Alot of hate on new job iterations o.O

[HyoMinPark]

Even with Stormblood being so-so story wise it was still balanced amazingly well. The story and everything was done so well this expansion but job balance was a second thought.

EGI person, MNK, AST and BRD got absolutely butchered despite them being the best they ever were in Stormblood. It's kind of insulting what they did to them. The hate for their reworks is pretty justified.

You have an argument for AST being butchered—and maybe even MNK—but BRD plays exactly the same with more AOE power and an underwhelming level 80 skill. It lost a lot of its party utility, yes, but the gameplay did not change hardly one bit going from SB to ShB. I wouldn’t call it butchered in the same sense you would refer to AST being butchered.

That said, both AST and BRD had to be tweaked to some extent—AST’s Balance needed to be addressed, as did BRD’s power creep with crit scaling. I don’t think either warranted massive changes—certainly not AST’s: change Balance and things would have been better.

[Rika007]

You have an argument for AST being butchered—and maybe even MNK—but BRD plays exactly the same with more AOE power and an underwhelming level 80 skill. It lost a lot of its party utility, yes, but the gameplay did not change hardly one bit going from SB to ShB. I wouldn’t call it butchered in the same sense you would refer to AST being butchered.

That said, both AST and BRD had to be tweaked to some extent—AST’s Balance needed to be addressed, as did BRD’s power creep with crit scaling. I don’t think either warranted massive changes—certainly not AST’s: change Balance and things would have been better.

Agreed, I don't think any sensible BRD player thought that the passive crit buff wasn't more then a little OP and needed addressing. Same to be said that with the rework to MP and removal of TP that those abilities needed to go. And on top of all this, that Foe's was a sometimes clunky ability that could use cleaning up. Where most are probably differing is that the removal of these abilities were not properly compensated for. (Although we might all agree there was no obvious reason for Palisade removal). I certainly don't feel that the Soul gauge mechanic/Apex Arrow makes up for the massive parring down of our utility from a gameplay sense, and not even close from a job identity sense.

Had these abilties been replaced with a new mechanic that supported BRD's lore and it's identity as a DPS/Support hybrid, I'm sure BRD players would right now be feeling much more content with the current workings of the class. I still say that bringing Foe's back as a non casting OGCD on a 2 minute cooldown (no buffs to what it did, same 4.0 affect), and then going forward in future expansions expanding on the Soul gauge mechanic with more support abilities is the best route.

AST though... Yeah. A rework on the card was needed for sure. But not sure how they thought this was the way to go about it.

[HyoMinPark]

Agreed, I don't think any sensible BRD player thought that the passive crit buff wasn't more then a little OP and needed addressing.

It was more than just the passive crit scaling higher on parties as crit increased—BRD’s personal damage also shot up as we could stack more of the stat. That was something that needed to be addressed—between it starting out fairly weak in Deltascape (due to poorer crit scaling) and ending up super strong in Alphascape. Plus, stacking it with a DRG+SCH was a fairly sizeable amount of damage gain for the raid. I’ve come around to the 40% Repertoire—I think it’s quite nice (though I really dislike the 20% hard cap on lower level content—makes me not want to roll BRD under level 70 for more reasons than it still feels awkward to pair Barrage with Straight Shot instead of EA). However, I would love to see more party utility given back to us. Not necessarily damage buffs, but other utility.

I’ve seen suggestions of bringing back Foe’s and making it a sort of charge-based system. I think that could be interesting if the developers implemented it into a fun, non-clunky way. Casting Foe’s never bothered me, but I can understand the complaints of the cast being clunky. I’d like to see it as an oGCD skill. Apex Arrow is definitely in need of something—sound change included in this. It just feels really underwhelming. I think it should be oGCD just because its execution feels slow: the build up can take upwards of 60 seconds, and when it procs you have to wait for your GCD instead of weaving it. But I also just like the idea of weaving skills. It makes a job feel more active to me. (I have similar complaints with DNC’s Saber Dance—I’d sacrifice a bit of potency to make it oGCD for a smoother feel during TF windows.)


With AST, I think they could have honestly left the cards as is, with only changing Spire (because no more TP) and Balance (since it was the major issue). I don’t think the overhaul they did was necessary, and I don’t think the job is better for it. I leveled it to 80 and hated every second of it, and AST was a job I played far more than BRD (my main for 3+ years). I know it’s better in single-target encounters, and I know its still viable (we aren’t 3.0 AST, at least); but it just feels bad to play. Which makes me really sad at the end of the day. Especially since I finally got my UwU weapon for it literally 4 hours before the servers went down for 5.0. ;w;

[Rika007]

It was more than just the passive crit scaling higher on parties as crit increased—BRD’s personal damage also shot up as we could stack more of the stat. That was something that needed to be addressed—between it starting out fairly weak in Deltascape (due to poorer crit scaling) and ending up super strong in Alphascape. Plus, stacking it with a DRG+SCH was a fairly sizeable amount of damage gain for the raid. I’ve come around to the 40% Repertoire—I think it’s quite nice (though I really dislike the 20% hard cap on lower level content—makes me not want to roll BRD under level 70 for more reasons than it still feels awkward to pair Barrage with Straight Shot instead of EA). However, I would love to see more party utility given back to us. Not necessarily damage buffs, but other utility.

Yeah I'm coming around to it as well. Doubt I will do any synced content on it and I really really miss the fun rotation we got to late in 4.X of having to actually make decisions on 2 stack pitch perfect procs for more damage. Brought a really high skill ceiling to the job. But the knowledge that I won't feel like crap early in the expansion or be reliant on party composition to truly bring my best (besides you know, what every other job was already subject too) is one heck of a trade off that I can accept.

I’ve seen suggestions of bringing back Foe’s and making it a sort of charge-based system. I think that could be interesting if the developers implemented it into a fun, non-clunky way. Casting Foe’s never bothered me, but I can understand the complaints of the cast being clunky. I’d like to see it as an oGCD skill. Apex Arrow is definitely in need of something—sound change included in this. It just feels really underwhelming. I think it should be oGCD just because its execution feels slow: the build up can take upwards of 60 seconds, and when it procs you have to wait for your GCD instead of weaving it. But I also just like the idea of weaving skills. It makes a job feel more active to me. (I have similar complaints with DNC’s Saber Dance—I’d sacrifice a bit of potency to make it oGCD for a smoother feel during TF windows.)

Apex Arrow is in this weird state where I both love it and hate it. When it goes off the way you imagine, it feels godly. But to get to that point is very much an exercise in frustration. I wonder if us one day getting the long wanted Bard equivalent to Summoners "Bane" would make Apex Arrow feel much better, because then you wont be taking time off your AOE rotation to DOT enemies. I also personally would take a trade off of a bit hard set lower potency (400 or something I don't know) and allow me to use it instead at 25 and have it not deplete the song gauge. Let me set myself up for bigger burst sections and give me more control over that Song gauge.