Are classes needed? POLL

[Duelle]

Give Bard an instrument and give Archer back its dang bow. Yeah its cool whatever Bard has a bow but come on we have 4 songs? I love bard and would love to see a fully fleshed out job. XI had over 50 songs on bard and we get 4?

Of which only 4 were trully useful (Ballad, March, Elegy, Madrigal) and everything else was a waste of space until Abyssea procs made them quasi-relevant. It's not that different. In fact, they actually gave Bard something to do when not using songs. That and Bards ARE a subsect of the Rogue archetype, which can use daggers and bows. XIV's Bard is more like the Bard from Bard's Tale or a classic D&D Bard rather than...well, that horrible thing from XI that was stupidly rare that few actually liked playing, to the point it gave birth to the princess BRD.

PS: If you want a more modern example, look up Dragon Age: Origins. Leliana, in specific.

[XStruckX]

Of which only 4 were trully useful (Ballad, March, Elegy, Madrigal) and everything else was a waste of space until Abyssea procs made them quasi-relevant. It's not that different. In fact, they actually gave Bard something to do when not using songs. That and Bards ARE a subsect of the Rogue archetype, which can use daggers and bows. XIV's Bard is more like the Bard from Bard's Tale or a classic D&D Bard rather than...well, that horrible thing from XI that was stupidly rare that few actually liked playing, to the point it gave birth to the princess BRD.

PS: If you want a more modern example, look up Dragon Age: Origins. Leliana, in specific.

Yeah I played Dragon Age I enjoyed it... The lore and the mystery behind Leliana was great especially the little expansion they had for her. I totally hear you on that! On Bard only having 4 useful songs in FFXI I think it would be fair to say the number is a little higher. I used quite a few but I made the mistake of forgetting the different tiers of strengths for the songs. Fine give it a dagger or some other weapon as well...oh wait we can't use multiple weapons on a class/job. Here is the solution ready for this?

Give bard a flute right? Make it the weapon... you sing songs that do more than just buff. Does damage, debuffs, crowd control, speed enhancement as well us the usual buffs. The possibilities are endless on what a bard can do...

As it is now we are an ARC that can do a couple of extra buffs. BOOM that's the bard. Kinda lame imo...

Think of your Bard as someone that can do a channeling constant damage on the mob while his buffs are up, being able to slow, stun, poison. Being able to use his "ahem" instrument for anything any other mage can do. There is that mage everyone is looking for.

[Duelle]

As it is now we are an ARC that can do a couple of extra buffs. BOOM that's the bard. Kinda lame imo.

Your opinion is noted. I disagree with it, but it is noted nevertheless.

You missed my point, though. The classic bard had the songs as the back up/flavor of the class. That's why D&D Bards were strong as hell and were ridiculously versatile. They were a rogue/archer that could sing and buff their group. That's what we have now. As ranged damage dealer makes sense in this context and may even lure people to playing the job, I'm all for this if it will keep the idiocy of the princess BRD from happening again. I'm not going to support anything that will turn BRD into a class that few are willing to play so that the shrewd can abuse that to hold parties and entire endgame shells hostage.

And people are looking for an additional mage because their minds demand symetry, which doesn't exist at the moment. I don't think most realize that magic is so cut and dry in FF that you'd need to turn Geomancer or Blue Mage into pure casters and build from there. The approach XIV has taken to magic demands that each caster has its own type of magic, so we're kind of limited until the devs can invent something. As I've said elsewhere, I don't care what they come up with as long as I get my magic fencer RDM at the end of the day.