Change to Wanderer's Minuet

[RhaegarFFXIFenrir]

And here I was hoping we'd end up going to a softer stance-dancing duality between, say, shortbow and longbow styles, wherein we could swing towards increased haste or monstrous numbers, where Straighter Shot could be a highlight factor in determining when to swap. RIP actually having to stance your shots despite using massive bows with presumably very high draw weights.

Um....it's a game. Most of the weapons are oversized to the point of ridiculousness, or did you actually think someone could swing a DRK sword around like that? So why is a "very high draw weight" suddenly such an issue? Just accept it, the game is here so we can have fun. Also....stance dancing on BRD/MCH is something only top tier players do for the most part. SE has flat out stated that they want to reduce the disparity in dps between the average player and the top tier, and doing away with bow mage will go some ways towards closing that gap.

[Beatrice]

If it means that WM won't turn Bards into glorified casters then it's a good thing in my eyes. Gives me hope for GB for Machinists.

Yes! I was actually really disappointed with WM and how it changed BRD. I played WHM and BRD throughout 1.0 and 2.0 so WM was a really bizarre change. I started to regret I'd gotten BRD to 60 instead of AST or BLM. The change is making me look forward to taking BRD to 70 in the new expansion.

[Neophyte]

I'm more concerned about what this is going to do to our damage. Are we going to go
back to ARR wet noodle damage without our permanent30% increase? Are we only going to be allowed to use EA and IJ when the Minuet buff isn't on cooldown? Honestly, I prefer Minuet the way it is now because I was never one to endlessly kite stuff or run around randomly before I got it.

Why are people concerned about 'numbers' before patch notes?

I don't get this... same for casters losing raging strikes.. your dps doesn't come from 1 skill or 2. Your dps comes from using all your abilities. Which all get somewhat readjusted. Like IJ, which was used outside WM.

Bit like buying a PC in the 90's without a 'Turbo button' and wondering 'Isn't this slower than my old PC?' before looking up the specs.

[HyoMinPark]

@Neophyte - It's a valid concern. In exchange for decreased mobility, Bards received a 30% damage increase with Wanderer's Minuet. And even then, at 3.0 launch, they were much unwanted because statics preferred their ranged physical DPS to be MCH. After receiving a buff in 3.2 and changing Warden's Paeon to an Esuna, BRDs damage increased and they were once more sought after for statics. As someone who is seeking a static for 4.0 and Omega Savage, as a BRD, I am concerned about us getting the short end of the stick again with this expansion.

With the return of mobility, there is going to have to be some sort of sacrifice. And since Minuet gave a permanent 30% damage buff, its removal could potentially mean lowered personal DPS. I don't want to see BRD go through what it went through prior to our Heavenward buff, where we were the weakest job, and MCHs were favored because they could do the same things BRD could (TP/MP regens PLUS the physical vulnerability debuff) with regards to statics. We had to get buffed to get on the same level, and get back into static comps. Now, with BRDs having some of the highest potential for DPS, it feels like even more of a nerf than a "good change." Because I doubt SE will let us have both mobility and the current damage output we have now. That would be "too OP" in their eyes.

Not to mention, B4B is going to be locked to LNC/DRG only, so we are also losing that as a buff. Buffs are an intergral part of a DPS's rotation. Take away too many, and our DPS suffers. Especially if they don't give us viable replacements.

I, personally, do not see the need for endless kiting of mobs, and most AOEs don't take more than a GCD to move out of. So the need for some extreme, high mobility is minuscule, and I really can't understand why so many BRDs feel the need to bounce around everywhere while attacking. That's just me, though.

[szalkerous]

Best thing to happen to Bard. WM should have never been a thing to begin with. Might have to dust off and go back to my BRD in 4.0.

[Sirius-Khan]

GB Had me thinking we were loading and firing a musket. Praise the change.

[Jetstream_Fox]

It's a valid concern. In exchange for decreased mobility, Bards received a 30% damage increase with Wanderer's Minuet. And even then, at 3.0 launch, they were much unwanted because statics preferred their ranged physical DPS to be MCH. After receiving a buff in 3.2 and changing Warden's Paeon to an Esuna, BRDs damage increased and they were once more sought after for statics. As someone who is seeking a static for 4.0 and Omega Savage, as a BRD, I am concerned about us getting the short end of the stick again with this expansion.

With the return of mobility, there is going to have to be some sort of sacrifice. And since Minuet gave a permanent 30% damage buff, its removal could potentially mean lowered personal DPS. I don't want to see BRD go through what it went through prior to our Heavenward buff, where we were the weakest job, and MCHs were favored because they could do the same things BRD could (TP/MP regens PLUS the physical vulnerability debuff) with regards to statics. We had to get buffed to get on the same level, and get back into static comps. Now, with BRDs having some of the highest potential for DPS, it feels like even more of a nerf than a "good change." Because I doubt SE will let us have both mobility and the current damage output we have now. That would be "too OP" in their eyes.

Not to mention, B4B is going to be locked to LNC/DRG only, so we are also losing that as a buff. Buffs are an intergral part of a DPS's rotation. Take away too many, and our DPS suffers. Especially if they don't give us viable replacements.

I, personally, do not see the need for endless kiting of mobs, and most AOEs don't take more than a GCD to move out of. So the need for some extreme, high mobility is minuscule, and I really can't understand why so many BRDs feel the need to bounce around everywhere while attacking. That's just me, though.

It's not a vaild concern, we don't know how anything is going to work this is a brand new expansion.

If you weren't dancing in and out of Wanderers to start with you weren't even maximizing your potential dps. You don't even seem to understand that you're not intended too be kiting, the movement aspect of the class is meant to lay down a constant stream of dps while moving out of AoEs.

Wanderers is an overall loss on BRD dps, you also don't get the 30% increase if you play Mages or Army, you get 20% when playing those songs. Look at MCH and you'll understand why it gets more attention. Under GB It can still keep an auto attack with Rook out, they don't lose any percentages generating players TP back, and they have more skills to benefit being under GB. BRD loses more than it gains under WM, all WM was is a bad attempt at copy and pasting another jobs base gameplay idea onto itself due to laziness on the dev team.

You're crying about losing WM, but MCH also lost cast bars, they're redesigning everything and once again WE DON'T KNOW ALL THE DETAILS.

[SaitoHikari]

If you weren't dancing in and out of Wanderers to start with you weren't even maximizing your potential dps. You don't even seem to understand that you're not intended too be kiting, the movement aspect of the class is meant to lay down a constant stream of dps while moving out of AoEs.

Wanderers is an overall loss on BRD dps, you also don't get the 30% increase if you play Mages or Army, you get 20% when playing those songs. Look at MCH and you'll understand why it gets more attention. Under GB It can still keep an auto attack with Rook out, they don't lose any percentages generating players TP back, and they have more skills to benefit being under GB. BRD loses more than it gains under WM, all WM was is a bad attempt at copy and pasting another jobs base gameplay idea onto itself due to laziness on the dev team.

While I agree with the rest of your overall message, I must correct you on this point, because a lot in here is straight-up false. And this is coming from someone who hates Minuet but still loves Bard overall - and know more than enough to let that hatred blind.

Wanderer's Minuet is NOT a DPS loss, not by FAR. What most people don't seem to get is that WM not only buffed your weaponskill damage, Wanderer's Minuet affects ABILITY damage too. That means your Bloodletters and Rain of Deaths and Sidewinders and Flaming Arrows and everything else got boosted too. It also affected Feint damage for those moments where you still had to move and attack at once, or double-weave abilities without a Straighter Shot proc available. THIS is why Bards that have mastered Wanderer's Minuet are absurdly strong - I've had many people straight up tell me that they're completely dumbfounded at how I can nuke mob packs harder than the vast majority of Summoners. Some of the absolute fastest dungeon runs I've ever had were alongside another Bard of equal or higher skill level than me. And Hydaelyn have mercy on everything in the dungeon if I got paired up with a really good Summoner or Black Mage too.

Literally the only time you will be trying to 'Minuet Dance' is at the beginning of an opener VS a single boss, as you try to double-weave your buffs and dexterity potion for the first few attacks before finally turning on Wanderer's Minuet for the rest of the fight. Or throwing Windbites on multiple enemies to set up Rain of Death resets early while the tank is doing a large pull that forces you to chase after them.

Machinist actually loses quite a lot converting their turrets to restore TP/MP. Their autoturrets are roughly 20% of their damage. MCH loses more DPS than Bard does when using their TP/MP restore, though they -might- make up for that through Hypercharge. Machinist Gauss Barrel may not disable turret damage, but then again, Machinist has FAR less oGCD attacks to spam compared to Bard by sheer virtue of Bloodletter procs alone. One could think of our Flaming Arrow and Windbite/Venomous Bite as our own personal version of turret damage - and as it turns out, assuming I understand summon programming correctly, turret damage isn't affected by the MCH's personal buffs, while Bard WB/VB does take our buffs into account (or more specifically, 'snapshot' our buffs, there's a reason why every experienced Bard tries to Iron Jaws again right before the buffs fall off, even if the actual debuffs don't fall off for another 5 seconds).

There's a reason why literally every top Bard currently agrees that our class is utterly broken, both in terms of actual effectiveness when played at a high skill level AND in terms of how ridiculously conflicting the actual skill design is.

[Shurrikhan]

Um....it's a game. Most of the weapons are oversized to the point of ridiculousness, or did you actually think someone could swing a DRK sword around like that? So why is a "very high draw weight" suddenly such an issue? Just accept it, the game is here so we can have fun. Also....stance dancing on BRD/MCH is something only top tier players do for the most part. SE has flat out stated that they want to reduce the disparity in dps between the average player and the top tier, and doing away with bow mage will go some ways towards closing that gap.

I only meant that the Archer lore makes a big deal out of distinguishing between the longbow and shortbow styles of the Elezen marksmen and the Mi'qote hunters, so a softer blended stance-dancing concept has always been ripe for the picking, and potentially through a very smooth introduction at that. Instead, HW swapped us out for bow mages (a playstyle that I, and all who've continued to play Bards heavily through HW, am I apparently the minority in liking?), and now SB is swapping us right back out without any clearer view of their larger intentions. It's like having view of your destination, unobscured, to your north, and then deciding to go NW to reach it, only to then go around it yet again on the adjustment.

Stance dancing has been rare for BRD players because it's simply very little output for the effort involved, especially if movement might come up within 15 seconds of swapping back to WM. But that's the case for the current implementation, which has already been revised since WM's appearance. Merely having a dynamic playstyle does not guarantee that it must be difficult, clunky, or otherwise inaccessible.

Nor does every job have to be dumbed down to reduce skill gap. The game could as easily take from the required mechanistry (the obligatory button presses, etc.) as from the nuance, dynamics, or other decisions available to a given job.

[TarynH]

My hope is that it's not so much stance swapping, but more allowance to actually use the songs. Like instead of having a penalty for having Paeon or Ballad up, the BRD actually gets a buff for having any song up. Kind of like how removing the stance dance on healers might coax them to dps more. BRD might be enticed to use their songs more. I just hope it's not overly complicated and convoluted. Stance swapping won't really make sense if the songs have the same functions. That is to say, that if you don't need Ballad up at a particular time, why cast it just to get off another ability?