How is this Balanced? (Bard)

[Hamayumi]

Tank stuns are the bane of bard burst And sometimes los, but we have shadowbind for that.

[NoelNoel]

there's blind

Blind does not work on BRD or MCH burst.

[Dimitrii]

BRD's right now are in the same position SMN used to be in, in that they are very fearsome when their burst is available but laughably pathetic during the downtime between bursts. The SMN burst should not have been nerfed imo and BRD shouldnt now either. It has steps to set up making it very telegraphed like DRG burst and the FULLY BUFFED burst (like the one that melted OP) can only be done every 2 minutes cause of raging strikes as opposed to 90 seconds (meaning it only happens every other burst unless the BRD holds the burst till its up).

Then you take in factors such as whether or not ur target cleansed the dots b4 ur sidewinder hit (thus nerfing ur sidewinder), whether sidewinder and farshot crit, whether or not ur target los u in between burst wasting precious seconds or god forbid a tank decides to lock u down wasting time on ur buffs and negating the increased dmg and all of a sudden the dmg isnt as automatic as ppl make it out to be.

The use of blood for blood for this burst also represents an extreme danger during the burst to the bard as opposing dps can jump in to wreck you when they see it pop up (and since its +25% dmg taken u cant ride it out like u can sometimes on DRG who only take 10% therefore it may disrupt or nerf ur burst in needing to cancel it).

People see the pretty numbers in the burst and think omg the job is so overpowered nerf it nerf it! As bad ass as your GIF is making that BRD out to be that dude has like a 40% winrate this season lol, the job is fine as is.

[Koltik]

Why are you in Diurnal Sect in PvP? These ASTs are so much easier to kill than Nocturnal shield instaspammers.

Noct shield spamming cannot even come close to outhealing semi-competent DPS since it received its nerf.

Suddenly getting Windbyte is the first sign you'll be bursted in a couple of seconds. You'll have Venomous Bite as your last warning and that's when you should top HP, pre-apply shield from Aspected Benefic, and be ready for Essential Dignity, Swiftcast+Benefic II or Lightspeed Benefic spam. Turning on Attunement for a few seconds is also an option, just cancel manually before it expires after the danger is gone.

This is all legit advice, except that it requires Noct stance which severely dwarfs your ability to party heal. I've run both, and so have all of the heavy-pvping Astros on my DC, and all agree that Diurn is the better choice. You fall way too far behind on party healing without the regens.

Even if I were noct, that's only a 750 point shield. The numbers I gave were 13600 damage in less than 1 second. Simple math:

Damage Dealt:
Disabled: 13600 * 0.90 = 12240

eHP:
Noct Shield: 10900 + 750 = 11650

So basically unless the astro plays it perfectly, disables the bard, Swiftcast is up and/or lightspeed, and are qeueud right as bard casts barrage, and heal is cast before it actually hits (since heal delay), then the Astro is dead.

Let me also mention that Barrage is instant cast EMP arrow is 1s. oGCD is 0.5 seconds. Why does this matter? Well basically from the moment Barrage goes up the Astro has 1.5 seconds to Disable the bard, be full HP, get a Noct shield off, hope no one else is hitting him to weaken that shield, queue up Swiftcast, and have bene 2 ready to cast the second Emp arrow is about to finish casting. Hopefully he's not stunned, silenced, or otherwise CC'd.

Meanwhile the bard only has to pop a few buffs, pop b4b last for the 1 second it takes to cast emp arrow, blow their cd's, and then disable b4b to be free and clear. Oh, and the healer and/or their target is dead.

[Lambdafish]

This is how you play the game, the team with the better CC can pull this off, it's not about chipping away HP, it's about being strategic about stuns/silences/binds etc. and spatial awareness, if you get locked down and the BRD is left freely to do that, yes you will melt into the floor (this is why I love playing PLD in the feast, because it's CC kit is great).

Burst is a limited thing in PVP too, that BRD exhausted his whole toolkit into killing you and won't have that back up for another few minutes, so the idea is to stop him pulling it off (same applies to MCH).

[Nakanishi]

Stuff

Try LoSing the bard, attuning the burst, timing heals to go in between it, and or out-ranging. You have plenty of options.

[Enlial]

or stop playing ast if its so horrible that you melt to every bard you come across?

[SuperZay]

This is all legit advice, except that it requires Noct stance which severely dwarfs your ability to party heal.

But it's not. All Diurnal gives you are very weak healing ticks from Aspected Helios/Benefic which have never stopped any burst. In Noct, if you keep shields up, you party members basically have extra 10-15% HP at all times which is a good mitigation. Diurnal has zero mitigation. And your main party healing spell, Helios, is actually 5% stronger in Noct because of sect healing boonus. And if you'll go full Piety+Crits build those critted shields are pretty strong.

[Evangela]

Nerf them. Both BRD and MCH.

[Dimitrii]

Wouldn't surprise me if the majority of the people crying for BRD nerfs have never actually played the job for themselves.