Changes to Bard I'd like to see in 5.1/overall

[SaitoHikari]

Hmm, maybe they could buff Sidewinder to contribute more to Bard's gameplay rather than being a straight damage attack. Like maybe Sidewinder could force up to 2 repertoire procs and increase apex arrow gauge by 10 based on whether or not you had both dots up, and Shadowbite could increase Apex Arrow gauge based on the number of enemies hit.

[Shurrikhan]

My own little wishlist:

• General Change: Get rid of the convoluted quadratic scaling on Crit (which currently makes it inferior to Direct Hit as a singular stat until almost 4k bonus Crit). Return the base Critical Hit modifier to 50%, give CH an efficiency of .1% chance per 12.5 stat, buffed from per 16, and have it only buff the damage of auto-crits. (That is to say, if an effect has greater than a 100% chance, the excess instead increases its power. A 120% chance of a Crit would therefore deal 20% more bonus damage for a total of 160% damage.)
• Revise Straight Shot ready. Rather than a chance of a skill unlock, let Straight Shot/Refulgent be available immediate but have its former proc skills increase its critical strike chance cumulatively. This would allow for a small measure of banking and a fun bit of optional gamble.
• Use MP again, for songs. Get rid of the target requirement (compensating for the lost on-cast oGCD potency elsewhere). Give songs an initial cost and a drain rate which increases over use and decreases over disuse, encouraging a natural rotation at roughly every 25-30 seconds as per now when sustaining MP, but also giving some (expensive) measure of flexibility by which to "overextend" songs for their unique value and make up for that over downtime. Songs will not start their drain until you next deal damage, whether by direct or periodic means. This will allow us a lot more flexibility and a bit of QoL.
• Fix Army's Paeon. Don't wait until ShB to make it not horribly unintuitive. Bring it up to nearly the strength of the other two with some situations in which it even outperforms them.
• Start Apex Arrow at the base potency of Burst Shot, either just its direct damage or just under its effective damage when including Straighter Shot/Refulgent contribution. Make its tooltip not a trap.
• Seriously buff Sidewinder. Buff Shadowbite slightly or even get rid of it outright in favor of song-based upgrades to Sidewinder that are applicable to AoE.
• Give each song their own, unique takes on Bloodletter and Rain of Death.
• Swap Repertoire over to a chance based on %bonus damage from any and all attacks, thereby taking every stat into effect.
• Swap Raging Strikes over to Hawkeye, which should instead increase Critical Strike chance, synergizing better with the revised Straighter Shot/Refulgent mechanic and Repertoire generation.

[MPNZ]

Hmm, maybe they could buff Sidewinder to contribute more to Bard's gameplay rather than being a straight damage attack. Like maybe Sidewinder could force up to 2 repertoire procs and increase apex arrow gauge by 10 based on whether or not you had both dots up, and Shadowbite could increase Apex Arrow gauge based on the number of enemies hit.

Like, sidewinder = 2-3 soulvoice with one dot being squared and two dots being cubed, and ShBt = 3 soulvoice[{(.25)number of enemies} squared or cubed]. Totes AOE demon XD

[Jybril]

I like for BRD to be what it use to be in 4.0.
A real support DPS. Not this...thingamajig...
Why does SE hate utility?

[Rika007]

I like for BRD to be what it use to be in 4.0.
A real support DPS. Not this...thingamajig...
Why does SE hate utility?

SE really doesn't, a very loud percentage of the player base mistook the synergy meta of storm blood to mean that all utility was broken, and shouted for it to be parred back. Then Dancer was released, and the devs felt that having two support centric ranged DPS would be a bad idea. So Bard took a double whammy.

[MitsukiKimura]

Can I have a skill where it puts a dot on all enemies. Manually applying my Dot's on each mob is really unpleasant. Doesn't have to be called "Bane" Doesn't have to be both Dot's just at least one of them with lower potency effect.

[Jybril]

SE really doesn't, a very loud percentage of the player base mistook the synergy meta of storm blood to mean that all utility was broken, and shouted for it to be parred back. Then Dancer was released, and the devs felt that having two support centric ranged DPS would be a bad idea. So Bard took a double whammy.

If that was the case, they should have made DNC a healer and leave BRD alone.
I think BRD went though the most noticeable changes in any job this games seen.

2.0 Basic of basics MP/TP and Foe's.
3.0 Bowmage
4.0 Legit Support DPS. - Which I mained in 4.0 as a DPS.
5.0 This. - Which I chalk up to a lesser of MCH kinda.

So in 3.0 MCH and BRD were pretty similar and they had finally made MCH what they should have in 5.0.
(Why didn't they copy Edgar from FF6 earlier lol?)
MCH is a selfish DPS now and it's fun and better. But now BRD took a huge step back...
Just a pure DPS with like a support skill or two...Back to where we were in 2.0 to 3.0 but worse.
We are singing to ourselves now, not our party. That's not what I want to do as a Bard.
Why make a whole new job, which isn't even that great IMO.
I had way more fun weaving songs for the whole party to benefit
than this RNG dance off, 1 partner and then more partners every now and then.
4.0 was the best of BRD and they killed it.
They released another support job, stripped the other one way to make DNC take stage.
BRD identity is screwed up, just like AST. At least we still have BV and NM. :/

Not taking this out on you Rika, and thank you for the explanation.
I'm just so sad they make jobs so much fun and I waited YEARS for BRD to be how it
was in 4.0 and this ughhhsdjhjasda lol!

[Rika007]

-Snip-

Quite alright friend, I've vented more then enough myself on the issue. And trust me I was in the same boat on Dancer, I desperately wanted a healer that was more 'athletic' and mobile and loved the idea of Dancer coming into the healer role to provide another support based healer as a foil to AST, so that SCH and WHM could compete for the more main healer role. But that is lost now and I'm just gonna hope against hope they do something that provides some real hype for people to play healer (I personally would love to see a job like Psychic for healer). And I actually do like the way they implemented Dancer, if it was going to be anything else then a healer, a ranged chakram using DPS was the way to go, I would have hated another melee DPS or caster. All it needs right now is a little bit more consistency on it's Fan procs so it stays more active throughout the fight, ranged DPS need to be high cpm.

But yeah... Bard as this glorified Ranger makes no one happy, and after how incredible 4.0 Bard was it's quite obvious what the way to go is. You can have two support based classes, especially now that the crit based synergy meta has been destroyed, and not have any issues.

[Besame]

We know that SE is reevaluating the ranged physical DPS role, and that there will be a few changes come 5.1. So here are the changes I hope to see to help Bard regain some of its former luster.

Hopeful 5.1 changes

Sidewinder/Shadowbite reduced to 30 seconds. For the potencies both provide, as well as, the constraints on those potencies, 60 seconds feels a bit much.

Apex Arrow, its gauge and how its charged need a rework. While the repertoire charge isnt so bad, since it can be linked to Empyreal Arrow, its potency needs to be normalized. I'd say give it a flat potency that costs a set amount, like 500 for 50. Or break it down into segments, like 250 for 25, 500 for 50, 750 for 75, like that.

All Songs need an increase in potency, or some form of utility back. The low potencies were offset by their utility, but since that was removed it just feel lackluster. Truthfully, I'd like to see an increased potency and utility.

Bard needs a charged action, which action I'm not sure. One could argue Bloodletter/Rain of Death because of ballad procs, but Straightshot has merit too.

Changes overall

Sidewinder at a lower level, pre 50, to offset Bard's weird down time. Giving it to us as an Archer skill would make sense.

Army's Paean's effect changed to something more useful, like a continuous Straightshot ready buff or something.

Another song pre 50 so that we dont have a down period.

An Encore ability, so that we can replay the song we were just playing.

That's all I can think of for now, but what are some other ideas to make bard feel better.

Got weary with them ruining my Bard main, stopped running instances and just do SB xworld hunts. Just don't care anymore. I like a few of your ideas but they have always been clueless on bards.

[Rika007]

Got weary with them ruining my Bard main, stopped running instances and just do SB xworld hunts. Just don't care anymore. I like a few of your ideas but they have always been clueless on bards.

Eh let's not by hyperbolic, they WERE always clueless on Bards. Then Stormblood happened and they made one of the most well designed jobs XIV has ever had in the history of the game. Now sure they have botched it up here again in Shadowbringers, but fortunately unlike Heavensward, the core of the job doesn't need reworking. Just needs to get a little bit of the stuff they removed back.