Bard song "Battle Voice" -- doesnt affect all party members bug?

[icy_]

Battle Voice, from https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Battle_Voice , same text as in-game, we have :

Increases direct hit rate of all nearby party members by 20%.

Duration: 20s
Can only be executed while singing Mage's Ballad, Army's Paeon, or the Wanderer's Minuet.

So as I'm fairly new to Bard, I searched a bit for help w/ basic rot at lvl50 for MSQs etc. I came across a comment that mentioned this song affects everyone in party except you!

In an MSQ late last night, I chanced an 8-man party with 3 Bards, and it was painfully clear that I was the only one casting this song at all -- everyone in Party had the effect except for me. I've confirmed that, indeed, the Bard him/herself is not considered part of "all nearby party members"

This feels quite bad for any sort of solo content -- you've learned a useless skill

Currently closing in on lvl60, but I hope this isnt the case for other songs and that possible fixes are in the works (rumored look at ranged DPS in 5.1). This would be like if Ninja's 10% vuln let everyone else except for the ninja do extra damage, or a WHM's Medica2 healed everyone but you.

[Akiudo]

to be fair, it has been like this forever, and made somewhat more sense back when you could call bard a support job without holding back either manic laughter or tears, so i highly doubt this could be called a bug, its definitely a feature.

But yes, as bard is currently designed , having pretty much as much support as a monk or dragoon bard should 100 percent profit from battle voice, not working on the bard itself was stupid to begin with

[Silver-Strider]

Would certainly help BRD's DPS if Battle Voice affected the caster.

[Beddict]

to be fair, it has been like this forever, and made somewhat more sense back when you could call bard a support job without holding back either manic laughter or tears, so i highly doubt this could be called a bug, its definitely a feature.

Definitely a feature. Compare the wording to DRG's Battle Litany which actually specifies self and party members or DNC's Technical Finish which also specifies self and party members. Battle Voice is just party members so it's definitely functioning as intended by not including the BRD itself.

[Rika007]

Well we do have some upcoming changes possibly coming to Bard in 5.1 (maybe, they did state they were still toying around with Bard changes based on player feedback, and with NIN, SMN and SAM all receiving significant changes and the DPS category as a whole seeing multiple damage balancing I would not be surprised if any Bard changes to it's utility get's pushed back to 5.2), so maybe that change to Battle Voice might be one of them. That being said Battle Voice not affecting the Bard themselves is to me lowest on priority for fixing Bard's lack of.... Bardiness. The only way to fix that is by making their current support skills more impactful, and either bringing back ones they lost or adding new ones.

[Fannah]

As the purpose of the game is not to solo content, you shouldn't feel like you've learnt a useless skill ^^
Remember "Raise" sucks for solo content as well But I don't believe any healer is like "erf it sucks for solo content".
Same for Aggro Stance and Taunts for tanks, it's useless in solo content too.

Maybe they don't want to see a Bard singing loudly to be heard only by himself in solo content and would look socially awkward (about RP of course, and don't worry, it's all about numbers, they could allow Battle Voice to work on the Bard itself and lower another skill dmg so the overall DPS designers want it to deal is approximately the same).

[HyoMinPark]

Battle Voice has never affected the BRD casting it. Even when its effect was to double the effectiveness of whichever song was being sung (old Mage’s/old Army’s back in ARR/HW). This isn’t a new thing, and it’s not a bug.

With all the issues this job has currently, this would not be something I would prioritize “fixing”. There are far more significant things that can be rectified before BV affecting the BRD that uses it.

[Kitfox]

Arguably it's a good thing that Battle Voice doesn't affect the BRD, because that means you can use it whenever it's best for the party instead of going at lengths to try and sync it with your own rotation (current 180s timer doesn't align with 80s song rotation at all). It's easier to use, less punishing to mistime and overall more flexible as it is. Their DPS balance accounts for it too, so there's really no need to "fix" it.

[icy_]

Well we do have some upcoming changes possibly coming to Bard in 5.1 (maybe, they did state they were still toying around with Bard changes based on player feedback, and with NIN, SMN and SAM all receiving significant changes and the DPS category as a whole seeing multiple damage balancing I would not be surprised if any Bard changes to it's utility get's pushed back to 5.2), so maybe that change to Battle Voice might be one of them. That being said Battle Voice not affecting the Bard themselves is to me lowest on priority for fixing Bard's lack of.... Bardiness. The only way to fix that is by making their current support skills more impactful, and either bringing back ones they lost or adding new ones.

One can hope.

Definitely a feature. Compare the wording to DRG's Battle Litany which actually specifies self and party members or DNC's Technical Finish which also specifies self and party members. Battle Voice is just party members so it's definitely functioning as intended by not including the BRD itself.

Could also be a legacy skill on bard that they forgot to improve to the same standards as Battle Litany/Technical Finish. Thanks for pointing these out as counterexamples, but still all should probably be equal. If Dancer has it as a fellow ranged physical DPS, then all the more reason Bard should too. A party shouldn't have to run two Bards to get the bonuses for everyone, when, as was mentioned, Monk/Dragoon/Dancer/Ninja/etc give bonuses for everyone.

As the purpose of the game is not to solo content, you shouldn't feel like you've learnt a useless skill ^^
Remember "Raise" sucks for solo content as well But I don't believe any healer is like "erf it sucks for solo content".
Same for Aggro Stance and Taunts for tanks, it's useless in solo content too.

Maybe they don't want to see a Bard singing loudly to be heard only by himself in solo content and would look socially awkward (about RP of course, and don't worry, it's all about numbers, they could allow Battle Voice to work on the Bard itself and lower another skill dmg so the overall DPS designers want it to deal is approximately the same).

lol, well I've Raised a couple random people in open world -- does that count as useful?
Real talk -- I see the res as more of an essential role skill, as does the game from what I've played so far. You've got tank stance for tanks, resurrects for healers, and Peloton out-of-combat swiftness from ranged. The song in question is more of a heavy-duty battle skill, closer to Enkindle, Benediction or other ~180sec cd skill.

[MPNZ]

Honestly, we never really needed it to buff brd since the songs work by collecting energy for https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG8RtsNJrIc, but if the buff to other players was a passive song effect and Battle voice doubled all song effects: that would really work with how it uses aether and how it collects aether in function