Bard. What if Straight Shot "proc" was not rng?

[Snowaeth]

While I think your suggested change probably too powerful if we don't nerf potencies elsewhere, I agree with the base sentiment that Refulgent Arrow interaction at the moment is somewhat aggravating at times.

As of now, Bard has the biggest amount of RNG layers out of all classes; the increased Crit Rate over the expansion will alleviate the issue to a degree, but there is no way to externally affect Straighter Shot rate aside from arranging your rotation in a way that allows you to do more Heavy Shots in general.

Personally I would suggest these:
1.) Make Straighter Shot Proc progressive; the base chance starts at 10%, but each consecutive Heavy Shot increases the chance by extra 10%. Reset after succesful usage of RA.
2.) Make Empyreal Arrow also proc your next used Heavy Shot, allowing an interaction of EA->HS->Barrage+RA on a more consistent basis.
3.) Make Army's Paeon stacks increase the rate of RA procs.

I think on a larger scale a bigger problem is our dependance on Piercing debuff only shared by the DRG at the moment, but giving Quality of Life improvements into RA procs would make the gameplay somewhat more healthy and consistent.

I think these leave bard alone never change it!!! comments suffer from hyperbole. I don't think the OP never meant to change the class dynamic as a whole, what is being suggested is alternative interactions to a somewhat inconsistent class gimmick that affects your personal DPS by a noticable margin.¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Thanks for being one of the few to actually understand what this is about and giving some good ideas on the topic.
Literally flooded with non (lvl 70) bards in here that give feedback on the job without even (really) playing the class.
On top of it most of the feedback summed up is, "brd's fine, how dare you suggest tweaking it in any way shape or form."

[Jilliebeans]

again NO, leave BRD the way it is.. if ANYTHING they need to WORRY about MCH instead.

[Shurrikhan]

Please, for the love of all holy and scared and Thal's balls, do not touch bard! I... I get cast bars flashbacks.

Increased frequency and reliability of the one skill that removed cast bars in Heavensward, gives you a fear of cast bars... in a post-castbar Bard?


On topic:

I'm fine with Straighter Shot being RNG, although I'd prefer that it be a normalized sort of RNG (see WoW for examples, wherein the actual chance starts much higher, fades on successes, and increases over failures to proc).
Now that Straighter Shot is no longer vital to movement and double-weaving, I don't mind its frequency as is. Any increase would adjust earlier levels' DPS and simply cost Refulgent Arrow potency, at best slightly improves its syncing with Barrage. This would be a slight improvement, but only slight.

What I'm not okay with is the button bloat involved in Refulgent Arrow and Pitch Perfect. I'd prefer that Pitch Perfect gain an AoE variant, e.g. Dissonance, and that each replace Bloodletter and Rain of Death, generating one stack per 15 seconds in addition to those generated by Repertoire. Refulgent Arrow should either lose potency to attach the usual crit buff, or now replace Heavy Shot on Heavier Shot procs, while Straighter Shot is effectively removed after acquisition of Refulgent Arrow.

The relatively low value of Army's Paeon also leaves much to be desired. I'd prefer that each Repertoire gained in Army's Paeon reduce the cooldown of Barrage (and perhaps Sidewinder) slightly, including after reaching 4/4 Repertoire, and that the clause on Barrage preventing additional effects from occurring more than once be removed, allowing Barrage to instantly grant three stacks of Attack Speed or Pitch Perfect.

[Snowaeth]

Increased frequency and reliability of the one skill that removed cast bars in Heavensward, gives you a fear of cast bars... in a post-castbar Bard?


On topic:

I'm fine with Straighter Shot being RNG, although I'd prefer that it be a normalized sort of RNG (see WoW for examples, wherein the actual chance starts much higher, fades on successes, and increases over failures to proc).
Now that Straighter Shot is no longer vital to movement and double-weaving, I don't mind its frequency as is. Any increase would adjust earlier levels' DPS and simply cost Refulgent Arrow potency, at best slightly improves its syncing with Barrage. This would be a slight improvement, but only slight.

What I'm not okay with is the button bloat involved in Refulgent Arrow and Pitch Perfect. I'd prefer that Pitch Perfect gain an AoE variant, e.g. Dissonance, and that each replace Bloodletter and Rain of Death, generating one stack per 15 seconds in addition to those generated by Repertoire. Refulgent Arrow should either lose potency to attach the usual crit buff, or now replace Heavy Shot on Heavier Shot procs, while Straighter Shot is effectively removed after acquisition of Refulgent Arrow.

The relatively low value of Army's Paeon also leaves much to be desired. I'd prefer that each Repertoire gained in Army's Paeon reduce the cooldown of Barrage (and perhaps Sidewinder) slightly, including after reaching 4/4 Repertoire, and that the clause on Barrage preventing additional effects from occurring more than once be removed, allowing Barrage to instantly grant three stacks of Attack Speed or Pitch Perfect.

I like some of your suggestions a lot.
Especially the ones that are just QoL changes.

Having Refulgent Arrow replace Heavy Shot on proc, would be a clean QoL change without adding any power.

As I suggested myself as well, Refulgent Arrow should indeed replace Straighter Shot proc at level 70.
RA > SS even if you need to refresh SS at that point, so having it conflict with SS is just an annoyance and serves no good purpose.
Once again this would not add any power, just a QoL change.

The Pitch Perfect idea where BL/RoD are replaced with Wanderers Minuet counterparts during that song while keeping the 15sec = stack mechanic sounds pretty sweet.
This would add some power though and isn't just QoL. Also the way WM works right now doesn't have serious issues with it, but nevertheless a great idea which would improve game-play and one I'd gladly welcome.

Army's Paeon would indeed feel a lot more useful if it actually had an effect for its stacks beyond the initial 4.
Right now it serves well as a filler song that you cut short, but it doesn't give you the feel of doing something unlike the other two songs.

Barrage being able to apply more than one effect, for the sake of game-play would be amazing.
But it would add a lot of power and is the least likely of being implemented imo, since that amount of power would have to be taken out somewhere else.

Coming back to Refulgent Arrow.
I've seen a couple of suggestions other than my own now how to change it up.
For me the amount of RNG and the influence this has on our dps is too high.
So I would applaud anything that would be implemented and which would normalize the RNG on it.

[Shurrikhan]

again NO, leave BRD the way it is.. if ANYTHING they need to WORRY about MCH instead.

I think we can worry about multiple things?

I mean, we tend to do this on a daily basis, no?

[Shurrikhan]

As I suggested myself as well, Refulgent Arrow should indeed replace Straighter Shot proc at level 70.
RA > SS even if you need to refresh SS at that point, so having it conflict with SS is just an annoyance and serves no good purpose.
Once again this would not add any power, just a QoL change.

Just to be clear, my suggestion here was actually to replace the trait. In other words, once you have access to Refulgent Arrow, Straighter Shot does not become Refulgent Arrow. Rather, Straighter Shot is gone at that point. The Heavier Shot now does something completely different. Now it replaces Heavy Shot itself with Refulgent Arrow. Straight Shot is untouched and does not share the proc. So you now have the option to refresh Straight Shot freely after banking a Refulgent Arrow, which overlays Heavy Shot.

This WOULD be an actual rotational DPS increase, because you can now (over)extend your Straight Shot buff one GCD further than before, or use one more Heavy Shot per Iron Jaws. Generally, for those who were already playing correctly, that's just a 10 potency gain, but its reduced skill gap would probably amount to more for most players over time (probably around 140-320 potency per IJ, if previously very negligent).

Barrage being able to apply more than one effect, for the sake of game-play would be amazing.
But it would add a lot of power and is the least likely of being implemented imo, since that amount of power would have to be taken out somewhere else.

...May I suggest Refulgent Arrow? At that point, though, priority would be EA (if no stacks WM or 1 stack AP) > RA > EA (if overcapping) Straighter Shot (if retained) > Heavy Shot.

The Pitch Perfect idea where BL/RoD are replaced with Wanderers Minuet counterparts during that song while keeping the 15sec = stack mechanic sounds pretty sweet.
This would add some power though and isn't just QoL. Also the way WM works right now doesn't have serious issues with it, but nevertheless a great idea which would improve game-play and one I'd gladly welcome.

True. Adding a single stack adds 100 potency, down from 130. The second adds 140, and the last adds 180. (The value per stack increases by 20 each time, after all.) However, this change would also increase concerns of overcapping. If the cooldown and the global (DoT) tick sync, you're looking at 1-2 stacks wasted per song, costing 200 to 360 potency over the 30 seconds' duration. Compared to leaving the 15s recast separate, attached to Bloodletter, it can be up to a 100 potency gain, or a 60 potency loss. While this would perhaps increase skill gap and offers new RNG issues of its own, I simply chose this design over the nerf of locking out BL/RoD completely because at least it retains the reliable 2 stacks per 30s. So again, it's not a perfect idea by any means, but I favor it in the same sense that I preferred not to have multiple stacks/charges of Bloodletter available in Heavensward's Bow Mage; I like the risk of waste, to a degree.

[Hen-Hen]

tbh I just keep wondering why the SS proc is a % instead of proccing on DH's

[Chevronone]

My only gripes with bard is it requires you to watch many different things at once, if they could condense Straighter Shot buff, your DoTs ANS your songs into one location, that would be great.

My other is Straighter Shot proc should automatically turn into Refulgent arrow. The addition of ANOTHER button on top of Pitch Perfect is just bloat.

[Shurrikhan]

tbh I just keep wondering why the SS proc is a % instead of proccing on DH's

Probably because at that point gameplay becomes even more dependent upon gear, meaning that if gameplay is intended for something like late-expansion secondary stat levels, it would feel underwhelming until that point, or if built for early-expansion levels, would scale out of hand by the end of it. Fixed chances provide level gameplay across varying secondary stat levels, whereas stat-dependent gameplay can often even turn into unintended quadratic gains.

[JustMatt]

But what you suggested is a buff. Right now bards have a 20% chance to proc refulgent arrow. So a 1 in 5. In an ideal world of averages you would get a proc every 5 heavy shots. What you want is a proc every 3 heavy shots. Also, classes should be balanced in relation to each other. Bards currently significantly outperforms its sister class - it is easy to see why people are upset with what you are asking. You would also need to consider how having a guaranteed system would effect raid dps. If a bard can guarantee refulgent arrow proc, then the best will line them up with raid buffs etc leading to an even bigger increase in dps. I don't personally have a problem with refulgent arrow having a guaranteed system. It just means it would need to have a potency drop from 300 to 250.