I believe that Bard should get a minor rework in terms of how it's songs work and how certain skills interact with those songs as that would fix the support problems it has. I personally suggest the following:

- Make Bard Songs affect the user: Self-explanatory

- Change Empyreal Arrow to have charges: Damage-wise and ability-wise, Empyreal Arrow is fine. It's a guaranteed proc for any of your three songs which is good. However, it's usage is dependent on your procs to begin with. As an example I have noticed when I am under Mage's Ballad, I often find myself leaking damage due to using Empyreal Arrow when Bloodletter procs from Ballad, which also usually results in clipping. Empyreal Arrow should be a skill that should be used Off-Cooldown without the worry of "Will the effect of this be wasted?" Now, I would explain how the effect of this skill could change given the other suggestions but that will be covered in a later point.

- Remove Bloodletter / Rain of Death as a Mage's Ballad Proc and Give it Charges: Bloodletter is a good ability. However, as mentioned above, it is very easily to clip damage and leak damage with it as a Mage's Ballad proc. I do agree that it should be a charged skill, letting you weave damage between GCDs. By separating the skill from Mage's Ballad, we can avoid damage leaks. (Side note: Keep Quick Nock having a chance to proc Bloodletter / Rain of Death, though have it rewritten in this case to refresh one charge if that chance procs)

- Completely rework the proc system: As it stands, a lot of the damage issues with Bard revolves around its proc system. Is it currently better than the system where you had to pray for a critical hit? Yes. But it's still not that great. Instead, I would suggest reworking it to implement the Soul Gauge (which would mean moving it from a Level 80 Trait to Level 30 to coincide with when you get Mage's Ballad). My personal opinion is to change the Soul Gauge to give you procs similar to how Paladin's Oath Gauge works.

How would this work? While your songs are up, each auto-attack you land will increase the Soul Gauge by 5. Or maybe have it work like other classes where they have a gauge that increases if you land certain attacks. This gauge can then be used on Song Skills that can do Damage, increase damage the enemy takes, etc. Under this system, Pitch Perfect would cost 20 gauge and do flat damage, for example. Empyreal Arrow would add a flat amount to the gauge, much like how Samurai's Ikishoten increases its Kenki Gauge by 50 (Do note that Empyreal Arrow should add a smaller amount, such as 10-15 for the sake of balance).

(Part 1/2)