"New" Bard.

[Antoine_Lenheim]

So they gave bard new party effects to his songs in SB but nerfed down his own dps, after ShB they cutted song effects but buffed bard's own dps. And in 5.1 they giving song effects again and nerfing his own dps.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My prediction for Bard in 5.5: again no party song effects and increase in dps xD

B -- balance.

[Vaina]

it's inexplicable .....

[Brandedblade]

So they gave bard new party effects to his songs in SB but nerfed down his own dps, after ShB they cutted song effects but buffed bard's own dps. And in 5.1 they giving song effects again and nerfing his own dps.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My prediction for Bard in 5.5: again no party song effects and increase in dps xD

B -- balance.

I'll take this over 5.0 brd any day. It probably is still to weak but SE has been under tuning support dps out of fear of them being too strong with their buffs, and slowly bringing them back up.

[Akiudo]

this would be funny if it wasn't so sad, for simplicitys sake lets average out the dps buff for the group as 1%.
Grabbed a random 95% bard on voidwalker, group dps without lb was 89,700 so not just good bard, group average was 91, with the given group dps he would buff the group by 900~ dps, thats a good group, bad group would get less out of it.

So, lets correct the other skills for new potencies, would link the parse but yea forum and fflogs and all, feel free to hit me up if you want a name to double check stuff if you don't trust my math.

edit: seems to be even worse as it specifies "group" once again, so probably again not buffing the bard itself, so
group buff 1%=760 gained
sidewinder=(238/260*300)-238=36 gained
apex arrow=(489/500*600)-489=98 gained

stormbite:1176-(1176/60*50)=189 lost
caustic Bite:950-(950/50*40)=190 lost
refulgant arrow:2.833-(2.833/340*330)=83 lost

in total we got 760+36+98-189-190-83=432 dps gained for a 95% bard in a 91% group.
bards that are in theory on that level but with a 50% (so AVERAGE) group would get a good 80 dps less.

as a reminder

the weakest melee dps right now at 95% percentile voidwalker is 1200 dps above bard, thats nin that gets a rework so no idea but should hardly be a nerf considering both dragoon and samurai are above it at that level and get buffs.

So as it stands, even with the buffs and without further buffing melee bard would be 800~ dps behind the weakest melee, just that this weakest melee even got a damage buff themselves so the jump will be even higher, thats a slap in the face with ******* if i've ever seen one

[Antoine_Lenheim]

this would be funny if it wasn't so sad, for simplicitys sake lets average out the dps buff for the group as 1%.
Grabbed a random 95% bard on voidwalker, group dps without lb was 89,700 so not just good bard, group average was 91, with the given group dps he would buff the group by 900~ dps, thats a good group, bad group would get less out of it.

So, lets correct the other skills for new potencies, would link the parse but yea forum and fflogs and all, feel free to hit me up if you want a name to double check stuff if you don't trust my math.

group buff 1%=900 gained
sidewinder=(238/260*300)-238=36 gained
apex arrow=(489/500*600)-489=98 gained

stormbite:1176-(1176/60*50)=189 lost
caustic Bite:950-(950/50*40)=190 lost
refulgant arrow:2.833-(2.833/340*330)=83 lost

in total we got 900+36+98-189-190-83=572 dps gained for a 95% bard in a 91% group.
bards that are in theory on that level but with a 50% (so AVERAGE) group would get a good 80 dps less.

as a reminder

the weakest melee dps right now at 95% percentile voidwalker is 1200 dps above bard, thats nin that gets a rework so no idea but should hardly be a nerf considering both dragoon and samurai are above it at that level and get buffs.

So as it stands, even with the buffs and without further buffing melee bard would be 700~ dps behind the weakest melee, just that this weakest melee even got a damage buff themselves so the jump will be even higher, thats a slap in the face with ******* if i've ever seen one

Idk what these numbers are on about but I guess song effects being back is still more of a nerf than a buff lol. Now bard again more valuable to the party...

...like it was in stormblood XD

[Akiudo]

Idk what these numbers are on about but I guess song effects being back is still more of a nerf than a buff lol. Now bard again more valuable to the party...

...like it was in stormblood XD

they basically gave us a passive group buff for 750~ dps while nerfing our personal damage by 350-400 while buffing the lower end melees at the same time, is a sad joke and nothing else really

[UfoCoffee]

So they gave bard new party effects to his songs in SB but nerfed down his own dps, after ShB they cutted song effects but buffed bard's own dps. And in 5.1 they giving song effects again and nerfing his own dps.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My prediction for Bard in 5.5: again no party song effects and increase in dps xD

B -- balance.

I didn't read it as damage would be nerfed, i read it as MCH,BRD,DNC in terms of power.

[Raldo]

Do we know yet if we're affected by our own song buff?
The patch notes use the same wording as Battle Voice, so I assume not, but maybe...?

Flipping through other jobs' party buffs, the ones I've looked at say "self and party members" so we're probably still not affected...

[HyoMinPark]

Do we know yet if we're affected by our own song buff?
The patch notes use the same wording as Battle Voice, so I assume not, but maybe...?

Flipping through other jobs' party buffs, the ones I've looked at say "self and party members" so we're probably still not affected...

No, we will likely not be affected by our own song buffs. We weren’t affected by them in 4.x, and the tooltips now read as those do: they only say “nearby party members”; not “nearby party members and self”. If we had been affected by them, they likely would have taken off more potency from us as compensation.

[Connor]

I know it’s silly to complain because Bards are getting what they wanted, but I feel like they could have done more.

I don’t have an issue with them nerfing Bard’s damage to make way for support, since that was kinda supposed to be the point of Bard in the first place. But then I think about how it will actually play, and ultimately it’s still going to be an Archer that coincidentally has musical instruments.

I don’t want to seem ungrateful or like I’m unhappy with the changes, because I do think they’re good. I guess I’d have just liked to have seen them make a little bit more effort.

Warden’s Paean still barely has a use in the majority of content. Nature’s Minne is still on a very long cooldown (though now at double the strength of Mantra), but then healers already have so little to heal and such powerful oGCDs that I’ve never felt like I’m actively supporting anyone when I use it. Troubadour is a role skill; there’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s sad they tacked on the flute spin animation (that is inexplicably longer than the gcd and makes you shoot arrows at an enemy whilst facing the opposite direction) just to make Bard seem like it has more ‘Bard-like’ elements than it actually does.

I’m not expecting some kind of job rework in a random patch since that would be too much lol, just some actual thought being put into whether it actually addresses people’s concerns

It’d probably be a very unpopular change but I was thinking they could have removed the damage potency on the main songs and had them buff the party instead. So basically instead of using some bizarre song attack magic that Jehantel forgot to mention in the Bard quests, you’d use it, it’d put a party buff up and start the song for Repetoire effects. Personally I think it’d be cool if they made it so that you could choose which song to use rather than following a strict rotation of Ballad -> Paeon -> cut at 10 seconds left -> Minuet -> repeat. Though I get that then you’d just be forced to do Minuet full time so it’s not a reasonable expectation

Given the way things for looking in terms of what they want to do with Bard in future, in terms of it being a medium, lower utility but infinite mobility job, I can’t see myself ever returning to it as my main. Which is a shame, because it’s been my main since halfway through 1.0 (I went through a Thaumaturge / Black Mage phase to start with lol). But I don’t want to play a job that focuses on pure DPS, even if it supports the party passively. I want to play a job with decent support capabilities that has to make active decisions about how to support the party whilst still maintaining high dps (for the job, not compared to others lol), hence why I generally play Scholar / Astrologian / Dancer.

I know it’s selfish to say ‘I want it to be like THIS!’ then just expect it to happen, which I think is why I’ve accepted I probably won’t return to the job as a main. There comes a time where you have to accept that something just isn’t for you anymore, and move on to something else that you do enjoy (even if it feels a little hollow). As much as I’d like for the developers to go back to the original Bard design as a support oriented class that casts songs to just support the party, can help out with healing a little and cast some support spells like Raise and Stoneskin, I have to accept that the developers want to go in the opposite direction with the job.

And to finish off this ridiculous sized post; if the developers want Bard to be about high DPS and mobility and less about support, does it really make much sense to then nerf their dps but very slightly increase their support? If the developers want to change their direction for the job to match player’s expectations surely it makes more sense to go all-in than try to have it both ways? Though that’s probably just bias talking lol