"Serious" Bard 6.0 predicted/suggested kit

[Aeducan]

Current BRD is the very definition of busy work with little to no payoff. maintaining 2 dots that shouldn't expire, juggling 3 songs with spammy procs if I'm doing my job properly, and apex arrow that feels underwhelming/cumbersome... all those for laughable contribution in comparison to other DPS. The only saving grace is the overall job kits flow together well enough, but that's a low bar to achieve. Mobility is moot given how mobile SMN and RDM are; even BLM is more mobile than WHM nowadays. Besides, mobility rarely matters much in PvE. I want to love BRD, but it's just so difficult to do so. At least PvP BRD is enjoyable and impactful I guess. I suspect BRD is high priority for 6.0, but that last 10 potency buff sure didn't inspire confidence, appreciated though it is.

[Jirah]

snip .

I think we hold meta in way to high regard tbh for “loosest dps” remarks to be valid. I’ve ran BRD and somtimes out DPS Melee. And even then no job is that low to have a major effect on fights. The game is in such a balanced state that unless major changes are made, nothing will change. Some jobs will do more Damage but that’s just the selfish nature of people picking “BiS jobs” rather than what’s fun

also regarding this comment...BRD seems busy because it’s not as simple minded as 1-2 step dancer, or Ogcd bland fest MCH. BRD isn’t hard to play it’s cousins are far too simple and I don’t wish for it to be brought to their level for this “injustice” of coherence. And seeing it in the eyes of the “majority” that it’s so “weak” it’s “laughable” is very hyperbolic and insincere. If that were the case it would never be used

[Aeducan]

I think we hold meta in way to high regard tbh for “loosest dps” remarks to be valid. I’ve ran BRD and somtimes out DPS Melee. And even then no job is that low to have a major effect on fights. The game is in such a balanced state that unless major changes are made, nothing will change. Some jobs will do more Damage but that’s just the selfish nature of people picking “BiS jobs” rather than what’s fun

also regarding this comment...BRD seems busy because it’s not as simple minded as 1-2 step dancer, or Ogcd bland fest MCH. BRD isn’t hard to play it’s cousins are far too simple and I don’t wish for it to be brought to their level for this “injustice” of coherence. And seeing it in the eyes of the “majority” that it’s so “weak” it’s “laughable” is very hyperbolic and insincere. If that were the case it would never be used

It's not about meta though, I personally don't follow Balance or the like. Like you said, BRD isn't hard to play and out DPSing other jobs (esp. in normal content) is very viable if you know what you're doing. What troubles me is the fact that average melee brings roughly equal contribution to a very good BRD, so I highly disagree that the game is in such a balanced state in regards to job contribution. From my observation, the difference in bringing 2 ranged in comparison to 2 melee/caster is very noticeable in higher contents. It's not the end of the world because like you mentioned, all jobs are capable of clearing contents. In other words: enough to get noticed, too benign to go gaga over it. But that's neither here nor there cause we're talking about BRD specifically.

I don't think anyone would like to see watered down BRD next expansion and it wasn't what I was trying to convey (apologize if that was the case, it was very early in the morning for me), so I'm not sure what this "injustice" of coherence you were referring to. I just feel the amount of effort to perform well in this job doesn't get reflected properly in the result. GNB, SMN, AST are all busy jobs but the contribution felt so impactful; couldn't say the same about BRD. This is all very subjective of course, so take it with a grain of salt. What I know is that I see so much more to BRD than this, but current iteration is not there yet. Here's hoping for many great improvements in 6.0; who knows, it might get NIN treatment cause I think they did really well on its adjustments this expansion.

[Cetonis]

'meta' wise, bringing a ranged vs. not is functionally a break-even proposition for a 99% group. But Dancer's high peak and buff contribution will keep it in the speedrun meta, there's no competing with the value of a hugely bursty 1m/2m job that plants 2m raid buffs on top. It's like 3.x-4.x Ninja was. Building around and maximizing it yields large gains.

Anyway, back to 99 land the ranged are around 6% behind the middle of the non-ranged pack, which is a bit closer than we were at the start of the expac, and not really that large in the grand scheme of things.

I still think it doesn't need to be any larger than around ~3-4%, if the goal is to prevent double ranged from becoming a popular choice. People throw fits about 1%, so 3-4% should be plenty.

But it's really an academic argument. Getting Bard to play better with better QoL and ideally suit its flavor a little more, and for the other ranged finding them some degree of depth, is much more important in the expac context.

[Amras]

So, after playing this tier with Bard and the last two as dancer, I think I can say I have a clear opinion on Bard now. Keep in mind please that I am by no means an expert on the job, so some of my point might be wrong. Take this like the point of view of a playing in training.

Empyreal Arrow.
While I like a force proc skill, I usually find myself complaining about it instead of embracing the free proc.
I have lost the count of how many times I have seeing bloodletter CD reset just as I hit empyreal, or how many times the apex arrow gauge increases just after using empyreal but before I had time to even use bloodletter (even if those are double weaved). This also happens with pitch perfect from time to time, when I have 2 stacks and I go empyreal->Pitch perfect just to see the gauge go up by another 5 or 10 between the two casts.

Song cicle.
Song usage is far tighter than I was specting. A big part of this is because the transition between WM to MB. Those last seconds require your full attention and I usually lose potency for different reasons there. AP to WM can sometimes get weird.

Army’s Paeon
I don’t like its effect, plain and simple. I do not think random GCD is a good thing. It messes up with timings for all the fight. For example, using troubadour as late as possible so its effect persist until the next attack seems to have a different timing every pull. Never had such problem with shield samba.
The random GCD also messes up with my AP to WM transitions from time to time.

Battle voice
A 3m CD that is offers nothing is easy to forget. At least Dragoons interact with battle litany with all the 2 buffed nastrond and stardiver always buffed. Battle voice is just there.

Wasted procs.
Sometimes I lose procs because I make mistakes. That happens and I am not a top player. But wasting so many procs without having control over them feels so bad.
Things like double proc in MB, double proc while I have 2 stacks of pitch perfect, getting tons of procs while in AP, server tick synchronized with Empyreal Arrow. All of these happen to me on a regular basis… which leads me to my biggest problem with bard:

The voice gauge.
In Spain we have a saying that goes: “Bendita ignorancia”, that basically means “sometimes is better not to know”. Is because if this gauge that I notice most of my wasted procs.
I know that I am getting most of my proc during AP because the gauge goes up from 60 to 100 in those seconds.
I know I am wasting potency because the gauge increases by 10 during MB or when I have 2 pitch perfect stacks.
I know I am wasting procs because the gauge goes 5+5 or 5+10 just as I press Empyreal arrow and before I even have time to make another action.
To me, this gauge makes SO obvious when I lose potency because of bad proc luck that is not even funny.

Other problems.
This is just to say that I agree with most of the things that I have not mentioned, such as passive song buffs being a bad support design and Nature’s Minne

[Cetonis]

I think overcaps that are unavoidable, like in AP or WM, are relatively inoffensive - you could have just been less-lucky and it wouldn't have mattered. The ones surrounding EA are more frustrating because theoretically you could have done something about it, but delaying EA is bad but using it is sometimes bad and /o\

It's possible that SE could remove the EA auto-proc to solve a lot of this, but I'd assume they want a short oGCD like EA to tie into the kit somehow, so they'd have to turn the trait into something like i.e. reducing BV cooldown (which would be ill-advised for a few reasons).

[Jirah]

Current BRD is the very definition of busy work with little to no payoff. maintaining 2 dots that shouldn't expire, juggling 3 songs with spammy procs if I'm doing my job properly, and apex arrow that feels underwhelming/cumbersome... all those for laughable contribution in comparison to other DPS. The only saving grace is the overall job kits flow together well enough, but that's a low bar to achieve. Mobility is moot given how mobile SMN and RDM are; even BLM is more mobile than WHM nowadays. Besides, mobility rarely matters much in PvE. I want to love BRD, but it's just so difficult to do so. At least PvP BRD is enjoyable and impactful I guess. I suspect BRD is high priority for 6.0, but that last 10 potency buff sure didn't inspire confidence, appreciated though it is.

im incredibly confused by this mindset as current BRD was just 4.0 BRD minus a few skills like foes and straight arrow buff and no one complained about it being hard, only easier compared to then MCH. BRD has never been easier much like SMN and a few other jobs yet people still claim its busy work? certainly hope they dont expect all jobs to be as easy as DNC or as unfulfilling as MCH

[gumas]

my complain with current BRD class is still the same. too many things to watch for its ridiculous.

- the song (3 of them)
- the refulgent proc
- the dot (2 of them)
- the soul voice gauge
- the repertoire proc

and combine with watching enemy AOE pattern and positioning, i spend more time looking at my hotbar and my song gauge than the actual screen with these class

[Cetonis]

my complain with current BRD class is still the same. too many things to watch for its ridiculous.

- the song (3 of them)
- the refulgent proc
- the dot (2 of them)
- the soul voice gauge
- the repertoire proc

and combine with watching enemy AOE pattern and positioning, i spend more time looking at my hotbar and my song gauge than the actual screen with these class

I'd flip this around, and argue that the other ranged should be more like this. As physical ranged, we do not have cast times to worry about, nor do we have melee range or positional concerns.

It makes sense to make up for that lack of "built-in" difficulty somehow, and one way to do it is to have a somewhat higher level of randomness / tracking / juggling than would be allowed on a melee or caster.

A lot of people find Machinist to be dreadfully boring to play for more than a short while, because it has a kit that's tank-level in its simplicity. Without any of the other factors that make it so that tanks are still interesting to play, nor any casts or positionals to do so otherwise, it gets stale fast.

[Rika007]

I'd flip this around, and argue that the other ranged should be more like this. As physical ranged, we do not have cast times to worry about, nor do we have melee range or positional concerns.

It makes sense to make up for that lack of "built-in" difficulty somehow, and one way to do it is to have a somewhat higher level of randomness / tracking / juggling than would be allowed on a melee or caster.

A lot of people find Machinist to be dreadfully boring to play for more than a short while, because it has a kit that's tank-level in its simplicity. Without any of the other factors that make it so that tanks are still interesting to play, nor any casts or positionals to do so otherwise, it gets stale fast.

Agreed, I personally believe all 3 ranged DPS should be on the high end of APM, and also have to deal with some semblance of proc insanity.