So how would you buff bard? (Just like to hear peoples thoughts)

[Sindal]

So bard (and the rest of the physical ranged dps) are currently still serving their ranged tax time.

I know all the jobs are functional and stuff, but a bump or too to feel a little more impactful is nice to dream about.

For the bard players out there, pretending we live in lala land and the tax actually gets eased up, how would you personally like to see them buffed? Or would you just be happy to get any kind haha.

He's some ideas I came up with, in no particular order.
-While in mages ballad, each time you use bloodletter or rain of arrows, it gets a stack of power, up to maybe 6 stacks, with maybe 20-10 potency respecitively
-A potency buff to both dots
-A passive that 'evolves' the dots into a stronger version when iron jaws is used on a target (maybe after they've ticked for most of their duration to stop you from just iron jawsing at the start), or perhaps iron jaws gets a 'contagen' effect slapped onto it.
-While in army's, once you get all 4 stacks, gain 'Hawkeye' for the remainder of hte duration of hte song (meaning you can fire refulgents and shadowbites until the song ends)
-While in armies, after you get all 4 stacks, each 'proc' afterward gives you a stack of 'Army's muse', increasing the potency of your next refulgent or shadowbite (This replaces what army's muse currenlty does)

Just my random brainstorming.
Any thoughts? I just like hearing the mindsets of people

[Carighan]

So on a basic level, I need to differentiate "buff the current implementation and hone it" vs "dare more extensive reworks".

Current Implementation

Overall, I don't feel changing the DPS value is useful as an individual per-job balance mechanism right now (except for Picto, which needs an ~8% reduction to all their potencies or a 12%-15% reduction to the burst potencies only). This is because as you say, there are underlying mechanisms such as ranged tax, there's also a caster split into utility vs non-utility, and currently all but one DPS are of the static rotation type, all of these things need handling first and they all interlock and they'd all invalidaly all per-job balance and require a full rebalancing anyways.

Looking more at quality of gameplay and life then:

* Songs no longer have a duration, they last until you either play another one or you drop out of combat. There are already mechanics wanting you to cycle 3 of them every 120s.
* Song CD reduced to 60s individually, this neatly fits two CDs into each burst window, while having 3 CD-ing songs, giving a full buffer song of CD cycle.
* Procs simplified in hotbar layout to align with their gameplay (lack of) complexity: Straight Shot and Heavy Shot are the same button, the proc is just a +potency to the next Heavy Shot. Pitch Perfect like in PvP, tranforming Heavy Shot into a stronger shot that is oGCD, automatically applied when hitting 3 stacks (which then reset, so you can essentially "overstack" to a degree).
* Iron Jaws removed, per-shot direct damage of DoTs buffed. The new Pitch Perfect makes some GCD space, so this is a good chance to free up another hotbar slot at no loss of damage (if the impact damage is raised accordingly). If more complexity is desired, make one shot only apply a DoT but it lasts very long, the other is much shorter, but has good impact damage. Then it's less "two abilities that do the same thing".

Overall this'd save some hotbar space, reduce RSI from reaching around constantly, while making you less punished by drift and increasing gameplay complexity via an ability that swaps whether it is a GCD or oGCD, plus possibly different timers on DoTs.

[Carighan]

Extensive rework

* Most archer abilities removed.
* Another few songs added, total 7-10.
* Songs have no CD, cost mana when initially singing them, and then cost some lower mana every few seconds when they're on.
* Songs far far far stronger.
* Songs last 12s, and re-up their duration every 3s. Meaning you can realistically have 3 of them up at the same time if you keep swapping, but this drains mana as application cost is higher than ongoing cost.
* Some group buff songs: Runspeed (full sprint speed), damage reduction, damage buff, healing buff, health regen.
* Some more personal songs: medium extra damage proc on each autoattack but self-only, huge direct damage every 9s, strong healing every 3s but self-only.
* 120s CD song (otherwise the devs don't care anyways :P ) that roots you and disables your own attacks while you sing it for always precisely 9s. During these 9s, any damage by the party causes a steadily stacking debuff on the target. When the song ends, this deals damage based on the attacks applied.. "Shattering Crescendo" or something.

New gameplay would be a pure, well, Bard. Like in many other MMORPGs such as EQ1 or DAoC, your gameplay is "weaving" songs, while occassionally sitting in one for a little while to wait out your manaregen. You provide exception group damage increase and utility, in return for doing very little damage or healing yourself, it's all about enhancing your allies.

(this also means there's room for a second jobstone from the archer base class: Hunter, a pure archer class that also employs ground-targetted traps thrown under or in the way of enemies)

[Valence]

If this is just about damage and going after buffs a little more interesting than just potency increases, without radically changing how the job plays, then...

- Introduction of a Resonant variant (from pvp), Harmonic Arrow: Refulgent Arrow grants Harmonic stacks. Using Harmonic consumes all the stacks, the more stacks the higher the damage. Stacks capped to 4 like in pvp, potentially more if we want more flexibility but it would not consume more than 4 at a time. The idea is to have more to do with the base filler beyond hoping for RA procs. Essentially every time you use RA, it adds an arrow to Harmonic/Resonant.
- It's possible to keep Resonant as the proc from Barrage, but making Barrage just proc 4 stacks of Harmonic would probably introduce more skill expression by not overwriting what you have when using it.
- Harmonic gives a short movement sprint/speed buff (5s?).
- Army Repertoire grants Harmonic stacks as well.
- Base Army Ethos on GCD consuming stacks, else remove it.
- Add a charge to EA why is this still not a thing.

I'd do a lot more if the question was about reworking the job.

[Connor]

Isn’t it extremely dangerous to buff Bard’s personal dps? It’s already the best of the three phys ranged - any more personal dps and we’d risk ending up with a Picto situation where one job in a role is ‘objectively superior’ to the others.

Like isnt every potency increase Bard gets also multiplied by the fact all of its buffs affect itself now?

Unless Machinist and Dancer also get buffed which could cause power creep against precious casters (and that would just be unthinkable /s)

My opinion would be - leave the personal dps as it is. Who cares if Bard is the de-facto worst personal dps in the game? That’s literally where it’s been most of its lifespan until Dancer and Machinist showed up (and suddenly it becomes a heavy personal dps with sidelined passive support). Develop its support capabilities to actually be valuable and interesting and unique. Nobody in the history of the game has ever said ‘wow I’m so glad we had that Bard to Esuna us!’ ‘Omg that 10% healing increase was litttt! ’. Frankly I wouldn’t give a shit if we hit healer levels of personal dps if they had support that was genuinely significant. Movement speed increases, HP/MP regen, Foe Requiem, single target damage buff songs that have upkeep requirements and costs. Paean and Minne becoming gcd songs and not hilariously underwhelming cooldowns ( 45s cool-down on Esuna really feels like devs are trolling us * )] Just a few thoughts.

You know, since Bard is a support oriented job, in a support oriented role, based on a traditional FF job that exclusively provides support…lol

* Please don’t hit me with ‘but you can Esuna that one mechanic in that one chaotic raid Bard is the ultimate support!!! I mean, try asking healers how satisfied they are with using Esuna lol, most don’t even bother.

[mallleable]

Just make it so Battle Voice upgrades to Radiant Finale while deleting the coda system, and making Radiant Finale a flat 6% buff, and Radiant Encore a flat potency. BRD's personal damage gets increased to compensate as a result of lower raid buff power, which even at 6%, still makes it the strongest DPS raid buff.

As for actual buffs

- make Burst Shot a walking cast
- an additional Empyreal Arrow charge
- lower cooldown of Barrage from 120 seconds to 30-60 seconds
- rework Stormbite to not be a dot, and be a new GCD proc mechanic off Burst Shot (maybe something like how Harmonic Arrow works in PVP)
- make Caustic Bite have a shorter duration, but it hits harder

[Shyxx]

Bard is rivaling Melee DPS at high percentages when it comes to rDPS while other phys ranged are left in the dust. Phys ranged as a role needs help but BRD doesn't for now

[BabyYoda]

- Less busy, more burst
- Walkcasting
- Change song system to system that is similar of how dancer executed.
- bard job feel like it is not complete job, it has many things and it is not the best at it (for the most part) just make the job more specialized and unique
- Raise

[mallleable]

Bard is rivaling Melee DPS at high percentages when it comes to rDPS while other phys ranged are left in the dust. Phys ranged as a role needs help but BRD doesn't for now

Just because the job is doing Numbers™, does not mean it's actually a good job.

[Shyxx]

But Bard is doing a good job people at ultimate and savage on discords are crying for a good BRD to join their group. DNC and MCH need help and BRD too but that comes down to role more than BRD being bad