Bard's Thematic Future

[Atamis]

Their precedents are generally equivalent to rule when it comes to FFXIV in my opinion, especially when there has been no deviation from any of the formulae the developers use for content in 6 years. A Ranger job will be level 70 if added in 6.0, level 80 if added in 7.0, Level 90 if added in 8.0, etc.. As for New Game+, I haven’t heard anything about it offering experience. The Shadowbringers product page lists New Game+ as a feature that “will allow for replay of previously completed quests while retaining one’s current progression and job level”—the “retaining one’s current progression and job level” doesn’t really imply that players can earn experience from utilizing the feature.

As for the old cross-class system, I don’t really consider it “dumbing down” or “catering to the lowest denominator” to remove the requirement to level a separate class to level 15 just to progress further with one’s chosen class/job. And I did that for ALL the jobs that required it. It was just removing a clunky feature. Same with the cross-class > role skill system. It wasn’t exactly riveting or even challenging to level THM to 26 just so my WHM could have Swiftcast.

It is entirely possible that newgame+ behaves like that. I just assumed it would reset the quest tracker allowing all of them, side quests included, to be redone; rewards and EXP intact. I was thinking "retaining ones progress and level" simply meant they wern't going to delevel you or prevent you from doing current content that is often gated behind story quest completion. Even so, I doubt this will bar EXP gain, and there is a heafty amount of story dungeons to drag a lower class through even if one would need to grind out a few extra inbetween story quests.

You are fair to say the cross abilities were "clunky" but that is not the same as requiring a tank to have a basic understanding of the first 15 levels of a healer, it was a different system afterall. While i also didn't mind getting BLM leveled to get swiftcast, i do admit that was a rather underperforming aspect of that particular system, but one I was completely onboard with given my love for the Tactics series and XI. I just wish they would of improved it instead of scrapping it. I fondly remember playing lv50 archer even after the bard job was added and having Fire1 cross classed. It came in rather handy on fire weak enemies, and internally I just viewed it as a fire enchanted arrow.

[Rika007]

Keeping this weird Hybrid that can't really commit to either has caused a lot of grief for players who want both these styles, and has been since 1.2. If some people have come to accept it as a job then I can understand that, but the frustration will still be there because Bard's existence essentially destroys any hope of both camps being completely satisfied.

Don't put words in our mouth. We don't just 'accept' the job. We LOVE the job. We love the 'unholy amalgamation' as you keep putting to it (which is a great way to try and prove your point, keep calling it that). And we are not some small camp. Bard has been consistently one of the most popular jobs in the game based on pure clear rates of even casual fights since 2.0's inception, nothing about the job NEEDS changing thematically, it will remain a popular job based on it's aesthetic alone and walking the line between the two themes of the class from now till the end of the game isn't going to lose SE some massive amount of players. Bard in it's current state is only a problem for those few who literally CANT accept the idea that a Bard can also be an Archer at the same time.

[Beddict]

I want both camps to have the job they dream of: A lethal archer able to plant an arrow between the eyes of a fiend halfway across the room AND a prodigious musician using the power of their voice and their instrument alone to tear their enemies apart while occasionally supplying their allies with melodic power.

Yeah, we've heard you multiple times, and as people have told you multiple times, there's a third camp: the people that like the hybrid, that started playing the Job because it's a hybrid, that don't want the parts to be separated. Amazingly enough we're nine pages deep and you still haven't grasped that concept and I sure as hell don't believe you when you say you understand that people accept the Job because you're still suggesting that SE rob those players of what they already have. The hybrid of Archer and Bard works fine as a concept and the Job quests - which I'm assuming you still haven't bothered reading yet despite me quoting them not once but twice - support that. SE needs to return some of that bardic flair that was lost between SB and ShB to better balance the Archer and the Bard aspects, but splitting it into Ranger and Bard would go against the vision they've clearly had for 6+ years and be a disservice to the fans that have mained the Job and enjoy it for what it actually is. If you can't accept SEs vision on what a Bard is in FFXIV then maybe you should find a different MMO that will satisfy your needs.

[ty_taurus]

This is what I was going for, yes.

It's hard to take this community seriously when so many people on this side of the ocean advocate for drastic measures to happen, without any consideration for the logistics that goes into designing such things. Again, if this were as trivial as people think it'd be, Summoner and Scholar would have been fully split by now. And yet... They still aren't, despite that they already existed as separate jobs from the beginning, and the developers OPENLY admitting that this was a mistake for years.

(Also, some posters in this thread would really hate DnD, which is what Ultima was inspired by, which is what ultimately inspired FF as a franchise, if not all of modern RPGs as a whole. In DnD, Bards can wield any weapon, shared un-Bard like utility magic with the pure spellcasting classes, had exclusive crowd control magic with the most famous being literally insulting someone in the wittiest way you could come up with, and instruments are treated as side equipment for flavor/skill check purposes. If anything, the concept of Bards who can't wield traditional weapons and stick purely to instruments is the highly unnatural concept that deviates from what Bards originally were in the old days.)



Alright, sure. I'll even be a little lenient and give you three days to work on this. I won't accept glamour-based measures as an answer, since the original topic was about splitting Bard into two fully fledged classes.

So I did a little reading on how music is written because I’m not an actual musician in the real world and know basically nothing about how to read sheet music. Because of this, I don’t necessarily want to go through and specifically name a lot of actions not really knowing all the terminology. If I were being paid to design this job over a span of time, I would really dig into learning about sheet music and try to talk to musicians to get more insight on how to properly name these abilities, but I can talk about the flow of the Musician job concept regardless…

Let’s start with your basic combos and the music gauge that would be associated with this job concept.

Your have 4 basic combo actions that, for simplicity’s sake, we’ll call: Start, A Chord, B Chord, and C Chord. These names would change. Obviously, every combo will begin with Start which deals flat damage.

Let’s say Start is 200 Potency and A Chord, B Chord, and C Chord all do 100 Potency before combo.

From Start, one of the other 3 Chords will randomly be targeted for combo damage. In all cases, the damage would be the same, say 250 potency. Then, one of the other 2 Chords that you haven’t used will be targeted for the final hit in the combo, say 300 potency, before you start again.

Every time you complete a combo, you’ll be awarded a Note resource on your music gauge to a maximum of 6. These Notes will be an important resource for using a variety of very powerful tools, but before we talk about spending the Notes, you don’t always have to play Simon Says.

You’ll have oGCD actions that will enhance your combos in different ways. One example could be something like the ability Reprise which will have you repeat the last combo you performed with each hit doubling in damage (400 > 500 > 600 Potency combo) and earning you 2 Notes instead of 1.

Overture could be an action you use outside of combat to grant you a full set of 6 Notes for your opener.

Freestyle can be a channeled attack like Machinist’s Flamethrower which pulsates damage and gradually nets you Notes as each second passes with you doing damage.

Chorus is a stance you can turn on and off which halves the damage of your Start, A Cord, B Chord, and C Chord actions, but extending them to additional targets as your form of AoE damage.

Other actions can be used as a substitute for your final combo action. Instead of using your 300 potency combo finisher and gaining a Note, you can use these extra actions.

Dark Elegy is a 30 second DoT you can use to substitute your finisher, with a potency of 60.

Dissonant Sonata is is a 100 potency AoE finisher substitute that stuns all enemies for 4 seconds, useful for helping out your Tank pull big trash mobs.

Angelsong is an oGCD that deals the 300 potency damage without granting a Note, but applies a HoT on all allies around you.

Crescendo is an oGCD 800 potency finisher substitute you want to use as it comes off cool down.

Then comes the abilities you’ll spend your notes on. The most prominent one is Concerto, which applies a raid wide 5% damage buff that doesn’t stack with Technical Step. This one costs all 6 notes and is usable once every 2 minutes, mirroring Technical Step.

All other Note-Consuming oGCD actions will consume 2 Notes and you’ll want to find times to use them so you’re not sitting on a full set of Notes while remembering to prepare for from Concerto comes off cool down.

Black Requiem is a high 600 potency AoE attack.

Soul Etude is an AoE heal that also buffs the critical hit of all nearby allies by 5%.

Vespersong applies an MP refresh on an ally Healer.

You’ll also have something like Fortissimo which acts like Technician/Troubadour/Shield Samba and doesn’t require any special resources.

There, it’s a rough concept made in literally a handful of hours, but it’s a starting point for what I think would be a pretty cool concept.

Yeah, we've heard you multiple times, and as people have told you multiple times, there's a third camp: the people that like the hybrid, that started playing the Job because it's a hybrid, that don't want the parts to be separated. Amazingly enough we're nine pages deep and you still haven't grasped that concept and I sure as hell don't believe you when you say you understand that people accept the Job because you're still suggesting that SE rob those players of what they already have. The hybrid of Archer and Bard works fine as a concept and the Job quests - which I'm assuming you still haven't bothered reading yet despite me quoting them not once but twice - support that. SE needs to return some of that bardic flair that was lost between SB and ShB to better balance the Archer and the Bard aspects, but splitting it into Ranger and Bard would go against the vision they've clearly had for 6+ years and be a disservice to the fans that have mained the Job and enjoy it for what it actually is. If you can't accept SEs vision on what a Bard is in FFXIV then maybe you should find a different MMO that will satisfy your needs.

Earlier I also said then fine, have all 3. Have a Dedicated Archer, a Dedicated Musician, and a job that mixes the two. Everyone can be happy.

[DPZ2]

Earlier I also said then fine, have all 3. Have a Dedicated Archer, a Dedicated Musician, and a job that mixes the two. Everyone can be happy.

It's plain to see you're not enamored with Bard. I've been playing archer archetypes in MMOs for 10+ years, and I'm just not seeing your point, especially since you self-identify as Dancer.

My suggestion is to go find another MMO that meets your need for a musician class. Lord of the Rings Online has a Minstrel class [not called Bard, Bards are NPCs] that appears to meets your current requirements. I disliked it, as the performances were, basically, a strum of a harp followed by weird shouts.

You've voiced your opinion, but haven't been persuasive for a number of us who still self-identify as Bard. [Yeah, yeah, I haven't changed from Archer in almost 5 years in the profile. Just changed that.]

[Suniva]

I will keep saying it, over and over again if I must.
But leave the bard job alone.
Just because you don't have YOUR ranger class doesn't mean that you get to hijack bard to get what you want.

You can advocate for a new range class, you can come up with the skills and such that you would like to see; but those of you advocating that BARD has to be the one to get stripped and remade (even though in SE's own lore it refers to bards as bowman of eld) while your ranger gets to keep everything that bard is now are being selfish and ignoring a large portion of those of us that have mained the job for years.

I'll admit I'm a super casual player, I don't have ultimate clears, and have only started attempting savage this tier, in all my years playing. I'm am simply very passionate about my class and really don't understand with all the jobs available in the game for a person to pick why some players feel adamant about arguing for the gutting of ONE particular class simply so they can enjoy the bow and arrow aesthetic in the game. Like it really astounds me that the underlying premise behind the majority of the arguments being made to gut bard is simply because those people want the bow and arrow type class to play like other bow and arrow type classes in other games. (Not to be THAT person, but FFXIV is FFXIV and other games are different games. Each game has their own unique classes with their own unique abilities. SE decided to go the route of bard in their vision in this game, if you can't respect that, then there are other games available for you to choose from.)

Now again, not to be that person, but the option available to those who simply want to keep the bow and arrow aesthetic that also offers the least amount of resistance AND that would be most feasible would be to advocate for a new job, as it will more than likely follow the current trend that it will be placed in game 20 levels below the current expansions level and you can just pick up and play. Just because YOU (general) don't like something doesn't mean that they people who DO like what has been in place for years should have to sacrifice in order to cater to YOUR wants.

[ty_taurus]

I will keep saying it, over and over again if I must.
But leave the bard job alone.
Just because you don't have YOUR ranger class doesn't mean that you get to hijack bard to get what you want.

You can advocate for a new range class, you can come up with the skills and such that you would like to see; but those of you advocating that BARD has to be the one to get stripped and remade (even though in SE's own lore it refers to bards as bowman of eld) while your ranger gets to keep everything that bard is now are being selfish and ignoring a large portion of those of us that have mained the job for years.

I'll admit I'm a super casual player, I don't have ultimate clears, and have only started attempting savage this tier, in all my years playing. I'm am simply very passionate about my class and really don't understand with all the jobs available in the game for a person to pick why some players feel adamant about arguing for the gutting of ONE particular class simply so they can enjoy the bow and arrow aesthetic in the game. Like it really astounds me that the majority of the arguments being made to gut bard is simply because people want the bow and arrow type class to play like other bow and arrow type classes in other games. (Not to be THAT person, but FFXIV is FFXIV and other games are different games. Each game has their own unique classes with their own unique abilities. SE decided to go the route of bard in their vision in this game, if you can't respect that, then there are other games available for you to choose from.)

Now again, not to be that person, but the option available to those who simply want to keep the bow and arrow aesthetic that also offers the least amount of resistance AND that would be most feasible would be to advocate for a new job, as it will more than likely follow the current trend that it will be placed in game 20 levels below the current expansions level and you can just pick up and play. Just because YOU (general) don't like something doesn't mean that they people who DO like what has been in place for years should have to sacrifice in order to cater to YOUR wants.

The build was for a new job fyi... not Bard

[MartaDemireux]

I'm beginning to think that examples like ARC/BRD is one of the main reasons they have held off on removing classes altogether. We know it's something they are/have been seriously considering (unless I missed it being updated to never happening) and the previous track was for 6.0, I believe - or perhaps it was just "sometime after 5.0" or something. So, assuming they do go through with this, if BRD were to be just BRD without ARC even existing, where do you all think that would put us? They would be a BRD from level 1 but would need more bardness before 30 if that were case. And how would the lore be affected, I wonder. Would the ARC quests be removed entirely and the BRD quests be lowered in level?

[Suniva]

The build was for a new job fyi... not Bard

I have never said I was against anyone advocating for a new job, so long as you leave bard alone as it is. It needs some tlc, sure, but that's all. It was a general statement that was made because I keep seeing the same underlying issue presented in arguments, that issue being SE's FFXIV vision of a bow and arrow wielder doesn't satisfy some. So rather than those players moving on to different jobs available in game that they can enjoy, they push for their own wants, choosing to remain blind that there is an existing player base that has no problem with SE's vision of the class and enjoy it for what it is.

[ty_taurus]

I have never said I was against anyone advocating for a new job, so long as you leave bard alone as it is. It needs some tlc, sure, but that's all.



I'm also eagerly awaiting your ideas to see what you can come up, since very few have been willingly to accept the challenge and I have seen very little offered in terms of this route.

That idea was what I came up with. Basically you have a musician of some type, probably with a Flute since Harp is taken, and your kit revolves around your basic combo options and accumulating Notes you can spend on oGCDs like Concerto which rivals Technical Step, i.e. making this job the counterpart to Dancer, and others like Soul Etude and Black Requiem. You can also forgo Note generation on a combo-to-combo basis by replacing your finisher with other special actions that do other things like apply a DoT you manage, generate a HoT to help healers when they're struggling, or do high single target damage when the action is off cool down. Much like a song, you're playing a set of basic notes, but as a master musician, you improvise with tunes that best fit the situation.