bard mains Need a buff to party buffs

[TheMightyMollusk]

I'd rather they not be up all the time and instead be more powerful and selective. For instance, allow me to affect who gets more of the buff through my positioning, and/or let me time said buff via a toggle -- where the buff drains MP while active.

So you want Foe's Requiem back.

[Shurrikhan]

So you want Foe's Requiem back.

I want agency, at the best combination of density (the most points of decision, nuance, etc., possible) and intuitiveness (requiring no new buttons nor convoluted concepts) by which it can be given.

Foe Requiem was faintly better than what we have now, but no, I would not call it sufficient.

[ForteNightshade]

So you want Foe's Requiem back.

Yes. Foe's Requiem actually required some thought. A big part of the complaints numerous Bard mains have is how the removal of Foe's and Crit scaling took away any sort of agency from the job. Before you needed to think of your Foe timings, which were dependent on your comp. And Crit scaling meant you could manipulate Iron Jaws under raid buffs. While the latter definitely had power creep issues. Instead of making meaningful adjustments, they took it all away, reducing Iron Jaws to "press this at 3s".

Passive buffs are incredibly boring and lazy design. They have no impact on the user's gameplay and if removed tomorrow (with potencies buffed to compensate) would change absolutely nothing on how Bard plays or rotates its songs. This is why despite Bard functionally being very similar to its Stormblood iteration, it went from being the most popular DPS in the game to fighting with Monk for the least.