Bard's Thematic Future

[Connor]

Sorry, I am not saying brd should go all out dps. I was just trying to make an example of how it potentially could due to lack of any real limitations outside those we place on ourselves.

I think brd should have some support elements, but I would also like to see some of its standard bow moves, like venom shot, turned into songs and the bow could just have a standard rotation. It would make bard feel more thematically like a bard and there is no real reason a bard couldn't use a tune to do the same things as venom shot or bloodletter, even moves like raging strikes and head graze.

They default to making things bow related when they should default to making them song related is what I was trying to get at.

I’ve been (trying) to say this for a while now too. Bard songs don’t necessarily need to be full-on support to feel ‘Bard-like’.

I like the idea of Venomous Bite and Stormbite being songs since it splits Bard GCDs into 2 songs 2 weaponskills, plus all of the oGCD stuff like Empyreal Arrow and Sidewinder so the ‘archer’ Style is still represented. Warden’s Paean already has an animation that would work pretty well for a ‘song weaponskill’

Like, how cool would if have been if Apex Arrow was like, Song of Line of Paintm. Or Shadowbite could’ve been like Ballad of Oblivion or something.
I’ve always wondered why Iron Jaws wasn’t a song of some kind. I mean, how exactly does waving your finger cause poison from an arrow to somehow perpetuate itself? A magic song of poison would at least make a little bit of sense lol

More support songs would be amazing but if they don’t want us to have any they could at least give us ‘offensive/dps’ songs to keep the job falling too much into the ‘Ranger’ category.

[MPNZ]

...

We have rivers of blood or mages ballad that does not restore MP but collects energy for spams RoD, pitch perfect which uses aether collected from the life taken from dots and gathered by singing Wanderer's, and army's which makes us go fast. A Bard's singing basically collects aether through sound and is then shaped through the heart. With that as the basis for how it functions: a Bard's songs can shape the aether into form or function from thing like swords and arrows to storms, enchantments, and regenerative spells depending on the amount of aether collected, the strength and type of feelings, et cetera. And, for apex: it's just releasing their stored energy by enhancing an arrow

Given that the "spilling of blood" is the "spilling of ones life", "life force", and since ones "life force" is aether: it just becomes another arrow for the Bard's quiver. And, if the poison's used require aether or can be altered by aether like a curse it could just be like a useful skill or like a cursed song or chant. But, it's still just totally convenient to have which is passable

And, our support songs that do support are really inconvenient and share a similar problem on controller set-ups as AST's current card system because of being single target spells. Also, Warden's has a ridiculous recast timer, and the whole situation with Battle voice being the only time that the cyclical songs actually support the party beyond suppressive fire...

[Straynge]

Warden's Paean is so useless that I don't even remember where it is on my hotbar so that when I do hit one of the very few occassions that I can use it I tend to not be able to find it in time to help someone. That's how little I use it. It's also really hard (at least for me, maybe I'm doing it wrong) to see when someone has a debuff on them in the middle of the raid. I used to always watch the health bars of my group so that way I could use my buffs to help give mages back more mana or throw Palisade and my healing buff on a mage or tank as needed if they were in trouble but now I NEVER look at the group window anymore. Why should I? I'm getting out of practice because I no longer have any support abilities so I don't bother. Maybe it's my lack of practice but I find it hard when everyone has a gazillion buffs on them and my little window is maxxed out so I can't even see if they have a debuff on them. So by the time I realize they're in trouble it's too late anyway even if I could find my useless ability in it's lonely corner on my hotbar. I think I used it one whole time this week in Rabanastre (did I spell that right) and only because I saw a red ring around someone really close to me. I was able to save them but normally I just don't even bother.

I really miss my support buttons. There's so many instances where a good Palisade and (gah, what was that one that gave healers like 10 or 20% healing magic buff? I can't remember it's name) could literally be a life saver. One healer is down and the other one is low and I used to use that all the time to keep our remaining healer alive. Mix in a Refresh and it would literally save the group at times by keeping our healer alive long enough to heal up and rezz people. I used to feel so good knowing I had two abilities that could and did make a difference. Now I just pew pew pew and hit my songs and NEVER EVER look at other people's health/mana bars anymore. The sad thing is that I was finally starting to get really good at it. Knowing exactly when to use my Refresh according to which dungeon/raid I was in. Hitting my Palisade at just the right time. Using Foe Requiem before major fights and sometimes in the middle of them if the fight went on long enough. I really miss having more to do. I don't like playing a Dancer so I'm hoping they'll give a bit more of our utility back at some point.

I also hope they give healers more than just one whole damage ability because that crap is boring to solo with. You could play a healer on an Atari Joystick.

[MartaDemireux]

Thanks to the feedback in this topic, I've generated a poll on Reddit (now that we can do that on the FFXIV subreddit) to try and get a decent (and fairly accurate as Reddit tracks votes by IP address to prevent vote abuse) sample size on how people feel about this.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...happen_to_brd/

Please take a moment to cast your vote if you could!

As it currently stands it is almost an even split between those wanting to keep BRD as it is without any changes, those wanting to split BRD into BRD & RNG, and to those wanting to keep BRD as it is but with adding more songs/music to it. Nearly 68% of those polled so far wish for BRD to have a more musical theme (either as it currently is or via a split) and 12% would at least like a separate Idol/Songstress type of job to make up the difference (essentially 80% of voters want more musical representation in the game in some form).

I'll be posting results here in 7 days when the polling ends to give SE an idea of what we would like see happen!

[Noira]

I honestly enjoy what they did to Bard just a fewe more songs and a dps increase and it would be golden IMO. I mained Bard back in ARR and HW and picked it back up for ShB I love the changes just wish the support abilities all had more use....looking at you Wardens Paean.

[SamRF]

Thanks to the feedback in this topic, I've generated a poll on Reddit (now that we can do that on the FFXIV subreddit) to try and get a decent (and fairly accurate as Reddit tracks votes by IP address to prevent vote abuse) sample size on how people feel about this.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...happen_to_brd/

Please take a moment to cast your vote if you could!

As it currently stands it is almost an even split between those wanting to keep BRD as it is without any changes, those wanting to split BRD into BRD & RNG, and to those wanting to keep BRD as it is but with adding more songs/music to it. Nearly 68% of those polled so far wish for BRD to have a more musical theme (either as it currently is or via a split) and 12% would at least like a separate Idol/Songstress type of job to make up the difference (essentially 80% of voters want more musical representation in the game in some form).

I'll be posting results here in 7 days when the polling ends to give SE an idea of what we would like see happen!

What I hate about Reddit is that innocent posts like yourse get downvoted for no reason at all. That's not how downvote button is supposed to work.

[Duelle]

What I hate about Reddit is that innocent posts like yourse get downvoted for no reason at all. That's not how downvote button is supposed to work.

Sadly, anything that's not a meme or doesn't have consensus with the hive mind gets downvoted on reddit.

Going along with the topic, I have a couple of suggestions for BRD.

- Party cooldowns as songs: This would require changing the names of certain songs that are used in BRD's rotation, but the goal would be to implement Army's Paean and Mage Ballad as group DPS cooldowns. Mechanically, both songs would share the same cooldown, with Paean increasing physical damage dealt by party members, and Ballad increasing magical damage dealt. To balance things out, I would also want to throw in something to discourage groups stacking BRDs (I'm a fan of the Forbearance and Exhaustion debuffs, so I'd lean in that direction). The goal here is to establish a distinction between BRD and DNC, DNC being a job that buffs party members over the course of battle, while BRD has "big" cooldowns.

- Changing abilities to songs: Echoing suggestions already seen in this thread, Wind/Stormbite would be changed to a song that deals damage.

[MartaDemireux]

The goal here is to establish a distinction between BRD and DNC, DNC being a job that buffs party members over the course of battle, while BRD has "big" cooldowns.

I was kind of thinking along this train of thought today, too! But my thought was kind of the opposite where BRD buffs the whole party continuously throughout the course of battle with two big buffs/debuffs in a 120s window, while DNC remains the one to continuously buff only one party member throughout the course of a battle with their big party buff being used half as often (as it currently is, once every 120s).

• Minuet could give a large DPS boost to the party while draining MP (while retaining its current proc mechanic).

  This echoes other FFs where Minuet is an attack boost.

• Requiem could be brought back to be a fourth song to rotate and be a potent PBAoE DoT for 30s instead of a debuff that also allows procing of Rain of Deaeth/Bloodletter.

  This echoes other FFs where Requiem is a direct damage song or DoT. It also allows for a similar experience to the common request of "Bane for BRD DoTs" going around without stepping on SMN's toes.

• Ballad/Paeon buffs could be very small and restore the BRD's MP over their duration (while keeping their current proc mechanics).

  This echoes other FFs where Ballad and Paeon are recovery over time songs and encourages the use of Paeon for its full duration.

This would give a rotation of songs where each song is kept for its full duration:

Minuet > Ballad > Requiem > Paeon.

For AoE it would be:

Requiem > Ballad > Minuet > Paeon.

One song to drain MP followed by one song to restore MP. You'd get a potent 30s party buff every 90s, a potent debuff every 90s, and weaker party buffs in between them.

What I hate about Reddit is that innocent posts like yourse get downvoted for no reason at all. That's not how downvote button is supposed to work.

Agreed, but at least it got 389 votes on day 1 before it goes into the void (more BRD-specific opinions than the class satisfaction survey acquired), and anyone coming across this thread or searching for Bard related posts in the next 6 days will still be able to weigh in.

[SamRF]

The least they could do imo is change some dps abilities into something Bard themed. Particularly the DoTs imo, they should be something Bard themed, have said this before but they could be turnt into "demoralize" or "stress" or simply a melody name as long as you wouldn't be shooting an arrow to apply the DoT.

It would also make more sense for those to be Bard themed with how the Repertoire procs during songs are earnt trough the DoTs AND how you refresh those abilities with Iron Jaws. If the DoTs were bard themed, Repertoire procs would fit much better flavor wise, with how your melody or manipulative Bard effect on the enemy at some moments made for you to gain power or opportunity to strike when you are playing a song --> proc, while there's imo no flavor in having poison or wind damage give you random Repertoire stacks (look up Repertoire definition). As for Iron Jaws, Swinging your arm melodically doesn't really correlate with increasing the duration of poison and wind damage, if they were Bard themed DoTs on the other hand, it would make more sense.

[MartaDemireux]

The Poll Results are in!

Of the 541 people polled, you can see here that the majority want a BRD that is more musically themed - no matter how it comes about. We can surmise 80.5% want a job that has a major focus on music, whether or not it be BRD.

This chart breaks it down to be a bit more in-depth and shows (like the responses in this very thread also show) a very divisive community desire on exactly how or if more music is added. It's almost an equal camp between those that want more music added to our existing BRD and those who want for there to be a split. Collectively, though, the majority wish for more music.

This final graph breaks the previous chart down so that you can see exactly how the answers were spread out. Surprisingly, of those that want there to be a split, many want BRD to forgo the DPS role and become a healer, with some comments calling for FFIV's Rosa to be its inspiration for a bow-using bard healer. I personally expected more votes for caster than healer.

I hope this helps to shed more light on the issue with Bard's thematic future. How do you all relate to these results?