Is bard in a bad spot right now?

[aveyond-dreams]

This may come as a shock to players who only main one job but other people might try your job if it were better. I know I sure would have played Bard more this expansion if it actually felt more like a Bard, at least. Why did I have to turn to Dancer instead of a class that has historically been a support class?

In any case I would love to see Foe Requiem return and something akin to Dancer's Curing Waltz instead of refresh, maybe a song that applies regen instead. There are a lot of abilities they could repurpose and change up from FFXI, all listed here:

https://ffxiclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Bard#Job_Abilities

[Rika007]

How would it break Bard's kneecaps? Genuinely curious. Oh, it'd absolutely devastate its theme, there's no doubt about that. The class would 100% become a Ranger after such a thing, but all you'd be doing is turning the class into permanent wanderer's minuet and upgrading bloodletter into a superior version of bloodletter that almost never overcaps and in general would at least flow the tiniest bit better.

Ask yourself this: For your rotation, as a player, what does Mages Ballad and Army's Paeon actually do for you. What does PP do for you when not in WM, and what does bloodletter do for you when not in MB and brainlessly clicking it every 15 seconds?

MB enables bloodletter to overcap and feel awful since you basically have to hawk your bars repeatedly, and AP speeds up your GCD to the point where double weaving can become a problem. Entire rotations are built around getting out of AP as fast as possible, but it always leads directly into your burst rotation unless there's another rotation I'm not aware of.

So aside from shattering your kneecaps thematically, how would it actually make the gameplay worse?

It may surprise you but some players actively enjoy the things that you are directly thinking do nothing for you or are problems. "Hawking your Bar's Repeatedly" is something I find engaging. I like random procs. I like to have to keep one eye on the Blood Letter Icon that I have placed right below my Job gauge, or on those three glowing pitch perfect procs. I also enjoy that different parts of my rotation FEEL DIFFERENT. I don't want to be doing nothing but Pitch perfects for an entire fight, that literally would remove the amazing feeling of Pitch perfect being that heaving hitting ability I have to let boost up and get strong, while then comparing it to the MB portion where I feel more like I'm on rapid fire just spitting out arrows like a machine gun. And I LIKE having a short cool down period at the end of a cycle in Army's Paeon that lets me take a breath for a moment before I roll into another major burst. The sped up GCD isn't an issue in that moment because I'm not needing to double weave.


Are there problems with these things? Gods yes. WM and PP does not proc nearly enough compared to how it did in Stormblood. Blood Letters overcapping is still an issue and while 2 charges may help, it may need some more. Army's Muse is still an awful trait and needs to be reworked entirely. But the answer to those things is NOT to delete them entirely, when very simple fixes would correct the problem. Stormblood BRD was literally a dream and one of the most well received jobs in the games history. The bones of that job is still in the current BRD, it is not Summoner level where the table needs to be flipped and the entire rotation needs to be changed. Upped proc rates during raging, a 3rd charge on blood letter, a reworking to how Army's Muse works (or just outright removal) would literally solve the majority of issues most people have with the songs far better then clicking the delete key.

[Jirah]

I would simply delete the three "Songs" bard has currently and give back Foe Req and refresh.

I’m starting to think foes is incredibly overrated as a lost action or you don’t know what your talking about and just repeating what others have said but less articulately. Foes didn’t break the job as much as I wanna see it return it doesn’t come close to flat out replacing the song rotation and all of its effects with the party and it’s gcds.

[Easayia]

"This may come as a shock to players who only main one job but other people might try your job if it were better"

First off I dont only play Bard its my main Job that I take because its what I not only know best but can play without much thought allowing me to just focus on mechanics. But the rotation or rather what I do in the rotation is always changing due to that RNG which keeps it interesting.

If the Job were better is the only way you would try it?
But to us that have been comfortably playing the Job it already feels good to play ya we wanted that 2 bloodletters, a way to spread dots, A damage increase for ourselves from Battle Voice, And more support kit ( music animations).

What we got with Endwalker is the 2 bloodletters, a Self and party damage buff that gives our rotation even more of a purpose to fill the codas and give us the buff we are now working towards. Sure they couldve also went the route of making soul gage be able to be spent on something other then what it currently is but they opted to tie the whole kit together by collecting stickers for each song essentially. On top of that we have another skill to use after Apex which is just adding to our burst phase.

Overall for Endwalker the Job is better then what it was in Shadowbringers at least from what I am seeing.

Everyone keeps bringing up Foes like its this ground breaking thing reducing enemy damage or its early form buffing team damage. Bard has a way to reduce enemies damage with troubador, and buffing damage you have battle voice and now the codas so I dont see the issue.

We need to keep in mind why SE removed Foes in the first place. Bards were being taken into a party because of those 2 skills over the other range DPS giving the others kind of the short end of the stick. SE really wants all jobs to be very even at what they do and it shows with all the changes they keep making to the jobs.

Foes is an overated skill it just was. It was good but it also made bard the go to pick for ranged. Now because Foes is removed some people dont want to play the job just because it lost that skill I mean then the issue was kind of solved because people were not playing bard because they liked bards playstyle.

[Easayia]

I’m starting to think foes is incredibly overrated as a lost action or you don’t know what your talking about and just repeating what others have said but less articulately. Foes didn’t break the job as much as I wanna see it return it doesn’t come close to flat out replacing the song rotation and all of its effects with the party and it’s gcds.

It is over rated it was good and it drained your mana but it also made Bard the go to pick for ranged in a party. People didn't play bard because they liked Bard and how it played they played it because it was highly wanted and needed aka OP compared to the rest of the ranged roster at the time.

[Jirah]

This may come as a shock to players who only main one job but other people might try your job if it were better.

This is exactly what we shouldn’t do, what your describing is essentially job homogenization. What you define as good, IE DNC with its 3 attacks and incredibly automatic support that only cureing waltz has any weight to its support. Isn’t gonna look good spread then to all the rangers. Yet another person barking about foes without explaining what made it good and not a single word on the bigger issues BRD in SHB had. Also really Ff11? Those skills are just names at this point and is a whole different beast compared to ff14 play style

[ExcogEnjoyer]

I’m starting to think foes is incredibly overrated as a lost action or you don’t know what your talking about and just repeating what others have said but less articulately. Foes didn’t break the job as much as I wanna see it return it doesn’t come close to flat out replacing the song rotation and all of its effects with the party and it’s gcds.

The thing is, Foe + Refresh was genuinely a fun combination because you could use them both in about 3 or so ways and they were all equally valid in their use. There's a fun interplay between Using refresh to extend Foe's duration and using it to make its cooldown tick faster, I really liked that. And giving bard a reason to use mana is fun, especially when it helps the party.

No your not a Bard main your a Scholar most of your comments in here show you don't understand nor care about the job you want it changed to your playstyle which sorry Bard Mains do not want that.

What a dumb statement. If you like current bard and think it embodies the Bard archetype, then you simply don't like what a Bard actually is, simply put.

[aveyond-dreams]

Was just about to respond but the above comment sums up my thoughts. Bard in FFXIV is...bizarre. At least back in the Foe Requiem days it felt like that song actually did something. Classes like Bard and Dancer are common support classes. There are a lot of good things happening over on Dancer that could also be applied to Bard in unique ways.

If "oh no homogenization!" is what it'll take to get more meaningful buffs and songs on Bard, so be it. Bard in FFXIV might be *unique* but that doesn't mean it's good. Save the ranger fantasy for another job in the future and give us some more music skills like Radiant Finale, and while they're at it that skill could also have its buff increased please.

[ExcogEnjoyer]

Everyone keeps bringing up Foes like its this ground breaking thing reducing enemy damage or its early form buffing team damage. Bard has a way to reduce enemies damage with troubador, and buffing damage you have battle voice and now the codas so I dont see the issue.

The issue is that Radiant Finale is nothing more than a divination rehash pity skill that square is slopping out because they can't bare to give bard an actually unique skill.

We need to keep in mind why SE removed Foes in the first place.

Because they wanted to make sure that dancer would be picked so they had to remove all the cool shit from Bard to make it look better in comparison.

[HappyHubris]

Unfortunately, BRD has drifted from an "active party support" class to an "incidental party support" class, which I think creates a lot of discontent. I don't choose to play my songs, so if I buff the party 1% damage or 100% it doesn't really register with me. Whereas the older songs were actively managed and felt like part of the class.

We do have battle voice and the new party damage buff, but those are on long cooldowns and conserved for burning phases.