Condensing Bard with Morphing Buttons

[Tulzscha]

Why people would want to remove gameplay from a game I'll never understand.

Burst Shot becoming Refulgent Arrow and Ladonsbite becoming Shadowbite.

There's zero reason for each job's primary combo (or in the case of some two or more combos) to take up so many spaces on our hot bars.

The point is having to pay attention which makes for engaging gameplay. With Bard that gameplay is having a short amount of time to react and hit a different button, with 123 combos it's remembering your place in the sequence after diverting to do something else or making sure to finish the combo first. Whether you find that gameplay fun or not is a different matter ofc, some do others do not. I'm not a fan of proc jobs but I'd much rather have either of those options over spamming one button without thought.

There's no situation where you want to spend Barrage on anything but the exact weaponskill it activates on use.

AoE. It buffs Shadowbite.

The Wanderer's Minuet and Perfect Pitch shouldn't be two buttons. TWM should just turn into Perfect Pitch on cast, and turn back when the song runs out.

Ehh it could, I think it would be weird but it wouldn't hurt anything. I'd probably end up putting the same skill in two places on my bars lol.

But if we really wanna talk about button bloat lets remove some of the more useless abilities. Peloton, all 3 Graze abilities, Warden's Paean (as much as I'd love a rework, we're on 3 expansions of it being useless now). There are plenty of things we could cull from Bard without looking at the primary rotation abilities first.

Noooo ;( ok yeah most of those are useless but I'd rather have the devs give them purpose than take them away, if that's even possible. Peloton is useful though.

[Shurrikhan]

Why people would want to remove gameplay from a game I'll never understand.

Some of these suggestions do not, however, remove gameplay to nearly the extent that they improve QoL. For instance, at present, there is never a time in which it's worth wasting a Refulgent proc to hold Refulgent for one further GCD. No matter how much complexity you may desire, that is a painfully underdesigned mechanic.

The question simply becomes whether we want it primarily just for visual variance, in which it makes sense for the button to morph, or if we want to actually make use of that mechanic for further optimizations, in which case it at least needs a viable way to be held (such as a second stack).

Merely answering "Did I hear the chime?" / "Has my other button lit up?" is hardly compelling gameplay on which to spend half one's filler single-target buttons.

Ehh it could, I think it would be weird but it wouldn't hurt anything. I'd probably end up putting the same skill in two places on my bars lol.

Same, honestly. It'd be awkward placing a song (solely) in a position that'd require as much ease of reach as Bloodletter, instead of near WM and AP.

Noooo ;( ok yeah most of those are useless but I'd rather have the devs give them purpose than take them away, if that's even possible. Peloton is useful though.

If I were to get rid of any of them, I'd actually prefer to get rid of Peloton, in favor of just providing a stacking Swift aura out of combat. Though it's the most often used of those utility skills, it's the only one that has zero need for an active button-press.

Finally, Minne and Paean need buffs, not removal. We should have some meaningful point-support.

[SailorCeti]

After playing my Dragoon to 80 and picking up Reaper, I agree. If there's a button that activates something else, and isn't useful until the other thing is used, then by all means, morph the dang button. It isn't as if they'd be getting rid of an ability, only saving space on the bar.