Bard is utterly destroyed

[Jetstream_Fox]

The main aspect of this class was it's ability to provide unrestricted dps while retaining mobility and regenerating party wide tp/mp. I'm about 3/4 of the way through the expansion and I'm cringing on how nerfed this class is, honestly it feels as if they attempted to combine Black Mage into this class, I mean I might as drop Bard for the higher damage output a Black Mage spits out at this point.

Locking all the new skills behind Wanderer's is such a even worse design requiring that I have it up 24/7. However combine Wanderer's with any of the 2.0 songs and Wanderer's is only a 5% increase to my damage added with no more mobility, this skill a HUGE nerf in terms of it being situational. I rather drop the 15% damage to constantly be able to dps left and right while giving my team the regen needed to stay above the fight.

[Jetstream_Fox]

Let\\\\\\'s not forget that Barrage is gone completely destroying the dps burst the class had, I mean you can\\\\\\'t even auto attack with Wanderer\\\\\\'s active so I don\\\\\\'t even see why this was left in the skill tree. Bloodletter is shared with Rain of a Death for whatever reason I can\\\\\\'t even think of highly hurting the aoe of the class, no longer can we have the option to use Wide Volley in order to make Rain of Death free which also could have made Quick Nock free. Honestly they might as well taken out Wide Volley since it cost more then Quick Nock that there is no reason to use it anymore. The only good things I\\\\\\'ve acquired so far is Iron Jaws and Empyreal Arrow, Warden\\\\\\'s Paeon is pointless when Healers already have the option to remove status effects.

What was the point of hurting this class so bad? If it\\\\\\'s not fixed then no one will play it and this class will be dead before the next expansion.

[Furyan]

Bloodletter is shared with Rain of a Death for whatever reason I can\\\\\\'t even think of

This is actually a good thing. Its shares a recast with bloodletter but it is also affected by the reset from the dots. So in an AoE situation you apply your dots and spam wide volley as usual, but instead of rain of death becoming free from wide volley, its a free instant OGC skill when your DOT's proc it. Which from my eyeballing is way more often than it was before.

In some situations, with internal release up and 3-4 dots on mobs, I find myself having unlimited rain of death procs to cast.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but isn't this better?

Also, in regards to the new song. A smart bard would pop the song during a phase where movement isn't needed, hit Buffs > Barrage > Empy Arrow for 3k+ dmg > Sidewinder for another huge burst hit, then turn the song off until the cooldowns become available again for huge burst.

Instead of looking at this new song as the "new" way to play bard, look at is as another layer, another tool which we may use if the situation calls for it.

[xenok]

This is actually a good thing. Its shares a recast with bloodletter but it is also affected by the reset from the dots. So in an AoE situation you apply your dots and spam wide volley as usual, but instead of rain of death becoming free from wide volley, its a free instant OGC skill when your DOT's proc it. Which from my eyeballing is way more often than it was before.

The problem with this is that it destroys another skill, wide volley. Quick Nock is more TP efficient, but the reason you use Wide Volley is a) the circular aoe (minor reason) and b) the chance to proc a free RoD. These days, I never use wide volley anymore, instead I stand near the tank and use Quick instead.

This is the difficult and tricky thing about changing skills; there are secondary and tertiary effects. I can live with the new RoD, but the devs need to do something to make wide volley more viable or not obsolete.

[Tharian]

no longer can we have the option to use Wide Volley in order to make Rain of Death free which also could have made Quick Nock free.

I would like to point out that since Rain of Death is now an Off Global Cooldown Ability it is automatically free. If you are suffering because you normally had Bloodletter macroed to just about everything all you really need to do is switch it so that Bloodletter is macroed to your single target abilities while Rain of Death is macroed to your AoE abilities and presto, no more DPS Loss.

Yes you lose the ability to have a free Quick Nock, but honestly that ability is situational in the extreme considering how close to the enemy you actually have to be to utilize it properly.

As for your complaints about Wanderer's Minuet? You do realize you aren't actually required to utilize it? Sure, some groups may get pissed at you if you don't utilize it on occasion, but there is nothing actually requiring you to make use of it.

[l---------------l]

Let\\\\\\'s not forget that Barrage is gone completely destroying the dps burst the class had, I mean you can\\\\\\'t even auto attack with Wanderer\\\\\\'s active so I don\\\\\\'t even see why this was left in the skill tree. Bloodletter is shared with Rain of a Death for whatever reason I can\\\\\\'t even think of highly hurting the aoe of the class, no longer can we have the option to use Wide Volley in order to make Rain of Death free which also could have made Quick Nock free. Honestly they might as well taken out Wide Volley since it cost more then Quick Nock that there is no reason to use it anymore. The only good things I\\\\\\'ve acquired so far is Iron Jaws and Empyreal Arrow, Warden\\\\\\'s Paeon is pointless when Healers already have the option to remove status effects.

What was the point of hurting this class so bad? If it\\\\\\'s not fixed then no one will play it and this class will be dead before the next expansion.

Uhm... I differ in many things here... I don't know if you checked in your bard, but. Barrage is no longer a triple-auto attack skill, but rather a triple-weaponskill one. If you do for example a straight shot dduring barrage it will make 3 straight shots... Actually it fits awesome with Minuet. Iron Jaws and Empyreal arrow are awesome... And Warden paeon is very very important and strategic. Think about it, what if in a certain boss all party will get slept or paralisis? You can cast this in the healer, so the healer will be able to freely esuna the rest.

Example: Rank A Kurrea, some of the people hitting it are nubz and don't know they have to silence, you casted warden's paeon in your healer, everyone gets sleep except healer who now can esuna all the party, congratulations, you're now the unique party hitting the A rank.

Iron jaws basically reset your poisons, so, instead of needing to use two skills for poisons, you just use one well timed and notice the miracles. Of course bad bards will perhaps miss the timings and fail to reset poisons with this...

Bard also got a new AoE buff, when other classes lost their AoE buffs such as a BLM and WHM using holy-flare, Bard can now freely execute rain of death, and not only that! If you place poisons with internal release and straight shot in a few monsters, you'll really, REALLY, spam free-TP aoes on your enemies...

Come on, nerf, really?.

A reflexion: All skills are made for something and have some meaning, you just need to analyze and think about it two minutes for realizing it... Well, all skills except Careful Synthesis I.

[Sessurea]

Come on, nerf, really?.

A reflexion: All skills are made for something and have some meaning, you just need to analyze and think about it two minutes for realizing it... Well, all skills except Careful Synthesis I.

The problem is that it doesn't pay you to use WM outside of the opener. Unless some exaggerated downtime where barrage/he/rs all happen to be off cd, then it would be worth bringing up wm for that barrage alone. This mostly only happens in more casual content like extremes etc.

The barrage nerf was quite hard btw. Barrage was what would spike up bards damage a little outside the opener but now dps is on a long slow plummet afterwards. Empyreal arrow barrage is awesome but the 3 second cast to get back into wm makes it worthless and clunky.

I feel making wm insta cast is exactly just what bards need right now.

[Kayko]

Snip

Wait what? Lets see here, I don't know if you play BRD here but Barrage only affects certain skills, can not crit (in fact it removes the crit from straighter shot if used) and is used up on first hit.

WP, your example doesn't work. By the time you see something would not be silenced, it is far too late. Also, if I am with my normal group that I intend to raid with, that gets silenced without question. You're implying that playing with a competent group makes that ability basically a waste? The development team wasted there time with it since I don't have any reason to actually use it for gain.

Yes, IJ does reset DoTs after they appear to have fallen off. Key word appear. They didn't fall off, its the stupid game that is not set up to count damage client side and has to do everything at a server tick rate. This is the reason that sometimes the debuffs start at 17s instead of 18. This has nothing to do with timing it right, it is shear luck on what side of the server tick it counts.

What AoE buff? You mean RNG? RoD reset is based on a DoT crit, there is no buff here. You have to have RNG on your side. It is still usually more valuable to use QN instead. On top of that, AoE is for trash pulls, and who cares about trash pulls.

[pandabearcat]

Wait how did you get nerfed if you just got one ability that you can choose to use or not, that may or may not be a dps increase?

I sort of get what you are saying, but really if they just made the damage increase from minuet/gauss something like 30 you would be good to go.

[Jetstream_Fox]

Because the aspect of the class was mobility with tp/mp regens. If I need to move out of an aoe to keep in distance with my healers, Wanderer's is pointless, the new skills being locked behind it are then null since I can't use them effectively. Thus hurting my dps as a hole, if I can't keep using the new skills. The reason why BLM gets hit with a mobility lock is solely because they spit out huge damage, there isn't any reason for Bard to suffer from a mobility lock. Remove the mobility lock and Wanderer's restrictions then class is somewhat useful, this is without the return of our aoes and enhanced barrage, a core skill of the class.