The Atrocious Changes to Bard in Endwalker and the future

[Easayia]

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Well I agree that aoeing mobs feels wierd at first give it more time. Now that I have finished the expansion with Bard I really feel like it plays much better and the whole no way to refresh all your dots when mobbing has kind of been adressed.

MB is not worse then armies Peon it still works the same and you still can dot up the mobs for extra damage I do it during the pulls still out of habbit from before. But what you should have been doing before with your AOE mobbing was dot up mobs then rain of death > quicknock repeating using shadowbite when its up to hit as many mobs that have the dots as possible and of course APEX arrow to help clear when you have enough charge. Now its basically the same just your Dots are now single target focus only and applying them is just extra damage instead but your combo remained the same rain of death > ladons bite ( new quick nock) occasionally ladons bite will trigger shadow bite when that happens you use shadowbite > rain of death > ladons bite. You also like you said can now use barrage to buff the shadowbite. Armies peon feels the same as before just spam ladons bite with occasional rain of death and on top of that now you have APex arrow into Blast arrow so even more clear. on top of that you could also use the codas 2% damage up buff and Battlevoice since that now also buffs the bard.

Bard has not really changed outside of the way we aoe being a bit different and the job now has more to work with. The main thing that happened to Bard is they simplified the dots to one location but the dots still have a purpose damage and a chance to proc refulgent arrow which you want happening. our burst window is now fully lined up with all our skills including the new ones and every time you do a rotation you have Battlevoice up again which it all just feels super good to play. Shadow Bringers Bard played almost identical just had less abilities to use in the burst window.

Now Bards opener is raging strikes >dot 1 > bloodletter > Wanders >dot 2 > Battlevoice > Coda (even if you have 1 charge this will be back up for the next burst window so just take the 2% ) > Refulgent ( if you got it) > Barrage > refulgent > apex arrow > sidewinder > Blast arrow >then you just use what you have available as you normally would and rotate between the songs using what you have available and making sure to refresh the dots towards the end of each song. Mages ballad is still just the same as before weaving between burst shot > bloodletter occasional refulgent and empyreal arrow. The only thing I do recommend now is during Peon save up your 3 bloodletters so you have them for the burst window. Wanders > raging strikes > refresh dots > Battlevoice > coda > same as before.

Bard is the same Job as it was before they just added to it and changed where the tick is but the % chance is high enough it feels the same.

[Easayia]

I wanted to post this as well new Bard also has the 80% proc chance at lower levels meaning ARR content feels way more enjoyable to play because you have bloodletter charges and mages Ballad is no different then later mages ballad it feels super nice.

[Kaedys]

To be honest, I'm a bit ambivalent about the changes. AoE still feels super busy even with the nerfed Mage's Ballad (and while the point of having 3 charges may have been lost with the removal of double-procs and full charges from procs, having charges period is still very useful for it). Overall, the rotation has similar flow as before, and I enjoy it. Longer songs also feels nice, though I wished they'd buffed Army's Paeon, there's no reason it should be so bad compared to the other two. Really, I'd like them to balance the songs overall. And make Pitch Perfect have like 40-50% AoE splash damage so it doesn't feel so awkward in AoE situations.

My biggest grievance is the change to Barrage. It looks like they tried to make it work like the new Acceleration for Red Mages, but it doesn't really. It amplifies the potency of Shadowbite, but doesn't grant you Shadowbite Ready. It does grant you Straight Shot Ready, however, which is awkward in AoE. Personally, I think they should just merge Shadowbite Ready and Straight Shot Ready. Both Heavy Shot/Burst Shot and Quick Knock/Ladensbite trigger a single new buff, which then can be used to cast either Straight Shot/Refulgent Arrow or Shadow Bite. Makes it work like the new Dancer procs, proced by both ST and AoE abilities and can be used on either one. It allows abilities like Barrage to make more sense (it causes your next Refulgent Arrow or Shadowbite to hit 3 times, and grants you the buff to cast either of them), and allows smoother flow between ST and AoE (or vice versa), so you're not, for example, sitting on a useless Shadowbite proc from quick AoE where the targets then die (ran into that this afternoon helping a friend in Don Mheg with the roots, we stacked, AoEed them twice, and I was left with a Shadowbite proc and nothing to AoE with it).

Also, why the heck does Bloodletter only do 10% more damage than Rain of Death? Single target abilities that share a CD with AoE abilities usually have a potency more than 2 and less than 3 times as much as the AoE (though physical DPS sometimes has then slightly less than 2, so they can AoE at 2 targets. For example, Ladensbite on 2 targets is 4 more potency than Heavy Shot). They need to boost the potency of Bloodletter, imo, to make it feel better to hit.

I'd also rather they explain how the song procs work better in the tooltip. It says "80% chance to proc" but it doesn't specify off what. From testing on a target dummy, it appears to be just a background chance every 3 seconds of the song, as I was getting it even while not attacking (including auto-attacks) on the target dummy. Works even while out of combat, as long as the song is active. Would it really be too much to change it to say "Every 3s, 80% chance to gain Repertoire"?

Lastly, while I do miss the absolute blitz of Rain of Death procs during Mage's Ballad in AoE, I will not miss, even slightly, tab-target DoTing and then trying to keep track of those DoTs and refreshing them during AoE. I'm very glad that's been removed.

[Easayia]

To be honest, I'm a bit ambivalent about the changes. AoE still feels super busy even with the nerfed Mage's Ballad (and while the point of having 3 charges may have been lost with the removal of double-procs and full charges from procs, having charges period is still very useful for it). Overall, the rotation has similar flow as before, and I enjoy it. Longer songs also feels nice, though I wished they'd buffed Army's Paeon, there's no reason it should be so bad compared to the other two. Really, I'd like them to balance the songs overall. And make Pitch Perfect have like 40-50% AoE splash damage so it doesn't feel so awkward in AoE situations.

My biggest grievance is the change to Barrage. It looks like they tried to make it work like the new Acceleration for Red Mages, but it doesn't really. It amplifies the potency of Shadowbite, but doesn't grant you Shadowbite Ready. It does grant you Straight Shot Ready, however, which is awkward in AoE. Personally, I think they should just merge Shadowbite Ready and Straight Shot Ready. Both Heavy Shot/Burst Shot and Quick Knock/Ladensbite trigger a single new buff, which then can be used to cast either Straight Shot/Refulgent Arrow or Shadow Bite. Makes it work like the new Dancer procs, proced by both ST and AoE abilities and can be used on either one. It allows abilities like Barrage to make more sense (it causes your next Refulgent Arrow or Shadowbite to hit 3 times, and grants you the buff to cast either of them), and allows smoother flow between ST and AoE (or vice versa), so you're not, for example, sitting on a useless Shadowbite proc from quick AoE where the targets then die (ran into that this afternoon helping a friend in Don Mheg with the roots, we stacked, AoEed them twice, and I was left with a Shadowbite proc and nothing to AoE with it).

Agree with everything here I like how you mention the shadowbite usage with Barrage is weird. I think that is a change we could have addressed maybe even this expansion still. Because I shouldnt have to look for when Shadowbite ready procced to then use barrage and use it it feels off.

[Shurrikhan]

Lastly, while I do miss the absolute blitz of Rain of Death procs during Mage's Ballad in AoE, I will not miss, even slightly, tab-target DoTing and then trying to keep track of those DoTs and refreshing them during AoE. I'm very glad that's been removed.

So, when do we get to track debuffs (that we, alone, have inflicted) via the enmity list (without having to rely on mods)?

Oh, wait, doesn't matter, because now that we've stripped the value of DoTs from Bard, they'll have the excuse to remove them next xpac. /sigh

[ExcMiddle]

[...]MB is not worse then armies Peon it still works the same and you still can dot up the mobs for extra damage I do it during the pulls still out of habbit from before. But what you should have been doing before with your AOE mobbing was dot up mobs [...]
Bard has not really changed outside of the way we aoe being a bit different and the job now has more to work with. [...]
Now Bards opener is [...] Mages ballad is still just the same as before weaving between burst shot > bloodletter occasional refulgent and empyreal arrow. The only thing I do recommend now is during Peon save up your 3 bloodletters so [...]
Bard is the same Job as it was before they just added to it and changed where the tick is but the % chance is high enough it feels the same.

A few clarifications:
I was referring to single target. Right now, Mages ballad is actually worse dps for single target situations than AP (full duration of each). And it makes sense with how it was nerfed. The charges only matter in the opener/reopener, (not quite true, you can hold onto 1.5-2 charges in MB for trick attack/ cards but that is a requirement) which yes it looks busy and yours is unlikely to be the one used. People are still discussing with other mains on when they would want each buff etc. Also you should open with WM first (since first proc is at 43 secs so might as well get that early. I cannot speak about proc alignment.) and on single target follow a song duration of 43 34 43 (on WM, MB, AP). (the tentative opener I have seen is SB> WM, RS > CB > EA, BL> GCD> BL/PP, BV> GCD > RF, BL/PP>...)
Is it bad to wish for MB (and AP) to be busy? To want the charges to have a proper reason to exist? To have a rotation that goes beyond the opener and reopener of it? You used to adjust to a lot of things for slight dps gains as bard and now it looks very much on rails.

On the dots: if they removed the dots on Summoner, they should do the same on brd. On healers, the dot is a movement tool, on samurai, it is a timer for your rotation. On bard you have 3 buttons that don't offer anything in terms of gameplay right now. You either remove them or you have them be useful in some way. These are just half measures but I don't know what their plans are and how they treat the X.0 releases in terms of what they change.

I do understand that there is obscurity in the dot mechanic, tracking who are dotted and when they proc but you know, they could instead fix it via UI adjustments (debuffs on enmity list, proper debuff listing on focus target, an element to track when the dmg will be dealt on a given enemy.

Finally, I do agree that lower level content is way better now but they could have achieved that with changing the proc rate on the dots as well. Either way, it shows that they want to improve on the leveling experience of the job and it's less of a testament to the current proc itteration.

[Besame]

Why do they always have to screw up Bard??????

[Easayia]

They didnt screw up Bard They just changed where the ticking is at for the proccs the job plays almost identical to before other then having a lot of QOL changes that improved the rotation greatly with 2 new skills to boot. and early content is much more enjoyable because you get the same proc chance as late game which is just super nice.

[Easayia]

A few clarifications:
I was referring to single target. Right now, Mages ballad is actually worse dps for single target situations than AP (full duration of each). And it makes sense with how it was nerfed.

Even single target it would make no sense why your mages ballad is weaker then Peon. I weave bloodletter burst shot the same as before where in peon you can only fire off basically whats off cooldown thats not skills you want in your reopener/ opener. There is no way Peon that is only giving you the haste as a song is making you do more then in Mages unless numbers are not tuned right currently.

[anhaato]

At no point was any brd player begging to have our dots be made useless. The fact that we were a true dot job was our identity and DID attract people to play it, because there are people who enjoy dot jobs in other games and this was the only one we had. On top of that, people enjoyed the active playstyle that had you pressing a lot of buttons, but now that our max potential procs has been severely reduced it's consistent, sure, but it's so slow. We had our niche as the high apm job out of the ranged as well as the only true dot job in the game, and they wanted to ruin both of those, why? If this is what we get in exchange for getting our own song buffs then I don't want it!