BRD 5.0 Feedback, Suggestions, and Requests

[Vivi_Bushido]

I think SideWinder and Shadowbite should be two completely different skills that don't share a recast and function akin to Fleche and Contre Sixte.

[Connor]

Trying not to think about the support anymore lol, so I’m curious as to what do people think they should do with Apex Arrow? Currently it’s not much of a DPS gain to use because it doesn’t proc Refulgent Arrow, which means that at maximum potency it’s lower than a Burst Shot / Refulgent Arrow combo. Anything below 70 seems to be weaker than Burst Shot, which feels strange for a level 80 ability. It feels good to use, but there’s not much interaction with the ability or the gauge because you just ignore it until it reaches 100. I’d like it to be as powerful as it feels, but they don’t seem to be able to increase Bard’s personal DPS either from the sounds of it (without breaking ranged balance), so I’m not sure if a potency gain would work on it. But at the same time, it would break balance if they gave it some kind of added effect. So I’m unsure as to what they can do besides leaving it as it is.

Also, I agree with Shadowbite feels a bit weird. It’s fun to use and feels powerful, but I can’t help but think ‘shouldn’t this have been an upgrade for Sidewinder?’. That said though, I feel the often-used suggestion of it being a ‘Bane’ skill would be too powerful for AoE because DoTs interact with the song gauge and Repetoire (whereas in Summoner for example, they only interact with Ruins and Fester, rather than the job gauges themselves)

[Vivi_Bushido]

Trying not to think about the support anymore lol, so I’m curious as to what do people think they should do with Apex Arrow? Currently it’s not much of a DPS gain to use because it doesn’t proc Refulgent Arrow, which means that at maximum potency it’s lower than a Burst Shot / Refulgent Arrow combo. Anything below 70 seems to be weaker than Burst Shot, which feels strange for a level 80 ability. It feels good to use, but there’s not much interaction with the ability or the gauge because you just ignore it until it reaches 100. I’d like it to be as powerful as it feels, but they don’t seem to be able to increase Bard’s personal DPS either from the sounds of it (without breaking ranged balance), so I’m not sure if a potency gain would work on it. But at the same time, it would break balance if they gave it some kind of added effect. So I’m unsure as to what they can do besides leaving it as it is.

Also, I agree with Shadowbite feels a bit weird. It’s fun to use and feels powerful, but I can’t help but think ‘shouldn’t this have been an upgrade for Sidewinder?’. That said though, I feel the often-used suggestion of it being a ‘Bane’ skill would be too powerful for AoE because DoTs interact with the song gauge and Repetoire (whereas in Summoner for example, they only interact with Ruins and Fester, rather than the job gauges themselves)

Yeah I agree. Personally I find Shadowbite more underwhelming than I do Apex Arrow. I think the reason Apex Arrow isn't so grand in DPS is because it's AOE so it's single target output is basically bleh on account it's the equivalent of using Quick Knock on a single target. I kind of saw Flaming Arrow as our DoT Bane and personally wish Flaming Arrow made a return. I took a close look at the potencies and realized that we kind of still have it, it's just masked up and hidden. They took the Flaming Arrow potencies and shoved it into the DoT upgrades. (This is assuming you used Flaming Arrow on a single target). So the Dots aren't exactly even upgrades since it's just the potencies of an old existing skill lapped into it. I think what made Bard really neat was how Crit centric the job was but with that gone it feels a bit more barebones.

Also I find it kind of weird that Apex Arrow doesn't have the flashy line animation rotating around it when it reaches 100 gauge that hooks your eye's attention screaming use me USE ME!

But personally if I have to be honest, I find the most underwhelming things to be Troubadour, Nature's Minne, and The Warden's Paean.

Troubadour is basically a cross-role skill right now. Every physical range has their own version of it, so in a way, I almost kind of miss the old version of it. It's weaker than it's pervious counterpart.

Nature's Minne is a downgrade to Mantra.

The Warden's Paean is so situation I sometimes forget it even exists when the situation calls for it and only really use it on myself when I do remember it. Downgrade Esuna.

Repelling Shot is a downgrade Exclusive Jump.

Empyrean Arrow is now an oGCD Burst Arrow with a Repertoire.

With all the ways to reset Blood Letter/Rain of Death/Refulgent Arrow procs, I wished at least one thing would reduce the cool down to Sidewinder.

Battle Voice I am conflicted about because a very good point was made about it turning into a selfish DPS skill but at the same time, because it doesn't affect the user, I kind of pop it willy nilly even at questionable moments because my reaction is to just keep it on cooldown; and I know for a fact I am not the only Bard to fall into this bad habit. Sometimes I accidently forget to use it at all because the skill isn't exactly in your face to use it when it comes off cooldown 3mins later.

Since Barrage resets Refulgant Arrow, I kind of question why it just doesn't use the skill outright when activated. There are moments where I use a Burst Arrow then Barrage really quickly after and didn't catch that I had an RA proc from the BA before using Barrage. And then there are other times I wish Barrage didn't work on the dot skills cause sometimes I'm not paying attention and realized I should have used Iron Jaws instead cause my dot timers are to low, and if I could have used Iron Jaws while the buff sat there, everything would turn out fine, but since Iron Jaws consumes Barrage, I have to let them fall off. Poor decision making on my part sure, just kind of a QoL that would feel less punishing to that careless whoops moment.

[Cetonis]

Currently it’s not much of a DPS gain to use because it doesn’t proc Refulgent Arrow, which means that at maximum potency it’s lower than a Burst Shot / Refulgent Arrow combo.

Gotta reign this in just to keep this thread clean - it is still a 241.5 potency gain to use a full Apex, the notion of adding BS+RA doesn't really add up. What you want to do to find the avg potency of a filler GCD is to do (20 x 230 + 7 x 340) / 27 = 258.5 potency, so 500 is definitely worth. It is weaker than a filler GCD at 50 or less, usable at 20 is certainly bizarre and I think mentioned in OP. And yes, still kinda disappointing as the payoff for a new gauge and dealing with the variable timings and all that.

That said, my biggest support-aside want if I could get anything I wanted would be EA charges. The flat cooldown really does not get along with our variable GCD lengths and needing to dodge overcapping, and EA drift is one of the more frequent things I see people struggling with.

[cactusking]

My suggestion for Sidewinder/Shadowbite is this: Either remove Sidewinder entirely and add its Fester effect into Empyreal Arrow, or have a trait that upgrades Sidewinder to Shadowbite. We already have an aoe+single target pair of skills that share a cooldown, there's no real need to have two pairs, especially when they all boil down to 'does damage off the gcd.'

When other classes have ogcd skills, they usually have a little more going on than just damage. DRG overall is a perfect example of this. BRDs have Empyreal Arrow as on ogcd that plays into their mechanics, having several more that are just different flavors of potency seems lazy and bland, especially when skill bar real estate is becoming more and more precious.

[Cetonis]

Why are we caught up on Sidewinder all of a sudden? That's the least of our issues.

I've always thought it would be neat if it applied a 15s DoT that could proc our things though

[AxelDH]

I think Natures Minne should get Palisades old effect added to it as well ('Reduces physical damage taken by a party member by 20%'). That would make it a lot more useful!

Repelling shot - can we remove the need to be targeting an enemy for this?

Agree with the sound effect change for Apex.

They need to be careful about reintroducing Foes or any other raid damage buffs, as BRD/MCH/DNC are fairly close in terms of raid DPS at the moment. If they buff one, the others will start wanting buffs too, then before we know it we'll be seeing a 3 physical ranged meta!

[HyoMinPark]

I think Natures Minne should get Palisades old effect added to it as well ('Reduces physical damage taken by a party member by 20%'). That would make it a lot more useful!

Repelling shot - can we remove the need to be targeting an enemy for this?

Agree with the sound effect change for Apex.

They need to be careful about reintroducing Foes or any other raid damage buffs, as BRD/MCH/DNC are fairly close in terms of raid DPS at the moment. If they buff one, the others will start wanting buffs too, then before we know it we'll be seeing a 3 physical ranged meta!

As it stands now, the three physical ranged may need buffs anyways — especially if the changes in 5.08 and 5.1 to NIN and SAM are substantial. I think it’s unlikely you’d see a triple physical ranged comp considering the state BLM and MNK are in now. The physical ranged would have to be buffed A LOT to compete with those two.

[Michieltjuhh]

Here's some changes I would suggest:
* Rework Burst Shot/Ironjaws + Refulgent Arrow into a combo that grants a guaranteed Repertoire proc. This would make single target feel more fluent due to less reliability on RNG. Barrage still gives a guaranteed Refulgent Arrow, without the need of Burst Shot/Ironjaws. Interaction with Stormbite and Caustic Bite gets removed.
* Turn Apex Arrow into an oGCD or change the way it works; it should be more flexible than it is now.
* Remove Repelling Shot's target requirement.
* Change Nature's Minne to either be group-wide or have it also reduce damage taken by the target.
* Give Bloodletter/Rain of Death 2 charges.
* Battle Voice buffing self when?

Obviously, change potency where required.

[Suniva]

Hrm, I had a thought. Right now the camp is pretty divided, those who want bard to be what the class name states, and those who want the class to be more like how other games have a bow & arrow class (ranger). I understand that balancing is pretty tricky, but let's say that they implement changes that allow both camps to play to their liking.

For example: Most of us here are pretty well in agreement that this current "bard" is more of a selfish dps than our previous iterations. They also stated that they would have to bring down our dps slightly is we got more supportive tool-kit. These changes are just something I had flying through my head so forgive me if it is incomplete or haphazard.

Tanks have their "stances", monks have their "forms", why not give bard a "stance" that they could switch between. A "ranger" form that is more focused on dps and the "bard" form. The biggest change that would come would be that while in Bard form, our songs would function differently by adding some kind of supportive element to the party, (crit buff for example, str, etc, SOME kind on "inspiration") but at the cost of personal dps. When in the ranger form, things function as they do now with the songs, that is the songs keep proc'ing repertoire but have no supportive element tied to them. (I really don't see the need for bards to get buffed in terms of their damage output at the present considering how close they are to machinist). It's a simple idea, and one that I think would be pretty easy to implement without have to go through a massive re-working and or changing of our current tool-kit.

I would like for both camps to be happy with what is currently in game and I don't think there is any reason for us to add a ranger class when we already have some form of the class already here. It is just finding a way to balance said class that will appease to both those that want to play as a supportive range vs those who want to play as pure dps. Even though machinist is the form of range pure dps that is out there, we have players that would rather not play it because they don't like the idea of playing with a gun in a fantasy game or they just don't like its play style.

What do you guys think?