Please never change Bard (feedback)

[Luciel-Nyx]

While I'm very happy with the changes they've made to bard gameplay wise I was pretty shocked how bad, and even awefully written the quest was - at least in german it was a pain to go through it. Just finished it today and... please... stick to the gameplay but never ever give me the option to say "Yes, thats shit." (literal translation of the german version) again. It felt horribly out of placed, uncalled for and just... shitty.

(Can anyone tell me if its the same in english? I get that Guydelot is supposed to be that asshole, but the german version took it a bit to far with the stuff he said - it just seemed tasteless and very badly done)

If I remember correctly, Guydelot says "Bullshite" in English. Althought I didn't find it revolting or anything, it was fine with me ^^'

[MuseTraveller]

Maybe they will change Mages Ballad to Blood Ballad given what it does?
I absolutely agree! I'm loving the SB bard so much. I stubbornly refused to give up on the job, despite the gross casting bars, I mastered the bow mage but now I'm so happy with it, I don't want to go back to HW Bard ever again.

[Jeckyl_Tesla]

Stopped playing HW because of the bard change along with real life but I like the change, however, I do feel some things could be better. I do throw out the extra healing buff or the 10% reduction but I get so busy they fall by the wayside often and the tp regen is pretty pointless with invigorate. They should rework some of the cross skills because what we have is pretty pathetic.

To keep up with AoE DPSing, you'll need both Tactician and Invigorate. Our cross class skills are actually pretty decent. 3 of them are so good they're pretty much mandatory and the other two are down to personal choice or down to the fight.

[Daralii]

If I remember correctly, Guydelot says "Bullshite" in English. Althought I didn't find it revolting or anything, it was fine with me ^^'

It's also not particularly uncommon, especially for Sea Wolves, who tend to be pretty vulgar in general. I still remember a sidequest where one referred to the ocean as "colder than a dead whore's crotch."

[Paladinleeds]

If I remember correctly, Guydelot says "Bullshite" in English. Althought I didn't find it revolting or anything, it was fine with me ^^'

It's also not particularly uncommon, especially for Sea Wolves, who tend to be pretty vulgar in general. I still remember a sidequest where one referred to the ocean as "colder than a dead whore's crotch."

Indeed. The game isn't afraid to swear where appropriate. I mean heck, one of the FATEs in South Shroud, the mobs will often say "Sod off ye sack o' squirrel shite" (and thus how my Provoke macro came to be what it is)

[armandojc3]

THe new MCH is great, fun, takes a lot of skill to master and sadly has the lowest DPS of the bunch :/, even considering utility.

[AkashiXI]

First off, I like this iteration of Bard. I liked 3.0 as well, and 2.0 too.

The mainstay problem with Bard in 4.0 is its inconsistency. Having their two best moves behind RNG, and having their toolkit revolve around pure chance makes it so your damage output (especially in burst) becomes sporadic. I've spent hours and hours, probably 20+ at this point, testing openers, individual fights, ex trials, and the median of my numbers is way too large.

If there's anything Square can do to make Bard feel more solid, it's to make our damage more consistent. Either give us more ways to guarantee Refulgent Arrow, increase our crit chance, or rework Raging strikes to work more in line with our kit (giving us a crit increase instead of attack). Otherwise, the job itself is solid.

[Eloah]

I like where we currently are, but I feel we need just a little something extra to make us perfect. I cant say what that is per se, I just know we need something. The biggest thing is that we are a Proc based DPS, and two of our skills, Pitch Perfect and Reflungant Arrow require procs to execute. We just need a way to get these to proc more often. I can tell you how many times I've played Wanderers Minuet and nothing, but that might change with the 68 trait. Can anyone confirm?

[DPZ2]

The mainstay problem with Bard in 4.0 is its inconsistency. Having their two best moves behind RNG, and having their toolkit revolve around pure chance ...

The songs do provide one major advantage to a party -- a 2% crit increase for the entire party while you're singing them ... any additional damage the party does because of those is cause for celebration. RNG procs occur for lots of jobs (see, for example, Red Mage). As bards, we guarantee some crit and can spin off some other damage-increasing tactics that mean our own DPS doesn't have to exceed that of Samurai and Black Mage.

If you're looking for higher DPS, you might want to try out one of those. If you're looking for reliable DPS with a good chance of burst damage (depending on how you gear/meld), Bard is it.

[DPZ2]

We just need a way to get these to proc more often.

I assume that if you push Crit as a secondary stat, you'll get more procs. Meld and/or gear to that, perhaps.