BRD 5.0 Feedback, Suggestions, and Requests

[Connor]

I wouldn't want the three songs to give different effects, because it's the most rigid part of bard's rotation and if we had to plan the songs around buffing the party as well, it would cause nightmares and force us to make large personal dps sacrifices.

This is true, you’d end up in a situation like 4.0 Troubadour where you want a specific effect but are in the wrong song. I think the main thing I was going for was having some kind of interaction with the damage songs and some kind of support, plus the added bonus of three support effects in one (though that’s just me being greedy lol). That said, there is the option of having some kind of ability that gives a different effect depending on song without the songs themselves giving a party buff, but that still falls into the Troubadour issue due to not really being able to vary song rotation.

Another random though while I’m throwing out ideas, but I was thinking maybe Minne and Paean could grant some Soul Voice on usage to incentivise using them while also adding some stability to how it builds. Though that would mean having to use them for the gauge and not necessarily the support, so it’s not the greatest idea.

Lastly, I was thinking about this earlier while playing random stuff as Bard (needed a change from DNC/SCH lol). But one of the points that Jehantel gives when describing Bards really stuck with me. He says that as battle wages on, the line between friend and foe becomes hazy, and the Archer is left to bear witness the horrors of battle from afar. The torrent of emotion within the Archer wells up and, with naught else left, they sing, and inspire their comrades to greater feats. The Bard’s fervent desire to protect their comrades gives the song power, and can thus turn the tides of battle.

But I’ve noticed a lot of the time, when the party really needs help there isn’t anything I can do anymore. I’ve been in parties with a Bard where the healers are empty on MP, several DPS are dead, the tanks have no HP. And all I can do as a Bard is watch and hope to god the healers can scrape the party back up. Minne and Troubadour are nice, but they work much better in parties that are coordinated and already doing well, but when you’re in a party that really needs the extra healing the cooldowns are so long that they can’t really do much to help. Sometimes I wonder if I should have just gone Summoner so I can actually help out the party with Raise / Devotion / Regen, or a Dancer so I at least have Improvisation and Curing Waltz for when we need support.

I know balancing a job around things going wrong never goes well (Red Mage), but at the same time, I hear about this Bard in the lore and always want to play it, but then play the actual job and it’s like two different entities entirely. I’m not suggesting we should have a suite of healing and raise spell because obviously that would be insanely overpowered, but it’d be nice to be able to do something to actively help the party. It would be nice to be able to ‘live that fantasy’ (for want of a better term). To sing for your comrades in the heat of battle, inspiring them to overcome the horrors of battle from which your song began.

[Cetonis]

While I am a bit of a WP apologist, I think if they do give in and rework it, some sort of (weaker ofc) Excogitation style effect would make a bunch of sense thematically and mechanically for the skill.

That's probably the furthest I'd go in terms of increasing defensive utility though, as much as Minne requires coordination it does have some value (personally I ballpark it at ~50 dps with upside), and I don't blame SE for being a bit hesitant about creating a scenario where they're trying to assign dps values to defensive skills. (Would be nice if they felt that way about Mantra too but yknow)

You can end up in a dynamic where nobody is happy because the jobs with the defense feel like they're paying too much for it, and those without feel like they aren't being taxed enough.

[MPNZ]

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Okay, so a lot of what going to be written down is just like my own experiences personally, but maybe it would be helpful to a lot of the design, so this will be a off-topic for a bit...

OKay, in a questionnaire, the devs did state that they removed the SS dot because it was too difficult, but the real issue may actually just be that the UI requires to much from players with limited multi-tasking/goes beyond their ability to multi-task by demanding players pay attention to too many things at once, which if they would like just use better and larger tells and consolidating information into as few points as possible would allow for information to be more easily digestible could allow players quicker reactions and allow for an increase in the skill floor of the playerbase. Such as removing tells from the the Enemy HP bar and placing it in the middle of the enemy model like they did with the giant eye thingy.

That is basically one of like several problems they may have to address because they are seriously over concerned with low-player-skill. And another is definitely solving the issues haste would possibly have due to clipping and stuff canceling actions like river of blood did and how Pitch perfect will just cancel in mid-animation.

Even if they just consolidate the onscreen information better they may feel less worried about increasing difficulty and could do something like: return foie and then change minne to activate identically by using the soul gauge and drain mp upon use, and allow MB to restore the parties MP through RoD and BL. Basically, Bards would have to manage MP to keep minne and foi up for as long as possible but designed in a way that is not too punishing while rewarding upkeep in some way.

It would also help to have a cd that could reduce song cooldowns, but needs six procs in total used in pitch perfect to reset/become usable, And, we need AM to at least give party members a 20 second haste buff to actually fit into the job's lore

Oh, and playing the cyclical songs should really be how it buffs DH and reduces damage, and similarly for DNC as well. And, all of the jobs just totally hit like wet noodles against trash mobs and really need to hit harder anyway, imo...

[Cetonis]

I feel like that sort of layout is a little too ambitious. We probably shouldn't expect to see MP re-added as a job mechanic in a patch. The most we might see is a lazy Foe re-add where they just leave it on an island.

The thing with their low-player-skill concern is, that much of what's being asked for in OP would be more low-skill friendly, not less.

Apex being usable at 20 gauge for bad damage is not low-skill friendly. Putting a charge system on EA and/or BL would be pretty low-skill friendly as accidentally delaying those skills would no longer be as consistently punished.

While such changes might also introduce certain skill expressions like aiming to 3x EA a WM or something, that kind of good-decision based skill gap is almost wholly absent from Bard right now. It's about 98% execution at the moment, and lower-skill players' struggles with that core execution is what's always been the heart of the Bard skill gap to begin with.

And in making some of these changes, SE could make that execution easier, which they should presumably want. In exchange, they'd be adding a modicum of decision points, which is what OP and I and many others want, as players who have lost that element of Bard that they really enjoyed.

[HeteroCatboi]

Whenever people mention the apex arrow and PP sound effect
I just realize I’m just modern day version of pavlov's dog

[Suniva]

*reads patch notes in anticipation*
....
*pulls out violin and silently weeps*
On the plus side, my main melee alt (nin) got some much needed love at least.

[LaoghaireOsraige]

Joining the riot to Bring Back Foes!!

This thread so eloquently mirrors my own wants, I appreciate the well thought out post and hope that SE gives notice to our concerns soon.

[Supergold]

Would love to see foe's requiem return and bloodletter stacks(MB would work a lot smoother). The Apex Arrow sound needs to be changed ASAP. It feels so bad to PP1 just from reflex alone.

[SaitoHikari]

After having the opportunity to play with Apex Arrow in high end content for the past few weeks, I have come to realize just how problematic its current design is. To the point where it'd likely be accurate to say that a lot of Bard's current design woes in the DPS department could be laid at its feet.

Apex Arrow is a 500 potency skill that, since it is tied to repertoire procs, effectively has a random cooldown of 45-70 seconds. This makes it impossible to plan around using it. Now, if it took about 70 seconds to get a full 100 gauge, that also means you lost a lot of damage due to lack of procs for OTHER skills tied to repertoire as well. 40% repertoire proc rate is still well within the realm of potentially being RNG screwed, and it's likelier to happen than not. And Apex Arrow's existence is likely why the proc rate is as it currently is.

The devs could buff Apex Arrow's gauge generation rate by buffing repertoire proc rates to, say, 50%. But that also comes with the problem of making Bloodletter/Rain of Death/Pitch Perfect proc a lot more as a result. So if the developers believe such an option would make Bard too broken, any buff to Apex Arrow would likely be centered around finding other ways to increase gauge generation rate independently of repertoire. Something we can actually control.

[ZaqueXIII]

Time to get in that hard and fast fix suggestions, here goes;

Preface: I am not a level 80 bard yet but seems like a lot are not fans of apex arrow, so...

Make the level 80 ability a shared recast with bloodletter/rain of death that is basically just bane from smn.

Swap raging strikes for somekind of raidwide skill/spell speed buff or some kind of foe's req ability.

Let the bard apply their raid wides to themselves, I think they are the only exception for this.

Have barrage recharge faster from repitoire ticks during armys peon.

Oh yeah, and trade quicknock for wide volley. Circle AOEs are king.