Bard's Thematic Future

[MPNZ]

I'd rather see them just make a new job and refocus Bard into a pure Ranger. I'm not a big fan of the hybrid style they did with Summoner or Bard as is, and it just seems to kind of create a weird space while eating up potential jobs instead.

Granted of course there is the fact that they can only include so many jobs, but in a perfect world I'd rather see a full on Bard/Songstress/whatever job instead.

Or....
Ranger
Weapon: magitec Aether-string bow that can seperate into an aether-edge ax and short sword
Abilities: Rune-magic based nature and animal semblances (Hunger of wolf, bear stance, anchor of the great tree, wings of the old one, stealth)

Seriously, FF has mixed jobs and abilities since like FFIII, so why wouldn't it be normal for combat professions to like have diverse skillsets like the priest/champion paladin?

[MirronTulaxia]

Or....
Ranger
Weapon: magitec Aether-string bow that can seperate into an aether-edge ax and short sword
Abilities: Rune-magic based nature and animal semblances (Hunger of wolf, bear stance, anchor of the great tree, wings of the old one, stealth)

Seriously, FF has mixed jobs and abilities since like FFIII, so why wouldn't it be normal for combat professions to like have diverse skillsets like the priest/champion paladin?

FFIII doesn't let you mix jobs. FFV is the first game of the series that lets you mix jobs.

And I'm not really sure I understand how what you proposed is a rebuttal to what I said. I guess the idea being that you want an entirely new Ranger job? For me at least I would rather see Bard get a proper focus than Ranger, I don't really have any interest in it. It's certainly possible they could add Ranger as a Ranged DPS to finish things off, the options for specifically Ranged DPS are somewhat limited, though I could see Gambler I suppose.

Edit: Actually, to expand, there isn't anything wrong with expanding jobs in general. But ultimately this is still a role based game. Whatever job gets added needs to fit those roles. It's much like in FFT Summoners don't regularly hit every character on the field, even though in traditional RPGs that's what they do (Illusionists are basically Summoners and do manage to do that, but your mileage may vary on how much you consider them Summoners as they don't actually summon anything). In this game there are five roles. Jobs need to fit them or be Limited and not worry.

[MPNZ]

FFIII doesn't let you mix jobs. FFV is the first game of the series that lets you mix jobs.

And I'm not really sure I understand how what you proposed is a rebuttal to what I said. I guess the idea being that you want an entirely new Ranger job? For me at least I would rather see Bard get a proper focus than Ranger, I don't really have any interest in it. It's certainly possible they could add Ranger as a Ranged DPS to finish things off, the options for specifically Ranged DPS are somewhat limited, though I could see Gambler I suppose.

Edit: Actually, to expand, there isn't anything wrong with expanding jobs in general. But ultimately this is still a role based game. Whatever job gets added needs to fit those roles. It's much like in FFT Summoners don't regularly hit every character on the field, even though in traditional RPGs that's what they do (Illusionists are basically Summoners and do manage to do that, but your mileage may vary on how much you consider them Summoners as they don't actually summon anything). In this game there are five roles. Jobs need to fit them or be Limited and not worry.

Yeah, I'm probably thinking of the onion knight, which usually allows for that.

TLDR: a lot of players see making ranger impossible due to Brd using a bow when 2.5 mages use a staff, or just because of pigeonholing. It's a total lack of imagination and like "the nail that stands out gets hammered first" thing. The above is literally a cookie-cutter ranger with a european shamanistic element and a unique weapon that was also meant to bring to mind RDM

[MirronTulaxia]

Yeah, I'm probably thinking of the onion knight, which usually allows for that.

TLDR: a lot of players see making ranger impossible due to Brd using a bow when 2.5 mages use a staff, or just because of pigeonholing. It's a total lack of imagination and like "the nail that stands out gets hammered first" thing. The above is literally a cookie-cutter ranger with a european shamanistic element and a unique weapon that was also meant to bring to mind RDM

Even Onion Knight doesn't mix and match jobs so much as is a job with a broad moveset in some versions.

And I don't think Ranger is impossible because it shares a weapon. More than Black/White/Blue Mage all using staves (and Red sometimes), we also have a lot of swords. We could very easily see Ranger. I think the question is if there is enough drive for a Ranger job when we have Bard. From what I can tell more people would rather see a new Bard as the current one doesn't really hit the themes for Bard as well, while compared to Ranger Bard (XIV) hits the themes pretty close. Doesn't help that as a job all it really has to its name pretty much is "uses a bow" like a number of FF physical jobs.

[Klaleara]

I love the hybrid aspect of it. I wish there were more hybrid characters.

[TabrisOmbrelame]

I'd love to see something as a "Singing healer".

Using the voice to heal makes things different of Bard and Dancer simply cause one play an instrument and the other one is just dancing. But no one is actually singing.

You can even make a joke spell about that, one that push back the enemy, named FUS RO DAH (Yeah I know, wrong game boy)

Althought, damaging people while using your voice... Seems like your voices is so horrible to hear that monster start to bleed from the ears xD

[MirronTulaxia]

Ah, to clarify, I meant that Rangers really only have that in terms of being consistent. Like, animal allies don't really pop up again (Animist winds up getting this), and in TA2 there are a number of Bow specialists like Sniper and such too. Gridania in general has a big poaching problem so I wouldn't be surprised if Archer dealt with that some. But mostly my point was that Rangers don't have much that you "need" to have like some other jobs, so they could do a variety of things with it really and make it fit.

[MartaDemireux]

Ah, to clarify, I meant that Rangers really only have that in terms of being consistent. Like, animal allies don't really pop up again (Animist winds up getting this), and in TA2 there are a number of Bow specialists like Sniper and such too. Gridania in general has a big poaching problem so I wouldn't be surprised if Archer dealt with that some. But mostly my point was that Rangers don't have much that you "need" to have like some other jobs, so they could do a variety of things with it really and make it fit.

Yeah, like SCH there isn't much for consistency for RNG but instead has an overall theme to work with. There's definitely a lot of lore that could be explored in Gridania in the poaching world, which could be further explored in Dravanian Forelands as well as throughout Othard - it would be interesting to see tigers highlighted as an endangered species in Yanxia to echo the case of the South China Tiger.

[Wyakin]

Wanna know how to fix bard? Remove the nerfs made to its personal DPS. Problem solved

[Noctisnine]

Meh, I dislike the current bard, it's so boring and it lacks impact. I would prefer 10 times if they reworked it into a pure archer/ranger class that rely purely in deadly arrows.