What is Bard?

[Jirah]

One thing that I am sure many people forget or aren't aware of is that there have been many iterations of Bards that used a Bow as a weapon; FFXIV is not the only game/story to do so. The key is finding a good balance between the Bard aspects and their weapon of choice. For FFXIV, SB got it, and was much loved because of it. And, although ShB didn't change them too much, they felt a bit more underwhelming because of the inclusion of Dancer.

thats the the thing, Shb did have significant changes to the old BRD mains like the switch to flat percentages for the dots instead of a inflatable stat, and the exclusion of mana and tp altering effects with no replacements. but however their main kit, there rotation for offense barley changed besides a few trims like misery's end and the straight arrow bar. Long story short if u played BRD in SB u can ease back in seamlessly.

BRD has a few camps, the old mains annoyed their job debatably got more removed than received, those wish it to be more heavily focused on songs, and those who never liked it to begin with and constantly bring up DNC and MCH as better examples of ranged, and of course the others that want ranged to be on par with Melee with there ease of use not withstanding. Yes BRD needs its own identity, and yes BRD needs abit more on the support side but with how FF14 is right now it doesnt have alot to go off of now mana and tp are gone without gimping DNC. Personally BRD is the best ranged of the 3 cuz its not bare bones like MCH and it isnt random as and straight forward like DNC and it worrys me how theyll shrink BRD this time to please fans they could care less about it

[Warlyx]

One thing that I am sure many people forget or aren't aware of is that there have been many iterations of Bards that used a Bow as a weapon; FFXIV is not the only game/story to do so. The key is finding a good balance between the Bard aspects and their weapon of choice. For FFXIV, SB got it, and was much loved because of it. And, although ShB didn't change them too much, they felt a bit more underwhelming because of the inclusion of Dancer.

I mained brd because i could dps while supporting my pt , i felt usefull having TP / MP regen songs back then , boosting the dmg of my pt with foe requiem , and soul voice was the cherry on top

TP/MP regen songs removed , foe requiem is a joke now , and battle voice is "ok" at best nowadays.

the elephant on the room is there DANCING and laughing , there is another guy with a pistol that want to shot it dead too.

[Anhra]

To me, Bard is just SMN who traded his book and egis for a Bow, Fedora and some useless utility.

The 1% dps Boost from mages ballad never fails to make me laugh. I guess you can't spell Bard without bad.

[Gobio]

The mechanics of playing the bard is the opposite of what a bard is supposed to be like.

Ideal bard should sing songs that other care about. Here is a song about the glorious of magus xxxx against the dragon yyy. All the mage in your party are hyped. Here is a song about great warrior ZZZZ facing off 10,000 opponent, then all the melee notice your song and get excited.

Actual bard is a shower singing narcissist, only the bard himself cares what he/she is actually singing.

[Warlyx]

The mechanics of playing the bard is the opposite of what a bard is supposed to be like.

Ideal bard should sing songs that other care about. Here is a song about the glorious of magus xxxx against the dragon yyy. All the mage in your party are hyped. Here is a song about great warrior ZZZZ facing off 10,000 opponent, then all the melee notice your song and get excited.

Actual bard is a shower singing narcissist, only the bard himself cares what he/she is actually singing.

until u sing battle voice , u are the only that doesnt care u dont even get the "buff"

is like SE is trolling brd playerbase

[Jirah]

To me, Bard is just SMN who traded his book and egis for a Bow, Fedora and some useless utility.

The 1% dps Boost from mages ballad never fails to make me laugh. I guess you can't spell Bard without bad.

Disregarding Minne, Troubadour, and Battle voice and nitpicking a song you literally Play the least. I’ll take crappy utility over none at all or worse none at all and a half assed kit with no spark.

[Easayia]

I think the Job just needs a few things to power it up a bit more and also please both sides of the coin Archer and Bards of all MMOs ever.

suggested Endwalker skills I would like to see.

1. We need 1 AOE dot application skill to empower our dots when we are hitting multiple enemies.

. My suggestion for this would be applying the normal dot skills but when using Iron Jaws on a target you not only reset the duration of the skill but a musical note tornado type of animation is triggered creating an AOE and applying the dot to all the enemies in the area

2. Bard Feels Very Awkward when skills dont trigger with the dots. When I use ballad just as an example I use Burst shot > Blood letter > burst shot >blood letter but sometimes the blood letter doesn't proc and if your Empyreal Arrow is not up you just start only using your burst shot hoping the skill will bloody proc. (basically fix this awkwardness that tends to happen)

3. 4th song I do think a 4th song idea mentioned in another thread that extremely buffs up the party and had maybe musical notes flying around all players would be super cool to see.
. Heck make bard enter a performance mode where they put that bow on their back wip out an instrument of the players choosing ( the ones you are able to perform with) and enter a state where all their skills do less damage and have musical animations on all your attacks playing from the instrument not a bow. (please note while your hitting weaker your party is doing the extra damage you are lacking during this mode and then some so your not losing overall party DPS your gaining it)

. Basically 4th song would make the bard an actual bard for a bit rather then the hybrid its always been. Maybe as well the 4th song would empower our 3 remaining support skills example:

Wardens Paeon > removes all detrimental effects from the party

Troubadour > Damage taken recieved reduced by 15-20% ( again percentages would have to be messed with.)

Natures Minne > HP recovery 40% to self or target or just increase all healing received to the entire party

. Also make this song only usable when either filling up some new gauge or after going through x amount of total current songs. or just have this song replace Army's Paeon since Army's Paeon has always been very neish.

Bard Does not need a complete rework Bard just needs to do something more with its instruments in terms of animations as well as have a moment where its not strictly a Archer.

Bard has always felt like archer first quick button press for music then back to bow let us strum our instruments more and you make all bards very happy!

note: In Archage I played EbonSong so Im perfectly ok with the whole hybrid Idea however the amount of music we currently actually play with this Job is miniscule even when in comparison to that.

[Gobio]

The fundamental problem of bard is who (as in which person) exactly care about the singing?

You can do all the changes on the surface to fool the bard player that your character is singing, but at the end of the day, if it is still balanced to the point that only you the bard care about which song you are singing and nobody else... I'd say just forget it and go full magical archer.

[Easayia]

The fundamental problem of bard is who (as in which person) exactly care about the singing?

You can do all the changes on the surface to fool the bard player that your character is singing, but at the end of the day, if it is still balanced to the point that only you the bard care about which song you are singing and nobody else... I'd say just forget it and go full magical archer.

Well ya thats the issue bard 2% bard 98% archer they need to give more musical flare to the presentation of bard it needs to be at least 30% Music 70% bow maybe even more in terms of music the concept can work I dont really like the idea of magic archer as much as a music bow hybrid because the Idea is solid it just needs more to sell the whole Idea.

buffing the party needs to be its primary role and while in someways it does that now its just passive and only you see your bar going it needs to be more noticeable like let everyone know they got the buff on them type of thing. I think this can be said with Dancer as well like show that the dance partner is getting the buff outside of the icon.

[Acelyn]

I just wish they would spin off a ranger variant and make it a selfish dps, snatch it's mobility and make it a ranged monster. you could make its lore basically a bard who saw their comrades go down because the song's didn't go above the screams of war, so instead of singing they decided to master killing instead.

bards feel like an afterthought right now, but at the same time have the potential to be the perfect support job or perfect ranged doombringer, I know yoshi-p said no more split jobs but archer is honestly begging for it.