Job change suggestions for BRD in 6.0

[Connor]

Bard should’ve gotten actual offensive songs like 3 expansions ago lol. Sidewinder/Shadowbite could easily have been ‘song of pain that hurts anyone you poisoned.’ Apex could have been like, your character does something with the harp to create the shockwave instead of just being yet another ‘arrow that’s magic but has nothing to do with magic and is purely physical’ lol. It feels the damage from the three main songs (ballad etc) is tacked just to make it feel more ‘dps-like’ without having to actually create new abilities.

I mean, lore-wise Mage’s Ballad is a song about the achievements of a Padjal of eld and how their exceptional healing arts brought succour to wounded soldiers. How the hell does a song like that cause actual damage to the enemy? Are we that bad at singing? Do all enemies have an instinctual fear of healers? It makes so little sense when you think about it

I think one of the main reasons people feel so disillusioned about Bard is that it’s starting to become fairly obviously that the developers have had like 0% creativity for Bard ever since 3.0 was a flop, for obvious reasons lol. Everything following from that has been dismantling the support/bard aspects and reinforcing the dps/archer aspects.

First it’s a support dps that uses physical attacks and some healing magic (1.0 was the closest ffxiv ever got to a real Bard job if you ask me), then it’s a physical dps with support abilities (2.0), then it’s a physical dps with support abilities except it’s also a caster but not a magic one (3.0), then it’s an archer with various support capabilities (4.0), then it’s an Archer that can hurt people by singing a song (5.0).

It’s like every expansion they’ve become more and more sick of the job and now we’ve reached 5.0 they’re just like ‘idc just give it some more arrows and nobody will bother about the other 50-70% of the job’s lore and aesthetic’. They just seem to have given up completely on the idea of making ‘Bard’ work, and only really care about the ‘Archer’ because it’s easier to just slap some more shiny laser arrows on it than it is to try and balance the dual-identity it has

[ty_taurus]

I mean, lore-wise Mage’s Ballad is a song about the achievements of a Padjal of eld and how their exceptional healing arts brought succour to wounded soldiers. How the hell does a song like that cause actual damage to the enemy? Are we that bad at singing? Do all enemies have an instinctual fear of healers? It makes so little sense when you think about it

This is a really interesting point, so I found a PDF of the Encyclopaedia Eorzea and found this regarding the Bard's songs:

Mage's Ballad: "A battlesong that celebrates the courageous deeds of a Padjal of eld. The lyrics sung of the sage's exceptional healing arts as he braved the front line to tend to wounded soldiers."

Army's Paeon: "This battlesong praises the valor of Josselin, one of Gridania's greatest war heroes. Josselin left her mark on history as the first captain of the Wood Wailers."

The Wanderer's Minuet: "An ode to Oschon, the god of travelers. Depicting the Wanderer as a carefree ranger wielding a bow of yew with consummate skill, this meandering tune is sung with great joy and gusto."


From this, it makes sense for the Wanderer's Minuet to be about masterful archery and ultimately selfish DPS. Mage's Ballad, however, should be about protecting the party while wielding the power of the Padjals, and Army's Paeon should be about leading your team into battle with raid DPS and support, but to lesser degrees than Wanderer's or Mage's respectively. I came up with a rough concept to better compliment this lore and create clear segments of the Bard's rotation that highlight their archery talents and musical talents separately.

First, I'll take the passive support off the songs themselves again because I want to redirect that elsewhere. They're nice, but they're also small and you don't really feel like you're contributing much support with them even if you know you are. Next, at level 50, Bard now learns the ability Bardsong.

Bardsong
This action can only be used during Wanderer's Minuet, Mage's Ballad, or Army's Paeon and changes depending on which song you're singing.
During Wanderer's Minuet, this becomes Foe's Requiem.
During Mage's Ballad, this becomes Nature's Minne.
During Army's Paeon, this becomes Battle Voice.
The recast on Bardsong is 30 seconds.
All Bardsongs increase the soul gauge by 10 when used.

Foe's Requiem now works like Chain Stratagem, but only for your own actions and no one else's, increasing critical hit rate against the target by 5% for 30 seconds.
Nature's Minne stays the same.
Battle Voice's buff decreases to 15% for all party members. You'll be getting this twice as often since it comes around once per 90 seconds rather than 180 seconds, but since we're taking the passive buffs off the songs directly, we'll keep the value at 15% rather than just halving it.

Later, at level 52, we get Bardstrike which functions similarly to Bardsong.

Bardstrike
This action can only be used during Wanderer's Minuet, Mage's Ballad, or Army's Paeon and changes depending on which song you're singing.
During Wanderer's Minuet, this becomes Pitch Perfect.
During Mage's Ballad, this becomes Twelveswood Arrow.
During Army's Paeon, this becomes Ranger's Aim.
All Bardstrikes have a 5 second cooldown and have additional costs.

Pitch Perfect remains the same. Twelveswood Arrow is a powerful attack that consumes 4000 MP. Ranger's Aim always lands a critical hit and can be used after you or any nearby ally has landed a critical hit to a total of 5 times.

Next is Bardsong II at level 66, which grants additional support songs similarly to Bardsong.

Bardsong II
This action can only be used during Wanderer's Minuet, Mage's Ballad, or Army's Paeon and changes depending on which song you're singing.
During Wanderer's Minuet, this becomes Hero's March.
During Mage's Ballad, this becomes Soul Etude.
During Army's Paeon, this becomes Warden's Paean.
The recast on Bardsong is 15 seconds.
All Bardsong IIs increase the soul gauge by 10 when used.

Barrage would get transformed into Hero's March. This would restrict it a bit more but it can be used twice during Wanderer's. Soul Etude is a single target 100 potency HoT for 15 seconds. Warden's Paean stays the same.

I also want to talk about small changes to to the phase of Mage's Ballad.

During Mage's Ballad, Heavy Shot and Burst Shot change to Somber Melody and Despairing Melody respectively, doing the same damage but also reducing your target's damage output by 3% for 5 seconds, refreshing with each hit. Additionally, Bloodletter and Rain of Death change to Light Elegy and Black Requiem respectively, each restoring 1000 MP to yourself when you use them.

Lastly, I'd change how Apex Arrow works slightly. Rather than just always consuming all your soul gauge, it always consumes just 20. Instead, the damage scaling increases based on the remaining time left on your song, so it gets stronger the closer your song is to running out of time.