Yoshi-P Sanpo comments re: Bard

[SaitoHikari]

The buffs are a step in the right direction, up until you notice that the buffs are basically reversing some of the earlier nerfs we got when songs regained some of their utility - which is basically the devs admitting that they were unjustified nerfs to begin with.

That said, a lot of Bard's problems are largely an issue with its core design right now, and I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't get anything more until next expansion. It's pretty clear now that Bard needs an overhaul because the devs simply don't know what to do with it anymore. The hilarious part is, Bard probably wouldn't have needed one if they just left it as is from Stormblood, but Dancer had to come into the picture and Bard has only been reacting to its existence since, with the removal of party crit reliance exposing the core design issues that were masked before (with one more major issue having been added with Apex Arrow and the Soul Voice gauge).

There's a couple ways they could go about overhauling Bard for the next expansion. I think the current biggest issue is that due to Bard's total reliance on RNG, Bard has a HUGE problem with overcapping resources in a way no other job has, THREE of them at that. Fix that, and it'll be a step towards Bard DPS along with ping-related issues resolving themselves.

1) Get rid of the Soul Voice gauge. Fold it into our MP bar, and have repertoire procs restore our MP. There is no reason the Soul Voice gauge needs to exist when we have our MP bar sitting unused right there. Using our MP bar instead of the gauge has two distinct benefits: Apex Arrow is usable during our opener, and our MP would continue to recharge naturally during boss transition phases (while we lose repertoire), which helps towards being able to control when Apex Arrow comes back into play. Apex Arrow should also only use 75% of our MP maximum, so you don't end up overcapping with RNG.

2) Going off of the above, Army's Paeon could have additional MP regeneration as well, so now you'd have an actual reason to keep it running longer than 20 seconds if needed. This would help mitigate bad repertoire RNG. Right now, Apex Arrow is so much at the mercy of RNG that it can take anywhere from a wide range of 40-60+ seconds to charge it, which is quite frankly unacceptable design and a problem no other skill in the game has. Not only that, but Apex Arrow is laughably weak for how many hoops we have to jump through in order to use it as it is right now, and it's not even usable during our opener when every other gauge skill in the game is.

An additional unrelated suggestion, make Apex Arrow an oGCD instead of being GCD. Right now it doesn't flow well with Bard's oGCD priority nature, and it being on the GCD renders it unusable until about 60 gauge (technically lower, except every other GCD skill save for Refulgent has a chance to proc something else, making Apex theoretically weaker the earlier you use it in actual practice). Shifting Apex Arrow to oGCD would mean that using it is always a DPS gain, although its potency could be lowered to compensate for that increased flexibility.

3) Change Mage's Ballad from resetting the cooldowns of Bloodletter and Rain of Death into lowering the cooldown of both skills by 15 seconds, and allow Bloodletter/Rain of Death to retain up to 2-3 charges. People may point out that there's no difference, but there's a massive distinction in terms of programming. This would allow for having multiple charges on Bloodletter and Rain of Death (preferably 3 in the case of double repertoire procs), and also has the added benefit of not wasting any of the seconds already going towards recharging those skills. I and several other Bards suspect that the current programming of these skills is the entire reason why Bloodletter/Rain of Death charges haven't already happened despite wasted charges being a persistent problem since ARR. As it is now, wasted Bloodletter procs are a thing that even veteran Bards have constant issues with, even moreso if you have bad ping.

4) Expand Wanderer's Minuet repertoire stack capacity from 3 to 4. Have Pitch Perfect consume 3 stacks maximum, same as before. Increasing the capacity solves the issue of Pitch Perfect overcapping by 1 when you get a double repertoire proc when you're already at 2 stacks. The current gauge is a design trap that encourages using Pitch Perfect at 2 stacks, when the RNG nature of repertoire makes it uncertain if you'll get a single or double proc next.