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

[mallleable]

Another things that annoys me about BRD is that while it's Fine™ in like savage, and ultimates, its rotation is unironically incredibly fragile in instances like dungeons, and alliance raids where your rotation can be obliterated in ways that no other job has to worry about depending on how fast or slow enemies get killed. They unironically need to make BRD easier to play in 'casual' fights.

[Akonyl]

Scale RDPS buffs based on how many people are in the party. I know Criterion apparently has a special thing for this, but I think it should scale to other content too (and just party sizes in general).

As for how the buff happens potency-wise, I don't really care. I don't think it makes the job particularly more interesting to have DoTs buffed, or another thing buffed, or what, if the end result of boss damage is the same.

I'm fine with walk-casting/some version of casting being added to the job if it's what it takes for the devs to believe a ranged should get to do damage.

There's other wishful ideas I have for the class, but it's not really relevant to buffs themselves.

[Valence]

Another things that annoys me about BRD is that while it's Fine™ in like savage, and ultimates, its rotation is unironically incredibly fragile in instances like dungeons, and alliance raids where your rotation can be obliterated in ways that no other job has to worry about depending on how fast or slow enemies get killed. They unironically need to make BRD easier to play in 'casual' fights.

I do not understand that take. Songs are extremely flexible and BRD doesn't have to worry too much about drifting long recast CDs either.

Okay, but that risk only really amounts to anything during DoT refresh.

The difference between a 95 and 100 Apex under buffs vs. wasting 5 over minimum Soul Voice without later overcap on out-of-buff Apex Arrows is barely two digits, and you have 5 GCDs to fit in the Burst Arrow after Apex. Similarly, you have 9 GCDs of drift margin available before Barrage can fall out of the raid window; even if you waited for Hawk's Eye and Apex both each time due to unpredictably weirdly high generation between non-burst and burst Apexes each time, the fight would have to go on for over 8 minutes for that to present a risk.

Moreover, the only skills to grant Hawk's Eye... are the filler (which never competes with Refulgent anyways, as it can only be a pure loss), and DoT resets (though, admittedly, that generally also outcompetes it due to the lost tick and potency difference between <Burst + Iron Jaws> vs. <Stormbite + Caustic> so exceeding the potency difference of Burst and Refulgent, but at least isn't necessarily reduced to mere keyswiping of RA->BS).

Which means your only real GCD potential priority conflicts... are once per 45 seconds.



The only difference in single-target between a DoT and a CD is that the DoT is a "soft" CD (can use it earlier for near-proportionately less net potency bonus, a la Apex) and its UI is displayed elsewhere.

But alright, let's say we put Stormbite on a GCD-scaled soft-CD that charges up over 20 seconds and Caustic Bite on a 15s soft-CD. Maybe there's a shorter-than-CD DoT for each, or maybe they're wholly direct damage now; doesn't matter. Regardless, you would then see 12 instances of potential decision making regarding priority conflicts per 120s, up from 2.67, and it'd offer some varied rhythm to the spec, as they loops their number of intervening GCDs, before procs, from 0 to 2 to 4 and back.

0 | 8 | 16 | 24 —— | 32 | 40 | 48 —— |
1 | 7 | 13 | 19 | 25 | 31 | 37 | 43 | 49 |

If priority conflicts are of value... you'd now have 450% as many — with, as a side-benefit, a noticeable improvement to button variety and rhythm variance.

I do not know what you're trying to argue about here. I never liked long CDs and neither do I like dot juggling, and when they started introducing long GCD recasts everywhere in late SB on BLU and then in ShB especially on jobs like GNB and MCH, I hated it. It's a matter of personal taste. I find this incredibly boring and unengaging (I don't like babysitting timers and staying glued to a shitty UI instead of paying attention to what's actually fun), but at least I can understand the appeal in juggling plates with dots of various timers for those who like them, which is a lot more engaging than long GCD recasts that just drift when failed. If people want BRD to be a dot juggling job with long CDs everywhere, then that's cool for you, not for me.

I also never said that the priority in BRD or DNC bursts is especially impressive, if anything what's left of it is miserable and in tatters especially for DNC. If we want better examples of priority systems that worked well during bursts, then HW/SB MCH did it ten times better, although SB MCH became a little too fixed for my taste due to the introduction of Cooldown that was worth a heated slug shot, but at least the whole building patterns leading to bursts were still engaging af to pull right, and the filler itself was a constant, simple yet satisfying priority system to play with, and which is still found today, again, in a highly decayed budget variant with RDM.

[Shurrikhan]

What do you consider a long CD? It's currently 45s. I'm asking for 15s / 20s. If you don't like long CDs, how is making it shorter bad?

Meanwhile, the job launched with DoT juggling and still ultimately had said job-juggling, just with it reduced from converting at least 29% of uptime to taking just 5.5%. It's not as if asking for shorter timers to intervene between filler spam would be some uncalled for intrusion into Bard's core design.

What would be a drastic change would be to replace the DoTs with another manager of time-gating those alternative actions, but even that I would be okay with if it thereby increased the frequency of actual apparent decisions to be made and reduced the monotony of Bard's RABS spam.

(Lastly, though, since when did DoTs, especially short ones, require any more screen-staring against a single target than did one's combo or the likes of Disciplined Fist or Astral Fire? Outside of boss jumps or getting stunned, it's a fixed number of GCDs.) Before level 56, you use Full Thrust every 6 GCDs. After level 58, you use it every 8. A DoT lasting 6 GCDs and a DoT lasting 8 GCDs give exactly the same impact on ST platform and are no harder to pace in themselves even without looking at the UI.)

[mallleable]

I do not understand that take. Songs are extremely flexible and BRD doesn't have to worry too much about drifting long recast CDs either.

They really aren't. Let's take the current alliance raid, the Ark Angels fight can end towards the end of Mage's Ballad with not enough time to use Army's Paean early which means a BRD will be down gauge, Army's Muse buff and coda going into the Shadow Lord fight. BRD can't use Army's Paean out of combat either. And unlike every other job, BRD did not receive buffs to get a free damage during burst at the start of the expansion. Doing something like Barrage grants a free Apex/Blast Arrow, and deleting coda while making Radiant Finale, and Encore flat buff/potency, and making Muse a passive trait would actually make BRD a lot more flexible.

[Connor]

They really aren't. Let's take the current alliance raid, the Ark Angels fight can end towards the end of Mage's Ballad with not enough time to use Army's Paean early which means a BRD will be down gauge, Army's Muse buff and coda going into the Shadow Lord fight. BRD can't use Army's Paean out of combat either. And unlike every other job, BRD did not receive buffs to get a free damage during burst at the start of the expansion. Doing something like Barrage grants a free Apex/Blast Arrow, and deleting coda while making Radiant Finale, and Encore flat buff/potency, and making Muse a passive trait would actually make BRD a lot more flexible.

In my experience it’s more ‘when things go wrong’ that Bard can be heavily punished with cool-down misalignment - namely dying lol. Like if you just hit Ballad then somehow die so now it’s on cool-down but the remaining song cycle is 90 seconds, so there’s like 30 seconds of potentially having to wait for Ballad with no song up.

Or if you mistakenly hit (or don’t hit in some cases lol) the song before the enemy disappears so you’re stuck having to wait for them to come back to get the rotation ‘back on track’ lol.

Summoner has a similar issue with Egi / Demi cooldowns; dying or whatever can have a really big impact on your how you cycle through the overall rotation.

I guess many people would argue it’s a skill issue so it shouldn’t be changed, but it does feel weird that they’re like ‘we want to make the game extremely forgiving and lenient especially towards new players’, then simultaneously make certain jobs that can completely fall apart entirely if ‘mishandled’. Though I can’t speak to the extent to which every job is like this (since I haven’t played them), so I guess maybe they’re all could be like that.

Maybe they could have both? Loosen the punishment Bards receive for dying without removing it? Like maybe it could have emergency cool-down that resets song cooldowns but on like a Hallowed Ground length cool-down? Makes things a bit easier if recovering but doesn’t completely remove ‘skill expression’ (cuz if you die again you’re still screwed lol)

[BabyYoda]

It really comes to what makes bard, bard?

Is it walkcasting? Machinist will have that
is it buffs? Dance will have that

it is really what could make bard bard and considering other roles to balance it.

[Valence]

What do you consider a long CD? It's currently 45s. I'm asking for 15s / 20s. If you don't like long CDs, how is making it shorter bad?

Meanwhile, the job launched with DoT juggling and still ultimately had said job-juggling, just with it reduced from converting at least 29% of uptime to taking just 5.5%. It's not as if asking for shorter timers to intervene between filler spam would be some uncalled for intrusion into Bard's core design.

What would be a drastic change would be to replace the DoTs with another manager of time-gating those alternative actions, but even that I would be okay with if it thereby increased the frequency of actual apparent decisions to be made and reduced the monotony of Bard's RABS spam.

(Lastly, though, since when did DoTs, especially short ones, require any more screen-staring against a single target than did one's combo or the likes of Disciplined Fist or Astral Fire? Outside of boss jumps or getting stunned, it's a fixed number of GCDs.) Before level 56, you use Full Thrust every 6 GCDs. After level 58, you use it every 8. A DoT lasting 6 GCDs and a DoT lasting 8 GCDs give exactly the same impact on ST platform and are no harder to pace in themselves even without looking at the UI.)

I don't think anybody said that DoTs are more demanding than upkeeping buffs like Disciplined Fists. It's tomato and tomato.
I am not speaking about long duration dots, I absolutely hate long recast drift sensitive GCDs introduced in ShB and I find them unengaging and tactically uninteresting.
I am just saying that I don't like dot juggling or buff upkeep, timers are tedious babysitting to my eyes, but if that's what BRD needs for its filler to be interesting again then that's what BRD needs even though I feel like its more of an old healer paradigm with all their asynchronous dots. I'll be the last one to oppose going back to the roots of the job. People that mained BRD and enjoyed the job for this have more legitimacy of a claim over it than I do. I just personally like the priority part of the job more, and both aren't mutually exclusive since as you say you can have priority based around shorter and unsynced dot upkeep.

They really aren't. Let's take the current alliance raid, the Ark Angels fight can end towards the end of Mage's Ballad with not enough time to use Army's Paean early which means a BRD will be down gauge, Army's Muse buff and coda going into the Shadow Lord fight. BRD can't use Army's Paean out of combat either.

You know you can use Army earlier in the fight so that it is ready to swap before the end if that's the case? Army isn't actually a big loss compared to Ballad. You complain about an actual privilege which is filling the gauge out of combat, which is one of the strengths of the job unlike most others that cannot. And I maintain that you can still do it if you adjust your song timing a little. Maybe the problem is more that with randos you're never sure when a fight is going to end and you're bound to either have it end at the start of a song (which is good) or near the end of a song (which is bad if the next song isn't up yet). And you know what? I almost like that. Introduces some variations to play with when then next fight starts.

And unlike every other job, BRD did not receive buffs to get a free damage during burst at the start of the expansion. Doing something like Barrage grants a free Apex/Blast Arrow, and deleting coda while making Radiant Finale, and Encore flat buff/potency, and making Muse a passive trait would actually make BRD a lot more flexible.

What do you mean by "buffs to get a free damage during burst at the start of the expansion"?
What would those changes do to help make BRD more flexible? Getting a free Apex wouldn't change anything because then the opener would require 2 Apex for optimal use, you'd just get a free one in bonus which changes literally nothing but fills up one more GCD (which bard has room for).
What do you mean by making Radian and Encore "flat buff potency"? What do you mean with making Muse a passive trait? That BRD would be played like a fast melee on 2s GCD recast? Adios double weaving I guess?

[Valence]

In my experience it’s more ‘when things go wrong’ that Bard can be heavily punished with cool-down misalignment - namely dying lol. Like if you just hit Ballad then somehow die so now it’s on cool-down but the remaining song cycle is 90 seconds, so there’s like 30 seconds of potentially having to wait for Ballad with no song up.

Or if you mistakenly hit (or don’t hit in some cases lol) the song before the enemy disappears so you’re stuck having to wait for them to come back to get the rotation ‘back on track’ lol.

Summoner has a similar issue with Egi / Demi cooldowns; dying or whatever can have a really big impact on your how you cycle through the overall rotation.

I guess many people would argue it’s a skill issue so it shouldn’t be changed, but it does feel weird that they’re like ‘we want to make the game extremely forgiving and lenient especially towards new players’, then simultaneously make certain jobs that can completely fall apart entirely if ‘mishandled’. Though I can’t speak to the extent to which every job is like this (since I haven’t played them), so I guess maybe they’re all could be like that.

Maybe they could have both? Loosen the punishment Bards receive for dying without removing it? Like maybe it could have emergency cool-down that resets song cooldowns but on like a Hallowed Ground length cool-down? Makes things a bit easier if recovering but doesn’t completely remove ‘skill expression’ (cuz if you die again you’re still screwed lol)

I don't want to lose the punishment for dying on the job (or on any job). If anything BRD is super easy to stay aligned with, since you just have to wait for the next song to come off CD and carry on with your life. Gauge is flexible and you can also realign Apex as you go over time. Punishment allows for skill expression.
The actual problem is that it removes you from having fun with repertoire gameplay for too long, which was less of a problem before because songs were only 30s long, which meant even dying at the start of one, the time for you to be raised, would mean you'd be songless for at best 10-15s, which was fine. Now though, it can go up to 25-30s, which is less fine.

[Shurrikhan]

They really aren't. Let's take the current alliance raid, the Ark Angels fight can end towards the end of Mage's Ballad with not enough time to use Army's Paean early which means a BRD will be down gauge, Army's Muse buff and coda going into the Shadow Lord fight. BRD can't use Army's Paean out of combat either.

Fair enough, I guess, but...

And unlike every other job, BRD did not receive buffs to get a free damage during burst at the start of the expansion. Doing something like Barrage grants a free Apex/Blast Arrow, and deleting coda while making Radiant Finale, and Encore flat buff/potency, and making Muse a passive trait would actually make BRD a lot more flexible.

...I would dislike a lot of this. Granted, I wasn't a huge fan of the DRG changes, so that probably tells you something.

Barrage already grants 1000 potency over fillers use across its affected GCDs (979 if counting natural HE proc chance). That's... 240 potency (32% more bonus damage over filler GCDs) than a free 100-gauge Apex Arrow + Burst Shot (760 potency over filler). (Granted, as Apex Arrow is the more visually impressive, I could see why one might prefer to axe Resonant and just use another Apex+Burst instead.)

If by making Muse passive you mean just giving Ethos infinite duration, sure, I guess. If you really mean bundling a 12% Haste into the first 10s of every Mage's or Wanderer's, then I'd rather not make the songs even less related to our actual actions / even less distinct.

Making Finale just a flat buff would, in ideal circumstances, only affect the opening raid burst (with an extra 4% damage for 20 seconds vs. present use), so I'd be fine with that.. if not for the fact that you'll have then just made a second Battle Voice button and gotten rid of any reason to call it a "Finale". Personally, I like some things not being immediately present from the start, so... I'd slightly have to pass on that one, too.

________________

For my part, to deal with the issues you note I'd rather simply...

1. replace the fixed song CDs with a softer enforcement system and rework the Coda requirement (and its reward[s]) instead of axing it outright,
   --and--
2. maybe buff Apex Arrow's base damage and have Burst Arrow be made available based on total Soul Voice expenditure akin to Reaper's dual system (Soul Voice -> Resonance) -- say, tracked as a spark line on the Soul Voice gauge or a semi-transparent bar behind current Soul Voice, holding up to 160 charge and spending 80 at a time -- as to allow for more flexibility in exploiting its linear AoE.