The Atrocious Changes to Bard in Endwalker and the future

[Kahnom]

I hope Endwalker is the last expansion that they nerfed the job down.
I mean our levels are close to 100 now.
It's time for more advanced gameplays.

[Reimmi]

Do we even know for sure if dots dont proc repertoire? maybe they increased the chance to 80% and we'll be getting that on both dot ticks still, which would explain the massive nerf for bloodletter procs in ballad
I dunno i'm willing to wait and see before throwing my hands up in the air- but if i'm wrong, yeah the changes to dots are really bad.

[Shurrikhan]

I hope Endwalker is the last expansion that they nerfed the job down.
I mean our levels are close to 100 now.
It's time for more advanced gameplays.

Wait, jobs were supposed to get more complex as levels increase?!

*Looks at the Heavensward kit.*
*Looks at Endwalker's.*

...Make this make sense, please.

[Platinumstorm]

I have played Bard since 1.0 as my main. This is the worst bard has ever been. It went from being smooth with flow, and some excitement, to a really clunky AOE based rotation that doesn't even feel good in the first place. I don't really care about damage, I care about how it feels and how the skills interact with each other. Bloodletter feels horrific with the half charge, I feel like I have to save it up for Radiant Finale, which is a cool move that doesn't last long enough to discharge all banked moves. Sidewinder feels terrible now without interaction. Wind and Venomous bite are useless during the majority of dungeons and encounters now, where previously it was fun to balance them with your songs.

I am strongly considering changing classes because of how much I dislike this.

[Easayia]

I have played Bard since 1.0 as my main. This is the worst bard has ever been. It went from being smooth with flow, and some excitement, to a really clunky AOE based rotation that doesn't even feel good in the first place. I don't really care about damage, I care about how it feels and how the skills interact with each other. Bloodletter feels horrific with the half charge, I feel like I have to save it up for Radiant Finale, which is a cool move that doesn't last long enough to discharge all banked moves. Sidewinder feels terrible now without interaction. Wind and Venomous bite are useless during the majority of dungeons and encounters now, where previously it was fun to balance them with your songs.

I am strongly considering changing classes because of how much I dislike this.

The AOE rotation is only clunky because of 2 things:

1. bloodletter/rain of death doesnt completely reset on a proc from the song

2. barrage doesn't immediately give you shadowbite the rng for this one makes it feel bad its fine if it has RNG just it shouldnt be RNG then barrage then shadowbite.....

overall I think what they are going for is better then the old rotation it just needs tweaks. Because now our rotation is 3 main skills instead of 2 and on top of that we have apex into a blast arrow.

I agree with bloodletter not fully resetting and its not mages I have an issue with at all as after each burst shot I basically always have a bloodletter. Its the longer Armies Paeon that feels bad because I feel the need to have to only use refulgent and emperial in order ot have the 3 starting bloodletter charges for my burst window so I have constant weaving.

Other then that though Bard plays the same its burst window now has more to it because of radiant and blast, and I like that the song continues to fill up soul gage even when the boss is doing something where you cannot target them. That is huge everything now lines up with our burst window. Saying Shadowbringers Bard is better I cant agree with even with the annoyances the fact everything lines up and the job is basically the same outside of AP being less busy it feels sooooo good to enter your burst window now even more so then before.

The dots are now single target only and I think that was a good move. While dotting all the mobs during a pull wasnt impossible to say it was a bit rediculous would be an understatement on top of that we never had a way to refresh all the dots at once durring very big pulls tabbing to each mob to use Iron jaws is not ideal. Rest of the jobs do the same as new bard in terms of what you do durring a pull its called you spam damage on the mobs as they move much simpler.

[Rika007]

I have played Bard since 1.0 as my main. This is the worst bard has ever been. It went from being smooth with flow, and some excitement, to a really clunky AOE based rotation that doesn't even feel good in the first place. I don't really care about damage, I care about how it feels and how the skills interact with each other. Bloodletter feels horrific with the half charge, I feel like I have to save it up for Radiant Finale, which is a cool move that doesn't last long enough to discharge all banked moves. Sidewinder feels terrible now without interaction. Wind and Venomous bite are useless during the majority of dungeons and encounters now, where previously it was fun to balance them with your songs.

I am strongly considering changing classes because of how much I dislike this.

Technically Bard didn't exist in 1.0 it only came later in the 1.x patches. Now that I got the snark out of the way I will counterbuff by saying that as a Bard since 2.0 main, the only time Bard has ever felt better then this was Stormblood. ARR bard was bland and frustrating, Heavensward Bard was just plain frustrating, and Shadowbringers Bard was easily the job at it's most braindead. I have no issue fitting every single bit of our abilities into our Radiant burst window, all 3 blood letters, Apex and Burst, Sidewinder, each and every buff and barrage refulgent. And thank got it's a heavy burst section, as I forgot the excitement of a well executed reopener after the tedium snore that was Shadowbringers bard. Blood letter only ever needs to be banked once you enter army's paeon, every other moment you can literally let it fly. And while Sidewinder yes does feel terrible without interaction, Sidewinder hasn't felt good or impactful since Heavensward, it's been a mediocre cooldown since day one.

Is there things I'd change? Yes. Army's Muse still sucks. Sidewinder I'd kick down to 30 second cooldown. I'd get full reset charges on Blood letter back. The class is by no means perfect and doesn't come close to the dream that was 4.0 Bard. But the pros massively outweigh the losses and I will take this Bard every day over the atrocity that was Shadowbringers Bard.

[Easayia]

Technically Bard didn't exist in 1.0 it only came later in the 1.x patches. Now that I got the snark out of the way I will counterbuff by saying that as a Bard since 2.0 main, the only time Bard has ever felt better then this was Stormblood. ARR bard was bland and frustrating, Heavensward Bard was just plain frustrating, and Shadowbringers Bard was easily the job at it's most braindead. I have no issue fitting every single bit of our abilities into our Radiant burst window, all 3 blood letters, Apex and Burst, Sidewinder, each and every buff and barrage refulgent. And thank got it's a heavy burst section, as I forgot the excitement of a well executed reopener after the tedium snore that was Shadowbringers bard. Blood letter only ever needs to be banked once you enter army's paeon, every other moment you can literally let it fly. And while Sidewinder yes does feel terrible without interaction, Sidewinder hasn't felt good or impactful since Heavensward, it's been a mediocre cooldown since day one.

Is there things I'd change? Yes. Army's Muse still sucks. Sidewinder I'd kick down to 30 second cooldown. I'd get full reset charges on Blood letter back. The class is by no means perfect and doesn't come close to the dream that was 4.0 Bard. But the pros massively outweigh the losses and I will take this Bard every day over the atrocity that was Shadowbringers Bard.

Yep current Bard while not perfect like you said needs bloodletter to completely reset. Additionally let barrage activate shadowbite its the same old issue refulgent had but now with our AOE rotation. Ive been doing the same thing as you stock up on Bloodletter charges durring armies peon and as a result you have so much weaving of skills durring that burst window which I also 100% can fit all the skills into the 15seconds of Finale.

[Mapleine]

Wait, jobs were supposed to get more complex as levels increase?!

*Looks at the Heavensward kit.*
*Looks at Endwalker's.*

...Make this make sense, please.

Heavensward was pure, unadalterated clunk. It is exactly what MMOs have abandoned ship from and that is the right choice 100% of the time. It had negative complexity, what it had was clunk and punishment to cover it up, same as every other MMO using design from the aughts.

What they did was take away that clunk, make the jobs slow smooth and they moved the complexity onto encounter design. Exactly the right call for the game to survive and grow.

I mean look at what happened to SMN. They had 3 dots. Then they had 2. Reduced the amount of dot interactions they had & now the dots are removed.
I hope that's not the case with BRD but idk why SE seems to hate dots.

Prob coz under a snapshot system they're almost mindless. Little about them matter outside of weird personal hangups. I'd be cool with an inspired decay job in the futur but classical-styled DoTs don't really do anything other than giving you a chore and yeah, those of us who don't relate to the desire for that chore are usually confused.

[Rhais]

What they did was take away that clunk, make the jobs slow smooth and they moved the complexity onto encounter design.

I see this claim made occasionally, but where is the evidence of it? How has encounter design increased in complexity since HW?

[Shurrikhan]

Heavensward was pure, unadalterated clunk.

It had clunk, but it was far from limited thereto. None of it required that performance loss from Ranged utility turn from a player option into a role-based tax (upon that utility having been turned from damage-costing songs to free oGCDs) nor the eventual removal of Ranged support as anything but parse-complicators (DPS moved from one player to another and back again in accounting for rDPS).

It is exactly what MMOs have abandoned ship from and that is the right choice 100% of the time.

*Looks at WoW. And also at DRK, MCH, etc.*

It had negative complexity, what it had was clunk and punishment to cover it up, same as every other MMO using design from the aughts.

Negative complexity is when various small, obfuscating elements reduce the actual depth and breadth of decision-making available to a player.

For complexity to be "negative", the element's (whether that be a skill, an additional effect therein, or even an obscure interaction between skills) removal must result in increased decision-making available. Every version of every job has had some of this, but HW Bard was by no means limited to negative complexity.

What they did was take away that clunk, make the jobs slow smooth and they moved the complexity onto encounter design. Exactly the right call for the game to survive and grow.

At no point has encounter design increased in complexity as a result of decreased kit complexity. Nor has every job been made smoother as a result of those allegedly streamlining changes. See Anatman openers in Shadowbringers, for instance.
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The rest of what you've quoted is not mine, so I will leave that to whomever you took that from.