Still to this day... (the dramatic game-play on BRD last expansion)

[Cadmus83]

FFXIV Community,
I'm very interested in asking 2 questions regarding last years expansion changes to the BRD job:

- Is anyone still irritated by the game-play changes to BRD from last expansion? If so (or not), could you explain?

- Related to the question above, is anyone worried that their current job (main or favorite) will endure they same type of heavy game-play changes come SB?


I am doing a bit of a self-survey. Thank you in advance for your response!

[storm]

Im not a fan of them having added a cast timer to BRD, as my favorite mmo playstyle is kiting. But it's been obvious since ARR launch that they did not like this kind of gameplay nor balancing around a class concept that utilizes skills to remain out of melee range. So it was unsurprising that they went and redesigned BRD going forward to reflect that. Its something ive made my peace with and as such am instead interested in other classes now.

[KaosKeith]

At first i didn't like minuet because the damage was underwhelming and lack of attacking while moving sucked.

Once i learned that you could cross class feint and they buffed the damage i've been perfectly fine with minuet. empyrial arrow gcd clipping doesn't bother me that much (if at all).

[Paranoir]

I think they learned their lesson from having to change bard due to balancing encounters, cant see them making the same mistake again. I miss being mobile but being able to skip half the mechanics from being able to move nonstop was too hard to balance round. It never bothered me to begin with, knew why it had to be done, and just took it as taking time to aim or something.

[Soge01]

Honestly, I'm still a bit irritated by the fact that BRD(and Machinist) are still treated like ranged casters and hope in SB BRD (and MCH) get it's movement back again, though still retaining their attack booster skill in a more appealing skill form.

I've gotten Wander's Minutet down completey (though still working on it in PvP), but it still urks me being planted to the ground until either my cast attack is complete or I move and unfortunately cancel it. o~o

Other than that I enjoy my BRD (and MCH) class a bunch and hope besides possibly fixing the ranged caster thing BRD also gets additonal song support skills! ^^

[Mirateski]

I'm a MCH, not a bard, but same difference, right?

I'm ambivalent on the existence of GB/WM - I don't at all mind that it exists, and I don't feel it changes the gameplay of either class in a particularly fundamental way. If you need to move a lot, turn it off or use instants. If not you probably weren't moving anyway. I do feel that BRD sort of left the whole song concept for 50-60 as I levelled it, with minuet and an insta-cast ability being the only "songs", I feel it'd be nice to see some more expansion/exploration of their, like, core mechanic there.

I do feel that MCH feels a lot more natural with the cast bars than bard, just because of the ammo > proc mechanic being a lot more core to the class. (procs are added damage, not 10 less than your main attack like for bard, for example)


My favourite job is PLD (MCH being my favourite dps), and tbh I'd like it to change in SB. Lord knows it needs to. I'm a bit leery that MCH might end up being a lot more close-range given what we've seen - I prefer to weave in and out to pop blank, for safety, I'd rather not have to stand close to the boss even MORE. Might as well be a melee with a cast bar then.

[Khalithar]

I am still irritated by it and it's what killed Brd/Mch for me. At the very least Mch felt like it was designed with Gauss Barrel in mind whereas it was definitely tacked on for Brd and I hate it. There was nothing wrong with having Brd/Mch able to move while attacking, some of us specifically enjoy playing ranged dps with no cast bars and I really enjoyed Brd/Mch up until the point where I hit 52 and needed to use cast times for maximum performance. I would have preferred a passive like WoW's sniper training that Hunter (the closest equivalent to Brd/Mch) has in that game, where if you stay still for a certain amount of time you get a damage buff, discouraging the obnoxious running and jumping around while still leaving you your mobility for when you do need to move and not interrupting your shots.

I don't think they'll get rid of it though, SE seems pretty dead set on the concept that strictly ranged dps must have cast times because them having mobility is bad despite WoW's Hunter having mobility and damage and being more or less balanced. Sure the class had it's ups and downs through the years but Blizzard has shown time and again that you can have a ranged dps with mobility and still make it balanced. If they do the right thing and get rid of the cast times while still being able to do maximum damage without them, I'll gladly pick up mch/brd again, in fact I'd LOVE to play them again but the cast times ruin the reason specifically why I picked them in the first place, i.e. playing a ranged dps without the cast bars.

I also would have liked more emphasis on the unique aspects of the jobs, I'd like to see more music related abilities for brd and more diverse gadgets for mch.

[Iromi]

I dropped bard the second I saw it had a casting bar..I mean I finished leveling it to 60 but didn't like it at all. Archers aren't meant to have a casting bar imo. Hoping they ditch the casting bars in SB so I can play it again ^^

[Soge01]

Now that I think about it (going off topic for a second, sorry! ><) but if MCH is getting a close range skill, would that mean SE development is trying to make classes flow between ranged moves and close range ones like how RDM is going to be? Like, they're trying to make it so ranged attackers like MCH have a better chance of defending themselves against melee attackers and vice versa. That'd be a really cool idea if they really are doing that!

Back on topic, would making BRD's Wander's Minuet have an additional ability where it's able to spread it to allies as a temp attack booster (and only that) like it's other support song skills with a special skill command in exchange for losing Wander's Minuet's booster on itself make BRD feel more support ranged or no?

[ChloeGrace]

To this day, I still despise it.
As a bard main, I will never be ok with cast bars. Add to that the fact that the buff timers don't synchronize at all, and barrage only applies non-critical hits (on a job based entirely around crit).
In an effort to homogenize bard with machinist, they ruined one and left the other sadly lacking, until the MCH boost made it not suck so bad. Bard stayed bad.