Please never change Bard (feedback)

[SaitoHikari]

Does anyone know our materia priority yet? at the moment I'm stacking Crit/Det not sure if this is right.

General consensus is Crit/Direct Hit.

[ShaneDawn]

Coming from a player that has been through the thick and thin on ARR and HW, I very much enjoy the current iteration of Bard. I was also keen of the Bowmage playstyle in Heavensward and had some very top-end parses during Creator. However, for all the fun it is playing the class right now, it is not without problems that need addressing.

Any changes suggested below are just general thoughts in the vacuum, further adjustments may be necessary for them to be actually balanced.


First and foremost, as mentioned earlier by another poster, the class is somewhat inconsistent due to the nature of it being extremely heavy on the RNG procs. Especially the very nature of Refulgent Arrow is problematic, due to it being the best thing to pair Barrage with. While it does add a modicum of desirable decision-making in terms of spending either spending GCDs to fish for it or saving your earlier proc to pair with Barrage, it is still very inconsistent to get the combo off. There are several things we could do to make the interaction more consistent, and here's a few suggestions:

1.) Make Empyreal Arrow also give you a Heavier Shot proc, making your next Heavy Shot cast also proc Straighter Shot and thus also Refulgent Arrow. This change would fit very well with both the current iterations of the currently recognized Bard openers while making the interaction feel somewhat fluid altogether.
2.) Make Heavy Shot proc progressive, giving an additional 10% chance to proc a Straighter Shot upon consecutive casts. Base chance could be reduced to 10% to compensate for the additional effect of it.

These are just quickly thought suggestions of mine to fix something I see as a very annoying interaction atm. I'm sure someone might have thought of more exciting interactions between Refulgent Arrow procs. However, as is, I think the current interaction needs changes. It feels more relieving than rewarding to land a RA+Barrage combo atm, and having to pair it with Empyreal Arrow due to a quirk of RNG feels just bad.

As for being inconsistent in general, I have some dummy parses up to around 4k over 3minutes as a i315 Bard with a very nice streak of proc-luck, with the lowest being around 3,5k with some absolutely horrible RNG. We're not talking about some minor fluctuation here. However, I wouldn't really like to touch the gameplay outside of RA interactions too much. One suggestion in this thread I liked, however, was changing Raging Strikes into additional Crit Rate instead of additional Damage. This would interact much better with the way Bard procs work, as well as make double dot clipping worth it again even without additional buffs. It would definitely add a nice flavor to the gameplay I think, while also making the procs more consistent.


Second major problem I have with the class is the lack of meaningful sources of Piercing Debuff. With Dragoon in the gutters so to speak, getting a Dragoon for serious statics is a no-no unless 4.05 is going to swing the pendulum yet again. However, I don't see this dependence of Dragoons as a healthy design in the long run and would appreciate some changes to make our DPS less reliant on having them in the parties. Here are some suggestions I have been thinking of:

1.) Give the BRDs and MCHs a way to apply the buff themselves. This goes in line with all other DPS classes applying their own flavor debuffs and makes us less reliant in someone else enabling our full potential as DPS classes.
2.) Give the Piercing debuff to some other classes to make more meaningful synergy options. Pigeonholing us to pair with only Dragoons is not the way.
3.) Remove the Piercing synergy from Ranged completely and make our damage categorized as merely Unaspected Physical Damage. If this suggestion is seen as a problem, some kind of small potency increase could be done to our base damage to compensate. Piercing as it is right now is just a pretty problematic debuff to have from a competitive aspect. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And this is not even counting the fact that Dragoons offer the very best party buff for us, the Battle Litany, which is super good with the way our procs work. Although that is fine by me, and the actual problem I have is with Piercing Debuff. In a meta with no Dragoons, everyone else in the party can play (nearly) up to their maximum capability. Compositions without Dragoons atm severely gimp ranged players and make them somewhat sad to play from a competitive viewpoint.


On the core of things, the class is very fun to play and I very much like the current iteration of Bard. I would no like to see major changes happen to the class that seems to be loved by many people now. I think it should get some minor tweaks, however.

[SaitoHikari]

Holy crap, agreed with the above. Probably THE biggest problem with Bard right now is how a 20% Straighter Shot proc is just way too low for any kind of consistency. With no way to force trigger that, it's just brutal to work into an opener. The difference between having to Barrage EA and being able to Barrage Refulgent during an opener is massive. 210 potency massive.

Army's Paeon is also really, really bad too. I think a good buff to make it in line with other songs is to let it boost the bard's own critical hit rate while in Paeon mode too. That way, Army's Paeon gets used as a means to get a boosted Iron Jaws right before swapping into another song to take advantage of the higher critical chance. Army's Paeon could also boost Straighter Shot proc rate by 5% per repertoire stack, going up to 40% while in Paeon mode (assuming nothing is done to the base proc rate), or extend Straight Shot's buff duration by 2.5 seconds per stack, up to a new maximum of 30 seconds.

I would also ask for Barrage cooldown to be reduced to 80 seconds rather than remaining at 90 so that it fits in better with song rotations and Raging Strikes, but that's probably asking for too much considering Bard is probably in the best shape out of all of the old DPS classes as is.

[bellqt]

I hate the new bard, sorry! It became one of my favorite classes in HW but now in the trash bin it goooeeees

[Chevronone]

I have mained bard since 2.0. I was really looking forward to the changes but I am a little disappointed. I don't understand the obsession with "mobility". There is no reason to be constantly jumping around...

Few things: I don't like how bards have "selective hearing" as in we can finally enjoy our Foes buff (for a laughable 12s) but put ear plugs in and not get the crit buff from other songs. Also, why must songs be targetable? It's weird.

Straighter Shot button should turn into Refulgent Arrow, I can't tell you how many times from muscle memory I miss RA proc and us SS. Plus saves an extra button.

At the conclusion of Army's Paeon, the buff we have worked up should remain with us on a timer or something, say 30s after Army's falls off.

[Rekujin]

I have mained bard since 2.0. I was really looking forward to the changes but I am a little disappointed. I don't understand the obsession with "mobility". There is no reason to be constantly jumping around...

Few things: I don't like how bards have "selective hearing" as in we can finally enjoy our Foes buff (for a laughable 12s) but put ear plugs in and not get the crit buff from other songs. Also, why must songs be targetable? It's weird.

Straighter Shot button should turn into Refulgent Arrow, I can't tell you how many times from muscle memory I miss RA proc and us SS. Plus saves an extra button.

At the conclusion of Army's Paeon, the buff we have worked up should remain with us on a timer or something, say 30s after Army's falls off.

Archers in every MMORPG should always be mobile, if people want to play a stationary class they should play casters. Bard in HW felt like a tedious version of BLM/SMN to be honest. If they want some form of "casting" maybe only one or two strong abilities (like a power shot or something? cast for 3s, do 400 potency, 30s cooldown)

100% agree with the bolded statement, muscle memory screws me big time with straighter shot procs lol