ShB bard has turned me into a ball of rage and depression

[Gallus]

It did solid damage back in Stormblood—it was actually far stronger than it was supposed to be. But that was never the reason why BRD mains mained the job. They mained it for the support aspect. At least for me, I didn’t want some Big D DPS when it came to BRD; I wanted the support and the raid contribution aspect of it. If I wanted the former, then I would have played something like BLM.

I don't think it's fair that you speak for everyone here. BRDs could've mained BRD for different reasons, be it the mobility, the job appeal, the rotation, etc. Not everyone necessarily mained BRD because it had support capabilities. The only difference between jobs isn't if they have support skills or not, even if you take away every support aspect of BRD, the rotation and flavour will still be completely different from the one of a BLM, so I couldn't disagree more with you.

[Gallus]

A lot, (not all), but A LOT of people that played bard did so because of the util kit they had. I've been brd since 2.0, I NEVER have EVER wanted or even expected my class to do comparable dps to a dragoon or mnk, now sam, ninja, etc. People that decided to play brd and then complain that they weren't doing as good as dmg as the melee classes clearly didn't/don't understand what brd was supposed to be, imho.

And arguments such as yours that are implying that we should be okay with the trade off of our util for increased dmg is going to make me assume you've never gotten a brd to 70.
(I checked, you haven't.)

So you don't care about how your job plays? You don't care about your rotation? You'd swallow an inedible rotation as long as they gave you a support kit? Also, I didn't even imply anything, all I said is that the BRDs I've come across seemed to be doing very good DPS. I didn't say you had to be content with it or whatever, just thought I'd share what I've seen so far. I'm not sure why you are getting this defensive over my first post which was totally harmless.

[Maero]

Stormbloods Bard at the end was nearly perfect so what happened?
I have not levelled it yet as Dancer is my first but heard from a friend and he is not happy with Bard changes

[HyoMinPark]

I don't think it's fair that you speak for everyone here. BRDs could've mained BRD for different reasons, be it the mobility, the job appeal, the rotation, etc. Not everyone necessarily mained BRD because it had support capabilities. The only difference between jobs isn't if they have support skills or not, even if you take away every support aspect of BRD, the rotation and flavour will still be completely different from the one of a BLM, so I couldn't disagree more with you.

I don’t think it’s fair that you should imply we should be satisfied with our losses in utility for “solid damage”—because that is what your post comes off as, whether it is your intention or not. As I said prior, BRD was already doing solid damage. In Alphascape, we were actually out DPSing both NIN and DRG in personal damage (in Deltascape and Sigmascape, it out-damaged NIN and RDM), and our raid contribution was monstrous between passive crit, proper Foe’s usage, and BV. This isn’t including our other support, like Refresh, Palisade, and 4.0 Troubadour (the latter was godly in UwU for mitigation—especially during the primal roulette, because you could cover 2 primal Ultimates with it and I believe at least 1, if not 2, Viscous detonations with proper timing).

In the vast majority of posts I have seen from career BRDs, they have lamented the very things I spoke about in my post: their job lost the utility aspect they loved so much about it and that’s why they jumped ship (or are still playing it but feel like its lacking that certain something that pulled them in initially). They mention nothing about ever being in the job for strictly damage dealing capabilities—which, honestly, it never struggled with (outside of the dark days of early 3.0 BRD, but we don’t talk about those days). 4.0 BRD actually had massive issues with power creep, so it was stronger than intended by the end of the expansion. I don’t think it doing solid damage is really a comforting thing. It isn’t for me, anyways; because I was never concerned with my damage not being solid.

I’m not asking you to agree with me; I am merely explaining my perspective and relaying what I have seen from other BRD mains. If I wanted to play a Big D job, I would have played something like BLM, which exists to do nothing but deal high damage. I was speaking for myself in that part of my post. No one else.

So you don't care about how your job plays? You don't care about your rotation? You'd swallow an inedible rotation as long as they gave you a support kit?

You’re strawmanning.

4.0 BRD had the smoothest rotation of any of the job’s incarnations—from ARR to HW to SB. It was universally loved by just about anyone who played it—I honestly can’t recall seeing anything negative about its play during 4.0. Bringing up an “inedible rotation” is irrelevant here simply because it was never a thing BRD suffered from in 4.0.

Stormbloods Bard at the end was nearly perfect so what happened?
I have not levelled it yet as Dancer is my first but heard from a friend and he is not happy with Bard changes

They’ve removed most of our utility and raid contributions. We lost the passive crit buff from our songs and Foe Requiem. In addition to this, Refresh was removed, so MP support is also gone. Palisade was removed, so we no longer have a free tank cooldown for physical damage (something that was useful in raids and Ultimates). All we have now is Nature’s Minne (which is still decent—it seems to affect healing abilities AND weaponskills now, but is on a 90s CD) and Troubadour for support (Troubadour is basically -10% all damage for 15s on an 180s cooldown—it’s actually 15s shorter now, so it gets less mileage per use), and Battle Voice for raid contribution (20% D.Hit every 180s—I don’t think they’ve determined how impactful it is yet).

In terms of rotation, it’s mostly unchanged aside from the removal of Straight Shot management: however I’ve seen many BRDs equate the current state of the job as a glorified ranger. AOE is supposedly pretty decent now with the additions of Shadowbite and Apex Arrow, but single-target wants for complexity. The new Army’s Paeon trait has been described as “technically not nothing, because it still gives 10s of your Haste Repertoire to your next song...but not really hype either”.

Apex Arrow is also a very underwhelming level 80 ability. It scales up to 500 potency, meaning that you will press it at 95+ gauge and no sooner. Which kind of makes the Soul Gauge relatively worthless as a mechanic. They could have at least made it something like NIN’s Ninki skills or DNC’s Saber where it procs at 50 Gauge and has AOE dropoff as a trade off for more frequent usages. Instead its a button you press at max gauge and ignore otherwise due to the damage loss. I’m guessing you probably also try to hold on to it for bursts, but I haven’t been in the BRD Balance lately due to paying more attention to DNC’s channel.

[Xieldras]

BRD may have lost utility, but from what I've noticed it does very solid damage.

But Bard has never been about damage. It was always a utility/support based class in the Red part of the job trio.

I agree with Suniva that quite a few Bard players decided to play the class because it was easy to get into and then proceed to complain that the job was too hard (or you know, make the effort to learn it) or that they don't do enough damage (are people really expecting all classes from a similar role to fulfill the exact amount of damage despite the different gameplay styles?). From what I've read both on forums and Discord, it seems those who are happy with the changes are usually those that never played Bard to its full potential.

[ForteNightshade]

So you don't care about how your job plays? You don't care about your rotation? You'd swallow an inedible rotation as long as they gave you a support kit? Also, I didn't even imply anything, all I said is that the BRDs I've come across seemed to be doing very good DPS. I didn't say you had to be content with it or whatever, just thought I'd share what I've seen so far. I'm not sure why you are getting this defensive over my first post which was totally harmless.

You are both strawmanniing and missing the fundamental point of people's ire towards BRD changes. Its core identity was never about doing high damage despite it creeping up the damage meters. What attracted a large number of players to the job was its focus on utility and support alongside its damage. This was completely abandoned now. A comparable example is if they were to abruptly nerf BLM because they slapped a bunch of utility. I sincerely doubt many BLM mains would find much solace in being told "well, you have good utility now!" That wasn't what interested them in the job to begin with.

But Bard has never been about damage. It was always a utility/support based class in the Red part of the job trio.

I agree with Suniva that quite a few Bard players decided to play the class because it was easy to get into and then proceed to complain that the job was too hard (or you know, make the effort to learn it) or that they don't do enough damage (are people really expecting all classes from a similar role to fulfill the exact amount of damage despite the different gameplay styles?). From what I've read both on forums and Discord, it seems those who are happy with the changes are usually those that never played Bard to its full potential.

Unfortunately, this is likely the case with a lot of jobs. People who didn't play them or played them poorly and were too lazy to learn whined. The devs have a tendency listen to those players, prompting the changes we've seen. Plenty are good. Others? Far less so.

[Kreahk]

It is unfortunate that you didn't like the changes but you have to remember plenty of people didnt take the bard because they didnt really want to play support but would rather have it as a pure DPS class. ( Now if they changed the Bard job name to ranger or a hunter that be even better)

I stopped playing my Ranger when I had to change the class to a Bard at 30, now I for one will definitely pick it up again and I am sure many other players will as well.

[Gallus]

4.0 BRD had the smoothest rotation of any of the job’s incarnations—from ARR to HW to SB. It was universally loved by just about anyone who played it—I honestly can’t recall seeing anything negative about its play during 4.0. Bringing up an “inedible rotation” is irrelevant here simply because it was never a thing BRD suffered from in 4.0.

And perhaps, just perhaps, that was one of the reasons why people liked BRD in 4.0 and not only because it was a support role?

[Gallus]

You are both strawmanniing and missing the fundamental point of people's ire towards BRD changes. Its core identity was never about doing high damage despite it creeping up the damage meters. What attracted a large number of players to the job was its focus on utility and support alongside its damage. This was completely abandoned now. A comparable example is if they were to abruptly nerf BLM because they slapped a bunch of utility. I sincerely doubt many BLM mains would find much solace in being told "well, you have good utility now!" That wasn't what interested them in the job to begin with.

Is that so? I thought one of BRD's flavours too was how mobile and fluid it was. I recall a lot of people complaining how their job was utterly destroyed in Heavensward when the autos were removed and you were given hardcasted GCDs with Minuette. Oh but you were still supports right? So where was the problem again?

[Suniva]

And perhaps, just perhaps, that was one of the reasons why people liked BRD in 4.0 and not only because it was a support role?

But we are not ONLY a support role. We are a support/dps/hybrid role. Due to the nature of the class, we were not going to excel in damage like melee, nor SHOULD we have been excelling in dmg against a machinist.


Let's be clear here, YOU are the one that came to this forum and have already admitted that your opinion is based on what you've SEEN rather than EXPERIENCED. When those players that have lived and breathed their bard's for years came out and politely expressed their opinions as to why they feel the way they feel, you cry foul. Now we don't care about how our job plays...? I mean, we wouldn't be posting here discussing why we feel the way we feel if we didn't care.

Is that so? I thought one of BRD's flavours too was how mobile and fluid it was. I recall a lot of people complaining how their job was utterly destroyed in Heavensward when the autos were removed and you were given hardcasted GCDs with Minuette. Oh but you were still supports right? So where was the problem again?

We, ahem, still had our utility tool kit in Heavensward, despite being bow mages...So while yes being a bow mage sucked, we were still able to provide support to our groups, which a lot of feel is the heart and soul the class.

I don't think it's fair that you speak for everyone here. BRDs could've mained BRD for different reasons, be it the mobility, the job appeal, the rotation, etc. Not everyone necessarily mained BRD because it had support capabilities. The only difference between jobs isn't if they have support skills or not, even if you take away every support aspect of BRD, the rotation and flavour will still be completely different from the one of a BLM, so I couldn't disagree more with you.

I'm just going to say it, and sorry if it's a bit strong; But if you (generalized, not personal) were playing a class that then became your main and were not utilizing the ENTIRETY of the classes available tool kit, then you were not playing that class to its fullest potential, plain and simple.