Job overhaul expectations for Endwalker

[Provoke]

Paladin needs more mitigation.

[Deceptus]

*Bad DPS hardly ever use those abilities to begin with.

While true, most DPS say "It doesn't increase my dps, therefore it's irrelevant"

[Fland]

While true, most DPS say "It doesn't increase my dps, therefore it's irrelevant"

They're OGCDs that don't make you lose your DPS, so those people are just lazy.

[AlexWard]

Archer/Bard major changes I want to see in Endwalker:
1. Make it be able to compete in dps/contribution with other classes, right now you could drop any support class in favour of a pure dps and nobody will ever notice a difference.
2. Add Ranger stone, I would love to see a pure ranged dps that uses a bow. Machinist does not count.

Some minor changes:
1. Having to hit songs at exact 30 seconds intervals feels too much, instead, I would like to be able to cast all 3 songs at once, rotating through buffs does not feel natural whatsoever. (I played another pretty old MMO and there was a class that also had song buffs that lasted 2 minutes and you could keep them up all at once, it was amazing, I believe it works the same way until today and nobody ever complained).
2. Dot spread ability.
3. Add Bloodletter charges similar to pitch perfect.

[ForteNightshade]

Archer/Bard major changes I want to see in Endwalker:
1. Make it be able to compete in dps/contribution with other classes, right now you could drop any support class in favour of a pure dps and nobody will ever notice a difference.

This is simply untrue. Bard is entirely on point with Machinist, the only job it'll ever compete with is the "selfish" category. If you meant you could drop the physical Range entirely, the party bonus prevents that as it's significant enough of a loss you'll never want to drop any of the physical Range from a comp.

2. Add Ranger stone, I would love to see a pure ranged dps that uses a bow. Machinist does not count.

This will never happen. The dev team has outright stated they have no interest in branching jobs, and in fact, regret ever attempting it with Scholar and Summoner due to the balancing issues it caused. They'd rather make an entirely new job. Furthermore, ShB's iteration of Bard is essentially Ranger in all but name at this point.

Some minor changes:
1. Having to hit songs at exact 30 seconds intervals feels too much, instead, I would like to be able to cast all 3 songs at once, rotating through buffs does not feel natural whatsoever. (I played another pretty old MMO and there was a class that also had song buffs that lasted 2 minutes and you could keep them up all at once, it was amazing, I believe it works the same way until today and nobody ever complained).

This more or less turns Bard into Ranger while completely destroying its whole gimmick. Wanderer's and Mage's function very differently. You couldn't simply press them both and have the job still play the way it does now. Not to mention, the songs used to be "utility" back in Heavensward. They were hated since you hardly ever bothered to press them.

Now a "super song" on say, a 180s, could be neat. But not something permanent.

[Raikai]

*Bad DPS hardly ever use those abilities to begin with.

That person must have been thinking about normal content, where those are irrelevant unless you have really poor healers. I love those abilities tbh

[Lihtleita]

I want Sabin's Blitz to be the new central mechanic for MNK. I've only been maining the job since Stormblood and I already am losing my patience waiting for SE to take any form of feedback, so I can't even imagine how ARR veterans feel that have been waiting since day 1. If MNK is still unacceptably trash by 6.0 I'm not picking up the job ever again, because at that point I doubt it will ever be good for the remainder of FFXIV's lifespan.

every time they overhaul mnk it feels like getting a repair man in who "fixes" everything except the thing you called him for

[Velvet_Lunarfang]

SMN, SCH and AST for sure. Possible DRG too.

I love to see SMN lose the pets and make it a pure summon i.e use a wind attack summon garuda and she disappears etc

[Connor]

It’s not a rework but I want Bard to be designed so that it’s actually a Bard and not a glorified Ranger who pulls a harp out of their ass every 30 seconds but then also interrupts their harp animation with bow attacks so it may as well not really exist.

And frankly the songs literally make no sense at all anymore in terms of justifying their existence. Mage’s Ballad is a song about the sages of eld and their feats of exceptional healing. This song makes you shoot faster and has no relation to anything magical or supportive whatsoever. Oh but it makes your party stronger, because, reasons. And Warden’s Paean? ‘I can literally sing away your disease but I'll only do it every 45 seconds because DPS so enjoy your Doom tanks. Oh but it’s ok because the skill may as well not exist in 99% of content anyway.

And can someone please explain me to what the hell Iron Jaws is, because it’s honestly been on my mind since Heavensward. Is it magic? Archery? Is it a Bard skill? Some kind of musical reference?

Honestly Bard isn’t even that bad to play (if you like feeling impotent), but the whole job is a mess of skills that have been smashed together, deleted, constantly buffed/nerfed, with little to no thought for the job or what they actually want it to become. Shadowbringers Bard is basically what happens when a developer becomes completely terrified of its own creation after the Stormblood OP Refresh fiasco. None of its skills work the way they do to make the job fun or exciting to play, or to create an ‘identity’ for the job. They all exist basically to make sure Bard never becomes the ultimate job and invalidates every other dps again like in Stormblood and early ARR. And I’m not saying that they should come anywhere close to that level, I’m just saying that I think the developer’s fear of Bards becoming super OP is having a really bad effect on how the job feels to play.

I genuinely believe that the best thing they can do with Bard is basically go back to the beginning (by which I mean level 30 not the core archer gameplay) and start again with a concrete idea for what they want Bards to be. I don’t think we’ll ever see anything like this happen during the games lifespan because obviously it would require sacrificing an entire expansion pack worth of work to a single job, but personally I think it’s something they could consider (could not should, I don’t expect them to ever actually do it)

[Rymi64]

I love to see SMN lose the pets and make it a pure summon i.e use a wind attack summon garuda and she disappears etc

you dont need to get rid of pets to do that though. Trances allow for the ability to do it lore wise while keeping the pet they just dont want to do it.