Thread: BRD/MCH in 4.0

Originally Posted by Jandor

My (admittedly) quick googling shows the speed record is real at least, and he hasn't even got Hydaelyn helping him out.

Rest seems a bit faked, cool though. Like watching a magic act.

It's plenty viable for shooting people in the throat. Just, depending on the range, don't expect it to pierce armor, or even cut into bone enough to sink into shielded vitals. To put in in-game terms, it's something Miqote game-hunters might do, much to the chagrin of Elezen archers...

On which note: I'd like to see more of the idea of going back and forth between two styles, say Quick Draw and Full Draw, where optimal play is a blend between the rapid style of the 50 Bard and the more caster-like style of the 60 Bard. It could also keep us from feeling such a jarring change from playstyle to the other, instead allowing us to reach the more marksman-like style earlier on (hopefully within the Archer class itself), and gradually increase the extent of it while also increasing the rapidness of the default stance even further. Give each a buff generation that, depending on how you look at it, does a better job of advancing its own needs or that of the opposite style, and each their own way of playing with Bloodletter (to which I honestly hope the Full Draw can finally give back its 1.x's lazer cannon feel, while the Quick Draw can reduce its animation lock and increase its immediacy a bit).

As for just making Bard stance-dancing more viable without touching WM itself, a reduction to WM's lock-in duration, new options for Bloodletter, and/or certain buffs or chance normalization to Heavier/Straighter Shot could probably do wonders.

I leave MCH for a new time. I just hope they move away from it being a such a Bard copy, and start fleshing out its sense of being an engineer, be that through more turret use, gun attachments, or even making grenades themselves a real thing rather than just a Wide Volley that's actually worth using in the form of Grenado Shot.

...Oh, and of course, fix Skill Speed oversights.

Originally Posted by Velhart

This pretty much. Besides, I am still very mobile on MCH with GB on. It really is not a big deal dealing with cast times. If you actually get good at BRD or MCH, then your mobility is just fine. Sure you are not jumping all over the place, but you can still freely move for the most part if you actually know how to weave your rotation with your movement.

If downvotes were a thing, I would probably get a lot of them for saying this, but I actually prefer GB. I hate the aesthetic of it, but I do like the concept. Perhaps it is because it feels like Marksmanship Hunter in WoW, but I like weaving my casts/rotation.

Nah, I feel the same way about WM on the whole. I really do like going back and going ham on a level 50 synced run every once in a while, but the gameplay with WM actually feels more intricate, more urgent, and a bit more exciting to me. And it's not like I utterly can't turn off WM and AoE as the tank's still gathering, if I wanted to. I was actually playing WoW's WoD MM hunter, too, around the same time I started doing Savage content with WM, and I can certain see why you've pointed out the connection. That said, I actually feel a lot more mobile with WM and its cast times than a WoD hunter typically felt to me with its Sniper Training. Perhaps I just prefer stutter-stepping and the occasional free mobility to the 3 seconds of movement between longer stops, most of which would be wasted anyways.

It makes me hesitant to wish for changes such as, say, having movement speed decrease as the skill progresses its cast (though can cast while moving) and/or have the cast progress slower while moving. I like playing chicken with AoEs by now, and I'm not sure if waddling out of an AoE would feel as satisfying as springing out at the last second in an EA animation.

That said, I do find the way WM was introduced atrocious. Not does its 15 second lock cost you 500 potency of AAs even when you don't have the WM-specific skills at 52 to pay off that debt outside of AoE, it's a drastically different gameplay style introduced in a single acquisition. There's nothing sniper-like about a Bard. If a Bard should have sniper-like elements, it should be because the class already had them. The only exception to that rule I can imagine is if somehow Bard-style magics (I thought we were singers, though, not weapon enchanters?) were expanding the bow to make it more powerful but harder to draw. But that doesn't seem to be the case.

Instead, we sing a wish upon the wind that with the sacrifice of our firstborn oGCD and our highly-contributive auto-attacks, our damage might be increased.

Originally Posted by Jandor

If that was the case why were we not seeing full BRD groups everywhere back in 2.0?

I did some of those. They cleared shit pretty fast. That said, double Bard was more the norm, if only to make more use of casters. One could Ballad while the other would Foe, giving healers infinite mana with which to dps and heal while making the other Foe last forever. If there was downtime, you'd eventually swap. Even with 2.1, my team stayed with double Bard. Paeon was great for our Dragoon's AoE dps on T4, Ballad for allowing the Paeon and Foe... Even as melee dps increased, it felt like our value increased a bit because of it, as long as there were situations that could make use of our songs. And we tended to have the highest damage dealt in T5. Usually in Titan and Garuda Ex, too. (Further changes later, we were still damn reliable in T6 and T7, and then necessary for Paeon again in T8 before excelling in last phase T9. All that mobility with the same relative level of damage that we have now and frequently more need for Paeon really made us shine.)