Anyone have bard as main?

[Sylvain]

I don't believe the bard will be easier to play.
At least not optimally.
Bard currently has one of the easiest rotation, and the cast time hardly makes it harder.
You need to keep 2 dots that you can refresh with one skill, there is no combo tree, you have 2 short cd dps burst, one buff to keep up and the bunch of 60sec+ cd.
On top of that, it's extremely forgiving. Nothing you do can screw up your dps. You didn't refresh your dots quick enough, just reapply them. You forgot to apply your buff, apply it.
Compare that to a BLM loosing enochian or failing a FireIV because AF expired 0.5sec before you finished your cast, Bard is few order of magnitude easier and forgiving.
(I'm not saying it is a bad thing, especially the forgiving part)


Anyway, going on with why I don't believe it will be the case

I believe the job will be more complex for three reasons:

1- Two of the 3 songs seem to have a ressource management. We could see some musical notes and arrows charging. Which means that on top of your actual rotation, you'll have to manage Something new. Especially the Wanderer minuet with the 3 Arrow things. I don't expect them to remove anythin from the current Bard since they're already one of the most simplistic job.

2- Song aren't aoe now, you need to target which ally and which ennemy you apply the song to. The ennemy part isn't annoying in itself as most fight will only have 1 target, but the ally one will require more management. Especially if the range isn't crazy long. On top of that songs have duration, we don't know the actual implication of this change. Do they need to "charge up"? We can expect song to be more than just "press and Watch your mana drain"

3- The removal of the cast time will technically make the job harder.
If you stand still, having or not a casting time doesn't change your rotation. Doing an instant and waiting 2.5 for the GCD is the same as casting for 2sec and waiting 0.5sec for the GCD.
Then, if you have to move, the casting time prevents you from casting, which means that for that movement period, beside your instant skills, you can't dps. You're on stand-by. And assuming you have to move for an extensive period of time, you can still remove the minuet and reapply it after. Some math can help you determine if it's Worth it or no.

However, if your skills are all isntant, you can always dps, dancing around the boss is basically NOT an excuse for lower dps. No matter what happens, you should be able to pull the same dps as if you were not moving. So every time you'll fail to use a skill while dancing around the boss, avoiding aoe and doing mechanic, you're basically not doing it right.

And you can be sure that you'll be balanced around this ability to do DPS 100% of the time no matter what.
A BLM can't do that, so they're balanced around having some down time which is why they do so much dmg when they can stay in turret mods the entire fight.

I'm not sure how this is going to make the job easier...