"Serious" Bard 6.0 predicted/suggested kit

[Cetonis]

Sort of back on topic, just wanted to toss around random other ways in which I could see some things fixed up -

:: If they really don't want to do BL charges (if, for instance, the 1s recast minimum is not something they can circumvent), they could axe the level 68 trait or change it into some other benefit like EA getting some song-based bonus.

:: Alternately, if there's an issue with Bloodletter code specifically, we might see an updraged version of BL that happens to have 2 charges. This would presumably have to go hand in hand with upgrades to PP and Army's as some sort of "song mastery" trait or something.

:: If there are no plans for other Muses, they could at least mitigate the PP expiration issue by changing PP's cooldown to 1 second. Not a great answer but at least you could try to (GCD - PP - GCD - PP+MB) and if you ghost at least you didn't waste a full three stack.

:: Increasing Raging Strikes to 20% would be a simple but fairly healthy thing they could do, though at an 80s cooldown ideally it could be 25s or 30s to make double snaps sensible.

:: If they wanted to cave to the demand for a Foe revival, it'd probably take the form of an ability that spent MP but didn't drain it. But then they'd need to add other MP interactions to the kit, and that would lead into Energy Drain sorts of issues, so I'd be surprised.

:: Warden's could always be reworked into Palisade or something, though as noted before I'd rather they look for more non-hamfist ways to have white bar debuffs

:: Wouldn't hate a charged-action version of Battle Voice to make it a little more distinct, or a big upgraded version... really there are tons of ways to make it a defining premier skill, rather than an afterthought.

[Rika007]

:: If they wanted to cave to the demand for a Foe revival, it'd probably take the form of an ability that spent MP but didn't drain it. But then they'd need to add other MP interactions to the kit, and that would lead into Energy Drain sorts of issues, so I'd be surprised.

I personally think with the loss of Refresh Foe's would feel very unsatisfying to use, as that mini game of using Refresh to max foe's usage is no longer around. I think most Bard players would agree that it's not that Foe's wasn't a clunky ability to use, but rather that having it just ripped away entirely with no thought of a rework or receiving a new ability to make up for it's loss was the bigger issue. But I think there is a better way to handle this now with the Soul Gauge. I personally would rather see Apex Arrow (and it's inevitable single target varian't) pulled off the Soul Gauge and turned into a oGCD with a heavy cool down (similar to Gurren on Samurai). This would take care of two serious frustrations for Bard players in handling that they can't count on what is supposed to be there capstone ability being available during burst segments, and also in removing it from the GCD rotation where bad timing can cause overpass if it conflicts with IronJaws.

With the soul Gauge now opened up, they could then put a reworked version of Foe's (or some new ability with a much grander animation) on the soul Gauge. I feel they would also need to find a way for the soul gauge to build faster, or give us an ability similar to Machinist's Barrel Stabilizer, as it still wouldn't resolve the issue of not having gauge to use at important moments, but changing the soul gauge's use from attack based to damage boosting would at least make holding it's use for a few GCD's so it lines up with burst windows make more sense.

:: Warden's could always be reworked into Palisade or something, though as noted before I'd rather they look for more non-hamfist ways to have white bar debuffs

That's probably the easiest way to handle it, Palisade/Apoc effects for a single target would make players happy. I originally would have loved to see a single target Damage boost, one that gives like temporary Dance Partner effects once per 1 or 2 minutes (or some other offensive buff instead of flat damage), but that probably would infringe too much on Dancers niche. And if too many defensive/healing buffs are handed out to one particular job, that is the fastest way to making that job feel more necessary for prog.

:: Wouldn't hate a charged-action version of Battle Voice to make it a little more distinct, or a big upgraded version... really there are tons of ways to make it a defining premier skill, rather than an afterthought.

I loved old school Battle voice, where it boosted the effectiveness of your current song playing back in 2.0. While I hate the passive aura's on the current song rotation, maybe rework Battle voice into it massively boosting the power of the current song on the party for as long as BV is active? Would make the buffs from the songs feel a bit more interactive at least.

[Brian_Bear]

Things that stand out are the songs, mechanics tied with dots and refreshable oGCDs. I appreciate the focus that they are given and i think working on those along with some quality of life changes will make Bards even more enjoyable.

I'd like to see:

-- 2 charges for Bloodletter and Rain of Death. Cast time for Bloodletter reduced.

-- Straight Shot/Refulgent Arrow becoming a combo weapon skill following Heavy Shot/Burst Shot. Traits granting a chance for Straight Shot Ready instead changed to removing 3s off Bloodletter and Rain of Death cooldowns. Inspired from Quick Nock Trait having a chance to refresh Bloodletter and Rain of Death, but a much toned down version.

-- Barrage cooldown reduced to 45s/60s. Instead of granting Straight Shot Ready, grants a charge of Bloodletter and Rain of Death.

-- New trait for Venomous/Caustic Bite, Infections Bite, allowing each tick to spread within a 5y radius affecting nearby enemies from main target.

-- New trait for Windbite/Stormbite, Tempest Bite, granting a stack of increased damage for the skill, up to 3 stacks, each time Windbite/Stormbite is refreshed within 5s of expiring.

-- Songs are fun to use and would love to use them more often instead of just saving on them for a harder target/boss. Along with fixing the weird timer of 80s, change Wanderer's Minuet to a 90s cooldown. While changing Mage's Ballad and Army's Paeon to a 60s timer. Army's Paeon needs a slight buff of some sort.

-- Repelling Shot should remove the requirement of a target. Name changed to Retreating Step.

-- Sidewinder/Shadowbite, i feel the skills are extra bloat given the shared cooldown with no other mechanics tied to them compared to Bloodletter and Rain of Blood. I would prefer them combine into one aoe skill. During an aoe phase, i think the fact that you have to have both dots up for Shadowbite to be effective might be a dps loss over spamming Quick Nock and Rain of Blood. I could be wrong, but i feel that having to double dot for aoe phase is more effort/setup for little gain vs other classes not needing it.

--Wouldn't mind having a new combo skill for Quick Nock that also has a chance to refresh Bloodletter and Rain of Blood.

As much as i would love changes to be implemented, i'm not holding my hopes up.

[IndyRevolutions]

I never played Bard during Stormblood, since the month leading up to Shadowbringers was entirely spent playing the MSQ for me. I do enjoy the busywork the current version of the job, but I do agree that there's a lot of fantasies left unfulfilled. I'd love to see Pitch Perfect have more interaction outside of one of three songs, like MCH's drill. Maybe some more harp strumming animations for certain attacks, or maybe playing the bow like in the lore of how Bard began.

Actually... maybe change it around so that Heavy, Caustic, and Storm turn into notes for a brief period for a song. Heck, could change the three song buttons into one single "play" button like a mudra, and strum out a little song before the song is casted. Then you could change the song gauge to track how much charge each song has instead. Really, just that change would probably fix the job for me.

(Now for MCH on the other hand I miss the gun fantasy, but that's another thread entirely.)

[GavynG]

More interesting song effects than "+3% DH" is what I'd want.

[Raikai]

There are two peeves that I have with BRD that irks me all the time.

One is smaller, with Bloodletter. It's an instant ability, but the animation feels like it has a cast time... I know mechanically it doesn't mean anything, but visually it looks clunky, especially for an ability that is your reactive button during Mage's Ballad.

The second one is Apex Arrow. It both feels really unrewarding for such a "big" moment, and it also thematically feels out of place. Why the sou voice gauge can't be use to unleash an effect that looks like a song, instead of yet another arrow attack?

[Jirah]

Theres a few things I want from BRD, Soul gauge to be revamped to be less clunky, a few more impactful support options, and have Wanderers be catered to aoes by using PP to feed the soul gauge which means more Apex or add more Rain stacks idk, and Emperyl arrow proc being added wayyy sooner than 68 as its hard to go back to slow stacks in HW and ARR. and a impactful way to wide spread dots. Using 2 dots to spray enemies to aoe is a pain and sometimes thanks to how undertuned some dungeons are by the time you finish they are dead. Ive heard a Bane variant of the arrow but thats unimaginative tbh and im sure they can come up with better alternatives where it be a aoe dot or some conditional way to spread caustic and storm

[Wolfgang_Kudei]

My thoughts/wishlist for changes to Bard in 6.0:

Rework all songs & make them support oriented again
Here's just a few suggestions for things SE could do to make Bard more supportive. This game's combat system doesn't really allow things like debuffs on bosses so those are out of the question. My suggestion is to take a note from the 2 most supportive classes in the game, Dancer and Red Mage. I suggest reworking the songs to healing or shielding effects.

One song could be a strong single target heal, one could be mild-to-moderate strength AoE heal-over-time, and another could be a single target shield. As we've seen FFXIV really only allows healing as support skills, and this would allow Bard to bring something truly unique and supportive to a group, just like how red mages are well known for being able to chain rez and heal in a pinch.

Make Wanderer's Minuet allow the use of both Pitch Perfect and Apex Arrow
The goal here is to remove the song gauge and follow the design of Summoner's Dreadwyrm trance. Make WM last 30 seconds and give stacks for Pitch Perfect just like it does now, but also allow you 1 cast of Apex Arrow (potency equal to current 100 song gauge potency) during it's duration, and allow it to be cast early in case a boss goes intargetable. This designs I feel works really well for Summoner, so this would eliminate the song gauge while also retaining the same feel of Apex Arrow and Pitch Perfect, just combining them

Make Shadowbite apply Stormbite&Caustic Bite to all targets hit
This to me is a no brainer. It's already only used in AoE situations and requires the main target to be affected by your dots, so making it apply them in its AoE makes perfect sense. It would be a great QoL improvement while not changing how the ability works.

That's pretty much it. Other than that I think Bard is in a decent spot so far, but I would love to see these changes.

[Cetonis]

Some rumors have been coming in of Bard getting at least a partial rework, so been thinking about that a bit this morning.

First off, it definitely does not mean there's going to be a job split, or a 50% support class (even 20% is doubtful), or anything like that. It's also unlikely to be as large of a rework as Summoner, or 5.0 Machinist, else they probably would have said something.

I could see a Ninja/Monk level deal though. SE has likely seen a lot of feedback about Bard being overwhelming for some people, a lot to track etc., so I wouldn't be surprised at all if they react to that with some sweeping changes.

A few guesses as to what we might see, not all of these at once obviously, just spitballing things I could see SE doing -

:: A rework of the support system only, replacing song passives and BV with something more intentionally constructed a la the way AST's support is a "system". (imo: yay)

:: Getting rid of the songs=stances idea and going back to 2.x with River of Blood, make the songs into support skills / buffs. So we'd only have BL/RoD procs, but we'd have them full-time. Then tie PP to Soul Gauge, like it spends 20 or something, buff Apex to the moon, and do stuff like EA gives 10 gauge, songs give gauge etc. (imo: depends on details but can be ok)

:: A 4.x pvp-style setup where procs are tied to GCDs against DoT'd enemies instead of on DoT ticks. They could still be non-guaranteed, but SE might like the idea of giving people stable proc timing. (imo: mild sadness)

[Jirah]

Some rumors have been coming in of Bard getting at least a partial rework, so been thinking about that a bit this morning.

No offense but so far FF14 has had bad luck reworking anything since 4.0, most reworks since than have either robbed the jobs of their individuality, copy them to replicate a preexisting job or shrunk them to a nub. “BRD getting reworked” is bad news to me as the core is fine, passive songs with different effects on the bard and I’d hate for it to be a carbon copy of somthing else, lobotomized or create somthing very far removed from BRD original impetus