RIP Bard

[TruebladeNuke]

"TP please bard."
"STFU MY DPS NUMBERS!!"
"Ballad please bard..."
"STFU MY DPS NUMBERS!!"

Please look forward to it.

Yep, I can see it happening now...

...

Wait a sec. I ALREADY see this happen in WoD runs.

"lolBRDs" indeed.

[CGMidlander]

Yep, I can see it happening now...

...

Wait a sec. I ALREADY see this happen in WoD runs.

"lolBRDs" indeed.

Gotta do 1000 DPS (but not per second) yo!

[kyuven]

"TP please bard."
"STFU MY DPS NUMBERS!!"
"Ballad please bard..."
"STFU MY DPS NUMBERS!!"

Please look forward to it.

You can use other songs while under the effect of Wanderer's Minuet, Yoshi-P said this directly.
Though that's not gonna stop people from being stupid...
All i can say is BRDs should learn to play BLM or SMN at this point to get a feel for how to deal with Wanderer's Minuet.

[Lewtskie]

How the heck do you know if you'll like it or not?

Tried to get BLM higher in the past and used to be pretty dedicated with SMN. Casting times drove me nuts; I just don't like it. That's the entire deal with Minuet.

But isnt Minuet something meant to work like a stance dance?

I'd be for a stance dance, but typically when it comes to something like switching in and out of said stances the 'cast' into the stance is near seamless with maybe a cooldown before breaking out of it, Like Clerics. This has a short animation, which makes it seem awkward.

I said before I'm fine with there being a new method of DPS, just why did we have to waste a song? Why couldn't we have gotten a new support song and then gotten this stance as an Archer's CA? I love playing BRD for that support aspect and though this 'song' can integrate with the others, seeing nothing new to the table in that area is a bit disappointing.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

The question was raised today by a friend (didn't see if it's been asked already): with Minuet up, I know we lose the charge ability/buff while moving and no auto attack, but will we still be able to just attack like normal, or not at all?

If possible, would one of the community reps please clarify this?

[Edellis]

Straight Shot is a damage buff that needs to be kept up, much like Huton, Heavy Thrust, Maim, Greased Lightning...etc.

Bards have 2 dots that need to be kept up, just like the melee DPS classes.

Bards also have to Invigorate like the melee DPS classes.

What resource management does Bard lack?

Those aren't resources, they're buffs and DOTs. There's no way to "mess up" anything Bard does, worse case scenario, your DPS drops if you use them sub-optimally. It's not like you're going to fail a DPS check because of any of this -- just pop all CDs at once 90% of the time you'll be fine. Bards don't directly benefit from MP or their songs, other classes do. This is fun but it's also not very engaging, since outside of ballad, the BRD isn't sacrificing anything. And even then, it's a completely passive sacrifice, nothing changes from your point of view.

This new stance is the first time Bard actually has to think about an ability before they press the button, and it makes a very noticeable sacrifice.

The majority of BRD's difficulty for me seems to come from the fact the game doesn't explicitly tell you when you gain a bloodletter proc, and i guess that's just to stop them from just being 100% ezmode. BRD really just feels like a parse machine more than anything.

[kyuven]

I said before I'm fine with there being a new method of DPS, just why did we have to waste a song? Why couldn't we have gotten a new support song and then gotten this stance as an Archer's CA? I love playing BRD for that support aspect and though this 'song' can integrate with the others, seeing nothing new to the table in that area is a bit disappointing.

There's not really much left to add as song abilities that wouldn't either completely unbalance BRD or be useless.
If they added a physical version of foe requiem, they'd be singing that all the time since there's ALWAYS physical going out.
If they added an HP song, same story
They've vehemently said no haste song
an accuracy song would straddle the line between useless and overpowered, with useless being more likely since if you need it, you're not geared correctly.
Individual stat boosts would require six new songs.
"bubble song" (DEF or RES) would either be useless or overpowered, and is being covered completely by the healers.

So yeah future songs, such as this one, will play more esoteric roles.

BRD really just feels like a parse machine more than anything.

Too bad they parse lower than other jobs, ESPECIALLY if they're doing their job right.

[otarolgam]

What I'd like to see is a bit of flexibility with this new song.

So, you put it up. What I'd like to see happen is that the song stay up, even if you move... You just lose the charge.

So, You're about to use Heavy Shot and it starts charging, but an AoE comes and you have to move.

You move, but the Heavy Shot goes off without the extra damage.

That'd be nice and flexible for me.

[Edellis]

There's not really much left to add as song abilities that wouldn't either completely unbalance BRD or be useless.
If they added a physical version of foe requiem, they'd be singing that all the time since there's ALWAYS physical going out.
If they added an HP song, same story
They've vehemently said no haste song
an accuracy song would straddle the line between useless and overpowered, with useless being more likely since if you need it, you're not geared correctly.
Individual stat boosts would require six new songs.
"bubble song" (DEF or RES) would either be useless or overpowered, and is being covered completely by the healers.

Yeah, this is another thing that steered me away. Bard's support capacity is eextreemellyyy situational. The vast majority of them aren't even useful unless your party is underperforming. Endgame, it's almost always just ballad. If not ballad, Foe for free. They have 3 AoEs, only one of which (quick nock) is ever practical, Rain of Death's debuff is very useful...again, only if your party is under-performing. Same with Paeon. Same with their limit break. Wide Volley is useless. The entire AoE proc chain is useless.

They are definitely useful, but it seems like the majority of their abilities was balanced around the fact they can free-roam, which in turn caused the rest of their abilities to just sit on this line of "useful but meh" where nothing specific can really shine. This new stance looks to directly change that, which is something i wish they had from level 50.

[Arkenne]

Iteration

Well, would rather look at Minuet as a stance called a 'Song', which is simply a spell with a casting time but no cooldown, unlike Cleric Stance that has instant effect but a cooldown to wear it off :/

Same cat, just dirty.

And, who knows? They might have implemented a certain other new support song, just didnt show it in the preview :/