"Serious" Bard 6.0 predicted/suggested kit

[Rika007]

Forgive my brashness but Apex arrow is NOT 600 potency. It’s 120 potency it’s only 600 if maxed out to 100 which is highly unadvised. And this should be common sense to any BRD player. If it were supposed to be a AOE/ST hybrid skill Like Saber Dance or Dragonfire Dive then the devs would’ve buffed it ages ago and it’s been relatively untouched so it’s most likely a Aoe Skill first

Apologies, I normally don't like to call someone out but the first two sentences of your statement is absolutely false in every way. Please look at the Balance discord or speak to any upper level Bard player, you will be told instantly, by every single one of them, that it is a 100% DPS loss if you do not use Apex Arrow at full 100% gauge, and 99% of the time the moment it hits full gauge (barring if you are within a GCD or two of raging strikes or a major party burst window). The ONLY time you will use Apex Arrow at less then 100 gauge is IF you have more then 40 gauge and you are nearing the end of a multi-target phase, and only if it isn't an overkill on the attack. Please do a bit more class research before making such sweeping statements.

As for why the devs haven't buffed it more? Search me, there's several reasons Bard players are so unhappy with the job, Apex Arrow being so weak is one of them.

Apex Arrow needs a rework, not a ST variant.

Those things are not mutually exclusive. I would say the only 6.0 change I feel comfortable in guarantee'ing Bard gets is a ST version of Apex Arrow. It happened to Samurai with Guren getting Senei. It happened for Black Mage with Foul getting Xenoglossy. It's a very easy change to implement that doesn't drastically throw off a job's rotation and still brings a wow and hype factor to most players, aka it's a safe change to make. Heck I would also say while I doubt they will happen, AOE versions of Refulgent Arrow and Empyreal Arrow (along with a Bane effect for Iron Jaws), would remove a lot of the frustrating aspects of Bard's AOE rotations and turn it into a go to class for me in dungeon roulettes.

But this doesn't also mean Apex Arrow (and it's future single target variant) doesn't need a rework in how it is applied. It's the only heavy hitting ability in the game that can't be relied upon to show up during burst windows, which is a significant hampering to Bard's DPS output. RNG is fine, but the RNG of the soul gauge needing to be used at 100 is just too far stacked against the ability for it's output. I personally feel the easy change (if the devs do one) will be to give a slight nerf to it's potency but then make it useable at 50 gauge ala Saber Dance. It's not the change I'd want, I'd much rather see them be turned into oGCD's with long cool downs due to how them being on the GCD can cause conflicting timings with Iron Jaws and Barrage+Empyreal Arrow. Then the soul gauge can be used towards a reworked version of Foe's requiem or a new premier party utility ability, but that is a pipe dream I doubt we will see.

[Zantusken]

Those things are not mutually exclusive. I would say the only 6.0 change I feel comfortable in guarantee'ing Bard gets is a ST version of Apex Arrow. It happened to Samurai with Guren getting Senei. It happened for Black Mage with Foul getting Xenoglossy. It's a very easy change to implement that doesn't drastically throw off a job's rotation and still brings a wow and hype factor to most players, aka it's a safe change to make. Heck I would also say while I doubt they will happen, AOE versions of Refulgent Arrow and Empyreal Arrow (along with a Bane effect for Iron Jaws), would remove a lot of the frustrating aspects of Bard's AOE rotations and turn it into a go to class for me in dungeon roulettes.

Oh I would absolutely be fine if we got both a rework and ST Apex. I'd like the ability to be reworked completely if I'm honest but I would love for it to be given the Saber Dance treatment(Not that skill overlap is a concern anymore, but I'd even like if it were made to have its cost/potency cap at 75/100 gauge- it would give a little bit more flexibility without making it the exact same as Saber)

[Jirah]

Apologies, I normally don't like to call someone out but the first two sentences of your statement is absolutely false in every way.

Noted thanks! still trying to master BRD and was giving some bad Info idk how I missed this

[Jirah]

Oh I would absolutely be fine if we got both a rework and ST Apex. I'd like the ability to be reworked completely if I'm honest but I would love for it to be given the Saber Dance treatment(Not that skill overlap is a concern anymore, but I'd even like if it were made to have its cost/potency cap at 75/100 gauge- it would give a little bit more flexibility without making it the exact same as Saber)

*shivers* Saber Dance is another skill id like to see get remade as esprit is a mechanic of DNC that doesnt feel like one due to how automatic and disconnected it is, but a maxed out potency to 50 is fine...if Apex was meant to be a ST option only. It feels more at home when Aoeing as a side option when Mage runs out and spamming it at 20 along with BRDs other options are fun. The gauge itself is under utilized not that Apex is bad per se. Id like a CD skill ie SAM kenkis where SG is required with big number but is on a CD or since its support maybe some other defensive options for it? The gauge itself is nice seeing how all songs contribute to it in the background but nothing to spend it on but apex which itself isnt common and is low on the potency side. Leaving BRD kit to ironically feel unfinished. So long as they dont remove anything (besides roles) i fine with literal any change to BRD. More support, SG options, ect

[Cetonis]

We miss Straight Shot, kinda, so I'm pretty down with the idea of a ST Apex so long as gauge generation also increases in some way. I said this in OP, but I think "Soul Voice" as a trait seems to imply the potential for a "Soul Voice II", which could add gauge on song usage or on weaponskills or etc.

[Brandedblade]

I would say the only thing I 100% disagree with is getting rid of song passive buffs. I do think they should be tweaked and adjusted to feel more impactful but I personally love the concept of my rotation rewarding me for cycling through it by allowing me to passively buff the groups damage.

I think the big thing I'm concerned about is making Army's Paeon feel impactful enough that we would want to stay in it the full 30 seconds because that would align bard on 90/3 min burst timers with monk and tanks. While I definitely understand the appeal of putting it on a 1/2min cycle I also don't find anything inherently wrong with it being a 90sec/3min cycle either. There's several ways this could be approached for sure but I do agree that it should be an "easy" phase where whatever mechanic is dealt with in it isn't as demanding as MB or WM.

[Kabooa]

I would say the only thing I 100% disagree with is getting rid of song passive buffs. I do think they should be tweaked and adjusted to feel more impactful but I personally love the concept of my rotation rewarding me for cycling through it by allowing me to passively buff the groups damage.

I think the big thing I'm concerned about is making Army's Paeon feel impactful enough that we would want to stay in it the full 30 seconds because that would align bard on 90/3 min burst timers with monk and tanks. While I definitely understand the appeal of putting it on a 1/2min cycle I also don't find anything inherently wrong with it being a 90sec/3min cycle either. There's several ways this could be approached for sure but I do agree that it should be an "easy" phase where whatever mechanic is dealt with in it isn't as demanding as MB or WM.

Be neat if each song buff lasted beyond its active duration, and your goal was to keep each one active and overlapping as much as possible.

Maybe tie that into Apex Arrow extending the duration on song buffs, though Apex Arrow might need to be disconnected from Repertoire then.

[Cetonis]

The only job with a 90s cycle that matters is Monk, because Brotherhood is 90s. Aligning our burst with, say, Warrior would be meaningless - the Bard dealing more damage and the Warrior dealing more damage at the same time has no inherent value, we aren't buffing each other and Battle Voice doesn't even work on them. The other three tanks are 60s cycle jobs, as much as Delirium might make it look otherwise.

*If* there were more than just Monk, if like four or five jobs had raid buffs that went out at 90s intervals, I'd totally understand the push to align Bard with that. But it's a mirage, this idea that "some jobs are 1m/2m and some others are 90s" just isn't real. Only MNK and WAR are 90s and the latter doesn't interact with us. SE could decide to add more real 90s cycles, or they could move MNK and WAR off of it, but leaving those two hanging in particular is weird.

BRD, for what it's worth, hardly qualifies as having a "burst" right now compared to those other two, we're pretty much just a sustained damage job that presses Barrage sometimes. So even if we were transformed into 90s, with the kit as-is, none of the other jobs would care. Bard rotation vs. (crit) raid buff alignment was extremely valuable in Stormblood, but in ShB it's barely relevant.


As for the passive song buffs, I agree it'd be nice to find a way to make them work, but with the 100% uptime of songs, so the buff has to be miniscule/limited to be safe power-wise. If they had durations to tweak up the power and started on song use, the relative lack of control over timing songs means you'd have problems getting them into useful spots.

That's what my somewhat-wild BV rework idea is about - it uses BV to carry on the spirit of the passive song buff in a way that can circumvent these barriers. Would SE do it? Dunno. But I think most players would like it more than the current setup.

[Brandedblade]

The only job with a 90s cycle that matters is Monk, because Brotherhood is 90s. Aligning our burst with, say, Warrior would be meaningless - the Bard dealing more damage and the Warrior dealing more damage at the same time has no inherent value, we aren't buffing each other and Battle Voice doesn't even work on them. The other three tanks are 60s cycle jobs, as much as Delirium might make it look otherwise.

*If* there were more than just Monk, if like four or five jobs had raid buffs that went out at 90s intervals, I'd totally understand the push to align Bard with that. But it's a mirage, this idea that "some jobs are 1m/2m and some others are 90s" just isn't real. Only MNK and WAR are 90s and the latter doesn't interact with us. SE could decide to add more real 90s cycles, or they could move MNK and WAR off of it, but leaving those two hanging in particular is weird.

BRD, for what it's worth, hardly qualifies as having a "burst" right now compared to those other two, we're pretty much just a sustained damage job that presses Barrage sometimes. So even if we were transformed into 90s, with the kit as-is, none of the other jobs would care. Bard rotation vs. (crit) raid buff alignment was extremely valuable in Stormblood, but in ShB it's barely relevant.


As for the passive song buffs, I agree it'd be nice to find a way to make them work, but with the 100% uptime of songs, so the buff has to be miniscule/limited to be safe power-wise. If they had durations to tweak up the power and started on song use, the relative lack of control over timing songs means you'd have problems getting them into useful spots.

That's what my somewhat-wild BV rework idea is about - it uses BV to carry on the spirit of the passive song buff in a way that can circumvent these barriers. Would SE do it? Dunno. But I think most players would like it more than the current setup.

Aren't there classes that do both 1/2min cycles but have "mini-bursts" at the 90 second/180 sec intervals? Because iirc isn't NIN's Bunshin @90 sec and DRG's Battle Litany at 180? if anything it probably would not hurt to introduce a few more things like across
the board. If anything it would probably be more interesting around the board to adjust the classes in ways that they have one "Major cd burst" and one "Minor cd burst" at either the 1min/2min and 90sec/3min windows.

[Cetonis]

NIN and DRK have mini-bursts at 90s, yes. But again, those have no interaction with other jobs.

There's no value - zero - inherent to all jobs having their big damage spikes at the same time. Nothing is gained from that whatsoever. Bunshin does not make my Barrage deal more damage, nor vice versa.

What matters is when jobs have damage spikes that align with buffs they're getting from other party members. The only such buff that's on a 90s timer is Monk's Brotherhood, whereas Chain, Trick, Divination, Embolden, Technical Finish, and Dragon Sight / Devilment are all on 1m or 2m timers.

Then you have Litany, Battle Voice and Devotion on 3m timers, which in practice get used as "4 minute cooldowns" any time a fight is dying in the 7:20 - 9:05 range, or over 9 minutes with breaks that make 3-6-9 usages implausible. Most(?) / a lot of fights match one or the other description, when optimized to the point where you'd care about buff alignment.

And yes, I agree that it'd be neat if there were a healthy mix of 90s jobs and 2m jobs, and you'd be able to build comps around one or the other. But, that's not where we are, and given the way they tend to handle things, SE is more likely to homogenize here than they are to change several existing kits to make some new dynamic. Remember, this thread isn't about dream scenarios, it's about what would be good within the bounds of things we can realistically expect SE to do.