"Serious" Bard 6.0 predicted/suggested kit

[SweetPete]

passive huh in that definition DNC isnt very good either since most of its support is routine lets stop wishing all jobs to be this bland ass singularity and have their own identities

Yeah I would love for the jobs to have uniqueness returned to them. If SE sticks to this killing of the meta then the jobs will stay boring and homogenized sadly.

[Cetonis]

Right, sometimes you'll hear "they decided to make DNC the support job instead of BRD", as if people who want to be support-y would still theoretically have something to play.

But even DNC is not near as supportive as SB BRD was, in the active-support sense.

Dancer presses at most 9 buttons (if spamming Waltze) per 6 minutes that solely provide support, the rest is just incidental to their personal dps. Current Bard presses as many as 8 (if spamming Minne), assuming Warden's isn't doing anything.

Stormblood Bard would press... 18, by my count? Assuming old Minne was still useful once per 90s or so (a little generous honestly). And that involved *seven* different non-WP skills, which is now down to three (meanwhile Dancer has two).

With any luck, SE takes a step back and thinks about how they once had a job like that and it didn't ruin the game. It was one of the most popular jobs, at that. That same job now is one of the least. Hopefully they don't just assume it's only a power level stigma thing.

[SweetPete]

Right, sometimes you'll hear "they decided to make DNC the support job instead of BRD", as if people who want to be support-y would still theoretically have something to play.

But even DNC is not near as supportive as SB BRD was, in the active-support sense.

Dancer presses at most 9 buttons (if spamming Waltze) per 6 minutes that solely provide support, the rest is just incidental to their personal dps. Current Bard presses as many as 8 (if spamming Minne), assuming Warden's isn't doing anything.

Stormblood Bard would press... 18, by my count? Assuming old Minne was still useful once per 90s or so (a little generous honestly). And that involved *seven* different non-WP skills, which is now down to three (meanwhile Dancer has two).

With any luck, SE takes a step back and thinks about how they once had a job like that and it didn't ruin the game. It was one of the most popular jobs, at that. That same job now is one of the least. Hopefully they don't just assume it's only a power level stigma thing.

Well seeing how Astrologian, Scholar and Bard were Meta jobs and they wanted to destroy the meta and I give it to them. They sure destroyed it. Any job is able to clear all savage and ultimate content with no specific job having priority. I just can’t stand how they had to homogenize jobs and destroy others just to make that happen. Savage and ultimate is such a small community anyway and they didn’t complain at all about jobs so why did SE do it? It makes no sense to me. This game is like 85% casual.

I just will never understand their logic in destroying those 3 jobs specifically because they were meta jobs. Astro was nearly unplayable in Shb release, bard lost all party support and sch lost most of its dps kit, Selene’s kit and faerie severely nerfed to crap. Now these forums are overflowing with complaints about these 3 jobs specifically. Honestly what they did to these jobs was the dumbest mistake and I fear they won’t listen to the player base at all and just keep it the same which will be a huge slap in the face to players of these jobs.

[Cetonis]

I don't think any of these changes are related to job balance, overall. Certain parts were - Bard having crit-based procs and the SB power level of the SCH fairy just were not tenable - but overall I think SE was largely trying to make things "better" design-wise. They probably felt like pressuring SCHs to not-use their AF heals was bad, which isn't untrue really, and the new AST cards are in fact much better at both the floor and ceiling, just kinda lame in between.

As for Bard, Foe Requiem was a button that most Bards did not press after pull. And it had this archaic MP draining thing that didn't jive with modern design, so it wasn't a surprise to see it go. Tactician was obviously leaving, and Refresh was a stupid design from the outset. Forcing groups to bring p.ranged because MP economy was awful otherwise is just silly gating, and the button was only ever interesting in the Foe context.

I've said a million times that the passive song buffs are a bad design, so no surprise they left too. About the only things that could have stayed are Palisade and the job-specific flavoring of Troub/Dismantle/Samba, the former got roped in with Apoc for deletion which is maybe not a big shock, the latter I'd still question - given that they turned around and added Curing Waltz which presents the same "problem" old Troub did.


The problem of course is that they assumed that only top-end raiders really cared about this stuff, and only because they could optimize them in sneaky ways. But they missed the part where a huge number of Bard players did care that the job felt like a "support" or as close as this game was gonna get to one - even if they hardly ever actually used the skills according to the data.

So instead of finding other ways to bring that dynamic in, they didn't bother to try. Instead they said "our vision of Bard players is they're people who just like being able to run around", which of course falls in line YoshiP's immense p.ranged complex, which is also why they still bring unreasonably low damage. Maybe someday he'll find reality, but until then we can at least hope that they think a little bit harder about what leads people to play a job.

I'm afraid that they might have just settled on "cool animations!!1!1!"... and more afraid that they might not be entirely wrong haha. But even if so there's definitely a desire for a dps with some sort of active support suite.

[Jirah]

With any luck, SE takes a step back and thinks about how they once had a job like that and it didn't ruin the game. It was one of the most popular jobs, at that. That same job now is one of the least. Hopefully they don't just assume it's only a power level stigma thing.

Idc about potency as the jobs are in such a balanced state that itll take huge amounts of effort to make anything "unplayable". Popularity means nothing to me to as in SB BRD's only cousin was MCH which thanks to the community had a severe negative stigma about being clunky or overly-complex. Fast forward to SHB and BRD's new cousin a fan favorite job joins the fray being safe and easy to follow, while MCH is mended to be made so safe it regularly battles DNC with the Bronze title of easiest jobs in the game. a massive contrast to BRD which isnt to straight forward and requires discipline its no wonder its not popular and who cares. Is it fun to play should be the only question that comes up not numbers or statistics. I hate for BRD to follow in MCH wake and remove even more stuff to please a audience that never cared about it

[SweetPete]

Idc about potency as the jobs are in such a balanced state that itll take huge amounts of effort to make anything "unplayable". Popularity means nothing to me to as in SB BRD's only cousin was MCH which thanks to the community had a severe negative stigma about being clunky or overly-complex. Fast forward to SHB and BRD's new cousin a fan favorite job joins the fray being safe and easy to follow, while MCH is mended to be made so safe it regularly battles DNC with the Bronze title of easiest jobs in the game. a massive contrast to BRD which isnt to straight forward and requires discipline its no wonder its not popular and who cares. Is it fun to play should be the only question that comes up not numbers or statistics. I hate for BRD to follow in MCH wake and remove even more stuff to please a audience that never cared about it

Bard is quite a mess now. SE destroyed this job in Shb. Honestly it’s not even a bard anymore it’s a ranger job that sings. Even some vets to the job have quit playing it because it’s a mess. I’m not saying SE needs to rework it completely from ground zero like they did machinist but they do need to look at it’s songs. What it brings to the party is negligible at best and the job is just not fun anymore.

[Rika007]

Bard is quite a mess now. SE destroyed this job in Shb. Honestly it’s not even a bard anymore it’s a ranger job that sings. Even some vets to the job have quit playing it because it’s a mess. I’m not saying SE needs to rework it completely from ground zero like they did machinist but they do need to look at it’s songs. What it brings to the party is negligible at best and the job is just not fun anymore.

This pretty simply put is the issue. The core of Bard's rotation is fine and doesn't need a rework, maybe a little bit of TLC in forms of an AoE dot spreader, and charges on the blood letter procs, along with making Apex Arrow a timed oGCD so it can line up with burst windows properly (or just make it useable at full power at 50 gauge so their is a way you can guarantee it in raging strikes). Not much work is needed there.

It's the support kit where all the work needs to go into. Yes Bard's damage isn't good and people would like to see it be better. But that's just a numbers change and easily solved (if they ever will anyway). The issue with the support kit though is not something you can just slap a passive onto Bard's already active song rotation and expect the players to be happy.

[dezzmont]

I mained Bard through ShB, and dabbled a bit in some high end content. I am by no means an expert or a high end player, and I have no familiarity with pre-ShB bard, but as a more 'casual' bard who is still somewhat familiar with it I think I may have some unique perspective.

Song Procs are fun, its really awesome to go on a tear with bloodletter or pitch perfect and get a lot in a row. Refulgent Arrow is less wowzers but helps even it out. The problem is if no procs are happening you just mash 1 over and over, which is kinda... mind numbing! Maybe making it so that Straight Shot Ready was an enhancement to Refulgent, rather than a requirement, would help the job feel a little less 'bleh' if you don't get any procs.

The support fantasy of bard is enjoyable. Echoing the sentiment fight design should have more 'cleansables' and bards should get more 'assist' abilities, even if they aren't a general damage assist class like DNC. "Spike" support may be neat. The numbers don't matter as much as being able to look at your party and intervene in some way that feels like a choice that you can feel good about. The reason Trubador feels better than all your damage buffs despite being less impactful is because your making a choice to deploy it and can see the difference it makes and hit it just because it was on cooldown. More like that please! Likewise, Battle Voice just doesn't feel good, and I would love if it was reworked to be a more 'active' ability.

AOE doesn't feel good, even though you can have some fun with Rain of Death. We definitely need an AOE DOT spreader. Maybe make it so your proc chance is based on having the poison up at all, rather than per-target, so it 'evens out' the procs?

Mainly though, the class is interesting but while its active, its a 'bad' active. It feels like homework to maintain your debuffs and song. It is a bad sort of passive, yet still hectic busywork, mainly due to I think some UI issues: If you use a default UI or something resembling it because you don't want to redo UIs per class and are a filthy casual who learned on the default and doesn't want to shake the boat too much, you gotta look up to see debuffs and song duration, right to see apex gauge, and down to see procs. I think making the song guage also have two icons for your procs, and show your DOT timers, would be a really great fix for this problem without dumbing down the class by removing debuffs or debuff refreshing.

Obviously for bard mega experts using custom UIs for the class this isn't even a real change, but it would make the class so much more readable and less hectic for new players, allowing more active choices and complexity to be added without overwhelming our poor casual minds.

[dezzmont]

The other big problem with bard is button bloat:

Bard is unique as a class in that, save for one ability, its AOE and single target is all functionally identical, and which serve... no real purpose being an extra button. I don't think this is the case for any other job, most have seperate AOE abilities because their function and rotation is meaningfully different, even if its just 'less.'

Like lets look at Bloodletter vs Rain of Death. Both are a OGCD that share a cooldown and refresh based on the exact same procs. The only difference is one is aoe and one is single target, and they have different buttons and animations. Now... why not just make it do its single target DPS to its primary target, and its AOE damage to secondary targets via a trait at 45, and just save an entire button?

More controversially, bard having 3 seperate buttons for its DOTs is very silly button bloat that adds no depth to the job, it just makes it more punishing to mess up. If these were all just made one ability that upgraded via traits, you could not only save 3 buttons, but a lot of mental load from the job that could be used on other abilities, as well as saving hotbar space.

Other abilities that are redundant include barrage (it really could just be a trait alteration to raging strikes) and Sidewinder and Shadowbite.

If you merged these redundant abilities, you save 5 slots, and a lot of mental energy that doesn't make the job more interesting. Heck, one could make the bite another 'Single-AOE' hybrid with a primary target potency and a reduced secondary target potency to reduce button bloat even more! That would give a lot more mental and physical room for more support effects.

I would much rather have 2 entirely new abilities that are used in unique situations as a source of complexity for bard than having the 'complexity' of hitting my two bites one right after another, then never using them the rest of combat while I maintain with jaws as a good bard who never drops their dots, and likewise would rather have the penalty for dropping it be reduced and as a bonus get two new toys to play with as a bad bard who drops dots. Its not more or less 'deep' its just changing how badly the system punishes you for getting overwhelmed.

If something really extreme and thinky was added to bard (phase specific team targeting reactive proc based buffs anyone?) then it might make sense to have your songs also reset DOTs, so your just resetting your buffs/debuffs every 30 seconds off one button and you can focus on all your weird procs and buffs and debuffs like a 'real bard' rather than a weird 'poisoner' class. But that is a bit extreme if nothing wild happens to bards.

Right now most of your mental energy is spent trying to maintain your DoTs, and rotating song effects without 'wasting' any like a bloodletter or not casting pitch perfect before the time is up, which doesn't feel like the real 'bard fantasy.' But any new focus on other stuff might get overwhelming as Bard already has a lot of ways to lose quite a bit of DPS, so removing those tedious punishments for mistakes makes a lot of sense going forward.

[SweetPete]

This pretty simply put is the issue. The core of Bard's rotation is fine and doesn't need a rework, maybe a little bit of TLC in forms of an AoE dot spreader, and charges on the blood letter procs, along with making Apex Arrow a timed oGCD so it can line up with burst windows properly (or just make it useable at full power at 50 gauge so their is a way you can guarantee it in raging strikes). Not much work is needed there.

It's the support kit where all the work needs to go into. Yes Bard's damage isn't good and people would like to see it be better. But that's just a numbers change and easily solved (if they ever will anyway). The issue with the support kit though is not something you can just slap a passive onto Bard's already active song rotation and expect the players to be happy.

I appreciate you agreeing with me that bards support should be the focus in Endwalker. Yes and I agree with you that some of its ranger abilities need to be addressed but their support is what’s really lacking and that needs to be thoroughly addressed.