Why is apex arrow a gcd??

[SaitoHikari]

It’s pretty clear the devs are very afraid of overpowering Bard. When you really think about it, Bard’s balance history generally revolves around the existence of other classes, rather than being allowed to be its own thing for any longer than a single patch cycle. Recall that we only got bow mage because the devs were afraid that people wouldn’t try out MCH if Bard wasn’t tied to the same mechanic, and now history repeats itself four years later. Bard support got gutted to make room for Dancer. Bard community reacted badly for obvious reasons, and now we’re in a limbo that likely won’t be addressed until next expansion, because ALL of the ranged are suffering from the devs trying to figure out how they want to handle support.

The revelation is kind of upsetting.

[Rika007]

snip

It's funny you state this because I would also state Bard's level of "OP" has also revolved around other jobs as well, and yet Bard probably took the biggest axe to it as if it was the lynchpin job that held it all up. People say Bard has been OP since day one but in reality that has more to do with the jobs around it.

-In ARR was the only time you could really claim Bard was OP, when 2 of the job was being brought into raid groups and it had to be toned down. But outside of that it was the only party source of mana regen, and the only mobile ranged DPS that could handle mechanics, so even if it's DPS wasn't too strong it still would have been Insta lock, it had no competition.

-In Heavensward it started off strong and then fell behind MCH as it's primary competition got buffed. After some follow up buffs you got the dual ranged DPS comp because of how well they synergized with Dragoon and Ninja. People look at this as the moment Bard was it's most balanced, but it's really because it was the first time and only time till 5.0 that Bard had a legitimate competitor that people WANTED to play.

-In Stormblood Bard got a rework people absolutely LOVED and was almost universally held up as one of the best reworks the devs have ever done. At the same time MCH got a rework that was nearly universally panned as one of the clunkiest and unwieldy jobs the devs ever did. On top of that SCH got Chain Stratagem, Bard received it's passive aura's, AST got the crit rework to the spear, SMN got the Devotion, and DRG added Dragon sight, and thus the "Synergy meta" hit it's ultimate form. All those crit buffs along with the piercing debuffs turned Bard into a monster, and yet speaking as someone who had to play with a White Mage and no DRG in my party, I can tell you that when those jobs were not present, Bard was very much a balanced job. It was the presence of all the other jobs and their synergies along with how powerful crit scales in this game that made it 'OP'. And to top it all off you had the job in it's most fun and playable state, while it's direct competition was in it's absolute worse state.

Now we've come to Shadownbringers and of course all synergy took a hit, but the Dev's treated Bard like it was the lynchpin of the meta, not just the benefactor. If anything the removal of just the crit reliance for procs and the piercing debuff was enough. Foe's and the passive songs could have stayed along with no damage nerfs and that would have let Bard keep it's utility feel and also kept it's power at a proper level.