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

[Shurrikhan]

What made DoT procs fun wasn't necessarily that they were DoTs, but they allowed procs to scale in AOE, and there are ways for procs to scale in AOE without DoTs. The could do something like 50% chance from song ticks, and 50% from weaponskills delivered that way when you use Laidonsbite in a pack of enemies, you are getting a proc chance per enemy hit plus from your song.

Also you just know if they ever decide to add Chemist as either a healer or a DPS, or even a SCH rework, it will likely be final nail in the coffin for BRD being a DoT job.

The whole point of the DoTs in AoE, though, was that you had to choose between immediate and direct damage, similarly to Army's->Muse vs. Wanderer's. After 4 targets, the AoE was better in itself, especially once Rain of Death refreshes were limited to Mage's Ballad. The point was in knowing how long enemies would each stay alive and in milking the gather.

Since TP was no longer a limiting factor disproportionately affecting AoE to further incentivize ST actions, note that AoE more directly from procs (not just Haste or AA building) then fell to a single song. It's only recently that WM came to have any AoE value, with otherwise a best ST, a best AoE, and a filler song.

If you just make all weapon skills generate procs, in AoE you would merely have siphoned potency from Ladonsbite / Shadowbite into Perfect Pitch and especially Rain of Death spam while making Army a waste as soon as it hits 4 stacks, which then further clunks up Bard macro in more casual situations.

[Shurrikhan]

Maybe, but this worked perfectly fine before. They just decided to axe it.

Given the precedents (Machinist lobotomy, Ninja de-gutting, Summoner lobotomy, etc.), their decision to do X is hardly an indicator that X was a good idea or even that what was changed was flawed in any of the ways adjusted.

[ElysiumDragon]

So I played Bowmage back in the day.

Stormblood Bard was basically the peak of the job, and everything since then has been more and more stuff haphazardly piled on top. Bard IMO has too much in the way of plate-spinning, too many resources to manage, too many cooldowns to track, and it often shows in the bursts being cluttered and hectic, but not in the fun way like with Ninja.

IMO, Bard needs a ground-up rework, not to 'lobotomise' the job, but to make the job flow better. Busy isn't bad, Dancer bursts are why I play the job after all, but hectic is an issue Bard has had for almost 3 expansions at this point.

[CalvinDescoles]

PvP kind of moove casting but slowly Bard is fucking great and should defenitly be a thing in PvE. Also the stacking Empyrean RIGHT ?

To me... they really should go away from archer and let dots and refresh be gone FOREVER... this is really the worst part of the jobs right now.

Replacing them by spells dedicated to any instruments.

[Shurrikhan]

Please no magical music note-plosions...

You can have a valuable Bard without them being a summoner of weird light-refracting/air-distorting sonic magics and if a mage were capable of the latter they probably wouldn't waste it on anything as indirect as song. It makes no more sense to take a Bard's weapon away from them and have them make do with their utility perk alone than to take away a Paladin's sword or a Ninja's knives in favor of pure defense or stealth+Ninjutsu respectively.

[CalvinDescoles]

Please no magical music note-plosions...

You can have a valuable Bard without them being a summoner of weird light-refracting/air-distorting sonic magics and if a mage were capable of the latter they probably wouldn't waste it on anything as indirect as song. It makes no more sense to take a Bard's weapon away from them and have them make do with their utility perk alone than to take away a Paladin's sword or a Ninja's knives in favor of pure defense or stealth+Ninjutsu respectively.

Use MCH lexical field and it is basically what they've done with mch

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On another subject, i'd really like if they make peloton a real thing in combat (like a 5sec sprint) so not only the SCH can do it but also would be a nice support spell to have and consistant (meaning you don't have to choose a SCH that is actually a weird choice of heal)

[Azurarok]

Assuming you're talking about Full Metal Field, it's still visually guns & turret. The multi-tool does avoid using guns in favor of Edgar Figaro references, though I don't see why it can't coexist with the old turret mechanics.

I guess this game's Bard's caught between people who want a hunter and a song mage, which is unfortunate because I love the hybrid theming and how the skills used to work together

[Arohk]

Bard doesn't need a buff, the whole job is a mess and needs a complete rework.
It has by far the worst and unfun gameplay of all jobs.

i wont go into details because that is a waste of my time, but lets just start by the lack of Projectiles on most of the shots

[Carighan]

Please no magical music note-plosions...

You can have a valuable Bard without them being a summoner of weird light-refracting/air-distorting sonic magics and if a mage were capable of the latter they probably wouldn't waste it on anything as indirect as song. It makes no more sense to take a Bard's weapon away from them and have them make do with their utility perk alone than to take away a Paladin's sword or a Ninja's knives in favor of pure defense or stealth+Ninjutsu respectively.

Except that it makes intuitive sense for ~everyone for a Bard to work that way. There's something like "expected behavior". And bards not being 28,5% archer, 12,8% musician and the rest being "lame" is what people would expect. Someone singing behind the team with song notes flying off their harp or lute, occassionally causing explosions near/around the enemy for a damaging song, that's as expected. That's what would intuitively go down with everyone playing a computer RPG with 0 need to explain.

[Shurrikhan]

No. There is nothing intuitive about making a bard into a pure sonic mage. Coalescing air into explosions or vibrating it enough through magic to wound enemies has literally nothing to do with being a bard.

A Bard is a profession and tendency. And it is one that by nature dabbles in lots of other things, even if generally approaching all that from a humanities-focused lens. A bard is someone generally especially aware (and/or especially able to make themselves aware) of relevant religions, cultures, traditions, myths, customs, language, politics, camps, economic concerns, intrigues, and how those all b(l)end together.

XIV's Ishgardian Bard could hardly make more sense accordingly. They're the sergeants who have the charisma and knowledgeable enough to be trusted and maintain morale -- simultaneously being "one of the guys" and respected as an authority when necessary while able to parse tactics, spy reports, training regimens, rising talents, and weak links; who have the chest and lungs to bellow commands loud enough to be heard over the highland winds; and who fight from far enough back to maintain perspective over their whole team. You could hardly make a more obvious fit for the work of an actual bard.

If you want someone who summons light-bending pockets of air capable of exploding with hemorrhage-inflicting force -- note shaped or otherwise, you're looking for a summoner or an aerothurge, not a bard.

Confusing a "bard" with such a mage is like confusing an English major with someone who necessarily fights (already a stretch) with steel-jacketed books or word-shaped spears of lightning magic ("b'cuz words, duh").

Not every profession worth turning into a job has a direct relation between their day-job or unique life-perspectives and their combat abilities. Else an RPG Paladin would just sermonize you to death, a Warrior just spam warcries, and a Dark Knight kill you by weight of edge-cringe alone. They are instead logical intersections with exaggeratedly flair-heavy enough weaponry and techniques that are otherwise practical enough in their basic ideas.

I guess this game's Bard's caught between people who want a hunter and a song mage, which is unfortunate because I love the hybrid theming and how the skills used to work together

Pretty much this.

Granted, idk if what we have seen from the start on Bard is any more "hybrid" than daggers + stealth, physics-bending magics + a vastly oversized great sword, magically-charged oaths to protect or avenge + a sword and shield, etc. Like the wanderer or tactician with the mental/social skills helpful to those things + their bow, those seems obvious synergies. But I guess some just can't stand the idea of jobs contributing to world-lore instead of merely to maximally on-the-nose descriptions of what skins a then-mostly-homogeneous combat toolkit gets.

(It pains me also that some may think that a Bard sacrificing the whole of its physicality and thereby roots both in XIV lore and to its DnD basis in favor of a note-shaped-Ruin/Pneuma Mage would be more "unique". We already have a name for a length of wood used to funneling mana into a spell and it doesn't need "flute" to be its redundancy. But I guess anything deeper than the epidermis isn't worthy of consideration these days? /sigh)