Split Archer into Ranger Bard for 7.0

[Connor]

If people are playing Bard thinking it is partially a pet job and that this is causing them to lack a solid identity, then it's entirely in their own mind. Bard is not a pet job, and it's not conflicted. It manages things. Dots, procs, songs. It's like a captain being on top of all the different things it has to keep track of, which is quite a lot more than many other jobs, even ones in the same category.

I think you’ve misunderstood my post. I just referred to ‘Ranger’ as being a ‘pet’ job because it’s one often associated with forest animals in some way (like FFV’s Familiar). It’s also often associated with bows etc in general, hunting weaponry I guess. I’m not saying people expect literal Beastmaster; just that they see the bow and immediately associate it with Rangers/Hunters/Whatever you want to call them

The point I was making is that people go in expecting either a job that’s about archery and whatever ‘ranger/archer’ things are associated with that, or a ‘Bard’ and whatever ‘song / music’ related things are associated with those.

Personally, I don’t think anyone goes in to playing Bard expecting a physical magical warrior mage launching beams of malevolent darkness and radiant light, a sound based (?) arrow (?) blast, summoning sigils for almost every attack, and a random harp animation you do every 30-45 seconds.

And I mean surely what you describe is a Scholar? A tactician managing a group of soldiers, leading them to victory with its control of the battlefield? The whole point of Bards is that they started singing because they were too far away to do anything else besides shoot arrows lol, then they realized the songs had tangible effects. So they tried to create a Bard army only to find that the songs they sung didn’t mean anything since basically their party wasn’t wiping lol. Basically, a Bard’s songs got their power from the emotion of the singers. Bard’s identity is kind of predicated on it not being the ‘manager’ of the party, if anything, otherwise they’d go in and help the party, not get emotional about it.

Bard’s identity as a job is supposed to be centered around the emotional toll of back line fighters as they watch battles unfold (which somehow becomes a song that physically harms the target lol). But in my opinion they’ve forgotten about that and focused almost entirely on the archery aspects of the job, neglecting the ‘bard’ half of the job.

Splitting it in two is a fun idea to think about but it’s also literally impossible since they’d essentially be making two new jobs from scratch; I don’t mean it as a literal solution. To me discussing it is just a way to evidence the fact that Bard has a problem with balancing it’s identity between ‘Magic laser archer who totally uses normal physical arrows’ and ‘musician with Magic Songs that actually hurt people’. And it is possible for them to balance the two equally

[RitsukoSonoda]

Considering what happened to SMN, SCH, and MCH pets over time, we're never getting another pet class. Let alone taking a job with quests, NPCs, and promotional material that goes all the way back to ARR and redoing it for the sake of class fantasy.

What's described in the OP feels more like a beastmaster or a DnD ranger than a FF ranger anyway.


Bard got a short end of the stick being an extra tacked onto an archer class, but at the same time I don't think FFXI's style of ranger would work in FFXIV with how flashy everything else is. Remove the songs and all you have left is "shoot better" or "shoot different", so you'll just end up with the BRD we have now but with less going on. MCH rework gave it Edgar's gadgets from FFVI to prevent it from being monotonous and help save it from that problem.

If they do add another pet class it will probably be Beastmaster or Puppetmaster as a limited job just so they don't have to balance it with other jobs for normal content.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

Hear me out. This iteration of bard in 14 is unlike every other. They should make a ranger class for physical range dps and a bard class for the magical range dps.

The ranger can keep the bow and get all the archery skills and abilities and also a pet hawk wolf or bear or maybe all three built into their new gauge.

The bard can keep all the song abilities as well as get new ones and get a harp weapon along with the bard gauge system tweaked maybe but still good.

This would be amazing!

Cute....but no. And I dont mean that in a snarky way.
Your idea here would basically be another form of Arcanist: Summoner / Scholar.
And from what I understand they did not have a fun time balancing that. Plus also I dont think they will try to tackle another Pet Job. As neat as it could be. I just dont think this is in the cards. Not for FFXIV at least. Maybe Far iot the future...but definitely not now...maybe not in this game.

And bard being COMPLETELY reworked and overhauled into a Support would be...interesting.
Good ideas in mind, but might not translate as well as you image it.

[Luluya]

I think they just should expand on the bard-y part of bard as it seems to be toned down a lot in the higher levels in favour of more archer themed attacks, albeit more dramatic iterations than the ones they have while still labeled the 'archer' class. I was disappointed to find out their limit break 3 was simply an extravagant bow attack and not some 'ballad of destruction' or somesuch more akin to a bard.

Another thing that came to mind is the 'harpbows' only seem to be the first stages of the relic weapons, and they're the only weapons in my opinion that share both the bard and archer identity. Once the relic(s) is fully advanced it becomes a bow, though an admittedly much more elaborate one than most. For example the ARR relic weapon goes from a harpbow reminiscent of one used by a legendary bard to a bow used by a legendary archer. This particular case along with the overall theme of relics going from harpbows to bows seems in a way contrary to bard being the job that the archer class advances to, and is supposed to be an all around better version of.

[Amenara]

Rogue is what bothers me more, because once it becomes a Ninja it's just not the same to play. You go from just doing this combo that feels good to do, to doing all this ninjutsu stuff all the time and certain move animations resemble a Ninja more.

100% this, I really like the Rogue aesthetics and then all of a sudden you swap to a completely different aesthetic with no connection between them other than they dual wield.

[Heroman3003]

100% this, I really like the Rogue aesthetics and then all of a sudden you swap to a completely different aesthetic with no connection between them other than they dual wield.

You mean, just like Gladiator, Lancer, Arcanist and Archer do? More than half the starting jobs go a good tad wild with aesthetic development. I am among those that likes ideas of Archer, Arcanist and Lancer in their pre-upgrade aesthetics more, but its ultimately not unique to those. The jobs evolve based on weapons, not based on aesthetics and at this point in development, we're more likely to get a new job that uses similar weapon style than we are to ever do any grand rework to starting classes.

[SaitoHikari]

I actually like how Bard is in FFXIV, though they could bring more of the song stuff back. Stormblood Bard especially was probably the most fun I've ever had playing an archer in a MMO.

What I absolutely hate is archers having pet mechanics haphazardly stapled to them, because a lot of the time pet mechanics are implemented with a lot of jank getting in the way of actual gameplay, and the actual archery focus of the class also risks feeling half-assed as a consequence too. I want to be an actual expert archer, not someone with a bow hiding behind an animal.

[Amenara]

You mean, just like Gladiator, Lancer, Arcanist and Archer do? More than half the starting jobs go a good tad wild with aesthetic development. I am among those that likes ideas of Archer, Arcanist and Lancer in their pre-upgrade aesthetics more, but its ultimately not unique to those. The jobs evolve based on weapons, not based on aesthetics and at this point in development, we're more likely to get a new job that uses similar weapon style than we are to ever do any grand rework to starting classes.

Sure, I just miss the rogue aesthetic of a job.

[Silver-Strider]

It won't happen.
They've been trying to separate SCH/SMN since ARR and they don't want to deal with that headache again.

The most you can expect is maybe a job that uses a Crossbow or Dual Revolvers at this point.

[RitsukoSonoda]

It won't happen.
They've been trying to separate SCH/SMN since ARR and they don't want to deal with that headache again.

The most you can expect is maybe a job that uses a Crossbow or Dual Revolvers at this point.

Or they could separate bow types like they did with 1 handed swords and knives/daggers when they added Rogue and Ninja.