Will bard lose it's identity/class fantasy?

[Gaethan_Tessula]

Also, designing Mage's Ballad so that it would restore the party's MP every time bloodletter and RoD was used would be more useful in all situations in general would probably be really fulfilling to players, and go in line with BRD's identity and fantasy thing.

That's an inspired suggestion. I'd like to see the other two songs get a similar effect.

And then raise the other classes to match that sort of improvement if it makes BRD stand out too much.

Seriously, I don't get SE's obsession with pruning the jobs over and over until every one is a bare role trunk with one flavor twig and a leaf on it.

[MPNZ]

That's an inspired suggestion. I'd like to see the other two songs get a similar effect.

And then raise the other classes to match that sort of improvement if it makes BRD stand out too much.

Seriously, I don't get SE's obsession with pruning the jobs over and over until every one is a bare role trunk with one flavor twig and a leaf on it.

3. I get why they do it, but then cow clicker vs buttons-for-miles are just as bad, and hopefully we can get closer to like P4 Arena instead.

2. Like...

DGN. new gauge "body of the Dragon" with abilities like "Reverse Scale" (consumes "bidy of the dragon, resets all cooldowns, increases dmg by 40%, stacks w/ BfB, new attack special effects for attacks, jump to create ice circle dot, infinite blood of the dragon gauge, time limit 20 seconds, inflicts pacification after time limit is exceeded, cannot be used with steel-like scales), "steel-like scales" (consumes "body of the dragon gauge", grant a massive defense and emnity boost, dragoon will roar like a dragon and changes aggro to A, 30-60 time limit, enters pacification after exceeding time limit). They're a bit OP, but only SMN has utility like that, I think

1. Well...

Army's would probably be fine if the effect affected the whole party as well, or if it helped with the job gauges in some way. But Minuet just seems fine. It's basically our solo/selfish song in the game, but they could just make it increase straight shot proc rates, or just half the recast of empyreal arrow for the song's duration or something. TBH, I'd like to just try out the 5.0 version first. It's like way too early to really examine it right now

[Xieldras]

To add to suggestions, maybe with Bard's mobility, it could be cool to add a medium AoE effect to songs instead of raid-wide. Of course song effects would need to be boosted (I also quite like the last suggestions for song effects).

Adding an AoE effect like that could maybe bring more challenging gameplay? Like, having to decide the most optimal place to stand while avoiding mechanics and getting the most out of your songs' buffing effects to party members, which party members to buff with the ongoing song, etc.

Minuet is our "Time to DPS" song, Ballad has always been about MP since the ol' Bow Mage days, but I don't know what Army Paeon could do. The only thing I can imagine is granting Haste to you and party, but it needs to be worthwhile (it currently takes 4 procs to get a slight speed boost, the effort is not worth the reward in my opinion). Maybe have the Haste effect stack depending on the number of procs?
Other than that, although I understand the removal of some Role Actions, I want Palissade back (or an equivalent that grants defense).

Being told "Well you're DPS, you're not supposed to have so many buffs available because of the Trinity" is angering to a certain degree, especially since Dancer shows up to rub salt in the wound. In MMOs and games in general, heck even in normal fantasy, Bard is traditionally associated with Support. In FF14, Bard is a DPS. Sure that's okay, but there has to be a way to keep the support aspect that's glued to Bard's identity throughout the fantasy genre so the class doesn't turn into another selfish-dps-but-with-2-raid-buffs.
The key to that balance is, of course, the songs and procs however Bards should have more buffs available compared to the other DPS classes while also not being so good as it invalidates some Healer actions. Perhaps all of our buffs can only be used under song duration like Battle Voice (and also affect the bard itself). Or maybe it costs procs to use certain buffs? That way, it would show the players to ABS (Always Be Singing) lest a big part of their kit is greyed out.

Some of those are only some of the things from the top of my head, but I firmly believe Bard should keep over 1/3rd (or even half) of it's kit for Support skills. I personally chose Bard because I like to support my team (and Healer is a bit too stressful for me) while also enjoying the Archer aspect of it. I might very reluctantly pick up Dancer or just stay a Fisher main for ShB.

[MPNZ]

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1. Well, that sounds like it would go against the current design philosophy for FF14, and it might turn into another bowmage or latter 2.0 situation. And, the playerbase is def not up to something of that skill level. It might be better to enable players to mitigate wipe mechanic damage, alternative emergency personal-dps-up skills, or lowering the walls players must climb by limiting the current obsession of DPS numbers and how high they can push it and thus what everyone else is expected to push to and instead focus on giving the feeling of that content being difficult, which is one of many illusions practiced in game design. Like they could redesign the tells of Suzaku EX based on "The players will not be able to communicate with each other during the trial", so they would have to design it so that the trial would have more observable tells like clockwise and counter-clockwise notes to distinguish between pull and push and a visual tell like an aura to draw the player's attention to her and engage the player in a way that gives them "Eureka" moments in play

2. Well, the 5.0 effect for paean is a 30 sec extended haste that will be scaled to the number of notes/procs activated, and allowing the haste buff to affect the whole party would require them to fix the two issues involving clipping for faster jobs, and TP, which is finally gone forever. The former could be fixed with animation tricks like creating after-images to complete actions that would make the character appear faster, but in a way that would avoid seizures and not upset the spaghetti code. They could also make it reduce the time it takes for ogcds to reset.

Having less actions can mean having less to balance and tweak too

3. Everyone said that redmage would be totally broken, and it would just end up like SCH/SMN too. But, it ended up being really fun to play