Why do people hate BRD?

[Jirah]

ARC was my first class going into BRD and was mixed about it....until I actually learned it and read my tooltips and generally enjoyed it. SHB did it dirty and I know some of the disdain stems from the reduction of mana skills and crit procs, also I’m aware how bad the progression kit is when it comes to procs. And I know some people care about numbers, strangely more of the casual groups do aswell ,But OP or UP how it plays is what wins or loses people and I’m curious as to why BRD has a bad rep beyond these faults. Which aren’t real deal breakers for me

BRD is awesome, it ain’t flawless and I can see blatant issues and can probably make a spread sheet on how to improve it, but BRDs great. Not nearly enough people main it and it gets way to much hate while other jobs with controversial stuff needs more attention...or they just don’t like the playstyle and that’s fine and fair

[Kabooa]

It's been said numerous times.

1. The change to static proc % has removed a feeling of progression, for better or worse. There are two sides to this. The pro side is that Bard no longer comes swinging in at the start of an expansion underweight. The con side is it stopped being a monster at the end of an expansion, when it could push upwards of 80+% critical rate on Dots, and being able to snapshot that through good use of Iron Jaws to extend the duration of party critical buffs and their burst windows.

2. The de-emphasis of active party support, even if not much of it remained. Foe Reqieum gave dual purpose to Mana Song, and like anything that has dual purpose, it creates some level of choice between creating meaningful burst windows and providing needed relief when things go wrong.

3. Apex Arrow is not good. Nearly all other gauge spends either allow some forgiveness / stockpiling, or spenders are OGCD, or have manipulation allowing you to line up ideal burst windows. This last part is especially important, as while the Bard is a more RNG job, the inability to meaningfully control that RNG just means you push the buttons as they come off, and that removes player agency. Apex arrow is not an OGCD, therefore its potency when utilized is always considered against the benefit of just rolling your GCD normally, meaning you really only have a small window of utilization of Apex Arrow where it's worthwhile.

4. This is a personal note, but the current line up of actions that can proc Refulgent Arrow leads to unpleasant dissonance. DoTs and Iron Jaws should not proc Refulgent as it's designed now. It just feels bad because you have a set priority and refulgent is second lowest on that, so you get into scenarios where you overwrite Refulgent procs because of what can proc it.

5. Another personal note, Iron Jaws nearly removes any sort of DoT management in the job, and beyond application, you'll almost never touch them again. We're dangerously close to just having Iron Jaws apply the DoTs, because really, what's being lost doing it that way?

[Jirah]

5. Another personal note, Iron Jaws nearly removes any sort of DoT management in the job, and beyond application, you'll almost never touch them again. We're dangerously close to just having Iron Jaws apply the DoTs, because really, what's being lost doing it that way?

All noted except this one, iron Jaws IS the dot management and iron jaws was a HW skill originally. The two alternatives are remove it to have you spam 2 dots individually among all other BRD responsibilities or have you rely on one specific dot for procs trivializing the point of the management.

[ItMe]

Also, a very small thing to note that really gets under my skin: if you are a Lala, unless you're wearing frickin spandex... when your bow is drawn it clips through your waist.

The Lala model holds their bow so close to their body that, while idlying, their own weapon clips into their model and it drives me crazy.

[Vencio]

I personally don’t,

I do feel however they were at their height of supremacy before ShB,

Sadly, RdM is sort of the meta with ridiculous given much more utilities for Endwalker than what a Bard should normally be given,

PS: Without disrespecting RDM players

[Raikai]

All noted except this one, iron Jaws IS the dot management and iron jaws was a HW skill originally. The two alternatives are remove it to have you spam 2 dots individually among all other BRD responsibilities or have you rely on one specific dot for procs trivializing the point of the management.

Iron Jaws basically turns 2 dots into 1, in regards management... I think it's fine for the most part. As opposed to SMN that have atm a ton of totally different things going on. TBH I hope the next dps job added is heavy dot focused, because we never really had one like that.

I think BRD as a job is kind of meh, but just because the theme of music is way too shallow with the job. Basically a fire and forget thing - Not saying it should be like Dancer, but they really hit the nail when designing the dancing mechanics to the job there, in regards interactivity.

[VictorTheed]

I played bard as my main ranged DPS from ARR till SHB, during SB I got really into RDM and it took the spot of BRD, plus I miss BRD support, don't like the SHB bard, I liked SB bard best.

Plus I got burnt out on it being my main ranged DPS after 3 expansions, MCH took it's place in SHB for me as RDM is still my main.

[Jirah]

Iron Jaws basically turns 2 dots into 1, in regards management... I think it's fine for the most part. As opposed to SMN that have atm a ton of totally different things going on. TBH I hope the next dps job added is heavy dot focused, because we never really had one like that.

I think BRD as a job is kind of meh, but just because the theme of music is way too shallow with the job. Basically a fire and forget thing - Not saying it should be like Dancer, but they really hit the nail when designing the dancing mechanics to the job there, in regards interactivity.

This is all heavily opinionated but I just find DNC lackluster and to be a tad bit overrated much like the other ranged job, try as you might you’ll never find much critique about it and perhaps that’ll change as DNC in EW is still kinda of a enigma. But the DNC mechanic is just benign all in all. It’s like lesser mudras and id love to see it explored more but it’s just too forgiving and too one note, or maybe I’m thinking about it too much

[Rika007]

It's been said numerous times.

This was so well thought out that I just have to give thoughts on each of these even if I disagreed on a few points. Because more talk needs to be on Bard, especially with SE seemingly addressing some of the issues while others are being left alone.

1. The change to static proc % has removed a feeling of progression, for better or worse. There are two sides to this. The pro side is that Bard no longer comes swinging in at the start of an expansion underweight. The con side is it stopped being a monster at the end of an expansion, when it could push upwards of 80+% critical rate on Dots, and being able to snapshot that through good use of Iron Jaws to extend the duration of party critical buffs and their burst windows.

This this this. This is the biggest part that no one talks about and why anyone who didn't care about the support loss still had issues with the job. Not just because it effected its numbers and damage, because it effected the jobs FEEL. How it plays, ESPECIALLY during its most important window, the burst period of Raging Strikes and Pitch Perfect. Talk about how good the flat rate is comparatively to the possible lows, but the fact of the matter is, the highs were more often later in the expansion, and that's what people will remember the most, how the job feels when played at it's PEAK. And I can say without a doubt I can count the amount of times I've hit 5-6 or so pitch perfects this expansion on my hands, when near the end of Stormblood that was something that occurred routinely. Hitting only 2 Pitch Perfects SUCKS. It flat out doesn't feel good from an impact standpoint, and honestly makes the job feel slow, which is a death knell for a high APM job.

Even though there should be no reason to nerf Pitch Perfect and Blood Letter's potency with how dumb the Ranged Tax is (especially with Red Mage and SMN getting even more mobile and the Melee DPS less positionals and more uptime tools), I would happily take nerfed potencies on those abilities for higher proc rates or just other ways to guarantee procs (charges to Empyreal Arrow, procs generating from the new party buff, procs whenever sidewinder/barrage/WM/MB are used) just to get that high APM feel of late Stormblood Bard back.

2. The de-emphasis of active party support, even if not much of it remained. Foe Reqieum gave dual purpose to Mana Song, and like anything that has dual purpose, it creates some level of choice between creating meaningful burst windows and providing needed relief when things go wrong.

Another big thing no one counts, that extra mini game of Foe's with Refresh was always a fun thing to plan out during raid tiers with your team. And striping Foe's entirely would be a kin to ripping wings from Paladin, Trick from Ninja, Cards from Ast. It was our premier party support ability and it was just RIPPED away with nothing to replace it. Now we seem to be getting a replacement for it finally in Endwalker (just hope they address the concern that already shows of it not being useable at the start of a fight).

3. Apex Arrow is not good. Nearly all other gauge spends either allow some forgiveness / stockpiling, or spenders are OGCD, or have manipulation allowing you to line up ideal burst windows. This last part is especially important, as while the Bard is a more RNG job, the inability to meaningfully control that RNG just means you push the buttons as they come off, and that removes player agency. Apex arrow is not an OGCD, therefore its potency when utilized is always considered against the benefit of just rolling your GCD normally, meaning you really only have a small window of utilization of Apex Arrow where it's worthwhile.

Yep. Capstone abilities are supposed to feel incredible, the best part of your kits, and I think Apex Arrow is tied with Six Sided Star for the most underwhelming one in the game. And unfortunately not only does it seems like none of those was addressed... it looks like they doubled down on it and added a follow up oGCD attack to it. So unless tool tips show us something different, it is still completely unreliable and doesn't fit in the rotation, BUT is also now MORE important. Not good.

4. This is a personal note, but the current line up of actions that can proc Refulgent Arrow leads to unpleasant dissonance. DoTs and Iron Jaws should not proc Refulgent as it's designed now. It just feels bad because you have a set priority and refulgent is second lowest on that, so you get into scenarios where you overwrite Refulgent procs because of what can proc it.

Personal pref yeah but I agree fully. It really doesn't matter as it leads to more Refulgent Procs and you would need to follow your timings anyway, it just sucks to have to ignore and overwrite them.

5. Another personal note, Iron Jaws nearly removes any sort of DoT management in the job, and beyond application, you'll almost never touch them again. We're dangerously close to just having Iron Jaws apply the DoTs, because really, what's being lost doing it that way?

Eh personally on this I prefer this method of dotting, I just want more interaction from them out of abilities like Sidewinder (make that ability happen more often please). I like the idea of Putting the Dots on manually, and then up keeping with one ability, making a true hard payment for messing up.

[Jirah]

snip

Yes I agree it was well told but ontop of why people hate Bard I wanted to know how one would improve it too going forward. Surely this hatred isn’t doom, where the job is officially lost without foes or Crits? Can’t go back to mana skills as all jobs lost skills affiliated with it and would rather see what can be done with its current incarnation than dwelling in the past, to those that are familiar with my post are gonna find these words hypocritical tbh lol