Once upon a time, back in the Gridania woods, stood a Bard that taught you to be better than Robin Hood. Singing out in the fields gave your allies better steel. Playing on your harp made attacks on your Foes more sharp.

Ever Wandering the nations, cleansing friends of cursed afflictions. Sending out a Refreshing breeze that fit your colleagues' needs. Thinking like a Tactician when it came time to redirect someone’s attention. Putting up a Palissade, a barrier, having your tank be its carrier. Hell descend while executing your enemy with the cool animation of Misery’s End.

But now, harp broken, Bard’s buffs have been stolen. Remaining but its Voice, Troubadour and Minne, in arrows Bard has been gaining. Ignoring its roots, its lore, it has lost its core. Damage as its only element, Bard pursues the exact same journey as its fellow Red residents.

Following in the cold shadow of Dancer, damage dealing's new support answer. Retreating from the light to the shades, with what feels like an unequal trade. Having to push out the shiny new Samba player, while dismantling its predecessor. Still deaf to its own Voice of Battle, Bard will continue to travel. But with everything thus revealed, against strong hostiles, is there a point to pick the bow to wield?

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Very dramatic poetry aside, the Patch Notes confirmed my fear to be true : Bard became a selfish dps so that the shiny new toy becomes the go-to support dps (Dancer will lock a spot, I can guarantee that). Bard is now all over the place as well both gameplay-wise and lore-wise. It looks as if I've just removed my Soul Crystal and evolved into Ranger.

When I first heard of the Soul Gauge, I thought : "oh maybe our buff potency will increase by spending the Soul Gauge". No, it's just....more damage. Soul Gauge augmenting the potency of your fewer buffs would've made the salt taste better, because losing half of your support kit, while new Dancer looks like it's having a blast giving out buffs like candy, is simply insulting. From what I've read now, Bard is just another selfish-er dps, which is counter to it's whole support lore in the Fantasy genre.

Our Role Actions are still mostly useless too. Peloton only helpful for going slightly faster to the next wall of mobs, all status-inflicting attacks don't affect end-game tier, we got a knockback immunity so that's nice. Personally I enjoyed the variety that Troubadour gave, but I can understand its changes, like Misery's End being removed as all other execution skills. To me, Bard did not suffer from Button Bloat like the other classes.

I'm very upset and my confidence for the Final 14 team has diminished even more (after Shirogane Savage, Eureka and BLU). It really does look at times like they do not know what they're doing. I will still be playing the expansion, but I might simply move to another class.