So about bard 7.0

[UkcsAlias]

And due to the de/buff bar being so limited, they'd sooner rid of them to avoid actually fixing it.

I think the real issue is that bosses have a limited number of debuffs they can take. Once exceeding that, some debuffs will be purged (not applied). Dots on that are very inefficient on that as for just a basic effect they still take 1 slot.

And the issue is alliance raids, where these stacks add up rapidly.

It it was purely visualy, it could have been easier: No dots of other players will ever show up or always be pushed to the end (and get clipped off the bar). Its that its not an option to only hide these on the debuff bar, or i would have done that (at least not that i know. And hiding all is something i dont want, i want to see team buffs)

[SweetPete]

I love ElysiumDragon’s idea. Just incorporate the dots into the songs. They last 45 seconds anyway. It’s just redundant to use them then keep using iron jaws when the dots do nothing for the soul voice gauge anymore. Plus it will free up 3 spots for new abilities/spells.

[Valence]

While I can't say I've particularly had difficulty with this, there's an easy solution there we could easily borrow from add-ons: Enmity List DoT trackers and the current (or last selected) target's DoTs being tracked via the charge wheel (the 'cooldown indicator' that doesn't grey out the skill but still shows progress until the 2nd/3rd charge's completion) over one's DoT skills.

I don't find it difficult, I just find it annoying. But i'll definitely take this over nothing for sure.

[Valence]

The recent buff to Nature's Minne was a great bard buff, but I feel the archer part still needs some love. I am totally biased, and I am not in the BRD is a pure support crowd, so I think in terms of firepower, BRD should be right in the middle of DNC, and MCH, and not where it it currently being interchangeable with DNC. BRD is the only physical ranged DPS that a new player can start the game with so I feel like it should be a branching point into the other two jobs in terms of damage vs. utility while also remaining a strong pick if they want to stick with it. But right now it seems like the attitude is start with BRD so you can abandon it to play DNC or MCH.

That's what it was in ShB and people threw a massive outcry because it stopped feeling like a buffing job anymore, which it didn't, to be fair, as the removal of Requiem leaving it just with Battle Voice made it like any average dps job, and they even had to bring back the song buffs to quell the outrage). Can't say I disagree with EW bringing a lot more buffs in the form of Finale because it's a bard, and we expect it to buff massively by singing.

Now then, I wouldn't say no to more GCDs to use besides 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 2, etc (and an apex here and there). It's especially egregious during Army when you don't even have the excuse of repertoire procs cropping up to keep you occupied...

[Shurrikhan]

For my part, I'd love to see certain mechanical sets streamlined, but with the intention of greater total depth, not less. (None of this "just combine the DoTs with the songs!" stuff.) Atop that, I want to see greater song depth, remove ability bloat by allowing the 'bloat' skills to function in unbloated ways, and to increase our diversity of casts (rather than spending two-thirds of all casts spamming BS, or ~93% of all casts key-swiping RA->BS).

To that end:

• Consolidate/name the charges used for Bloodletter and Rain of Death. Let's call it, say, Wild Quiver.
• Have Pitch Perfect consume up to 3 charges of Wild Quiver at a time. It now replaced Bloodletter instead of acting as a separate skill. Pitch Perfect potency increased in compensation. New AoE version of Pitch Perfect added; it replaces Rain of Death while WM is active.
• Repertoire is now gone except as an additional effect on each song; songs no longer have constituent stacks/charges of Repertoire. Instead, we again generate charges of Wild Quiver independently of singing -- from critical hits and direct hits (chance increasingly reduced per further target from AoEs). Empyreal Arrow guarantees a charge of Wild Quiver, and the Soul Gauge charges from WQ generated. DoT ticks are therefore again valuable to gauge generation but don't quite so heavily scale with target count.
  
  
• Reshape Shadowbite into a combined geometry or a wide linear AoE so that it doesn't sacrifice total area covered (relative to Quick Nock/Ladonsbite) in order to function also at range.
• Consolidate/name the charges used for Refulgent Arrow and Shadowbite. Let's call it, say, Heavens' Quiver.
• To give reason for Refulgent Arrow and Shadowbite to exist as separate buttons, Heaven's Quiver is allowed to accumulate a second | third (after trait) stack.
  
  
• Barrage now grants a charge each of Wild Quiver and Heavens' Quiver.
• Raging Strikes replaced with Hawk's Eye, which guarantees hits and increases critical strike chance by 30%. This should feel more interactive and more thematic than Raging Strikes.
  
  
• Songs no longer have CDs. Instead, they drain MP upon activation and per second at amounts that increase with time spent in that song and fall back normal with time spent outside that song. This allows for a softer rotation of songs and more frequent switches, which in turns allow for greater use of dynamic keys (actions with effects dependent upon one's current song), if we so wish.
• Songs no longer deal damage and therefore no longer require a target. (Potencies increased elsewhere in compensation.)
• Army's Paeon instead simply grants bonus Attack Speed for 10 seconds each time one generates a charge of Wild Quiver. Additional instances extend its duration. That's it. No stacks.
• Mage's Ballad increases your critical hit chance, thereby increasing WQ proc chance. That's it. (Note that, yes, oGCD crits, including from Wild Quiver spenders can proc additional WQ charges, which makes Ballad especially high apm.)
• Wanderer's Minuet increases critical hit damage and the maximum stack count of Wild Quiver by 1 and upgrades Bloodletter to Pitch Perfect and Rain of Death to Dissonance, which each deal increased damage per charge consumed... per charge consumed (i.e., they're most efficient at maximum charge consumption per use). That's it.
  
  
• The miniscule raid buffs provided by having a song active have been removed and their rDPS value shifted into more active means via Radiant Finale (completely reworked, below) and Battle Shout (also revised, below). We should get our rDPS from doing Bard things, not just existing. The more of it is passive, the less agency and reward we have for doing it well.
• The effect of Battle Voice now varies with one's song and functions more situationally instead of as a knockoff Battle Litany. Rather than carrying a CD, it now rapidly, increasingly reduces max MP over use until toggled off; as with the individual songs, this cost reverts over time spent with Battle Voice off. Army's Paeon generates increased Defense and Magic Defense and a %HP-based shield over time. Ballad heals over time and grants a stacking healing modifier (3% per second, up to 15%, each stack fading after 5 seconds). Minuet causes time spent still to rapidly increase movement speed (each .1s still generates .33s at 30% increased movement speed, stacking with Sprint) while granting increasing resistance to non-beneficial knockbacks.
• The Warden's Paeon and Nature's Minne has been consolidated into a single dynamic action with multiple charges and a ~40s recast time.
• Radiant Finale now grants a 10% buff to all stats, fading linearly over up to 20 seconds (averaging 3-6%), in addition to echoing a portion of your song bonuses (Haste, Crit Chance, Crit Bonus) to the whole raid [exact workings TBD]. Rather than simply counting song swaps, RF now uses a separate gauge that generates count through a variety of means (similar to the Limit Break Gauge) focused on time spent singing and on healing potency done or increased, debuffs or knockbacks prevented, bonus movement performed, etc. I.e., the more you can exploit the active Bard powers above, the more you can exploit Bard's raid buff, but its flexibility almost always allows it to be used for the 2-minute bursts even though you may want also to cover shorter mini-burst periods between or use it to survive a raid-wide attack.
  
  
• Iron Jaws turned into a sort of Tri-Disaster (instantly applies both DoTs, oGCD) opposite Sidewinder (shared resource cost, 40s recharge, 2 charges), which now ricochets (better fitting its name) among all targets inflicted with Stormbite and deals an additional 50% damage to the main target per DoT. (Or something like that for each.)
• Stormbite and Caustic Bite durations reduced to 24 and 18 seconds, respectively. Total potency slightly reduced, but their relative value (over non-use) per minute has been greatly increased.
• Maybe Caustic and Stormbite each do... something extra in themselves.

All suggestions spitball and subject to change, but the general ideas is to go for something more intuitive, more anchored, more flexible, capable of a greater range of support, and less spammy.

[JohncarterIx]

give them a k9 with big teeth and a bear and you dont need a bow lol the bear dog will eat all

[fulminating]

I don't know if it'd be practical, but caustic/stormbite applying a debuff to the enemy that gives the other some effect could be interesting with the varied timings - similar to white/black knight's tour. Stormbite's effect making caustic's ticks double in potency for the full duration and caustic giving a spread chance per tick or buffed mp regen or something that would be useful in single target?

[Shurrikhan]

I don't know if it'd be practical, but caustic/stormbite applying a debuff to the enemy that gives the other some effect could be interesting with the varied timings - similar to white/black knight's tour.

Such that the order matters? Caustic -> Stormbite produces a different effect in total from Stormbite -> Caustic?

If I'm understanding that correctly, that seems plenty practical. Sounds good!

I'd compare it against each just having their own particular bonus, but doing in your way instead would mean that those bonuses don't have to be as watered down, since you only get one or the other, and the distinction due to order can be greater (rather than just A starting a bit before B).

[Absurdity]

The Bard rotation barely changes at all from level 52 all the way to level cap. We get a grand total of 1 skill on the GCD that isn't tied to some kind of proc at 56 (Iron Jaws), 1 GCD tied to the Soul Voice gauge at 80 (Apex Arrow), and 2 damaging oGCDs (Empryeal Arrow at 54 and Sidewinder at 60). Everything else is tied to a proc that is merely a higher damaging version of the skill used to trigger it, a party buff, or is merely a damage increasing trait.

I'd actually consider this a positive if they didn't manage to butcher bard back in 5.0. A job feeling complete at level 60? You mean I don't need to be max level for my job to work properly? Count me in.

[Shurrikhan]

I'd actually consider this a positive if they didn't manage to butcher bard back in 5.0. A job feeling complete at level 60? You mean I don't need to be max level for my job to work properly? Count me in.

That gets us to the difference between satisfyingly complete (has plenty of stuff to do) and relatively complete (as good as it's going to get, as low a bar as that may be), though.

I'd have to consider Bard only the latter at level 60, even back in Stormblood.