Harping On: Is this a Bow or a Harp?

[Connor]

So, I don't post much on these forums (think I've posted like 3-4 times lol) so this post might be a bit much. My intention was to post in an existing thread, but once I'd aired out my views I realized I had a massive post lined up and so I decided I might as well contribute to the sea of Bard-tears. This thread is to open up a dialogue on whether others agree / disagree with my sentiments and hopefully shed light on some aspects of Bard that haven't been examined before. I would like to clarify, this isn't a thread on a single aspect of Bard rather than a thread on the identity and mechanics of Bard as a whole. Maybe even an important figure like a dev will read it one day! How exciting!


I've been a Bard since 1.0 and loved the class, having access to Sacred Prism, Stoneskin and Cure with songs being more akin to their XI form made it clear Bard would become a dps with interesting support capabilities. Now, 1.0 was a long time ago and I wasn't the greatest of Bards (fun fact: my Bard was so bad it's the real reason they remade the game). My experiences of it may be entirely erroneous. Regardless, since then, I've been pretty fervent about Bard as job (to a wholly unnecessary extent if this thread is any indicator). Obviously 1.0 had so many problems they dropped a meteor on it, but the idea and direction they seemed to have for Bard was set on a solid foundation (naturally, this is just my opinion).
I was excited to see how they'd develop the job as time went on, but with 2.0 we lost the CNJ/THM subclass and songs became a lot less important in terms of the class mechanics. Instead of having a duration or any positional aspects, they were replaced by *push here for resources*). Duration was now dependant on the Bard's MP Pool. The Bard's position is obviously still important (otherwise nobody hears the song), but not as it was before, where more than one song could potentially be used depending on where the rest of the party was.

Bard became much less about supporting the party, and more about pushing out the mad d33ps. This still applies now, with using songs not being 'how can I support the party / raise party dps as much as possible' but 'how can I use these as little as possible to keep resources up without lowering my own dps too much'. And this was something I didn't like, at all. Bard is 'sold' as a class that supports the party through songs, while providing indirect support with damage due to still being an Archer. But both then and now it just plays like an Archer with a harp. There's a big disconnect between these two conflicting identities when - ideally - they should work in unison rather than discord.
Fast forward to 3.0, where I was excited to see what new support abilities we'd get along with our new weaponskills. And what we get is...the Wanderer's Minuet and the Warden's Paean (disappointment lol). I'm going to focus a lot on this aspect as not only is it where I begun to seriously question whether this was the right job for me in the end, but I feel like it provides two very strong examples of strange design choices that create conflicting identities.

The Wanderer's Minuet in a vacuum is not a problem for me. It can feel clunky and strange but once you get used to it, it isn't much of a problem. It's a very big change from 2.0 and I do understand why many people dislike it, but it hasn't been much of an issue for me itself. The issue for me, as I think it is for many others, is that this is a copy of the Machinist's Gauss Barrel purely to simplify balancing. This is an issue as it causes Bard and Machinist to become homogenized in regards to play-style as opposed to function (the latter being inevitable due to fulfilling the same role). There could have been a variety of ways this balancing could have been done without resorting to such methods (one I came up with which I though was cool was having Iron Jaws / Empyreal Arrow work as songs with a 3 second cast and the song casting animation hehe, which helps with the identity disconnect, but I'm not a developer so I disgress).

Now, onto the next song. The Warden's Paean is very situational and difficult to use due to 3.0's dps frenzy. There are very little times outside of Warrior's Berserk where taking 3 seconds from dpsing is going to be worth it as most of the time the status effects can be avoided by dodging aoe, are placed on a random target (and you'd have to take 24 seconds of casting to have it up on everyone to ensure the debuff is nullified) or can be removed with Esuna for around half the casting time, though at an MP cost (or with no casting time or MP cost if Selene is around and has Fey Caress up!).

Ultimately, I feel like Bard has become an intangible tangle (yes that was intentional) of ideas and concepts that has resulted in a misshapen job with two identities, and apparently never the twain shall meet. These two identities have almost no interaction with each other as one would expect. Bard is a dps fraught with penalties, conflicting dps mechanics (e.g oGCD weaving, River of Blood and the Wanderer's Minuet). It's also a party supporter that uses MP with no reliable MP recovery methods, a limited pool of support abilities, and the pressure of support abilities hindering personal dps in an ever increasing dps race.

As Jehantel describes it, Bards are born from Archers faced with the intensity of battle. The line of friend of foe blurred, overwhelmed with emotions, they burst into song to inspire their comrades to greater feats. But what do we sing when we don't even know if the arrow is nocked on a bow or a harp?
Do I keep Harping On, or do I Bow Out?