Job change suggestions for BRD in 6.0

[SweetPete]

TBH i feel bard is the best structured ranged out of the 3, sure its support isnt as fun or effective as DNC and its dps isnt as big as MCH (for all the bloody difference that makes in casual content tbh) but its alot more fun to play which makes all the difference. its number is in need of a buff, and its support needs a tune up but the basic jist of the job should remain the same with very few exceptions. We all know the devs definition of a "rework" is and its not pretty. From the sound of it people either want DNC 2.0 or suffocate BRD with songs despite the fact it has a mostly even amount of song and archery but you only notice the archery since ya know...your DPS-ing. Adjust the numbers of its DPS or support, but for god sakes dont "reowrk" it

I think fans of bard know what the job could be and SE is to scared to do it. They said they don’t want 2 main support jobs but they themselves have backed themselves into a corner because bard was the first true support then dancer arrived and just took all of it. It’s not fair to bards. Bards support is nowhere near dancers at all and dps is nowhere near machinist. The job doesn’t flow well and to me is all over the place. I feel the job is 90% archer/ranger and 10% support, when dancer is a healthy 50/50. All I’m saying is bard could be on the same level but SE seems scared to do that because they don’t want another bard/dragoon situation where bard/dancer are mandatory for high end raids. That’s very sad and honestly not a good excuse for what they did to bard. They stripped bard of all its support when 5.0 came out. Player backlash made them give back support but they gave crappy support back. No where near dancers level of support. Give bard is healthy 50/50 or heck even a healthy 60/40 and I’ll be happy with that.

[Akiudo]

I think fans of bard know what the job could be and SE is to scared to do it. They said they don’t want 2 main support jobs but they themselves have backed themselves into a corner because bard was the first true support then dancer arrived and just took all of it. It’s not fair to bards. Bards support is nowhere near dancers at all and dps is nowhere near machinist. The job doesn’t flow well and to me is all over the place. I feel the job is 90% archer/ranger and 10% support, when dancer is a healthy 50/50. All I’m saying is bard could be on the same level but SE seems scared to do that because they don’t want another bard/dragoon situation where bard/dancer are mandatory for high end raids. That’s very sad and honestly not a good excuse for what they did to bard. They stripped bard of all its support when 5.0 came out. Player backlash made them give back support but they gave crappy support back. No where near dancers level of support. Give bard is healthy 50/50 or heck even a healthy 60/40 and I’ll be happy with that.

sorry but dancer is not mandatory for "high end" raiding in a way most people think of actual high end raiders, i.e. the "we go for world first" way. its mandatory for speedruns and even than only because speedrunners literally don't give a flying **** for the 20 runs were dancer performs worse than mch as long as at the end they get their one run where dancer suddenly has every procc in existance on his side. for one its a sad joke at best to try to balance around that kind of play, especially as square does not support it in the slightest, given their stance on the very tools players use to upload and parse these fights. Also, given the current level of dps even if bard was dancer 2.0 you would not want both of them. even in these very specific (i.e speedrun) settings, at the end of the day dancer is still only the best physical ranged for speedkills, the role as a whole is still bad enough you would hardly want two of those.

the extreme synergy between Bard/Dragoon was flat out broken, especially do to crit scaling

[HyoMinPark]

I think fans of bard know what the job could be and SE is to scared to do it. They said they don’t want 2 main support jobs but they themselves have backed themselves into a corner because bard was the first true support then dancer arrived and just took all of it. It’s not fair to bards. Bards support is nowhere near dancers at all and dps is nowhere near machinist. The job doesn’t flow well and to me is all over the place. I feel the job is 90% archer/ranger and 10% support, when dancer is a healthy 50/50. All I’m saying is bard could be on the same level but SE seems scared to do that because they don’t want another bard/dragoon situation where bard/dancer are mandatory for high end raids. That’s very sad and honestly not a good excuse for what they did to bard. They stripped bard of all its support when 5.0 came out. Player backlash made them give back support but they gave crappy support back. No where near dancers level of support. Give bard is healthy 50/50 or heck even a healthy 60/40 and I’ll be happy with that.

I think the developers are really hesitant to have a return of any meta where there are hard-locked jobs. BRD was in the meta for so long—and I feel like they worry a lot about optimization groups taking both BRD and DNC, and then seeing the trickle-down effect to the midcore and below. Then there’s the issue of MCH being unwanted because DNC/BRD is the better physical ranged combo. BRD has ended up the strongest physical ranged at the end of the last two expansions, and I think the developers want to avoid that. However, in the process, BRD lost its identity.

I honestly dropped the job after the ShB changes despite having played it for almost 4 years (it was the job I started this game on—I played it all through HW when it was the dreaded bowmage and into SB where I raided almost exclusively on it, optimized on it, progged UCoB on it, and cleared UwU on it). I don’t like how it moved away from its support roots, and I also have a lot of issues with the way it plays now. I miss the old Repertoire and how it could be manipulated—I don’t like the static changes even though I know why they made it a fixed percentage instead of scaling off of critical hit. I don’t like the removal of MP support for the part. I don’t like the removal of Foe’s + Refresh. I also think Apex Arrow and the Soul Gauge are tacked on abilities that really need to go back to the drawing board.