Will bard lose it's identity/class fantasy?

[Cetonis]

It...does?

Yeah, what I'm saying is I hope they actually put Esuna'able things in Eden Savage or Ultimate, now that it won't be a kick in the gut of other jobs to allow Bard to do something nice sometimes. The only instance of it I can think of in 4.x was if someone ate a burn on O3S, you could help out there, but otherwise Warden's was reserved for O4N and the 24-man tankbusters ("Break Helm" or whatever it was).

[Berethos]

Yeah, what I'm saying is I hope they actually put Esuna'able things in Eden Savage or Ultimate,

Oh yeah...more things that *can* be esuna'd would sure be a nice addition, definitely.

[Lemuel81]

Bard has completely been gutted of any form of being a support or what we come to enjoy about bard. They could have made the songs still affect the party in some way but of course they took the easier route.

Im so tired of them fearing and what-ifing the playerbase and im tired of the playerbase whining about job metas. CREATE YOUR OWN GROUPS OR SUCK IT UP FFS.

Gutted is a strong word, and one that is not accurate. A lot of jobs got group buffs removed. Big deal, 3 % crit is gone. Dragoons got their buff removed and so did ninjas. It really isn't that big of a deal. What I did think was a bit funny was that they purposely made dancers a must for groups when they claim they are trying to remove meta/group synergy.

[AvenoMatt]

I am nervous about DNC buffing capabilities potentially being OP but we also have to remember that not counting Technical Finish their buffs only apply to themselves and their partner but I don't think it been confirmed whether or not DNC can switch partners and previous their partner gets to keep their Standard Finish buff because if so the optimal thing to do would be to switch partners every 30s and reapply Standard Finish as the buff itself lasts 60s.

[Xieldras]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As long as the class is still fun to play, I don't personally care about "I'm called a Bard, but I'm not even remotely support anymore."

You could call the job a Plumber for all I care. I don't recall the job quests ever having much to do with music past lv50 anyway.

May I introduce you to the entire Bard Heavensward quest line : Ballad of Oblivion?

[Kalise]

May I introduce you to the Ballad of Oblivion quest line for HW Bards?

Wasn't the moral of that questline that there wasn't a Ballad of Oblivion and it was just a Siren?

With the "Real" Ballad of Oblivion being Friendship?

[Xieldras]

A Siren whose song annihilated an entire clan of Moogles. You also learn Minuet at lv52 and Warden's Paean at lv54.

My point was that all of Bard's quests in Heavensward had a lot to do with music, heck the quests themselves are named after songs.

[Razard]

XIV's rendition of a bard doesn't do justice to other titles where the job appears..

Are you serious? The job that gave us the Hide command and FFXIV is the one doesn't do it justice?

[Raldo]

A Siren whose song annihilated an entire clan of Moogles. You also learn Minuet at lv52 and Warden's Paean at lv54.

My point was that all of Bard's quests in Heavensward had a lot to do with music, heck the quests themselves are named after songs.

Fair enough, I could've worded that better. I will concede that the quests themselves do involve music, but I don't recall the player character, the titular bard, ever actually doing any useful singing. We were on a quest to attempt to learn a song, so I guess that kind-of counts...

I fully agree with the OP, I'm just trying to say that it doesn't really matter (in my opinion). The reason we're called "Bard" is already paper-thin from a lore standpoint as it is.

[bass9020]

Gutted is a strong word, and one that is not accurate. A lot of jobs got group buffs removed. Big deal, 3 % crit is gone. Dragoons got their buff removed and so did ninjas. It really isn't that big of a deal. What I did think was a bit funny was that they purposely made dancers a must for groups when they claim they are trying to remove meta/group synergy.

Ok but they arent considered "support" type roles, Bard always had an emphasis on supporting the party. That has now been thoroughly gutted.