Devs, I miss old bard....

[SweetPete]

Why in 7 heavens did you remove wide volley and foe requiem from bard? Just why? Wide volley was beautifully animated. Yes it used TP but you could of made it use mp instead so why? Quick nock is a terrible aoe attack and the worst replacement. Wide volley was just.... amazing and so satisfying to use. I’d use wide volley over rain of death and quick nock anyway of the week.

Why foe requiem? It drained mp, yes but it was a powerful support tool for bard to bring to the group and you ruined it by removing it. I just want to know why. You killed our support so the least you could of kept us with was foe requiem.

Guess I’ll just have to keep my memories from past expansions when I used these 2 skills. Smh.

I miss old bard so much....

[CKNovel]

Kinda agree with Foe Requiem. I didn't played BRD unless for leveling it, but...

When they announced "No more synergy", I was happy because that would mean ranged would not be dependend on piercing debuff anymore. Hurray! Melee spot was shared among 4 different jobs and a permanent damage buff was broken for ranged job. But they also removed the relationship BRD had with casters, not just SMN, RDM and BLM, but the healers aswell! Now the only synergy it has is with healers, a single target healing buff. And also a cleanse barely used.

IMO, BRD should get some love and have the relationship with casters back.
... Aswell as extra support that doesn't solely relies on damage but utility aswell.

[JisKing98]

Damn I thought for a second there you wanted bowmage back

[Kolsykol]

Super unpopular opinion, but I liked the '' bowmage ''.
It felt more like you were using an actual powerful bow meant to kill and not a toy trickshot bow.

[KDSilver]

Super unpopular opinion, but I liked the '' bowmage ''.
It felt more like you were using an actual powerful bow meant to kill and not a toy trickshot bow.

I liked it a lot too.
However, I fully understand why people wanted to go away with that iteration.

[Kemiko]

Foe's Requiem was removed for the exact reason CKNovel wants a "relationship" back. It created an unhealthy team composition that was heavily favored. Keep in mind that Bard was a staple job in team compositions for a minimum of 6 years in this game's lifespan so this "synergy" was terribly unhealthy. The job you enjoy should be the only job you need for even high-end content. Being excluded because your job isn't magical ranged or provides a piercing debuff for the always there Bard is terrible.

I'm always happy when the developers push toward balancing that enables people to play what they want rather than the meta team for fear of exclusion.

[KDSilver]

But Stb Foe was a flat 3% damage increase ? I was fine like this.
Or people want HW Foe back and I misunderstood

[SweetPete]

Foe's Requiem was removed for the exact reason CKNovel wants a "relationship" back. It created an unhealthy team composition that was heavily favored. Keep in mind that Bard was a staple job in team compositions for a minimum of 6 years in this game's lifespan so this "synergy" was terribly unhealthy. The job you enjoy should be the only job you need for even high-end content. Being excluded because your job isn't magical ranged or provides a piercing debuff for the always there Bard is terrible.

I'm always happy when the developers push toward balancing that enables people to play what they want rather than the meta team for fear of exclusion.

They had already removed the piercing debuff from it in SB. The synergy was basically over. The reason they removed it was because they gave dancer standard and technical step and they didn’t want bard stepping on those toes. Giving 8% total damage up between them every 2 minutes. Not to mention Astro’s divination which is another 5% which would be 13% damage up so I guess to SE that is still to powerful for bard which makes no sense. When Shb first came out bard had no party support. This had nothing to do with synergy. They destroyed this job and only gave negligible support back due to players anger on the forums. Forcing the devs to give in. They know what bard players want now and in 6.0 I’m sure bard will shine again.

[Rika007]

Foe's Requiem was removed for the exact reason CKNovel wants a "relationship" back. It created an unhealthy team composition that was heavily favored. Keep in mind that Bard was a staple job in team compositions for a minimum of 6 years in this game's lifespan so this "synergy" was terribly unhealthy. The job you enjoy should be the only job you need for even high-end content. Being excluded because your job isn't magical ranged or provides a piercing debuff for the always there Bard is terrible.

I'm always happy when the developers push toward balancing that enables people to play what they want rather than the meta team for fear of exclusion.

1) Foe's requiem was not what created an unhealthy relationship. In 4.0 the Magic only damage up was removed and it was a flat damage increase.

2) Bard was a meta staple for 6 years not due to it's own strength, it was due to it being the only ranged DPS for the first two years of the game, and then the presence of piercing debuff for the next 4 being such an op move, along with crit synergy being the most OP thing in existence in 4.0 along with the presence of trick attack. Bard was not the enabler of the meta (if any job was it was Ninja), it was the biggest benefactor. Removing the piercing debuff along with crit based procs and just weakening crit buffs and damage buffs across the board was more then enough to handicap Bard. Taking away Foe's was just an overboard move and misreading the situation, along with the heavy nerf to all ranged dps.

3) Balance is important and no overall comp should be dominantly 'meta', yes. That being said, balance should always go hand in hand with playability and job fantasy. Removing Foe's requiem from Bard pissed off Bard players because it was our most known ability that helped the party. Players who didn't play Bard (good ones anyway), knew enough about bard that when the purple musical debuff icon was on the boss, its time to blow some cool downs. It was Bard's signature party support ability, and it was flat our ripped away with nothing given back to replace it. It would be like taking Passage of Arms outright from Paladin, or Blackest Night from Dark Knight, or Technical step from Dancer, or Benediction from White Mage, or Cards from Astologian. If a signature ability is too strong (foe's wasn't, but this is for argument sake), you don't yank it away entirely, you rework it or nerf it. They reworked Ast's cards, they reworked Trick Attack, they nerfed Battle Litany, they reworked Sch's Critlo, etc etc etc.

(Also let's not play around and call it straight, they didn't rip Bard's ability's away because of balance. They ripped them away to make Dancer's support ability more unique and appealing. They outright stated it when they addressed Bard's players complaints about losing all of their support by saying they now saw Bard as the 'middle ground' between Dancer and Machinist on the support spectrum. So let's not act like it wasn't just pulling a Monk Samurai situation from stormblood, and they just ripped Bard's identity away and gave it to Dancer.)

[Rika007]

Agreed OP. Honestly they could right now pump Bard's damage up to be right around the same level of where it was during Stormblood, make it a monster again, and I still wouldn't replay the job. I wasn't playing it to be a glorified Ranger, I played it to be a hybrid damage support that felt like the backbone of the party. While I have other issues about the job as it is in terms of some issues it's current rotation and traits cause that need to be ironed out, that loss of job fantasy that was so perfectly well done in Stormblood simply can't be fixed by a flat numbers increase. Hell if I they flat out just reverted Bard to it's level 4.55 version right now but with increased potency to make sure it's damage stayed the same (which still would be the bottom of the barrel in the game), I would go back to it immediately and give up all the things the job 'gained' in ShB.