RIP Bard

[Duelle]

It's not that people are advocating "balls-to-the-wall damage" necessarily (though sure, some are), it's that HW encounters will be tuned assuming that the BRD is making use of WM when they can. If the BRD isn't, that means the other DPS have to make up the difference. We have no way yet of knowing how much difference that is or how difficult it'll be to compensate for. I kinda doubt it'll be trivial, but that's an assumption. And the thing is, they're actually going to be balanced around a BRD doing everything you just mentioned on top of playing WM when they can. . .

Something as gameplay-altering as Wanderer's Minuet is very unlikely to be minor. It'd be a wasted ability if that were the case.

Chances are you'd need to be in WM for most encounters unless the fight is extremely movement-dependent in order to maintain optimal DPS. Depending on how Skill Speed affects melee casting, BRD may find value in stacking skill speed (though from what I remember, BRD is currently dependent on crit for procs, so that may cause issues in itemization).

This WM in essence is not so bad. If ping is good we can have a lot of mobility its just we need to stop for a moment to skill be cast and then we can sprint wherever we want to, but because of lag impairment for those casts to to very efficient we will need to plant ourselves all so just server doesn't need to confirm our still standing after every move we make.

I'm guessing even the game's built-in ability queues isn't doing much to help those with longer ping times, then.

[Viridiana]

Something as gameplay-altering as Wanderer's Minuet is very unlikely to be minor. It'd be a wasted ability if that were the case.

Chances are you'd need to be in WM for most encounters unless the fight is extremely movement-dependent in order to maintain optimal DPS. Depending on how Skill Speed affects melee casting, BRD may find value in stacking skill speed (though from what I remember, BRD is currently dependent on crit for procs, so that may cause issues in itemization).

Honestly, I wouldn't mind seeing SS become useful for BRD, as long as it doesn't cause undue TP drain. But, yeah, I also expect WM to be a pretty sizable increase. The only thing BRD has that I think would cause you to willingly turn it off (aside from movement, obviously) is Barrage, because nearly 800 potency is too much to pass up, but for all we know they've accounted for that and have WM modify Barrage.

[SongJoohee]

Honestly, I wouldn't mind seeing SS become useful for BRD, as long as it doesn't cause undue TP drain. But, yeah, I also expect WM to be a pretty sizable increase. The only thing BRD has that I think would cause you to willingly turn it off (aside from movement, obviously) is Barrage, because nearly 800 potency is too much to pass up, but for all we know they've accounted for that and have WM modify Barrage.

It's already been said the speed stats will be adjusted in the expansion to make the stat more worth having rather than something lots of people actively avoid.

[Lillia]

snip

"We" "us" Please don't type like everyone feels the same way. This thread is filled with mixed reactions by all those who main or alt bard. A few posts you put has been with the starting words I wrote and I for one personally do like the sound of the change. I want to believe SE will tweak it over time to adjust to the needs bards have but it needs to be used first to see what players feel after they actually tried using the skills and new play styles.

I personally feel like the skill may be great, it's optional and the most I'd like to happen? a skill animation time reduction. That's the ONLY problem I see, I know you have your preferences. That's fine and all but you're fighting against a skill you haven't even seen, they didn't show the damage rates of the shots or anything and I do prefer not falling too far behind in DPS that I'm just going to be standing around doing for maybe 2 mins in a fight before having to move around again afterwards.

Machinist is almost the same yes, but if they offer similar support or just as beneficial support merits then who do you think is going to get into those raid slots? Preferably not a bard over a machinist if their DPS is a significant amount lower, I can promise you this for a fact. Quite a bit of Raid Turns require a certain amount of DPS to be put into them most the time. If the DPS required is more needy because of the increased cap and harder monsters in HW's new raid then guess what, all jobs will need to pull a certain amount of DPS and this includes Bard.

Like I said there will be changes if there's problems with the skill but it won't be the ability to moving and shooting with auto attacks with the increased damage buff/stance because that's too overpowered to have at once for a single class/job. Also I hate to say it but bard is there for a certain amount of DPS and a certain amount of support, we aren't just one nor the other so we need to be able to do both roles as efficiently as the other and sometimes that comes with sacrifices.

Lastly, just try to remember that the base of our job isn't changing... I know right now with the changes it feels like it is but think of it as additions that depending on how they perform may not even be used all that often if at all. These are as I just wrote; Additions and nothing more, unless we see something crazy like current skills nerfed theres not much of a change so far.

Oh and I do have worries, I'm not trying to type this all down like I don't have some or I haven't considered any problems with the skill but the beautiful thing about MMOs is that it can be changed and so far stuff has been changed quite a few times to fix jobs and imbalances so don't worry too much.


Edit: I also want to note why I like bard seeing as if these changes do take place, they will be the "blm phys turret class(?)" I like bard not just for the movement, I like it for the ability to be able to be useful in multiple situations. Bard is the only class where I feel like I can actually be useful in ways that no other class can really be. It's unique because while ninja may be able to fill TP and healers can recover MP, they can't do it as often as a bard. No other class right now can do the supportive abilities that a bard can provide while doing that small amount of DPS that also fills in enough to get the group by as they allow other DPS, tanks or healers extend their abilities with TP or MP recoveries.

At first, I wasn't appealed by this class until I noticed how much value it has as a team player when I gave it a try for my first static in XIV and that made me love and appreciate the class for what it is. I know it's not the generic bard but it's something I really like to play and as long as I can support others the way I always do.... well... I'm just happy with that, mostly anyways.

[JohnMccain]

Only a 25% potency increase lol. This song seems entirely useless because auto attacks generally do 20-25% of a BRD's dps.

[Riepah]

I'm guessing even the game's built-in ability queues isn't doing much to help those with longer ping times, then.

That queue system is actually what makes the lag so bad. You see an animation go off, so you queue the next skill - suddenly, the animation that went off aborts midway, and turns out the skill was never executed. So the skill you wanted to queue is executed instead.

[Spiritreaver1217]

Only a 25% potency increase lol. This song seems entirely useless because auto attacks generally do 20-25% of a BRD's dps.

Where are you getting these figures?

[JohnMccain]

Where are you getting these figures?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...eview?sle=true,
http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/commen...cument/crlph7t,
guy discussing it on twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/pcgamesn/v/5481429,
and my own personal numbers to arrive at 20-25%.

[kyuven]

Only a 25% potency increase lol. This song seems entirely useless because auto attacks generally do 20-25% of a BRD's dps.

This is why i have a theory that it's meant to be Stance Danced to set DoTs, not the end-all-be-all.

[Viridiana]

This is why i have a theory that it's meant to be Stance Danced to set DoTs, not the end-all-be-all.

With a 3 second cast time, I don't think that's feasible. Unless Sidewinder also extends dots, but then we're moving straight into guessing.