Inevitable Job Simplifications?

[tearagion]

"Bow Mage" was one of, if not the, worst implementations of BRD in all of FFXIV's history.

nah, EW is easily the worst iteration of bard, it's like they specifically designed it to piss off anyone who liked bard at any point before. Like DoT? Fuck you they're bad, don't interact with anything when they used to be core to Repertoire and before that always had a chance to reset BL cd, and have 45s fucking timers making upkeep a joke and sleep-inducing. Like songs? Fuck you they're boring, Army's is better than Mage's, Army's muse exists, Battle Voice and Radiant Finale are flavourless 2mins, nothing costs mana or takes thought, 3s Repertoire ticks makes song duration locked and leaves 2 useless seconds at the end of every song, and you need a fucking target to sing a song. Like Procs? These are some of the most boring in the game, only PP has any thinking involved and it's a low bar. Like casting as a phys ranged? Better pray for PvP to rub off on 7.0 bard. Like being a support DPS? DNC and MCH both have better utility in hard content, DNC is the golden child for buffing (better now than early EW or ShB). Liked the old 30s songs? Enjoy 2 min cycle like everyone else. The list goes on. The only good change (without fine print) I can think of is Blast Arrow making Apex Arrow less punishing to not get 100/100 SG on every minute.

[Kosachi]

nah, EW is easily the worst iteration of bard, it's like they specifically designed it to piss off anyone who liked bard at any point before. Like DoT? Fuck you they're bad, don't interact with anything when they used to be core to Repertoire and before that always had a chance to reset BL cd, and have 45s fucking timers making upkeep a joke and sleep-inducing. Like songs? Fuck you they're boring, Army's is better than Mage's, Army's muse exists, Battle Voice and Radiant Finale are flavourless 2mins, nothing costs mana or takes thought, 3s Repertoire ticks makes song duration locked and leaves 2 useless seconds at the end of every song, and you need a fucking target to sing a song. Like Procs? These are some of the most boring in the game, only PP has any thinking involved and it's a low bar. Like casting as a phys ranged? Better pray for PvP to rub off on 7.0 bard. Like being a support DPS? DNC and MCH both have better utility in hard content, DNC is the golden child for buffing (better now than early EW or ShB). Liked the old 30s songs? Enjoy 2 min cycle like everyone else. The list goes on. The only good change (without fine print) I can think of is Blast Arrow making Refulgent Arrow less punishing to not get 100/100 SG on every minute.

Second this. I have a multi paragraph post a couple months ago about how current bard is the worst it's ever been and I've been playing the job a looooooooooooooooooooooooong time. Worst part is the media tour version checked almost every single box then punched us in the face with this mess.

[Renathras]

nah, EW is easily the worst iteration of bard, it's like they specifically designed it to piss off anyone who liked bard at any point before. Like DoT? Fuck you they're bad, don't interact with anything when they used to be core to Repertoire and before that always had a chance to reset BL cd, and have 45s fucking timers making upkeep a joke and sleep-inducing. Like songs? Fuck you they're boring, Army's is better than Mage's, Army's muse exists, Battle Voice and Radiant Finale are flavourless 2mins, nothing costs mana or takes thought, 3s Repertoire ticks makes song duration locked and leaves 2 useless seconds at the end of every song, and you need a fucking target to sing a song. Like Procs? These are some of the most boring in the game, only PP has any thinking involved and it's a low bar. Like casting as a phys ranged? Better pray for PvP to rub off on 7.0 bard. Like being a support DPS? DNC and MCH both have better utility in hard content, DNC is the golden child for buffing (better now than early EW or ShB). Liked the old 30s songs? Enjoy 2 min cycle like everyone else. The list goes on. The only good change (without fine print) I can think of is Blast Arrow making Apex Arrow less punishing to not get 100/100 SG on every minute.

Point made:

SECOND worst. HW BRD was pretty abysmal, too. Cast times on a Ranged class have never made sense, but the only way I've ever seen it done without feeling rotten was when WoW had...I think it was Marksman that had a cast bar filler for when they could stand still, but the rest of their shots were instances so if they couldn't stand for that cast, they just took a minor DPS loss and used the mobility one instead. Kind of a Broil/Ruin 2 thing, which works when done right.

HW BRD was.......not that.

Though I have no idea why on earth needing a target for songs is a thing. One could argue it's like Aetherflow where the Devs didn't want players to pre-combat fill and have the party wait around for the CD to be ready for the pull...but some Jobs have mechanics somewhat like that anyway (and SGE just starts with a full stock), but even if that WAS the intent, they could just make using songs require being in combat rather than require a target. It's just dumb.

And the sad thing is, BRD in ShB didn't feel so bad to use. I'm not sure what all they changed, but it did go sideways. Though I still think Bow Mage was terribad.