Buff Bards or Riot

[UltimateAoe2]

It's just the misconception that people think Bards should be on par with Melees.

While I understand how people feel about that, they shouldn't with their utility. Sure, you might have a damage penalty inflicted upon you while using Mage's Ballad or Army's Paeon, but you could reduce that by using WM and if you know you can stay there for a bit.


In all honesty, it's a slight DPS boost if used correctly. I'm saying you can weave it with your buffs. Wouldn't make sense to stay in WM while there are no buffs/they're on CD.
Auto's were nerfed a bit, and the barrage change really hurt somewhat. You could almost say AA's are almost useless to Bards now.


EDIT: To the person above me, ( I can't quote for some reason )
It's a DPS loss if you keep using it all the time.
It's a DPS loss if you're constantly moving on accident.
It's NOT a DPS loss if you know when/where to use it (IE: Raging Strikes | Hawk's Eye | Blood for Blood | Barrage is up).
Trust me, I've been playing bard since Closed Beta Phase 2. :-;.

You're not forced to use it. (besides, sidewinder is pretty stupid OP if you ask me.)

Not to be rude, but this shows the good/bad Bards in this patch.

( ' - ' /

[Vespar]

Not to be rude, but this shows the good/bad Bards in this patch.

Not to be rude, but that statement is rude....
And the length of time you have played bard matters not to me.
Ive been playing since 1.0 alpha but I will not claim to be the greatest bard out there because of that.

At any rate, I have only been using WM on training dummies for testing purposes since my attempts at using it in parties has effectively lessened my DPS. However the tooltip for WM lead me (and likely others) to believe that it boosts bard damage overall when it in fact does not. (Wanderer's Minuet: Increases damage dealt by 20% while ceasing auto-attack and adding cast time to all archer and bard weaponskills.) Also, WM is the only way we can access these new abilities, I think it highly cumbersome to have to stop everytime one of my new abilities is available for use, and cast WM just so I can use it... Not to mention it affect Iron Jaws. So that means Iron Jaws would then become useless if we dont have WM cast to use it.

So, yes, it has become a DPS loss when I am actually using WM (regardless of movement ie. Training dummy), which for all intents and purposes based on the tooltips for the other actions, Wanderer's Minuet appears to have been intended to "set it and forget it", meaning leaving it on constantly.

[zcrash970]

snip

You are testing the abilities of a class before the level cap? I hope not. That would be silly.

[Vespar]

You are testing the abilities of a class before the level cap? I hope not. That would be silly.

I was testing the output of MY CURRENT level with Vanilla Bard. Against the Wanderer's Minuet version of MY CURRENT level Bard. I am comparing myself against myself with WM. Not myself against other people. And MY vanilla bard rivals MY Wanderer's Minuet bard's dmg regardless of movement as I was testing on a training dummy. I have every intention of testing myself again when I hit 60 to see if anything has changed. But from what I have been seeing and reading from others, the dmg from WM does not appear to ever rival that of vanilla bard. Calling into question the usefulness of WM.

[Welsper59]

You are testing the abilities of a class before the level cap? I hope not. That would be silly.

This is another stupid introduction on SEs part to mechanic changing situations. WM is terrible while you level. It only gets to be maybe on-par at 56, and even then, you're sacrificing your mobility to be a turret with significantly higher chances of dropping your DPS. They apparently like the idea to introduce a new game-changing ability that will initially make you feel weaker as you level to unlock the intended abilities that require it. It's like how they introduced songs to the game. Your very first song you get? Requiem. What did most of us do after learning it? Cast it, aggro a ton of nearby mobs, then die/wipe the group. Essentially, it initially scares you off from the idea of using songs in dungeons/combat. BRILLIANT way to get people to learn... add an ability that unnecessarily aggros everything around it as their very first introduction to party utility.

The need to balance 5 cooldowns, possibly dance between long cast time stances (casting WM > turning it off > repeat), and manage song necessity while simultaneously losing your DPS output (since you need to stop your DPS to cast these songs AND take the damage reduction from it), makes the job somewhat overwhelming with substandard payoff. Remove the only attractive aspect of the job that differentiated it from others (mobility), while not only keeping damage reduction effects, but adding more means for harm to performance for wanting to play in a way that they've had you do for years. It's like they're trying to introduce the idea of the support role, while also claiming the support role does not exist in this game.

While I personally don't mind the idea of being a turret, I do mind the poor direction they've given the job. The idea that BRD will almost never outperform other equally skilled/geared DPS isn't a new one, but still having the job be among the lowest (alongside MCH) while introducing more variables that can reduce your performance for your role (DPS... there are no support jobs, according to Yoshi-P) is just stupid planning. BRD being lower potential DPS is fine, but it's starting to get out of hand. It really would be funny though if they decide to nerf Sidewinder because it can bring out a big number for once, as it's something BRD has never had before.