Bard's big list of problems

[Jirah]

My suggestions are as follows for BRD kit as of now without any additions which may or may not be good.

1.) Turn Radiant finale into a trait that evolves Battle voice
First off button Bloat is a urgent thing for BRD compared to its lesser cousins, but pressing 4 buffs is abit unneeded, of course spread potency with the loss of a buff to compensate but this should be a no brainer. Have it evolve similar to how Heart of stone evolves.

2.) Reset BL completely rather than partially
Hated MCH when it pulled this crap, and just because it makes more sense due to ballad doesn’t mean it’s any less tedious and jarring

3) Have Barrage proc shadowbite, no brainer really

4.)Have Shadowbite give Rep stacks
This would have you do Apex much more often and turn Rain and EA into its own small rotation during pulls, or another option for rep increasing is simply have BV or RF increase rep?

5.)Give Blast Arrow a lot more leeway
30s looked a lot more fruitful than the strict as hell 10s mark. Especially since during mages I always find myself capping out and bleeding rep before Wm is even ready.

6.)Rework Dots, don’t Remove them!
Preaching to the choir but if they keep dots in the next big expansion this will be the first time since 3.55 where they reworked a job without cutting mechanics. As I’ve played the job I don’t mind the absence but I would definitely mind the job shrinking as a result.

I have quite a few ideas some abit too big for the infamous Spaghetti code, and would go off topic abit

[Jirah]

snip

This doesn’t get talked about nearly as much as it should. DNC waltz is the most organic buff it gets, not needed or automatic but greatly appreciated and Improv is a nice touch aswell

BRD has the most boring ones for one nothing raid wide (aside from troubadour and it’s DPS relies on the other 5 songs so it’s automatic) and two the CD are atrocious. When Wardens is useful (as rare as it is) the 45s CD is just laughable.

For buffs bard should either get this:
Minne NEEDS charges, great buff but CD is so bloody long it ends up being a drag

Warden’s needs its CD shrunk drastically, or have its effect completely reworked due to the absence of fatal aliments

To add to them, BRD should get some sort of heal potency song to complement Minne like a shield regen or straight out heal, almost like a off beat rotation, maybe even go further by costing Soul or something and being off the gcd.

For the burly 45s CD warden should do more than esuna, it should also increase defense when it’s not being used as a esuna shield, probably would need its CD to be adjusted as I just pitched Protect, but it desperately needs other functions

[Shurrikhan]

Wishlist after playing around with it a while at 90:

• Straight Shot Ready and Shadowbite Ready consolidated into Fervent Quiver procs, which can stack up to twice. Barrage therefore procs a Fervent Quiver stack, which can be spent towards either Refulgent or Shadowbite as one sees fit.
• Raging Strikes replaced by Hawk's Eye, which has a 15-second duration and a 1-minute cooldown.
• Barrage now has two charges, each on a 1-minute cooldown. It now instead duplicates your most recent weaponskill as an oGCD. (This has the same free potency over time but is also more flexible compared to the +2x strikes on a 2-minute CD.)
• Bloodletter potency increased slightly (e.g., from 110 to 130), to make it feel worth having on one's bars vs. the only 10-potency-lower Rain of Death. Perfect Pitch likewise increased slightly in potency.
• Iron Jaws removed (it's bloat that just halves the frequency of any GCDs outside of BS/RA filler in an already spammy job); DoT duration reduced to 24 seconds; DoT potencies increased again, paying off in, say, (nominally) 2 and 2.6 ticks, respectively, down from 4.5 and 5.6 ticks (~13.5 and 16.8 seconds). (At present values, that would be a 160 direct and 40 periodic potency Caustic Bite and a 110 direct and 50 periodic potency Stormbite.)
  
  
• An optional job UI graphic now tracks stacks of Called Shot (Bloodletter/Rain of Death) and Fervent Quiver (Straight Shot/Refulgent Arrow/Shadowbite).
• Nature's Minne cooldown reduced to 45 seconds and duration reduced to 6 seconds. Nature's Minne and Warden's Paeon now share 2 charges. In place of Enhanced Bloodletter, Bard instead gains Warding Voice, which causes Nature's Minne to heal for 300 potency per tick over 6 seconds and for Warden's Paeon to generate a shield equal to 300 potency of healing.
• Army's Paeon party bonus increased from 3% to 4% Direct Hit bonus to better mirror MB's 1% damage increase and WM's 2% crit rate bonus.
• Battle Voice switches effects with DRG's Battle Litany, taking on a crit buff instead of its direct hit buff. As the more defensive of the two, BRD gets the skill that can also affect healing, while DRG does not.
• Radiant Finale cooldown reduced to 90 seconds. Song cooldowns reduced to 110 seconds. Radiant Finale is now an upgrade for Battle Voice, starting at 8% increased Critical Hit rate and adding a further 4% per Coda. (In practice, because a song must be active to use Battle Voice, it has a minimum of 12% increased Critical Hit Rate, still a buff over the earlier 10%. BV+RF combined (now one button) can therefore manage up to a 10% damage buff every 2 minutes, up from a 9% [20% chance of a 25% damage increase, totaling 5%, + a 6% damage increase], a slight buff atop also now affecting healing.
• Apex Arrow minimum potency increased from 100 to 240 (roughly equal to Burst Shot when accounting for RA procs). Maximum potency increased from 500 to 560 (4 added potency per soul gauge consumed above the minimum). Blast Arrow now simply duplicates Apex Arrow's damage. The increase to minimum potency improves Apex Arrow's flexibility prior to level 86 and the increase to maximum reduces the potency cost of holding Apex Arrow (on account of additional Blast Arrows otherwise afforded), again slightly increasing flexibility.

[Rika007]

Want to bump this back up with the devs talking about 6.08 rebalancing and wanting to make sure Bard doesnt get hit with the same adjustment that just turns out into a net nerf it took in Shadowbringers while everything else around it was buffed. With Yoshi-P stating that Reaper is right where they imagine it and they dont really want to nerf it, we are about to probably see across the board buffs to many jobs in the game.

While I don't agree with the idea that Ranged DPS should be low throughout, even with that thinking staying the same, we have to assume that MCH and DNC are getting buffed. DNC for sure we know are based off Yoshi-P's comments. With that in mind there is rumblings that Bard is overtuned and may need a nerfing. For the love of the 12 the job does not need to be nerfed. At most the only thing the job needs is a slight buff to Mage's Ballad so that we can get back to our preferred song rotation. If anything please balance the ranged job around Bard like you are around Reaper. Machinist NEEDS to be higher then Bard. This is not up for debate. Dancer and Bard should be neck and neck, maybe Dancer just a hair behind due to it's offensive and defensive suite of skills being just a tad bit stronger then Bard.

Just give Bard enough of a potency buff or Bloodletter reset's back to make Mage's Ballad better then AP again and rebalance the ranged role around that PLEASE. We can wait on all the other Bard requests after that. Don't knee cap the job for once.

[Neflarion]

pressing 4 buffs is abit unneeded

arguably 5 if you include the song at the start of the fight or as everything is coming off CD, but either way this is so true.

Having to press Wander's Minuet (song I start the fight with and thus the song that is coming off CD as all the other things are), Barrage, Raging Strikes, Battle Voice, and Radiant Finale is kind of ridiculous. I would go a step farther though.

I would roll Radiant Finale into Battle Voice and I'd roll Barrage into Raging Strikes. That cuts 4 buttons down into 2 buttons.

As far as the DoTs go, at this point I'd either remove them or give BRDs away to spread them like SUM used to be able to do. If I had to chose though, I'd just get rid of them as they don't really serve a purpose any more other than giving BRDs another thing to manage.

[Cetonis]

I think one possibility is that, instead of buffing Mage's, SE looks for a way to make Army's a touch more interesting in i.e. a 6.1. After all, the reason we dislike AP > MB is because AP is lame. It's not like MB is awesome or anything, it's just a nicer filler phase compared to AP being an incredibly boring one.

Everyone expects one of the DoTs to go away sooner or later, so that leaves Iron Jaws as a blank slate that could become a skill that's related to Army's in some way. Tons of different things they could do there.

[ExcMiddle]

Another thing they could do is make a muse version of each song which would extend its duration onto the next song. Hell, even make the procs exist for it alone and tick based on that song's tick timer. Probably not a 6.1. idea, considering it sounds like a ui nightmare, but what would you guys think if that was a non-issue?

[_Shadowsong_]

I hope the devs listen and fix bard, all ranged seem broken this expansion?

[Shurrikhan]

I think one possibility is that, instead of buffing Mage's, SE looks for a way to make Army's a touch more interesting in i.e. a 6.1. After all, the reason we dislike AP > MB is because AP is lame. It's not like MB is awesome or anything, it's just a nicer filler phase compared to AP being an incredibly boring one.

16% haste and "have more Bloodletters" feel about equally 'okay'/'meh' to me. MB was the more interesting when we actually had to occasionally clip the GCD to force out reset Bloodletters before a Quick Nock or delay Empyreal to after the server DoT tick, etc., but now that BL/RoD has three charges... honestly, AP may be the more interesting.

That said, any spitball ideas as to how a vague Haste-related theme or a coordinated army motif might amount to something more interesting?

[Connor]

Speaking of AP, I remember when it first came out (the SB version we have now lol) there was some miswording in Paeon’s description that claimed it’s haste effect would also affect other party members. Maybe if they did something like that with it? Idk like proc gives X haste% to nearby party members with X being dependant on the number of proc stacks. Or a buff ability that’s only available during Paeon and consumes procs? Tbh I’d like to see an ability like Troubadour in Stormblood when it granted a different buff depending on the song, but that’s another topic lol

Or what if Paeon increased the proc rate of Refulgent / Shadowbite? Not very exciting but it does kinda match the whole ‘advancing army’ theme of the song (kinda lol). But then if songs are supposed to be about what they actually do, how in the world do we explain how a song about mages of Eld and their healing feats translates into an Archer having more opportunities to shoot blood-spilling arrows at the enemy. So anything is possible really, though I do think it’d be really cool if the songs’ procs related to the song in some way.

Last thought but prior to Stormblood Army’s Paeon was used to restore TP to physical based jobs and most often saw use in heavy aoe situations (or you were in a party full of melee and they all died but then you’d probably be singing Ballad for MP lol). Maybe they could return that theme of ‘keeps you AoEing longer’ and have it increase the potency of Ladonsbite and proc rate of Shadowbite. Ladonsbite could go up to 220 and match Burst Arrow to change up our filler move, and each proc of Army’s Paeon could maybe proc Shadowbite. Alternatively they could make it so using Shadowbite also leaves a DoT effect on all enemies during Paeon or something? Tbh though this would probably make Bard waaaaay too strong in multi-target encounters lol