Reduced Cooldown
We are all aware of all jobs trying to fit under the 60/120 time frame and Bard for a lot of its skills reduced examples being troubadour (a trait) Raging strikes, battle voice, barrage is 120 now,and even the songs are extended, but something I didn’t expect were the dots too! Both dots are 45 seconds now which bugs me a lot as if they tamper with the dots too much they’ll make them reductive and pointless, but idk

New Skills
Ladonbite is a boring ass coat of paint skills similar to the likes of Broil II, Stone III ect. Doesn’t add anything and just eye candy. Replaces Quick nook which annoys me how much of BRD kit is just replacement skills with zero added improvements besides potency.

Further in the kit Bloodletter now stacks similar to Essential dignity, this goes for rain as well and the tie to them is still present which is good IMO.

Blast arrow is a scorch type of affair with apex, which does 500 potency and you have the option to save it for 30 seconds which I find fantastic as it gives it some flexibility rather than a boring 1-2

Radiant finale is , let’s be honest, divination for Bard. Minstrels coda can generate after each song with 3 being 5% 2 with 4% and 1 with 2%. Numbers and potency aren’t final of course and on a 90sec CD not sure how to feel about this.

Thoughts?
As someone who likes BRD, changes here are a huge mixed bag. Making the dots last longer and the songs make the job feel a lot more barren especially considering Army’s peon, at least looking at the skills and gameplay of it. Probably a plus for the more accessibly crowd tbh. I like blast arrow ready as a concept but idk if 30 seconds is flexible enough considering apex isn’t a common occurrence to begin with. Im annoyed my bigger issues were literally not addressed at all here, BRD still is has its EA trait locked in 68 so procs are slow as hell for half the game, minne and paean are untouched as far as utility goes, at the very least make em aoe or have charges. Still no skill to control soul so the gauge yet again feels tacked on without any proper tools to interact with it. Nothing a total deal breaker at least not yet but seems like BRD in EW will still feel about clunky at high end levels and slow in low end.

Information: https://gamerescape.com/2021/10/13/f...-on-with-bard/