Job change suggestions for BRD in 6.0

[jssanderson747]

Hello everyone, I'm Sam and I've been raiding on and off (skipped a few tiers, only cleared TEA for ults) on BRD since 2.5 and have pretty much loved every iteration of the job. In this post I'll be listing off some of the job changes I think could help improve BRD in the future and make it more fun and satisfying to play. I am 100% a bow nerd and barely care about the song aesthetic of the job so don't @ me Square has a hard enough job trying to appease that demographic and it's definitely not my priority when looking for improvements. I should note I don't even expect more than one of these changes, and this is easily more than 3 expansions worth of changes; all at once would be insanely overpowered obviously.

Before that, I'll list my primary complaints for BRD in Shadowbringers as I think it's one if my least favorite expansions as a BRD main:
I think our DOTs are extremely antiquated and consistently hamper the flow of the job in single target (it's honestly pretty fun in TEA); they also actively conflict with your soul gauge in most fights (you can't apex on a jaws gcd and vice versa). Minne is useful for nothing aside from preemptively boosting a shield or healing White Hole and Living Dead(lol). Paean is convenient for almost nothing. 80 second burst phases can easily desync you from all raid buffs. Muse is terrible and works against the gameplay in Minuet AND Ballad. Bloodletter clipping is eternally a meme.


Alright onto some changes I hope we'll see:

Battle voice: Hit the user, please square..?

Soul gauge: When the gauge is at 50 or above, change Refulgent Arrow into a Giga Refulgent that blows bosses up and impresses everyone for the first month. Make barrage also charge 50 gauge to accomodate this. I'm fine with Apex costing 100, it owns during trash and 2 boss cleave; maybe make it free aim like Holy, MNK aoe, etc.

Charged actions: I think there's potential for Bloodletter, Paean, Emp arrow, and Pitch Perfect to all see this change, I would be shocked if more than one of these were changed but Pitch Perfect and Bloodletter are immediately quality of life bumps. With Emp potentially being too good.

Song and Raging/Barrage timings: I think it's about time bard shifted to a 90 second rotation like many other jobs. Desyncing your primary burst from Brotherhood, Devotion, Litany, Trick, and all 2 mins is extremely annoying and the 80 second cycle currently facilitates this. In my opinion this could improve bard's damage potential in raid immensely.

DOTs: Remove them, make songs passive aoe damage, improve song range to 40y to accomodate this. Also improve proc chance since this would obv cut our procs in half if it stayed 40%.

Continued in next comment:

[jssanderson747]

New song: Combine the effects of Paeon and Ballad and make something new for our third song. They could really go buck wild with a new song and totally change the flow of the job so this is hard to speculate on. Obviously remove Muse, clipped gcds are sad gcds unless of course it's beneficial in new song window.

Aoe: I like the Quick Nock proc in this xpac, all I really want to see here is either a second aoe to combo off of QN or a new animation similar to how Burst Shot was implemented. Also keep them conal aoes, aiming QN is fun.

Proc on song swap: This is another quality of life change as it would eliminate the wait when swapping into Minuet to pop Raging. You could just weave Raging after Minuet with this and use Refulgent or Giga Refulgent with strategic gauge management.

Minne: I'd like to see Minne be a more active mitigation tool than it is currently, as adding heals doesn't really get any use outside of mitigating fat hits like the 2 person stack in TEA P3 or mitigating autos in Brute Cruise and Liquid. I'm sure it has uses in other ults, but in savage it feels like it barely does anything.

Paean: I'd like to see this do something unique in the future, the Esuna is very convenient in TEA don't get me wrong, but that's literally all I've used it for in difficult content since Deltascape.


And that's about all I got. I'd be interested to hear what other Bard players think of my ideas and I'd love to hear what yours are as well.

[ty_taurus]

What I'd like to see is Bard going more 50/50 on the archery vs music aspect as opposed to 80/20. Make Wanderer's Minuet the archery song similar to where it currently is--all about that bow. Adjust Mage's Ballad slightly so that Burst Shot, Bloodletter, Quick Nook, and Rain of Death transform into musical attacks since Mage's Ballad implies some kind of magical stance. This is the true-to-its-name bard phase where you're mostly using music to attack. Give each phase something that each side of the bard playerbase can really sink their teeth into, a massive archery finisher for Wanderer's Minuet and a massive musical finisher for Mage's Ballad

[Connor]

I still think bringing back the original song designs would be the best thing they can do for Bard (as new abilities of course, Ballad etc would stay the same).

They could be 1.5 sec casts on the GCD and all just use the Requiem casting animation.

Like Paean could also give the target a weak hp shield, or Minne could also give a small hp regen. They would cost a chunk of mp to use for balance (2500, enough for 4 casts before hitting 0?), but using them would feed song gauge (maybe like 10 or 20 each song cast) to give Bard a more direct way of affecting song gauge. It could get Foe Requiem back as a damage-oriented song for when nothing defensive is needed.

They could make it so every proc during Army’s Paeon also restores MP for more songs to incentivise using it. Alternatively, all songs could be instant cast whilst in Paeon.

It could get a new weapon skill that requires song gauge (maybe 50) but restores MP for more songs (which means more song gauge which more arrows and dps). Maybe Bard could get a song gauge skill that makes the next song have a much longer duration. The idea would be that most of the songs are defensive, so there’s no serious pressure to manage a full suite of buffs. Instead it would give Bards options to support the party with songs in desperate times (which is kinda what the lore says they’re supposed to be doing...)

Basically it would be the same as it is now, focused on proc-based DoT gameplay, but instead of just pressing a song button once every 30 seconds you’d be using the songs, managing DoTs, throwing out Burst Shot / Refulgent Arrow during downtime, all while trying to hit procs for max dps, then finishing with one of the song gauge abilities like Apex or [insert new ability here]. So you’d use say Ballad, put up DoTs, sing Requiem, burst shots and procs, Iron Jaws, dps got hit by bad so sing Minne to help them get back up while healer is occupied with healing (or too busy spamming Glare lol). They’d have to be very niche usage, otherwise they might start to outshine SE’s premier support job star-of-the-show Dancer. And in that same way Bard can pretty much never get actively used damage buff songs now, since SE seems absolutely set on having not even a modicum of overlap between jobs (well, when they’re dps jobs...). I mean, just look at how they removed even the passive buffs from the proc songs. I honestly believe they weren’t removed for any kind of balancing reason, it was just to make Dancer seem more appealing. As if everyone would just drop Dancer forever if any other job could provide a similar function in different ways

Personally I don’t see why it’s a bad thing for two jobs within a sub-role supposedly defined by ‘provided support to companions’ (according to the game’s own job guide) to both support the party, but that’s a whole different story lol

I’m not sure that a 1.5 cast would be able to get in the way of hitting procs either, since as far as I’m aware you can only really get a proc every 3 seconds anyway under normal circumstances. And of course they should be putting charges on Bloodletter and Empyreal Arrow anyway to try and stop the damage leak Bards can end up with.

Basically I want to see 6.0 Bard take all the good parts of Bard we have now, the good parts from the past, and put them together in a coherent way.

What I really don’t want is another expansion where we yet again become even more ‘Archer’ than ‘Bard’ lol, because I honestly worry about justifying Bard’s existence as anything more than an Archer with A Fancy Name. Like I can’t look at any previous iteration of a Final Fantasy Bard and think ‘so that’s what they were going for with this job’ lol. So it’s like, why even keep parading it as around as a ‘Final Fantasy Bard’ when it doesn’t really look or act like it

[Wyakin]

What I'd like to see is Bard going more 50/50 on the archery vs music aspect as opposed to 80/20. Make Wanderer's Minuet the archery song similar to where it currently is--all about that bow. Adjust Mage's Ballad slightly so that Burst Shot, Bloodletter, Quick Nook, and Rain of Death transform into musical attacks since Mage's Ballad implies some kind of magical stance. This is the true-to-its-name bard phase where you're mostly using music to attack. Give each phase something that each side of the bard playerbase can really sink their teeth into, a massive archery finisher for Wanderer's Minuet and a massive musical finisher for Mage's Ballad

You see there’s the issue, It’s a dps first and a support second. The majority of people who play dps don’t want to see a lot of effort for minimal dps... unfortunately your 50/50 idea would do that. Once upon a time bard was an archer that sung song, now it’s not... I don’t know what it is but the songs are basically just... there.

[reivaxe]

You see there’s the issue, It’s a dps first and a support second. The majority of people who play dps don’t want to see a lot of effort for minimal dps... unfortunately your 50/50 idea would do that. Once upon a time bard was an archer that sung song, now it’s not... I don’t know what it is but the songs are basically just... there.

The popularity of Dnc even though it's got the lowest personal DPS of any DPS job and much of it's identity is "do Dances to buff others" kinda proves people are more than willing to be supportive.

Brd's problem is partly that it's no where near as supportive as Dnc but doesn't do the personal DPS of Mch and requires more thought than Mch. It's very much "master of none". So IMO they can either try to make it as supportive focused as Dnc (reasonable. Right now at top levels of play Dnc's "rDPS" is the highest of the Ranged and unless there's adjustments that gap is only gonna grow later in the expac ... this supportive tax on personal DPS for the impressive RDPS numbers can prove to be the keystone to ranged. Outside of Sam all Melees have some kinda unique yet strong supportive traits/ skills and the same can be said for the casters other than Blm so why not lean into the supportive side?) or just give it's support a bit more love along with increased personal damage to rival Mch.

Anyway, my idea for ranged DPS in 6.0 is to give them all some version of Dnc's movement skill and make a few distance based attacks that work like positions.
As for Brd? I'd love for the job to feel as supportive as Dnc and have more burst in it's kit. Support that you can really feel in the party and a burst window that feels exciting.

[ty_taurus]

You see there’s the issue, It’s a dps first and a support second. The majority of people who play dps don’t want to see a lot of effort for minimal dps... unfortunately your 50/50 idea would do that. Once upon a time bard was an archer that sung song, now it’s not... I don’t know what it is but the songs are basically just... there.

Well, actually, I said nothing about the 50/50 being DPS and support. I was saying that in reference to their use of musical animations. Music isn't exclusively supportive, you know. There are bards in Final Fantasy lore that use music to attack enemies. Case and point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMf6NdM55ws

This is kinda what I'd like to see Mage's Ballad become: a music-heavy phase with damaging songs while Wanderer's stays the archery-heavy phase, and perhaps Army's is what pics up more support elements while using a little of both archery and music.

[Connor]

Bard should’ve gotten actual offensive songs like 3 expansions ago lol. Sidewinder/Shadowbite could easily have been ‘song of pain that hurts anyone you poisoned.’ Apex could have been like, your character does something with the harp to create the shockwave instead of just being yet another ‘arrow that’s magic but has nothing to do with magic and is purely physical’ lol. It feels the damage from the three main songs (ballad etc) is tacked just to make it feel more ‘dps-like’ without having to actually create new abilities.

I mean, lore-wise Mage’s Ballad is a song about the achievements of a Padjal of eld and how their exceptional healing arts brought succour to wounded soldiers. How the hell does a song like that cause actual damage to the enemy? Are we that bad at singing? Do all enemies have an instinctual fear of healers? It makes so little sense when you think about it

I think one of the main reasons people feel so disillusioned about Bard is that it’s starting to become fairly obviously that the developers have had like 0% creativity for Bard ever since 3.0 was a flop, for obvious reasons lol. Everything following from that has been dismantling the support/bard aspects and reinforcing the dps/archer aspects.

First it’s a support dps that uses physical attacks and some healing magic (1.0 was the closest ffxiv ever got to a real Bard job if you ask me), then it’s a physical dps with support abilities (2.0), then it’s a physical dps with support abilities except it’s also a caster but not a magic one (3.0), then it’s an archer with various support capabilities (4.0), then it’s an Archer that can hurt people by singing a song (5.0).

It’s like every expansion they’ve become more and more sick of the job and now we’ve reached 5.0 they’re just like ‘idc just give it some more arrows and nobody will bother about the other 50-70% of the job’s lore and aesthetic’. They just seem to have given up completely on the idea of making ‘Bard’ work, and only really care about the ‘Archer’ because it’s easier to just slap some more shiny laser arrows on it than it is to try and balance the dual-identity it has

[Zantusken]

I'd honestly like to see a trait to RS that increases proc chance by maybe 15%(even as a buff in 5.4 tbh). This would bring back a little more of the decision making from 4.0 with clipping dots correctly and be a decent dps buff. Beyond that, Apex Arrow rework and bring back foe please

[ty_taurus]

I mean, lore-wise Mage’s Ballad is a song about the achievements of a Padjal of eld and how their exceptional healing arts brought succour to wounded soldiers. How the hell does a song like that cause actual damage to the enemy? Are we that bad at singing? Do all enemies have an instinctual fear of healers? It makes so little sense when you think about it

This is a really interesting point, so I found a PDF of the Encyclopaedia Eorzea and found this regarding the Bard's songs:

Mage's Ballad: "A battlesong that celebrates the courageous deeds of a Padjal of eld. The lyrics sung of the sage's exceptional healing arts as he braved the front line to tend to wounded soldiers."

Army's Paeon: "This battlesong praises the valor of Josselin, one of Gridania's greatest war heroes. Josselin left her mark on history as the first captain of the Wood Wailers."

The Wanderer's Minuet: "An ode to Oschon, the god of travelers. Depicting the Wanderer as a carefree ranger wielding a bow of yew with consummate skill, this meandering tune is sung with great joy and gusto."


From this, it makes sense for the Wanderer's Minuet to be about masterful archery and ultimately selfish DPS. Mage's Ballad, however, should be about protecting the party while wielding the power of the Padjals, and Army's Paeon should be about leading your team into battle with raid DPS and support, but to lesser degrees than Wanderer's or Mage's respectively. I came up with a rough concept to better compliment this lore and create clear segments of the Bard's rotation that highlight their archery talents and musical talents separately.

First, I'll take the passive support off the songs themselves again because I want to redirect that elsewhere. They're nice, but they're also small and you don't really feel like you're contributing much support with them even if you know you are. Next, at level 50, Bard now learns the ability Bardsong.

Bardsong
This action can only be used during Wanderer's Minuet, Mage's Ballad, or Army's Paeon and changes depending on which song you're singing.
During Wanderer's Minuet, this becomes Foe's Requiem.
During Mage's Ballad, this becomes Nature's Minne.
During Army's Paeon, this becomes Battle Voice.
The recast on Bardsong is 30 seconds.
All Bardsongs increase the soul gauge by 10 when used.

Foe's Requiem now works like Chain Stratagem, but only for your own actions and no one else's, increasing critical hit rate against the target by 5% for 30 seconds.
Nature's Minne stays the same.
Battle Voice's buff decreases to 15% for all party members. You'll be getting this twice as often since it comes around once per 90 seconds rather than 180 seconds, but since we're taking the passive buffs off the songs directly, we'll keep the value at 15% rather than just halving it.

Later, at level 52, we get Bardstrike which functions similarly to Bardsong.

Bardstrike
This action can only be used during Wanderer's Minuet, Mage's Ballad, or Army's Paeon and changes depending on which song you're singing.
During Wanderer's Minuet, this becomes Pitch Perfect.
During Mage's Ballad, this becomes Twelveswood Arrow.
During Army's Paeon, this becomes Ranger's Aim.
All Bardstrikes have a 5 second cooldown and have additional costs.

Pitch Perfect remains the same. Twelveswood Arrow is a powerful attack that consumes 4000 MP. Ranger's Aim always lands a critical hit and can be used after you or any nearby ally has landed a critical hit to a total of 5 times.

Next is Bardsong II at level 66, which grants additional support songs similarly to Bardsong.

Bardsong II
This action can only be used during Wanderer's Minuet, Mage's Ballad, or Army's Paeon and changes depending on which song you're singing.
During Wanderer's Minuet, this becomes Hero's March.
During Mage's Ballad, this becomes Soul Etude.
During Army's Paeon, this becomes Warden's Paean.
The recast on Bardsong is 15 seconds.
All Bardsong IIs increase the soul gauge by 10 when used.

Barrage would get transformed into Hero's March. This would restrict it a bit more but it can be used twice during Wanderer's. Soul Etude is a single target 100 potency HoT for 15 seconds. Warden's Paean stays the same.

I also want to talk about small changes to to the phase of Mage's Ballad.

During Mage's Ballad, Heavy Shot and Burst Shot change to Somber Melody and Despairing Melody respectively, doing the same damage but also reducing your target's damage output by 3% for 5 seconds, refreshing with each hit. Additionally, Bloodletter and Rain of Death change to Light Elegy and Black Requiem respectively, each restoring 1000 MP to yourself when you use them.

Lastly, I'd change how Apex Arrow works slightly. Rather than just always consuming all your soul gauge, it always consumes just 20. Instead, the damage scaling increases based on the remaining time left on your song, so it gets stronger the closer your song is to running out of time.