other methods to throw in some extra, subtle skill-gap aspects). Make that movement around the battlefield feel a bit more purposed (without accidentally just causing a focus on stacking people in Cure III/Song_bonus-sized circles)... Make something like "going Windsong" actually a thing worth saying, and for Bards to figure out how to get the most out of their songs in more ways than just when they'd have time to cast the damn things, avoiding dmg loss during CDs, having Foe up in time, and when to drop whatever song to keep enough mana for the next time it's needed. All those things are good--maybe even great--but a bit more depth, versatility, and flexibility could make them amazing.

That being said, building all that would be quite the task, especially if future-proofing to work alongside an eventual Ranger job... Not so difficult that one would reasonably give up, slap on a cast-times-for-20/30%-bonus-damage-without-AAs ability, toss in two new rotationals and a CD and say 'job well done', but certainly a tall order.

[RiceisNice]

I just think it was also a bit of a wasted opportunity to do something far less makeshift.....

That's my census as well, on top of MCH's initial previews and making so many cuts toward the final version. They could have made WM increase weaponskill speed while reducing tp cost and GCD (making it much more faster paced), or not do the cast time tibdit and instead make wanderer's consume extra TP for more damage, while the rest of BRD's post-50 skills would help with TP management; sort of becoming similar to dork side for DRK in a sense where resource management is key.

With an entire new expansion and a new job to compete with, "disappointing" best sums up what I feel about BRD going into 3.0, and MCH compared to BRD. It's a tall order like you said, but you kinda need to push the envelope for something like...an expansion, not just for the jobs but also content in general.

[Shurrikhan]

snip

The thing that gets me most is that there rarely ever seems to be any impression that they looked over the jobs and figured "based on what people like right now about the job, or whatever the job seems to (perhaps/eventually) promise, what would feel awesome to actually play?" The improvements instead kind of just tossed another stone into the mix and then compacted the whole thing. They certain tighten the bolts on the bar-watching aspect of gameplay that has (for better, or, to some, maybe worse) aided intensity thus far, mostly by adding more CD attacks and shrinking windows and/or upping penalties on balance-able abilities (WM being the best example of the first, and BotD, Enoch good examples of both), but the 'improvements' feel very bare-bone in aim.

is there a tl;dr version of this whole topic? since I still don't know what is actually wrong with brd atm that even requires fixes? I have seen some pretty numbers from brds and if you have have more than one caster foe's is such a nice thing.

maybe someone can give me a quick to the point summary?

Mostly a lot of seemingly changes/additions seemingly in conflict with each other and how Bard previously felt. We went from double-weave to single-weave (except on SS proc). We're still by no means casters even now, but we move at a waltz pace where previously unhindered; until popping Dreadwyrm stance for Ruin III filler, SMN is generally more mobile than WM Bard. Our additions were relatively uninventive or fitting. We got a cast-bars-for-slight-damage-boost ability (significant only after EA and IJ), a 15s nuke, a GCD-saver, a 90s nuke, and what amounts to a pre-pull ability only usable with a Warrior (due to lack of immediacy and GCD loss). Irritations caused by latency are roughly tripled. We, too, are now victims of Firestarter hell. The adjusted WM feels like it should be slight dance-able, but (with any SS) the lock-in is longer than EA's CD. Played at under 80 ms latency, by someone who enjoys tight-windowed gameplay, it's fairly enjoyable. For those who liked the more subtle skill-gap from before, the greater responsiveness, or simply have over, say, 140 ms latency, it can be clunky and irritating.

Even those who do like it, though, can't really point at any specific part of it and say that it seems... Bard-like.

[lulunami]

My latency was 130-160 before the migration to Europe. I tested a lot of rotations and Iron jaws was ever unbuffed with potions and buffs :/.

With servers in canada, i lost one tick from both dots once i reapply with iron jaws. The situation i didn't lose a tick was when i used iron jaws after both dots went down.

I guess your rotation is more flexible once you have more gear and crit rate. I had a lot of openers without any chance of Straght shot proc or bloodletter proc.

Latency is a big problem in a job where you have castbars more short than recast and you have to use oGCD between them. Delaying weaponskills will lose damage.

I used to use the Double Empyreal opener, but I switched over to an opener similar to Rinchan's. It feels better for me (I play at about 75-80 ms latency). The Double Empyreal opener is pretty restrictive timing-wise and the worse thing is getting a lag spike on applying Iron Jaws. xD

[Hontaro]

snip

What I noticed as BLM is that everything shares one tick timer. I never ever got 2 Thundercloud procs (which are btw even worse then BL procs imo) in quick succession, while I once got 4 Thundercloud procs on one single tick (from 4 different enemies).

[TiaHeart]

The thing that gets me most is that there rarely ever seems to be any impression that they looked over the jobs and figured "based on what people like right now about the job, or whatever the job seems to (perhaps/eventually) promise, what would feel awesome to actually play?"

I get that we're pretty much stuck with whatever we've got, and by now most of us are pretty well used to it. I myself like WM; I just think it was also a bit of a wasted opportunity to do something far less makeshift and more Bard-like

That's my census as well, on top of MCH's initial previews and making so many cuts toward the final version. They could have...(making it much more faster paced)

With an entire new expansion and a new job to compete with, "disappointing" best sums up what I feel about BRD going into 3.0, and MCH compared to BRD

Loooooooooooooooooooove it <3

is there a tl;dr version of this whole topic? since I still don't know what is actually wrong with brd atm that even requires fixes? I have seen some pretty numbers from brds and if you have have more than one caster foe's is such a nice thing.

maybe someone can give me a quick to the point summary?

The above in contrast to lots of number mumbo jumbo, dealwithit and gitgud for me personally is a TLDR.

FOE isnt new and brd lost (felt? subjective?) pace. Number discussions are nice but dont help anyone who decided to play brd for his pace when to achieve those numbers he has to abandon it.

[twoheadedenby]

I know it's less pressing than the dire clunkiness of the job or the overall awfulness of the direction they took it, but surely I'm not the only one who's also really disappointed with what WM has done to the animations? Or rather, the lack thereof.

The "casting" animation has literally one static frame, and it interrupts the actual attack animations before the arrow even gets loosed. It would have made far more sense to place the cast in the middle of the animation when the bow is drawn, but that would have required more effort to implement than literally zero.

I know it's a totally superficial thing, but the game is sold in part on its aesthetic appeal, and it's yet another way in which Bard now feels like a compromised caster class (who have much more fluid cast animations) rather than any identity of its own.