Bard's big list of problems

[HappyHubris]

Square doesn't trust FFXIV's playerbase to maintain DoTs and has done nothing with the UI to enable their tracking. Instead of improving the UI and accepting that some players won't play optimally, they dumbed down design.

[Cetonis]

Why they would ever consider changing the class over AoE considerations is beyond me, AoE has such miniscule uses, for any class, it's mainly only for trash pulls.

It's possible that it's the other way around - if SE's been permanently worried about job balance in AoE scenarios, they can't make it a significant part of Savage.

There's plenty of design space for multi-enemy fights, boss+add scenarios where the add lives a long time, zoo mechanics etc. (think of the Alexander raids from a time before they designed so cautiously) But if SE thinks the jobs will be grossly imbalanced for such content, they can't make it. So even if they ultimately end up not doing much with it, I wouldn't fault them if they just want that door to be open.

[Aurikai]

It's possible that it's the other way around - if SE's been permanently worried about job balance in AoE scenarios, they can't make it a significant part of Savage.

There's plenty of design space for multi-enemy fights, boss+add scenarios where the add lives a long time, zoo mechanics etc. (think of the Alexander raids from a time before they designed so cautiously) But if SE thinks the jobs will be grossly imbalanced for such content, they can't make it. So even if they ultimately end up not doing much with it, I wouldn't fault them if they just want that door to be open.

I've never heard of a game tuning classes to meet future boss requirements, not all classes will excel on every boss fight, that's always a given. There are no mythic dungeons in this game, and dungeons far and away have the most AoE. AoE is also generally very boring and there's no dynamics to it, at least in this game.

[ExcMiddle]

I've never heard of a game tuning classes to meet future boss requirements, not all classes will excel on every boss fight, that's always a given. There are no mythic dungeons in this game, and dungeons far and away have the most AoE. AoE is also generally very boring and there's no dynamics to it, at least in this game.

Sqenix has not tuned bosses after the fact for anything. Twintania still calculates her dive spawn and direction poorly, Garuda in UWU still can have her awakening skipped for later even though that was not intended. They aren't going to add much multi targeting if a job can just dominate there and adjust that after the fact. They also want viability of all jobs, at least in the minds of players so that there is no toxicity in party finder and preventing others from picking the job they want to play. Yes, they don't care about dungeon performance much at all, they do care about raids and ultimates and if they want this design space open, I can understand the wish to reduce the scaling that bard has in its aoe.

I do miss the gameplay in two target dotting with the targets having spawned at different instances, so if they are going this direction, I hope that at the very least they try to allow for this feeling to be captured.

[Cetonis]

Added a point about the aforementioned song flexibility; partly because I have a wild pet idea for a fix - now that they're going to be close in strength one way or the other, making MB/AP 80s cooldowns (with 45s duration) would have a massive laundry list of benefits to this kit~

[Cetonis]

This is more in the lines of a 6.1 kind of changeset, but just been doing some thinking about what might be both realistic and good.

Still, it's kind of way more changes than SE would ever actually make probably? But whatevs, figured I may as well post it up here:



:: Songs no longer have a target, no longer do damage, and can only be used in combat

This would resolve the song flexibility issue for the vast majority of downtime cases, barring ill-timed stuns or cutscenes. It'd do nothing about deaths, but I don't see a solution there that feels like SE would do it.

It would make it tricky to first-weave WM in the opener, but if it's bad enough, swapping RS-WM isn't much of a problem provided MB is buffed.



:: Radiant Finale has a 15s cooldown, grants 3/6/9%, and Battle Voice simply becomes a lower level version of it granting 2/4/6.

Cleans up the obvious redundancy, while culling Bard's dps ceiling potential in a couple ways. At the same time, the flexibility would make it less painful to have an i.e. 7:40 kill time.



:: Raging Strikes cooldown reduced to 60s

With the nerf to party buffs, there'd be space to do things like this. We'd have a DoT refresh, Apex+Blast, Sidewinder and stored Bloodletters (and perhaps a reworked Iron Jaws) to fit into a Mage's Raging window, which would be a nice lesser-burst to break up the general snooziness of MB & AP.



:: +30p to Bloodletter, +1% to the buff granted by Army's Paeon stacks, -10p to Burst Shot

Makes Mage's Ballad better than Army's Paeon as desired, but opts to make AP a bit faster also. This could easily just be +40p BL and -10p BS, it's similar in value.



:: Blast Arrow buff timer to 30 seconds

I don't think this actually changes the math on Apex usage in full uptime scenarios (in most cases), but it'd help make things more workable in messier scenarios or end of fight stuff.



:: Stormbite removed. Caustic Bite DoT potency changed to 40.

This is happening sooner or later, potency could be less if needed of course.



:: Iron Jaws reworked into ????

My pet idea here is to make it into a reverse Life Surge - a 40s GCD with 2 charges that makes your next damaging ability auto-crit.

But it could be all sort of stuff, really. For some reason the idea of a combo off of Caustic Bite is stuck in my head, but Barrage makes that kind of impossible without some creativity.



:: Straighter Shot and Shadowbite Ready combined into one Enhanced Arrow proc that both Refulgent and Shadowbite can expend.

Obviously needs to happen.



:: Shadowbite increased to an 8y radius

Probably unlikely actually, especially in a patch, but I'll dream. It's really annoying to have a 12y cone -> 5y target radius combo.



:: Shadowbite adds 10 Soul Gauge

Not going to make a big difference, but I assume SE wouldn't actually do any huge increases to AoE output. Still hoping we can at least get this tiny bit more Apex.

[taksqth]

+1 I like all changes proposed

[KokoroScarletArrow]

I know you was saying to try to avoid the Bard DoT proc conversation. I feel like in Bard's current state they could just move the DoTs into proc-ing your BL/RoD cd outside of Mage's Ballad. This would increase dps in and out of Mage's Ballad would it not? Make the DoTs a lower proc chance than Mage's Ballad maybe somewhere in the 20 to 40 range. Inside of your Mage's Ballad window it would be possible to have 3 procs at the same time which would increase damage inside that time frame. I also personally would like to see Iron Jaws move to a OGCD ability.

I do agree with the changes proposed in this forum too. Seeing songs move to a untargeted, damage free, only in combat skills ability would help alot in downtime and Shadowbite/Refulgent Arrow becoming a shared proc would help a lot as well.

[Connor]

Personally all I want is for Minne and Paean to be considered because they’re not very useful compared to what any other ‘support-flavour dps’ has (e.g Dancer / Red Mage / Summoner, hell even Reaper has better ways to support the healer lol). The damage boost stuff is all fine, but I feel like Bard’s defensive support songs are too weak.

Healing boost from Minne is on too long a cool-down for the effect; healers aren’t generally struggling with heal requirements in the first place, and if they’re struggling that much chances are they need more help than a 20% boost to their healing on one person every 90 seconds. Even if you manage to throw it on a someone after they mess up a mechanic the healer will have them at full HP before you can even give anyone the buff lol.

Esuna is far too niche usage for any dps to be having to devote a skill slot for lol. Status ailments are infrequent, rarely lethal (except when they’re completely fatal lol), and generally affect more than one party member. If they’re not lethal, a healer isn’t normally going to bother using Esuna at all, so why would a Bard? I’m sure there are better ways to use my weaving spaces lol. If it is lethal, you’d better hope only one person was affected because of Paean’s 45s cool-down.

Some suggestion for changes:
1. Go the lazy route and make them Dancer heal equivalents for single target. Minne could restore HP to target, Paean could be regen or HP shield.
2. Give them charges to make them more readily available in emergencies (which I guess is when the developers think we’d use them lol)
3. Go all in and put them on the GCD. Upside would be always available when needed, but obviously the dps loss would be such a huge loss that this would probably kill the skills more than anything lol
4. Pull a complete 180 and delete them to replace them with DPS abilities that are appropriate to what they want the job to be this expansion (pure dps? Support dps? AoE DPS? ). Some initial thoughts include the fabled Bard Bane and maybe something that interacts with DoTs to give them more value.

And of course in terms of dps kit everyone else has outlined the issues better than I have. Personally, I’m not a fan of having to stock up Bloodletter during Army’s Paeon. I still do it obviously because dps gain but still lol, it feels weird and counterintuitive when you’re coming right out of a song whose entire purpose is to make you hit Bloodletter (or Rain of Death) more

[Burningskull]

I wouldn't say they are problems but I do have a few nitpicks.

DoTs may as well just upgrade into your songs at this point. Meaning each song puts a 45s DoT on the target in addition to what they do now. DoTs wouldn't stack of course to prevent people just spamming all their songs. This would remove the need for Iron Jaws.

Now that Sidewinder doesn't get bonus damage off of DoTs it may as well just be an upgrade to Bloodspiller.

I feel like with how songs proc now Pitch Perfect should have a 100 potency AoE on top of what it does now to feel like Wanderer's Minuet has a reason to be used during AoE phases.

The level 90 ability seems underwhelming. It's a 6% damage buff for 15s. That's 1% more than DNC's Tech Step but 5 secs shorter... not really sure how that averages out but since it doesn't do damage it might as well have just been an upgrade to Soul Voice. I think it should do damage as well as what it does now especially if it's kept separate.

I think Empyreal Arrow should turn into Pitch Perfect when available.

Barrage should trigger Shadowbite Ready.