Bard and how to fix it.

[Snowaeth]

Anyone that can read Japanese able to check what concerns they'r bringing up on the JP side of the forum after the WM change happened?

[Kayote]

I think its ok as is, honestly. If anything, our DPS still needs a little work so maybe just give us back our freakin Auto Attacks. It doesnt make any sense that we have a new special stance but we cant just shoot a basic arrow shot off.

Before any self-loathing, support wanna-be Bards out there start with the "oh but we'd be OP" ... no we wouldnt, we're DPS, not support. We should be useful all of the time, not just in bad groups. Even IF somehow our two measly buff songs (that can be done by other classes with no penalty) is OP, then its the songs that need to be nerfed, while our DPS brought to par.

As for the other stuff im on the non-issue side of things. The oGCD window allows for 1 now instead of 2, doesnt mean its broken or bad, just different. So long as our DPS is good its simply a slightly different rotation than what we had before.

MAYBE fix the Straighter Shot procs to pop up sooner so we can see it quicker but even thats just being picky IMO. Its a 10 second buff on a 20% RNG with Heavy Shot. More than enough time to use it, and the chances of actually missing one is fairly low considering. Not really something to lose sleep over.

[Snowaeth]

I think its ok as is, honestly. If anything, our DPS still needs a little work so maybe just give us back our freakin Auto Attacks. It doesnt make any sense that we have a new special stance but we cant just shoot a basic arrow shot off.

Before any self-loathing, support wanna-be Bards out there start with the "oh but we'd be OP" ... no we wouldnt, we're DPS, not support. We should be useful all of the time, not just in bad groups. Even IF somehow our two measly buff songs (that can be done by other classes with no penalty) is OP, then its the songs that need to be nerfed, while our DPS brought to par.

As for the other stuff im on the non-issue side of things. The oGCD window allows for 1 now instead of 2, doesnt mean its broken or bad, just different. So long as our DPS is good its simply a slightly different rotation than what we had before.

MAYBE fix the Straighter Shot procs to pop up sooner so we can see it quicker but even thats just being picky IMO. Its a 10 second buff on a 20% RNG with Heavy Shot. More than enough time to use it, and the chances of actually missing one is fairly low considering. Not really something to lose sleep over.

I agree that it's all playable the way it currently is.
But do you find that it flows smoothly?

I mean we had a job where literally everything flowed well together except maybe quad barrage which never felt like it was meant to be there in the first place anyway.
They copy paste a skill on top of our kit for the sake of balance and suddenly there are these little bumps at every step of the rotation, which we never had before.

I am not saying it's unplayable, but I sure would enjoy playing it much more if the rotation had the streamlined flow back to it.
Some of the issues I mentioned, like flaming arrow being slow to register, always been there, but they do become more apparent when you shorten the time we have to use our OGCD's just that little bit more where it becomes an annoyance rather than a minor inconvenience.

[Aiselia]

maybe just give us back our freakin Auto Attacks.

I'd rather they just remove the inherent 10% less weapon damage and at least equalize the weapons across all classes.

Heck, I'd be fine if they then bumped the penalty for playing songs to 25% to compensate for the whole "support" thing even if I think the punishment itself isn't necessary due to the practical effect limit of the songs.

[Drekor]

Best thing I could think of would be to have bards have a song that increases group damage significantly but also increases resource cost significantly... compress the TP/MP chants into one so you'd basically go through cycles of signing to boost group damage then switching to resource generation when people get low. This way the bard is being a support by buffing damage but also causing the need for the resource chant itself as opposed to outside mechanics that would "require" a bard to be present to progress.

[AnnietheCat]

People not liking a nonsense skill doesn't make them bad players. Some of us have been playing for a year or more and we liked our old play style. Some of us hate how clunky the rotation feels not. So if a chunk of players unsub because square gave us a poorly implemented skill and refuses to fix it because they think a copy pasted skill added to an established job(as opposed to MCH which was built with GB in mind) is what balance means, we're bad players? It's like no one can dislike something about a job they've been maining for a year or more without being called a bad player in an effort to shut us up.

[ChalupaBatman]

It feels clunky for sure but BRD is a DPS class and WM is a significant DPS increase, that is enough incentive for me to want to use it.

If they remove WM then they would have to nerf the damage so it isn't significantly better than MCH which it turn will make taking BRD's pointless into serious groups since MCH would have higher DPS potential while having similar support utility.

Shitty design on SE's part since WM was their "lazy" way of balancing BRD's to keep them even with MCH but oh well.

[Syll]

Since SE's issue with bard seems to be mobility; they gave it a Caster's limitation (namely a cast bar). However, I'd rather they gave bard a melee's limitation... Which is to say no cast bar, but having to be within melee range of the mob to get the damage bonus.

[Ranen]

Since SE's issue with bard seems to be mobility; they gave it a Caster's limitation (namely a cast bar). However, I'd rather they gave bard a melee's limitation... Which is to say no cast bar, but having to be within melee range of the mob to get the damage bonus.

This! Or at least leave the cast bar for the WM abilities (iron jaws/Empy Arrow) and leave the older abilities instant cast. Hell I wouldn't even mind if VB and WB had cast bars, just leave our spam abilities without it.

[Kelevra]

When Minuet is running, and only when Minuet is running, some of the Bard's traits should be able to trigger additional effects. The one that should be improved/tweaked first is River of Blood.

Under Minuet: If BL/RoD are reset by WB or VB while off cooldown...it should increase in potency (up to 2 or 3 times---potency increase is indefinite, but resets after one use or if Minuet is switched off). Just like a select few have suggested already, some sort of addition like this to the River of Blood trait would help alleviate some of the problems folks are running into atm, when getting a steady stream of BL/RoD resets when in Minuet. I think so anyway.