A Bard Thought

[gman1311]

Your personal DPS is your support! KEK!

[Rika007]

As nice and well thought out these ideas are, there is more of a chance that the Dev's back off their hard stance on Blue Mage as a limited job then they rework Bard into a Ranger in some way. first and foremost FF14 is a story and lore based MMO. Turning Bard into a Ranger and creating an entirely new job based around the new Bard would require a complete retconning of the in game lore, and all outside of game official resources that were made as well. Technically it would also be a massive undertaking, as all the more Bard like assets would have to be completely retooled to work with whatever the new job is, new weapons designed to cover each and every level, recoding all individual role gear to work with whatever the new Bard's role is, the list would go on and on. If they did this, it would have to be for a new expansion, and we would 100% not be getting new jobs in that expansion as essentially we would have two new jobs right there. And then there would be players who actually like Bard being the middle ground between DPS/Utility and very much appreciated the idea of putting the musical aspects with the bow. Bard, even at points like now or Heavensward when players were overall unhappy with the job, has always been one of the most popular jobs in the game. Reworking it to such a massive degree would cause probably even more divisiveness then what we see now.

While I would never say 100% not gonna happen, the chances of this occurring make me 99.999% sure it won't happen. Their current options will be to remain to keep just a small bit of less meaningful support and keep just enhancing the DPS to make one camp happy or bring back the support options and make the other camp happy.

[Tulzscha]

Option D: Give Archer the Arcanist treatment; have it split into both Bard and Ranger. Additionally maybe add a dedicated Support role.

[Burningskull]

They could make it so Archer, a job that has nothing to do with music, becomes a Ranger and make the current Bard an advanced job that you can unlock when you reach lvl 30 with any job. Could keep it in Gridania and you wouldn't need to change it's quests all that much.

However... I would see Bard as more of a caster than a Physical Ranged. So their gear would need to be swapped over to caster type. Which makes more sense as their songs are supposed to inspire others to fight harder. So their songs to attack enemies could give parties a buff while it's casting... provided the cast time was long enough. Or have the current Song rotation be what buffs your parties while you are in those stances and have those Songs effects your damaging song casts in some way. Weapon would be harps probably.

[HyoMinPark]

Option D: Give Archer the Arcanist treatment; have it split into both Bard and Ranger. Additionally maybe add a dedicated Support role.

Developers have said they will never split jobs off of a class like they did with ACN and SMN/SCH.

They could make it so Archer, a job that has nothing to do with music, becomes a Ranger and make the current Bard an advanced job that you can unlock when you reach lvl 30 with any job. Could keep it in Gridania and you wouldn't need to change it's quests all that much.

However... I would see Bard as more of a caster than a Physical Ranged. So their gear would need to be swapped over to caster type. Which makes more sense as their songs are supposed to inspire others to fight harder. So their songs to attack enemies could give parties a buff while it's casting... provided the cast time was long enough. Or have the current Song rotation be what buffs your parties while you are in those stances and have those Songs effects your damaging song casts in some way. Weapon would be harps probably.

Would still be much less work to just introduce a Ranger job in the future and return Bard to a support-type DPS.

[Tulzscha]

Developers have said they will never split jobs off of a class like they did with ACN and SMN/SCH.

Doesn’t mean they can’t change their mind. It makes sense and would result in probably the least amount of work to make both Archers and Bards happy.

[HyoMinPark]

Doesn’t mean they can’t change their mind. It makes sense and would result in probably the least amount of work to make both Archers and Bards happy.

Somehow I doubt this is something they would change their mind on considering how difficult they have mentioned it being to balance SCH and SMN with both branching off of a base class that calls for them to share skills. It would be too much work. It would be much better to just introduce an Advanced Job called Ranger in an upcoming expansion rather than trying to work in a job splitting from ARC. Especially since all new jobs aren't starting at level 30 anymore, which is where ARC ends.

[DPZ2]

At a guess, you would get the Bard you want (support class) when they actually have a spot reserved for support classes in the Duty Finder, and not an expansion before that ...

You still play music, but it's for your own benefit, with the exception of two group-wide buffs that are well in line with the other job buffs out there for DPS.

[ty_taurus]

At a guess, you would get the Bard you want (support class) when they actually have a spot reserved for support classes in the Duty Finder, and not an expansion before that ...

You still play music, but it's for your own benefit, with the exception of two group-wide buffs that are well in line with the other job buffs out there for DPS.

The concept isn't really about creating a dedicated support job of Bard in a way that would act as a new role. When I say "support," what I'm really saying is a DPS who has a chunk of their DPS emanate from padding, i.e. a foil to dancer. Fans of the Bard identity want some level of support, and Dancer shows us exactly how that can function in a way that isn't just a new support role.

As for what "musical DPS" might look like beyond support, I think this is a great reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMf6NdM55ws

[wild-eyes]

I may get hate for this but I'm one of those people who plays Bard as a "Ranger" and I enjoy it this way. I like bows and arrows and all the cool effects the Bard has while doing so as well as doing some fun damage. This obviously means I wasn't a Bard main for years and played the job because it was a supportive type role. I only recently started playing it because they kinda shifted away from that towards the "Ranger" type role. However, I'm a little worried now that they may push it back to being more of a support job and can completely sympathize with those players who've played it for years as a support class and got that rug pulled out from underneath them, as if this did indeed happen, I probably would stop playing Bard altogether.

It's a crappy position all around and personally I can't think of a solution outside of trying to find a happy middle ground for both sides. I imagine the balancing here can be tricky but if they take their time and put all those big brains to use, I can see a solution being an absolute possibility.