Going from HW Bard to SB Bard has been quite the experience so far. I went from massive burst damage potential to something far more consistent. HW Bard required thinking tactically and planning everything around 90 second burst windows, and I figured out how to cheese a lot of encounters just with pure raw AoE damage and Rain of Death resets.

SB Bard on the other hand... It requires a different kind of tactical thinking, planning out your song order and figuring out your dance steps over the next minute. I've already figured out how to cheese even harder with SB Bard (as an example, we were pretty much made to do the honeycomb skip in Saint Mocianne's Arboretum, just throw Windbite on everything as the party rushes to the second honeycomb, use Minuet, and enjoy constant fully powered Pitch Perfects to burn it down).

Overall, I'm very happy. Initially I was worried that I was going to end up losing a lot of damage, but it looks like the inclusion of Direct Hit more than made up for it anyway.