Who else is loving Bard now?

[Arkenne]

In one of the earlier iterations, Peon was damage and haste. I hate that they changed it making it the least desirable song.

It still exists giving both power and speed.... in its PvP version

[Katsuragi_]

For what it's worth, I'm enjoying it so far. Don't really see myself preferring another DPS from what I gathered about them.

[Shunye]

i didn't mind the cast times from HW, but i can see why they changed the class back to all instant casts. I just wish they would make our buffs apply to us as well as our party.

[Veliena]

Yes I love my bard. I was a BLM and dropped it so fast after messing around with my bard for an hour or so.

[loreleidiangelo]

BRD isn't even close to my main or anything, but I think I can say with near-certainty that it's one of the few jobs where everyone can agree that it's an improvement over it's 3.x version. Numbers can be tweaked, so having the core foundation of the job be smooth and enjoyable for most of the people who play it is great IMO. I tried it at 60 on a few FATEs and really liked what I saw.

[AkashiXI]

I've been a raid Bard since 2.0, and it's the only job I play seriously. I didn't mind being a bowmage either. On that note, while Bard is a very fun job now, I worry we (and Machinist) are generally too weak. We have too many abilities that will become obsolete throughout a patch cycle (troubadour, minne, our cross class abilities), our kit is too RNG reliant to have consistent burst openers, some of our best tools don't effect the user (passive crit, battle voice) and the Foe change, while nice, doesn't feel like it has any weight. Overall I just wish they gave us more options to feel empowered, instead we have a lot of passive/aura traits.

[Bardo]

I worry we (and Machinist) are generally too weak.

If you look at target dummy numbers, then it definitely looks that way.
But our biggest advantage is that aoe and movement mechanics don't halt our dps.
So target dummies are actually a pretty poor way to measure job performance.

I think we're just going to have to wait and see what the new encounters look like.
The more movement effects there are in a fight, the more ground we make up against the other DPS.
If the other DPS classes lose even 5% of their dps (compared against target dummy dps) due to movement in most fights, then I think the numbers will show that we're tuned competitively.

[AkashiXI]

snip

I understand what you're saying, and there are raid fights that were good for 3.0 Bard. A7S, i.e, was very easy for casters and somewhat difficult for Melee during the ball phase. However, if you were to go through the entirety of our previous raid series, you'd see that most fights except three (A1S, A6S, A11S) don't have moments where they disrupt Melee's uptime on their timers. Everything else is straight forward, turret-esque fighting, and that doesn't help Bard at all.

I've made this mention on these forums a few times before, but it begs repeating: the further you get into a patch cycle, the less useful (and, thus, viable) Bard becomes. Most of our utility revolves around helping our party survive, and most of that goes out the window with iLV, experience, and outright skill. What we have left is minimal: a +15% direct hit rate increase for 20s every 3 minutes, a +3% to all damage that lasts roughly 20s, and a passive that increases your crit rate to +2%. Also remember that the only song that effects Bard is Foe Requiem, furthering the disparity of our DPS. The window between BRD and other DPS is becoming bigger.

Finally, while this is an indirect buff, Dragoon losing potency on its Disembowel (10% -> 5%) makes the shift of Bard/Dragoon being a great pick in raid, to only being a good/meh pick. Like it or not, when anyone was comparing Bard numbers in raid during 2.0/3.0, they were also factoring the piercing resistance Dragoon provided.

[Jeckyl_Tesla]

I'm actually enjoying the fuck out of BRD, but I don't know if I want to main it or SAM. Never played a proper support before, and the playstyle is fun as hell too.

It's taking a bit to gdt used to though, seems like there are 5 things to watch at once. But that's most likely my UI which is set up for SAM and not for BRD. What does your UIs for BRD look like?

[rachcouture]

I think I'm the only person that doesn't; BRD was the only DPS job I thoroughly enjoyed from early ARR to the end of Heavensward, but this new mess of more rotation management on top of the dual DoTs is just a disaster. I thought the goal in Stormblood was to streamline, yet here we are.

The cast times were reasonable, as was the damage for a bursty support class. The songs were fine, too; we just needed more of them.

About the only positive thing here is it's one less class to level and gear.