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

[Shurrikhan]

Is this based on Bard from other games or exclusively on Bard in XIV? That doesn’t really make any sense in the context of Final Fantasy because Bard has never been associated with bows outside of this specific game.

Across DnD lore, across their irl historical part as a pseudo-political means of power that has sometimes done as much for a given faction as military presence (including as spies, propagandists, social surveyors, much like 1.x Thancred, etc.), and in XIV.

In a turn-based and permanently party-based game, one can have more absurd things like original Relm actually painting pictures, but look at PIC in XIV, where we have real-time combat as, per player, a single job at a time: PIC here is a pretty generic mage, just by a different skin and with a fun bonus mechanic.

This has left Bard with either of two choices: to be, in essence, a mage by a different skin (Sonic Mage), or to have a weapon befitting the position of someone with the social/cognitive skillset of a bard and provide its filler and soloing-capable direct contribution in that way.

XIV chose the latter, and while I think it needs more music-based stuff than it presently has in its gameplay --a lot more-- I think that has fit it better than going the mage route (hit them with the musical note blasts/ruins) would have.

I disagree that Bard needs the bow.

I did not mean to suggest that Bard needs its weapon to be a bow per se, only that between having a befitting weapon and sound magic, I'd prefer the weapon, as it better fits what it has meant --both historically and across the greater scope of RPG franchises-- to be Bard.

Rangers have/had their own identity within Final Fantasy too but there’s isn’t ever going to be enough space for them to properly explore that so long half of that space belongs to Bard.

I disagree. The bulk of gameplay comes from undermechanics, not simply base actions. Having Ruin and Bane on both SMN and SCH was never what made either feel half-assed -- only the lack of leveraging the unique powers of the summons once we decided that any and all things cross-role should be buried, which was far from a problem unique to SMN (see pre 2.1 WAR, 1.x PGL, early MNK, original LNC, DRG defense, original WHM AoE power, etc.).

I mean as much as I’d prefer ‘support dps’ than ‘dps support’, the even more major barrier to such a thing is encounter design itself, which simply does not allow for the existence of ‘support oriented jobs’ (everything’s a dps by both design and necessity lol). It’d take retooling the job and encounters both to make it even possible (but then, maybe they do need to make drastic changes lol)

I just want back the choice. Tax us for the support only when we use said support, allowing it to be strong even while allowing us to dish out decent damage otherwise. And ideally, do so in ways wholly palpable to gameplay, such as uptime-spending options, instead of just damage penalties for while singing. Hell, maybe reintroduce uses for MP; in that way, we'd start with considerable burst, have the bankability fitting both a choiceful burster and a point-support, and have greater versatility (greater swing between maximal support and maximal DPS) precisely for our utility coming at DPS cost. By all means, for flavor, soften costs conditionally (e.g., costs increasing with further use and being tuned around that so that initial, infrequent use is nearly free) just enough to at least, if everyone else in one's party is too terrible to meet the thresholds for rDPS over personal direct DPS, to at least be worth using some buffs on oneself pre-burst, but make for some real choices without so much pre-tax.

That said, I'll be the first to admit that support in this game is hard to incentivize or make space for precisely because everything is so lockstep and/or quantized. No one wants Attack Speed because there's no margin for adjustment (e.g., from a Stamina Gauge, whereby one could overclock up to 20% and then slow down in turn later). There are no conditions by which one form of damage buff (say, Crit) would temporarily exceed another to any significant degree. There are no undermechanics for sapping enemy defenses outside of fixed damage-/crit-chance-taken debuffs or the like nor for sapping offenses outside of Reprisal and Arm's Length. One generally either has movement speed enough to dodge baseline or not enough speed even under sprint to get out in time if mis-positioned, since there are so few proximity-based forms of damage and such little allowance for uptime losses/costs in modern fights. Cleansibles are few and far between. CC is nigh dead.

Now, that space could be made, to be clear, but it would require some pretty foundational reworks. And short of that... I suspect what would be Bard-ish-ly available for Bard's music would be pretty slim and shallow. Better that than nothing, though.

[mallleable]

I've mentioned this before, but I think BRD should have more of a focus on 'barrage' mechanics where you make single attacks hit multiple times at once as it might be the bridge between archery, and music. The archer aspect is simple where it's like an archer nocking multiple arrows, and firing them all at once. But there are layers to the musical aspects. A BRD amplifies their parties' capabilities with their song buffs, and they amplify their own attacks with barrage. And if you consider each arrow a note in a BRD's song, then barrage is like them playing a chord.

[Shurrikhan]

I've mentioned this before, but I think BRD should have more of a focus on 'barrage' mechanics where you make single attacks hit multiple times at once as it might be the bridge between archery, and music. The archer aspect is simple where it's like an archer nocking multiple arrows, and firing them all at once. But there are layers to the musical aspects. A BRD amplifies their parties' capabilities with their song buffs, and they amplify their own attacks with barrage. And if you consider each arrow a note in a BRD's song, then barrage is like them playing a chord.

Playing the same note simultaneously through three different instances doesn't make a chord, though. It just makes a louder note. A chord would be more akin to firing off a few synergetic actions at once, as if you readied them preemptively via oGCDs to then be fired together on a following GCD. Even then, though, I doubt it'd feel particularly musical.

More likely, being able to play with/around polyrhythms (neither as singular and repetitive as the GCD nor as free as our oGCD weavable slots between them) would fit into that, especially if it allowed for branching paths/options of some sort. Such would be novel, likely highly nuance-capable, and pretty obviously thematic.

Hell, perhaps the shots could even come with a certain resonant sound, maybe varied by song to allow for different keys and/or techniques (legato, etc.), giving opportunities to mix the songs at particularly fitting moments. Perhaps there could even be oGCDs that seem individually empty but which nonetheless add notes to one's song to allow for augmentation and further manipulation, boosting "Pitch Perfect" (think of this as a general undermechanic, not necessarily a rarely-accessible special shot) shots and the effect of one's outgoing effects (say, existing raid effects and upcoming single-target support actions).

/pipedream

:: Again, I'm fine with Bard making music. I just don't want to see said music turned into reskinned generic combat actions. No musical note-plosions except as rare capitalizing effects (if even then).

[Connor]

Across DnD lore, across their irl historical part as a pseudo-political means of power that has sometimes done as much for a given faction as military presence (including as spies, propagandists, social surveyors, much like 1.x Thancred, etc.), and in XIV.

Isn’t the whole part of the D&D Bard that the identity is largely in the player’s hands though? It’s equally valid to be a heavy hitting martial bow wielder or a spell-slinging magical support, or whatever else in-between. I think it’s a bit of a difficult comparison between D&D Bard and FF’s version of Bard which is/has been much more concrete identity wise.

If we’re going for ‘reflecting real life counterparts’ doesn’t that cause problems with overlap? I’d absolutely love for them to retune/rewrite the job to be a Poet-Scholar-Storyteller and not just ‘music guy’ lol, but wouldn’t a real life Bard converted into an FFXIV literally be just be Scholar anyway?

In a turn-based and permanently party-based game, one can have more absurd things like original Relm actually painting pictures, but look at PIC in XIV, where we have real-time combat as, per player, a single job at a time: PIC here is a pretty generic mage, just by a different skin and with a fun bonus mechanic.

Isn’t this effectively ‘Painting pictures as a combat job can only be done in a turn based game but Pictomancer in XIV painting pictures as a combat is just another generic mage’? XIV’s Pictomancer does paint in battle though, it’s literally a central aspect of the job lol (managing painting downtime). And again, isn’t it kind of ignoring every other job in XIV? The guys walking into battle with a literal book, magic globes, giant paintbrushes, Machinist’s sticking lunchboxes to their legs. XIV is as full of ‘absurd things’ as any other Final Fantasy so I disagree that they need to keep things ‘grounded’ or ‘realistic’.

This has left Bard with either of two choices: to be, in essence, a mage by a different skin (Sonic Mage), or to have a weapon befitting the position of someone with the social/cognitive skillset of a bard and provide its filler and soloing-capable direct contribution in that way.

Saying the entirety of Bard’s history in FF culminates in a ‘generic, boring’ mage clone seems extremely reductionist and unfair lol. Isn’t White Mage just a generic boring mage too then? It’s just a mage with a different skin (Cure mage). I mean, every ‘combat job’ that has ever existed is effectively a copy of something else ‘with flavour adjustments’ really. Furthermore, in what way does a bow and arrow reflect a social/cognitive skill set befitting a Bard? The job traditionally known to support / encourage / inspire their comrades somehow lends itself to…marksmanship? I’m confused about how these things relate.

I did not mean to suggest that Bard needs its weapon to be a bow per se, only that between having a befitting weapon and sound magic, I\\'d prefer the weapon, as it better fits what it has meant --both historically and across the greater scope of RPG franchises-- to be Bard.

Going to be a little petty but, what I’d say would be accurate was if you had said ‘across the greater scope of RPG franchises [ if we ignore the entirety of Final Fantasy ] lol. No other job in the game is informed by class design in other franchises, so why should Bard be any different?

Now, that space could be made, to be clear, but it would require some pretty foundational reworks. And short of that... I suspect what would be Bard-ish-ly available for Bard\\'s music would be pretty slim and shallow. Better that than nothing, though.

Again, if we’re ignoring Bard within the context of Final Fantasy then sure, it could arguably be said that ‘there isn’t enough identity in Bards for them to be a real job by themselves. In context though the job is just as prevalent and developed as any other FF job though, so we’d just have to start applying this logic to every job. ‘White Mage could work but it’d be devoid of abilities and wholly unfun because it’s just Cure spells and support’. ‘Black Mage wouldn’t work because all it does is cast magic in an action-heavy game’, etc. ‘Monk would never work in an action game because all they do is attack (or sometimes Kick lol). Nothing ever works until someone actually tried to make it work lol.

Lastly as an addendum: I’m not suggesting a ‘one side is right and one is wrong’ scenario - it really just comes down to personal preference. But personally I’d much rather see XIV’s Bard work more to reflect a ‘traditional FF Bard’ and not ‘Bard from a different game with a different weapon and a (predominantly) different skill set compared to every other iteration’

[Azurarok]

Is this based on Bard from other games or exclusively on Bard in XIV? That doesn’t really make any sense in the context of Final Fantasy because Bard has never been associated with bows outside of this specific game. In FFIII, IV and V it uses harps as its main weapon, one could maybe stretch Cait Sith’s megaphones as being ‘kinda like an instrument’ (calling out orders is kinda like singing lol?), Eiko in FFIX (she’s a Summoner but that’s the closest it gets lol) uses Flutes for a fair amount of her weapons. XI had instruments as a weird off-hand weapon but they were still so crucial to the job’s basic functions (i.e song amount / duration) that they practically did serve as its ‘main weapon’; the weapon slot was just for a dagger/staff to augment your songs/spells lol.

I think based on how Bard appeared in every iteration of FF besides this one, I’m not sure it can really be said that ‘Bard would stop being a Bard if it got a traditional Bard weapon like a Harp or Flute [instead of a Bow and Arrow] ’. It would be like saying ‘Black Mages shouldn’t use staves and if they do they’re not really Black Mages ’. Even if XIV had established Black Mages as fast-paced hand-to-hand martial artists, people would still be like ‘where the staves tho lol’ ‘black mage with no staff how can this be’ etc. I think previously established aesthetics / identity / design concepts should matter, because they do for every other job in this game.

I much prefer them let jobs be what XIV's lore defined them to be.

WHM usually isn't associated with earth/wind/water spells and I very much want that theming back, even if that leaves less room for Geomancer to exist because of its background with Amdapor. SCH isn't known for having a fairy (or Bio even) and XI's DRK for wields scythes, for that matter.

[Connor]

I much prefer them let jobs be what XIV's lore defined them to be.

WHM usually isn't associated with earth/wind/water spells and I very much want that theming back, even if that leaves less room for Geomancer to exist because of its background with Amdapor. SCH isn't known for having a fairy (or Bio even) and XI's DRK for wields scythes, for that matter.

Again I’d say it’s just a personal preference thing rather than one side being ‘right’ or ‘wrong’.

Personally I’d say I’m more of a traditionalist that prefers seeing the jobs reflect their ‘antecedents’ as much as possible over XIV’s constant ‘reinvention’ of traditional / iconic jobs. Especially when it’s such a huge part of most other jobs, I.E Black Mages still do ‘big elemental explosions’, Dragoons still Jump (less now but at least it’s there lol). I’d love to see Dark Knight start using some kind of ‘HP/Resource’ sacrificing for increased dps (i.e Darkness). Paladins being associated with White / Holy magic. One could even stretch really far to suggest Sage in concept still reflects the traditional version, assuming that concept was ‘uses offensive and recovery/support magic equally’.

Also to be extremely pedantic, while Bio wasn’t exactly associated with XI’s Scholar it still used it fairly often I think, since it was mostly used for buffs/debuffs/healing (and setting up skillchains lol). It’s an extremely tenuous link lol, but it at least establishes some kind of precedent for debuffs / dots Scholar being part of Scholar’s toolkit. I’d say anyway. Likewise, while DRKs could (and would) uses Scythes, they still had the capability to use Greatswords (albeit probably with less overall output I think). So while it does do things to differentiate itself from previous iterations there’s also things there that do reflect/reference them too.

To be fair to White Mage, while light/holy magic is definitely a major part of the job’s identity/aesthetic/etc it’s still a fairly narrow view of the job in previous FF’s. At the very least White Mage is usually associated with Aero, and in some games Tornado and Quake are considered White Magic. It’s not as major, but there’s definitely precedent for White Mages having certain elemental attacks that Black Mage doesn’t cover (again usually wind and earth). Also as an aside, an FFIV Rosa style White Mage with a bow would absolutely slay lol.

That said, I don’t generally mind ‘changing from the traditional while still maintaining the core concepts’ which I’d again point to Sage as being (theoretically lol) both something entirely unique to ffxiv whilst still maintaining the whole ‘uses offensive and recovery/support magic’ concept in how it’s designed. I mean, obviously in practice we got ‘SCH with fake moustache’ but that’s a whole other kettle of fish lol. Or Scholar still being focused around tactical usage of buffs/debuffs/dots etc, but now with extra Fairy.

But to me, something like moving Bard from ‘helpful singing party support caster’ in previous FF’s to ‘fast paced archer dps with minor musical elements’ is a bit of a push too far, in my opinion.

[Shurrikhan]

Going to be a little petty but, what I’d say would be accurate was if you had said ‘across the greater scope of RPG franchises [ if we ignore the entirety of Final Fantasy ] lol.

No, I mean including it. It's one part of said whole. It's included, but it is only a part.

Isn’t the whole part of the D&D Bard that the identity is largely in the player’s hands though? It’s equally valid to be a heavy hitting martial bow wielder or a spell-slinging magical support, or whatever else in-between.

...Which, we are in XIV. While it's no FF3 Bard nor DnD Bard with customizable spells and weapon proficiencies, it's still eclectic and started (across ARR and HW) with the degree of support-ive-ness vs. damage-dealer-ness in the player's hands.

Everything in XIV uses Aether, but still in ways that feel more like generic spell-flinging vs. originally physical attacks, and yet our Bard still has both distinct spells -- Iron Jaws, Radiant Encore, and arguably even the shell or means of actuation for Warden's, Troubadour, etc -- alongside attacks that were originally purely physical.

Saying the entirety of Bard’s history in FF culminates in a ‘generic, boring’ mage clone seems extremely reductionist and unfair lol.

Which might be relevant if I had done so. I haven't. I'm noting a near-inevitable loss in translation that would so reduce the job.

Turn-based, 3-to-4-man FF's Bard is primarily a (de)buffer. Sing-as-a-generic-attack (give or take an RNG chance of RNG-selected debuff) can be used very sparingly and doesn't need to be focal, interesting in itself, or taken seriously... precisely because there you always have a party onto whom one can offload those direct damage responsibilities.

That's fine there. But a similar implementation here would give us Bard similar to a healer with only a single attack (with AoE fall-off) as if we hadn't taken Malefic spam (or now, "Sing-spam") far enough. And given that we can scarcely even situate a GCD heal more than once an era anymore, I don't think we're going to get a Bard that could feel sufficient in its original predominantly (de)buffer form alone.

Yes, gameplay-wise, one could vary that up considerably, but at that point it's no longer an obvious filler gimmick; you'll instead have then been forced to create a system around that singing/sound magic of damaging song-spell-blast-note-waves-whathaveyou. At which point, you've spent the whole concept of music predominantly on different attack skins a la RDM's individually indifferent Black and White spells. It'd be a mage first and its music a skin for that because you've already had to purpose its gimmick to that objective.

That's why I suggested that music be used as an undermechanic --say, something which choice in skill and rhythm both matter-- rather than a mere skin for generic damage actions, and that music generally be reserved for something far more diversifying and, ideally, utility-focused.

I don't think XIV leverages music nearly enough, but I don't want to see it be to a lute-Bard only what images are to PIC (i.e., just a pseudo-combo assembly gimmick).

(That isn't to say I don't think PIC is decently fun. I wouldn't have an alt that just does it, GNB, and SGE if so. I just want the musical element of a Bard to be such that I could feel like I'm playing something novelly Bard-like even if my visuals were turned off, since it is... you know... music.)

Isn’t this effectively ‘Painting pictures as a combat job can only be done in a turn based game but Pictomancer in XIV painting pictures as a combat is just another generic mage’?

No, it's "the images actually used in PIC combat have little to no bearing on the effect of their spells, with Paint and Palette only ultimately allowing for choice in when to use longer-but-more-damage-efficient over faster-but-less-damage-efficient ones, which --while enjoyable in enough in GCD variance-- seems wasteful enough of that theme that I wouldn't want the same to happen to BRD.

And PIC's is arguably the best thematic gimmick we have -- a damn site better than RDM's --which amounts to a bankable periodic penalty to one's range-- or, perhaps worse still, MCH's --which amounts merely to tracking two CDs as not to overlap their use with gauge spending, rather than anything related to those actual weapon types, let alone choice therein.

And again, isn’t it kind of ignoring every other job in XIV? The guys walking into battle with a literal book, magic globes, giant paintbrushes, Machinist’s sticking lunchboxes to their legs.

Not really, no. They're separate issues. My issue with turning Bard into the likes of a Sonic Mage isn't that a Sonic Mage would be unrealistic. It's that it would divert that theme into just another magecraft gimmick.

To be clear, though, neither do I think those examples are that odd in their context. Why wouldn't we expect a mage who can cast barehanded to make use of the free hand to hold onto a book of glyphs and spell structures from which to draw upon a larger arsenal of spells? I do wish that actually played a part in ACN/SCH/SMN gameplay, just as I wish the difference between having one's twinblades together or apart on Viper were actually gameplay-palpable and deliberate, but the basis is sound enough. The globe, likewise, just another form of a wand or magic focuser. And MCH clearly makes good use of its portable teleporter.

______________

Tbh, at this point, I suspect we're not seeing eye eye to eye essentially just due to a difference in standards. I'm kind of starting from nearer to an ideal and then working my way down to pragmatics because I suspect the opposite would too easily see BRD simply bastardized in a way that keeps neither with its XIV nor former self in ways similar to AST -- leaving dead lore and further premature developer contentment in its wake. For all I know, you're likely just approaching it more pragmatically.

So, to put it as simply as possible...
↓

But to me, something like moving Bard from ‘helpful singing party support caster’ in previous FF’s to ‘fast paced archer dps with minor musical elements’ is a bit of a push too far, in my opinion.

...Absolutely agreed. I just want music to be about undermechanics that can be felt even without reliance on skill VFX/AFX (here referring to isolated AFX a la any other combat actions), rather than as 'merely a skin' for basic direct damage. I'd rather the bow still be the predominant means of said basic direct damage, allowing the theme to be more uniquely leveraged elsewhere.

[Connor]

Tbh, at this point, I suspect we\\'re not seeing eye eye to eye essentially just due to a difference in standards. I\\'m kind of starting from nearer to an ideal and then working my way down to pragmatics because I suspect the opposite would too easily see BRD simply bastardized in a way that keeps neither with its XIV nor former self in ways similar to AST -- leaving dead lore and further premature developer contentment in its wake. For all I know, you\\'re likely just approaching it more pragmatically.

So, to put it as simply as possible...
↓

...Absolutely agreed. I just want music to be about undermechanics that can be felt even with reliance on skill VFX/AFX (here referring to isolated AFX a la any other combat actions), rather than as \\'merely a skin\\' for basic direct damage. I\\'d rather the bow still be the predominant means of said basic direct damage, allowing the theme to be more uniquely leveraged elsewhere.

That’s why I say it’s ultimately a matter of personal preference. I think ‘where the goalposts stand’ is always going to end up different for different people (to varying extents lol).

Personally I wouldn’t mind if they settled for a more ‘superficial Bard’ where it’s just ‘press button, cast while ‘singing’, song effect is now applied’ as opposed to a more nuanced / subtle job mechanic. I mean, I’d obviously want the gameplay to be a little bit more engaging than just spamming buttons lol, but just as a baseline concept. Like Heavensward songs /Stormblood Requiem. Not to say that there’d anything wrong with having it be something more intricate and woven into the gameplay as opposed to being so direct. But then, I also predominantly play turn based games, so maybe that’s something to do with it too.


I guess it’s more that I prefer the actions themselves to be tangibly expressed through the character as opposed to leaning toward them being a more tactile / gameplay means of ‘job expression’, if that makes sense lol.
Though again that’s not to say I’d accept ‘Summoner with Music’ lol, just cycling through the same things over and over without any real nuance or decision making. Just that I don’t mind things being particularly superficial as long as there’s at least some intent behind it (i.e job flavouring).

As for the bow itself while I personally would prefer if it was ‘just an instrument’ , I can’t imagine devs would ever rework the entire job and potentially every animation therein just so I specifically could shoot musical notes or something at the enemy lol. Realistically I wouldn’t imagine there’s going to be any danger of the bow being replaced anyway. And I mean, we do have various ‘bows that are also instruments’, so it’s not like there’s no options for those who want to go for a more ‘musical bard’ aesthetic. Though frankly I think the guitar bow is maybe starting to stretch it just a little lol. There’s impractical weaponry, and then there’s… whatever that is lol.

Overall I don’t have any issue with the bow being the weapon outside of ‘but it should be a harp because that’s what it was before (sometimes)!’, but then some of kinda them already are lol. Like I’d be happy with something like using bow for Burst Shot / DoTs punctuated by frequent song casts (whether for damage or support or both).
Honestly though if Iron Jaws and Radiant Encore still existed I’d kinda like to see them reclassified as spells and having the potency adjusted accordingly. If not simply for the reason that ‘ fingers are not a weapon ’ lol. Maybe the cast on them could also use the ‘plays harp’ animation from old songs to at least contextualise them as some form of ‘music magic’ and not just ‘satellite beam out of nowhere and poisoning people by pointing menacingly’ lol.

Though again that’s more wishful thinking than ‘realistically implementable’ if not just because Skill/Spell Speed are separate. Still, it’s just the kind of thing I’d like to see in an ‘ideal world’ lol.

As a side thought, I remember seeing the devs were considering things like ‘talent trees’ which could potentially act as a solve here. Players could be given the opportunity to spec into a more ‘support/musical’ tree or a more ‘archery/offence’ type. Or if devs were feeling truly ambitious they could have a third option for those who’d prefer a more balanced approach. Putting aside the many weaknesses associated with talent tree systems, of course lol.

[Shurrikhan]

Personally I wouldn’t mind if they settled for a more ‘superficial Bard’ where it’s just ‘press button, cast while ‘singing’, song effect is now applied’ as opposed to a more nuanced / subtle job mechanic. I mean, I’d obviously want the gameplay to be a little bit more engaging than just spamming buttons lol, but just as a baseline concept.

For my part, I'd really like to start off with changes to just generally allow space for supportive actions and incentivize awareness of considerations beyond their usual role boundaries (e.g., giving reason for a DPS to, if capable of suppression or mit, to track their tanks' defensives to an extent):

• Less passive tank eHP through the removal of Tank Mastery but OHKO and tight tankbusters nerfed accordingly -- ultimately just arriving at more tank damage taken without increasing hard mit requirements. This gives more space for healing and, without being absolutely necessary, suppressive/mit support actions.
• More instances of damage taken especially in the form of proximity based AoEs, skillshots (hits first in path only, or with descending damage), and/or conditionally-debuff bearing (to increase the utility value of shields if having previously finally given enough to heal for healers with a greater portion of at-will direct heals to stand out positively). These give more space for interception, movement speed, cleanses, and hard barrier actions.
• More strain on maintaining full output without necessarily increasing strain on maintaining *some* degree of what would feel like proper uptime nor any extra forced whole loss of uptime. (Make it harder, not impossible nor quite so high-risk as to never be worth mastering among the vast majority of players.) This gives room for more support via movement speed buffs.
• More obvious frenzy / damage window mechanics among mobs beyond just "cast to warn of TB; do TB". This gives variety to tank(worthy) interactions and increases space for both healing and suppression.
• Maybe even damage causing a small degree of suppression, increased on certain skills and/or under certain debuffs. This increases incentivizes for fight awareness across roles, especially allows tanks competing interests between pure damage and suppression (ultimately, optimizations in correctly gauging when rDPS is best served by banking skills for when a boss would otherwise go ham on them vs. when the raid is going ham together on said boss), and offers further space for supportive actions.
• Buffs by different means, such as crit bonus, temporary ability charges, or damage reduction based on the %HP to which the attack would reduce you, etc.
• And so on and so forth, whatever may be at all plausible in the interests off opening up support space.

Like I’d be happy with something like using bow for Burst Shot / DoTs punctuated by frequent song casts (whether for damage or support or both).

Same. Keep special ammo from overcapping. Spend MP on songs. Maybe the song casts even resonate with certain of those and/or vice versa. Fill with filler shots.

I guess it’s more that I prefer the actions themselves to be tangibly expressed through the character as opposed to leaning toward them being a more tactile / gameplay means of ‘job expression’, if that makes sense lol.

To be extra clear, I don't mean that it shouldn't have the prior. I just don't want to see it rely on skill VFX/AFX alone to get its theme across like so many other jobs have.

I'd like Paladin to feel more determined and sword-and-board even through it's button presses, even if that's by having a separate GCD and true-ICD (animation lock) for shield actions and the occasional held action on either (actually holding the shield aloft, etc.). I'd like WAR to actually feel a bit more beastly through the ability occasionally to just spam an axe through someone (though admittedly that's easier with a gamewide Stamina Gauge by which to exhaust oneself going faster or at least less rigid animation lockout lengths). I'd like DRK to feel a bit more multi-task-y and tricky through when and how you hit actions. Etc., etc.

But, yes, even in that (to me) ideal, they'd still all still have the over-the-top VFX/AFX that XIV is known for. They'd just have more underlying substance, too.

As a side thought, I remember seeing the devs were considering things like ‘talent trees’ which could potentially act as a solve here.

I've been giving that avenue a fair bit of though as well of late. While I'd like to see that be fairly minimalistic (few but impactful choices each making for a cohesive and compelling take on the broader job) and for there to be more "choice" seemingly given even just from in-combat actions (such as, in Bard's case), in swapping between pure support in playing vs. singing while shooting the bow and letting the whistle of arrows and aether-imbued resonant air do the rest, or the old Fists of Earth/Wind/Fire if rehauled and reinvigorated).

I'd just like the menus not to be too convoluted, even if I would actually be okay with seeing gear play a far stronger factor, too, such as through weapon subtype (cesti/knuckles vs. tonfas vs. wraps/gauntlets vs patas/katars, longbow vs shortbow, tower shield vs. hoplon vs. buckler, greatmace vs. greataxe, etc.) or by making every primary stat at least decently (situationally) useful (up to some amount) for each job and broadening jobs to be more about the job instead of just a slice of a role template. But that's reeeeaaaally pipedream at that point.

[Metricasc]

Overall i think how the current BRD design overall is fine as it carves out its own niche amongst the phys ranged classes while not entirely beholden to a playstyle that wouldn't exactly work in current FFXIV or be done in a way that it would play too close to how DNC plays. i personally don't mind the whole concept that it has followed since 4.x while some others clearly do. in a way i think of this current BRD as more of a hunter that will be the kind to sing songs and play tunes when around the campfire as the party camps for the night.

right now BRD doesn't realistically need any major buffs or changes aside from allowing an extra stack for EA just to allow for some leeway on how it is used and then if needed later on, a cooldown reduction for Raging strikes from 120s to 60s. a nice touch i would had like for the class is to reduce the cooldown for songs from 120s each to about 100-110s. this would mainly just create some extra leeway on song timings overall.

any removal of DoT's for the class will need its potency put back into burst shot/refulgent Arrow to make up for it.

and the other thing about mentioning with barrage being reduced CD from 120s to 30s. that is actually an insane ask given that it is 3 Refulgent Arrows in 1 (that is 540 potency) And a resonant arrow proc (which alone is 600 potency).

also not every class needs to be made easy for everyone, else overall gameplay and enjoyment of the game would completely suffer. take a look at how ppl felt overall about the SMN rework for a strong example of that.