I dont get all the Bard hatred..

[Sessurea]

So you add to the vast amount of bard threads by complaining about the qq threads. The people who don't love bard anymore hate the new style that has been forced on them. It is a legit reason to qq. Nobody is saying the damage isn't there, or if they are, they should be mostly ignored.

I like the new changes now. sure , cast times aren't a thing to enjoy but it's a new chalenge, but iron jaws and emyreal arrow+barrage are just amazing. Honestly I think bard is in a fantastic position.

[Humorless]

My problem is the changed the WHOLE mechanic of how they play. They have been turned into casters. As far as parsing, prior to WM, I was usually at the top of the parse, with the exception of the players that played their toons correctly. I can probably easily figure out how to play with WM on, but my main question is why would I, when I can go play a BM and hit for more. They play the same now, except BM have a lot less OCD buffs to cast

Did you really just try to use bad players and your lazyness to justify why WM isn't good enough? Dear god.

[Shunye]

My problem is the changed the WHOLE mechanic of how they play. They have been turned into casters. As far as parsing, prior to WM, I was usually at the top of the parse, with the exception of the players that played their toons correctly. I can probably easily figure out how to play with WM on, but my main question is why would I, when I can go play a BM and hit for more. They play the same now, except BM have a lot less OCD buffs to cast

this guy.......

[Fue]

Bard is the best dps job in the game.

Sincerely yours,
Warrior

[ChalupaBatman]

I dont think its the DPS but rather BRD's can't adapt/hate the new playstyle.

[Croisciento]

We complained at the release because it was almost useless to put WM on because the damage boost wasn't enough moreover we had to stop attacking to cast it.

It is much better now but it feels awkward as hell. Bard was my first love and switched to Monk because of static and was looking forward to play it again in HW. No matter how much I want to love this class I just can't bear playing it anymore. The only pleasure I got from this class is when I'm needed for my support but that's it. I don't enjoy having cast time. I don't enjoy to have a place for only 1 off cd in between my spells. I don't enjoy not being able to use procs like I used to. I kinda like iron jaws and empyreal arrow but that's it. Overall the job is totally different from what it used to be. Hell even when I do lvl 50 roulettes it feels awkward even if I played this class for 2 years...

On the other side Machinist is more enjoyable because you can plan movement with ammunition and hold your procs so you loose no dps while moving. Also only one spell from your main combo has a cast time and we have a tool to nullify cast times, what do we have as bard? Straight shot procs which are completely unreliable. That is WHY it feels awkward and everyone is complaining. DPS is not the issue unlike many people like the OP think. The problem is that they totally redesigned a class that's 2 years old so it can be similar to their new one but it feels like the devs rushed it and we end up with a job that just doesn't feel natural anymore.

The primary attribute from bards is to hit things while moving. But it's also a simple rotation with a lot of procs and buffs to manage. Everyone claimed how easy bard was to play but in fact there was only a bunch of good bards who were able to maintain high dps while singing buff, because the key behind playing bard was to manage your buffs and procs.

If you're giving up mobility you should get a compensation and not only dps unlike SE thought. The job NEEDS to feel the same at its core. When I got Gauss Barrel as machinist it felt awkward but with ammunitions and wildfire it didn't really feel different from what I've been used to during my leveling. SE literally managed to put cast time on this class without "breaking" it, but they didn't with bard.

We're struggling to use our buffs efficiently because we got so many, its hard to put them all in our rotation without loosing an extra weapon skill. We are not as mobile as machinist and the bloodletter mechanic is almost useless since you'll only use them when all of your buffs are off (or if you're singing) or when Empyreal Arrow is off. Something is wrong with the gameplay.

There have been many reasonable propositions made here and there. This thread is not about proposing tweaks, but bard definitely need some so the job feels natural again...

[HBLR]

It's new. people don't like too much new or atleast adjusting in a pretty big way as with bard. the once free to walk wherever easy to play class has turned in something that lets you think a bit more about how to play. I think bard still has fantastic utility with the songs as well. Not sure if i'll level mine though.

[RiceisNice]

It's new. people don't like too much new or atleast adjusting in a pretty big way as with bard. the once free to walk wherever easy to play class has turned in something that lets you think a bit more about how to play. I think bard still has fantastic utility with the songs as well. Not sure if i'll level mine though.

It also has something to do with what Crosiciento mentioned with the job not feeling the same at it's core. Post 50 you either get something that adds onto what you can already do and flows well (such as DRG's 4th hits or BLM having an extra layer of spell cycling through enochian) while still maintaining their core gameplay. Or you get new abilities that fill in your short comings, such as monks horrendous dps drop from complete downtime.

Bard's WM changes how the class plays without much consideration of it's 2.0 toolkit, it goes from fast-paced reactionary gameplay to a much slower paced one where you can't react to procs unless you purposely hold back your weaponskills by an extra split second. I feel like they had something going when they made empyreal arrow a weapon still that's off oGCD (basically an oGCD with cast times) and I felt that actually flows really nicely. It felt reminiscent of the fast placed 2.0 bard where you'd cycle through two attacks or more attacks in a GCD., nor did it really delay your weaponskills that much because the cast times aren' that long and you could immediately start another weaponskill right after (since empyreal doesn't trigger oGCD). Beyond that, it hasn't gotten any more complex/hard because it didn't add anything extra; we even get less buttons to push technically since ironjaws refreshes both our DoTs, and repelling shot is too cumbersome during WM...

Oh, and let's have some Warden's peas for lunch today. :l

[AkashiXI]

One thing to note is that you must play Bard in a totally different mindset than your 2.0 counterpart. Heavy Shot is now your filler move, and both Bloodletter and Misery's End take higher priority. I.e: if you have ME, BL, and EA up, the order would be EA/ME/BL/Heavy Shot. It's more important for us to proc our Bloodletter over using our GCD, as the potential of it proc'ing over time is more important than the static 150 potency from HS. It may make some players go crazy seeing their GCDs on que for so long, but it's what we have to do to maximize our dps.

[Croisciento]

...

Not really. But again saying "I think bard still has fantastic utility" isn't the topic here. People who didn't level up bard to 60 think it's a matter of utility, damage or whatever. It's not. Both MCH and BRD are competitive, they got great utility and their damage is correct. But right now the job is just broken.

They have to give us more mobility under minuet. Heck I can't even know what went through SE's mind when they created minuet but didn't think about changing how River of Blood works with it. A simple tweak that come to my mind is to actually put Bloodletter/Rain of death on the global timer, increase it's potency (but decrease the potency on some other minuet spell like emp arrow) so we can still kinda move and we'll also be able to weave in our gcd more efficiently. I know SE wants us to loose our mobility for damage but as its stand we've got none while machinist directly have a control on it which is totally unfair. My "fix" is probably a bit too much since it can proc a lot, but in the end if it's on the global timer you'll have other spells to use to maintain your DPS, it needs to only be a filler and a spell you can use if you need to move.

Until then i'm not playing my bard again, looking forward to the tweaks.