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

[Xieldras]

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.

Haha, I can understand that perfectly. I started out as an Archer because I always liked that type of ranged class and it took me quite a while before equipping my Soul Crystal (think, lv 50 Archer). Unfortunately, if people wanted a mobile class focused on DPS, they could've gone for Machinist (granted the class itself was busted and clunky to play) since that class was all about DPS.

[Nobuyuki_Sanada]

The way I see bard is the in between of Dancer and Machinist. They have more utility than machinist and a bit more damage than dancer. I think the reason we are seeing so many dancers doing more damage than their counterparts is because the complexity of the job is very low. It is very easy to perform dancer at 100% compared to performing bard or machinist at 100%. People should remember skill curves effect damages numbers too. Bards still have Nature's Minne, !Battle Voice!, Warden's Paen, and !Troubadour!. Id say stick with it, square enix will tweek numbers as needed and people will get better after they practice rotations more.

[Sparkthor]

I'm curious, why you yourself are getting so worked up the matter, especially considering it is a class you don't even main.

I cannot tell for Gallus, but i looked at the topic because to me, the Bard, prior to be a support class, is a DoT and proc class and what's why my friends are playing it (the other was being SUM). While i can get some complain about the utility loss, i'm a bit baffled when people claim all bard identity has been riped away. The core concept of DoT and proc class is still intact, and i could say it has been reinforced.

[HyoMinPark]

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?

You are strawmanning again. We are not discussing mobility or fluidity or rotations here, but the removal of BRD’s support identity, which has been its identity for the entirety of FFXIV’s life cycle dating back to 1.0 (where, if I recall, it was pure support and actually didn’t deal much damage at all). Did you read the topic of the thread? Do you understand the nature of the complaints career BRDs are voicing?

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?

You are still failing to see the complaints here and choosing to cherry pick and strawman about damage dealing capability, mobility, rotations, and fluidity when that is not the main issue presented in this thread or in most complaints about 5.0 BRD (I invite you to go read some of them so you can hopefully understand what we are talking about here).

I cannot tell for Gallus, but i looked at the topic because to me, the Bard, prior to be a support class, is a DoT and proc class and what's why my friends are playing it (the other was being SUM). While i can get some complain about the utility loss, i'm a bit baffled when people claim all bard identity has been riped away. The core concept of DoT and proc class is still intact, and i could say it has been reinforced.

BRDs past iterations still had DoTs to manage/optimize, but the only procs they really managed up to Stormblood were Bloodletter/Rain of Death procs—most of their other skills were basically use on CD (e.g., Empyreal Arrow, Flaming Arrow, Sidewinder) and the songs functioned vastly different from how they do now. Pitch Perfect and Repertoire were not a thing prior to 4.0. Support was overwhelmingly the largest and most core part of their job, and it predates any of the DoT optimization and proc management they deal with now. I don’t find it fair to really call DoT management a niche to the job in the 2.0 and 3.0 incarnations because most jobs had DoTs that they were responsible for managing back then—they just didn’t get procs from them in the way BRD did.


In 2.0, BRD was the only job that could provide resource management to its party members in the form of MP and TP refresh until the release of NIN in 2.4 with Goad (which was only single-target and on an 180s CD—Army’s was party-wide and limited only by your MP pool). It also provided a +10% damage buff to magic users. From what I can recall of 2.x jobs, the only other job that provided a damage buff like this was NIN with Trick Attack. I don’t recall reading about any raid buff like Foe’s or TA from the other jobs.

In 3.0, MCH was added and it shared the support niche with BRD in the form of resource management and a party buff—to combat BRD’s magic damage buff, Hypercharge was +10% physical damage. But BRD’s core function of supporting and buffing its party was still there. More so than proc management, since River of Blood was still the only proc you managed.

In 4.0, BRD saw the influx of more procs in the form of Pitch Perfect and Refulgent Arrow, but the support aspect was still there and expanded upon immensely. Refresh and Tactician replaced Mage’s Ballad and Army’s Paeon for MP/TP refresh. Foe’s was +3% flat damage for all damage types (and could be manipulated with smart Refresh usage for more casts during an encounter). Utilizing your songs gave your party a +2% passive crit buff, whose contribution scaled even higher as the amount of crit increased on gear. Battle Voice provided +15% Direct Hit rate every 180s, and Troubadour provided 30s +10% magical or physical mitigation, or +15% HP, depending on which song you paired it with (really good for phases with extended AOE damage like O12S or UwU). Nature’s Minne was a +20% buff to healing spells on a target for 15s on a 45s cooldown (amazing for spread Adlos), and Palisade was the physical equivalent of Apocatastasis every 150s (great for assisting with tankbusters in raids or for dungeon pulls with lots of mobs that deal physical damage—literally a free tank cooldown). BRD was still heavily support oriented in Stormblood despite the DoTs and procs it had to manage. Any BRD who didn’t see that was more than like a BRD that never utilized their support tools—which honestly made them less valuable to their party since BRD’s personal damage was low (even with its power creep, it was no selfish DPS).

Strawman here, strawman there, strawman everywhere!

Just calling them as I see them. You’re bring up irrelevant points to the discussion and failing to actually discuss the main topic of concern.

No but seriously.

3.0 - BRD loses its mobility: Complete and total outrage. Dozens of threads. Hundreds if not thousands of people complaining. The amount of complaints was so brutal SE gave BRD full mobility in 4.0 and 5.0.

5.0 - BRD loses part of its support skills: a couple threads with the same 5 people complaining.

Wanna talk again about what the majority think BRD's core is?

If you think it’s just 5 people complaining, that just proves you aren’t actually reading the complaints. It’s far more than five people. And anyone who ever thought BRD’s core was anything other than support clearly never paid attention to the job. It certainly wasn’t damage—BRD has never been a selfish damage dealer, nor was it ever brought to parties because of its Big D DPS. Sorry to say that that was never the niche BRD was designed to fill.

Try to make your arguments without logical fallacies next time. They’ll probably make more sense.

[Gallus]

Strawman here, strawman there, strawman everywhere!

No but seriously.

3.0 - BRD loses its mobility: Complete and total outrage. Dozens of threads. Hundreds if not thousands of people complaining. The amount of complaints was so brutal SE gave BRD full mobility in 4.0 and 5.0.

5.0 - BRD loses part of its support skills: a couple threads with the same 5 people complaining.

Wanna talk again about what the majority think BRD's core is?

[Suniva]

-snip-

It's kinda silly that they expanded on our utility so much during Stormblood only to immediately take it all away at the very next expansion. :'(

[Suniva]

Strawman here, strawman there, strawman everywhere!

No but seriously.

3.0 - BRD loses its mobility: Complete and total outrage. Dozens of threads. Hundreds if not thousands of people complaining. The amount of complaints was so brutal SE gave BRD full mobility in 4.0 and 5.0.

5.0 - BRD loses part of its support skills: a couple threads with the same 5 people complaining.

Wanna talk again about what the majority think BRD's core is?

Haha, honestly. Why are you so against us "few" voicing our concerns about a class you do not even main? I mean, should I go over and start saying that I feel that there is nothing wrong with the 5.0 summoner because of what I have seen and in the same breath also state that I never played the class?

[Xieldras]

The way I see bard is the in between of Dancer and Machinist. They have more utility than machinist and a bit more damage than dancer. I think the reason we are seeing so many dancers doing more damage than their counterparts is because the complexity of the job is very low. It is very easy to perform dancer at 100% compared to performing bard or machinist at 100%. People should remember skill curves effect damages numbers too. Bards still have Nature's Minne, !Battle Voice!, Warden's Paen, and !Troubadour!. Id say stick with it, square enix will tweek numbers as needed and people will get better after they practice rotations more.

People might get better, but the soul of the class has been gutted, which is what so many of us career Bard players are so against. It doesn't really matter if Square tweaks the numbers because we still lost so much.
I doubt Bards will get anything back until 6.0, and that's a good 2 years away.

[Raldo]

Wow, I didn't expect much complaining about BRD. It's the job I'm leveling to 80 first (currently 76), and personally, I find the job has changed very little (though my fingers still itch to press Misery's End from time to time), but I never really gave two shits about the support aspect.

Lost passive crit buff: I mean, on a certain level, I knew it was there, but it's not something you had to pay attention to. I don't know why anyone cares that it's gone. They tempered down on a LOT of +crit skills across the board. I sure as hell wasn't pushing my song buttons because it gave my party a buff.

Lost refresh: I don't do Savage, but I didn't find the MP aspect of this to be useful very often unless somebody died. Usually just used it to extend Foe.

Lost Foe Requiem: The cast time made this clunky to use mid-battle. I would've preferred they just remove the cast time and detached it from MP (just give it a static duration), but whatever, I don't miss it.

Lost Palisade: I do miss this. An active skill that I actually had to think about when to use. RIP Palisade.

[Xieldras]

Strawman here, strawman there, strawman everywhere!

No but seriously.

3.0 - BRD loses its mobility: Complete and total outrage. Dozens of threads. Hundreds if not thousands of people complaining. The amount of complaints was so brutal SE gave BRD full mobility in 4.0 and 5.0.

5.0 - BRD loses half of its support skills: a couple threads with the same 5 people complaining.

Wanna talk again about what the majority think BRD's core is?

So first off, ShB releases for everyone today and I expect much more discussion regarding Bard's changes in forums. And those "5 people complaining" (it's much more than that) are people that actually learned and played their class at its highest level of skill, as well as playing Bard for a few years (I personally started in 3.4). We know what we're talking about.

Second, forums are not the only place where people complain. People get banned here all the time, if you follow Reddit discourse. There has been a few threads here and on the FF14 Reddit, but the most discussion I've seen are actually in the Discord channels where the skilled players (and those that want to learn) usually hang out.

Third, the class is very popular. It's easy to get into, but hard to master. The fact that the class is so easy to get into means that there is A LOT of bad Bards out there and I mean the type to just spam the DPS rotation without using half of Bard's kit. Those people are rarely the type that want to get better at the game and complain when they're not as skilled as the top players (while not putting in the effort).

Most class mains are reasonable and do give out feedback if the skill curve is too high or if something in the class doesn't play quite as smoothly. We want the class to have an identity, be somewhat complex but not as complex as it turns off people from getting into the class.

So even if somehow career Bards were to be outnumbered when it comes to discussion, answer me this: Should Square listen to the lazy players that complain about difficulty while not striving to get better or should they listen to the players that actually experienced and skillfully played their class for years?