Bard's big list of problems

[Shurrikhan]

Speaking of AP, I remember when it first came out (the SB version we have now lol) there was some miswording in Paeon’s description that claimed it’s haste effect would also affect other party members. Maybe if they did something like that with it? Idk like proc gives X haste% to nearby party members with X being dependant on the number of proc stacks.

In these modern days of "We are hapless sheep before the wretched drift monster," Haste as an external buff is generally reviled.

[Connor]

In these modern days of "We are hapless sheep before the wretched drift monster," Haste as an external buff is generally reviled.

Yeah I did mean to put that in previous post but completely forgot lol. Haste might sound good on paper but we all know from HW AST that it’s not quite as good in practice because of drifting issues and it can be dependant on class / skill and spell speed

That does leave making AP the ‘aoe’ focused song that interacts with Ladonsbite/Shadowbite (why is everything we do X-Bite lol). Leaving Minuet for single target and Ballad for both? Although then we run into the issue of Ballad and Paeon just swapping places as the ‘filler song’. Plus Bard already (not that I have any evidence) seems to have extremely strong AoE so making it even stronger would probably be too much.

Or maybe even something simple like turning Refulgent/Shadowbite into combos rather than procs during Paeon. Ballad interacts with Bloodletter/Rain of Death, Minuet interacts with Pitch Perfect, so Paeon could be related to the two procs we have that aren’t affected by songs. I feel like Refulgent and Shadowbite should really share their proc too but that’s another matter lol

[Shurrikhan]

That does leave making AP the ‘aoe’ focused song that interacts with Ladonsbite/Shadowbite (why is everything we do X-Bite lol). Leaving Minuet for single target and Ballad for both?

I guess, but I have to admit that I'm not a big fan of any ST/AoE/Hybrid delination, so long as we have nothing in dungeons' trash (by virtue of their being mindless/featureless/barebone af) worth focusing down. I don't want a "filler" song; I want different ways by which they can meaningfully prep one another in different ways and offer new rotational opportunities.

How to do that, though? No idea. With most of our combat reduced to the spam of 1 button and its proc, with only one in 18 GCDs spent differently, there's not a lot to build from.

I feel like Refulgent and Shadowbite should really share their proc too but that’s another matter lol

It is, but it needs to be said just the same. There is no reason for them not to be consolidated and for Barrage to grant a proc usable on either.

[ExcMiddle]

Barrage could be improved a lot for aoe. It could just have two separate buffs for each, one for the single target and one for shadowbite along with potentially proccing shadowbite (Though with this, I would appreciate the most using it in single target simply because it's better in potency than burst shot and it makes for a filler gcd if you want to stall for a little bit more apex gauge). It could also just buff shadowbite for the whole duration of the buff without it being expended by it, shadowbite can in turn give some soul gauge. But all that doesn't change much really besides making the aoe implementation of barrage a bit more interesting in fights where you will be using both the single target and the aoe components of it.

If we were to go on my pet idea of the week land with each song having a muse effect which effectively extends it 10 seconds into the next song, MB and AP would become a bit more interesting, reduce AP to say a 60 second cd, MB into 90 seconds cooldown and reduce RF cooldown into 20 or 30 seconds, RS into 60 seconds or so and ignoring the headache of balancing this along with the UI job, it should add some depth in the rotation (as most likely something like that would result into the first go round to differ from the second), and add some degree of management in the AP moments, help with downtime and make the aoe rotation more active.

Exiting the pet idea land, I feel like the dots have to be replaced with something if we want some variety in the aoe gcd area as without something as I mentioned above, without full BL cd reset on MB procs. or without some other sort of revert, I cannot come with a good way to bring back at least the RoD bussiness of the shb aoe rotation and while landon's bite could have something extra added to it (since it is also a visual upgrade of QN), the fact of the matter remains that if this is what turns the aoe rotation into something more interractive, playing lower level content will make it feel lackluster.

[Anacrusys]

I have an idea to make bard more fun and engaging with room for optimization. Soul voice fills faster and sidewinder, barrage, empyreal arrow, apex arrow all cost soul voice. Not sure about bloodletter. They are still Cd’s (but reduce time on barrage and sidewinder Cd’s) Soul voice bar would not move as fast as a BLM mana bar though. Maybe dots could also speed the rate of soul voice accumulation. This would be more resource management like BLM, but with more skills involved than Fire IV, lol.

So you have to always be making decisions of what skills to use based on soul voice and their cd’s. We currently mostly just hit cd’s and procs which gets boring IMO. It’s very repetitive. Adding the soul voice cost to other skills would add another dynamic. I know this would work well. I’m just laying out an example with the concept feel free to run with it and change specifics.

[Shurrikhan]

I have an idea to make bard more fun and engaging with room for optimization. Soul voice fills faster and sidewinder, barrage, empyreal arrow, apex arrow all cost soul voice.

If you put all these skills on the same resource, you'd be stuck using only whichever one is most gauge-efficient. That means many either go to waste or their potencies are reshuffled such that the one with the longest CD is the most gauge-efficient... at which point you just use them basically as you would now.

[elioaiko]

What's bad about Army's Paeon? Ik it's undesirable but I kinda of like the fast-paced nature of it. I've always been told to swap to WM asap.

[Cetonis]

What's bad about Army's Paeon? Ik it's undesirable but I kinda of like the fast-paced nature of it. I've always been told to swap to WM asap.

It's not fast-paced, is the issue. In Wanderer's with the 2m burst, we run at about ~46-48cpm with an extra hectic front end. Mage's clocks in around ~42cpm, very chill and steady since you have lots of time to use Bloodletter.

Then after some 50+ seconds of doing lightly busy but very low-stress filler, it's AP time. Devoid of oGCDs including needing to save Bloodletters, it clocks in a snail-like 32cpm with absolutely nothing going on. And we sit in this state for a full 43 seconds.

Army's used to be a welcome reprieve, when Mage's was a highly stressful game of whack-a-mole and Wanderer's had not only our burst stuff but also a lot of rocky navigation to get out of it without wasting procs. After a minute of that, chilling for 20 seconds was fine. Needed, even.

But in this kit, it just doesn't make sense.

[Coldbrand]

I mostly just think BRD should have a DoT spreader like SMN used to. If they do unify the DoT it'd be awesome if it became Foe Requiem to help transition BRD into a proper musician instead of stopping RNG from being added to the game.

[MPNZ]

This mostly just going to be a list so...

1.) DoTs and Procs: The overall proc rate is very consistent to the point of being an extremely boring and totally uninteresting design. And, the removal of procs from DoTs, while an attempt to cut down it's opener, leaves little to no incentive to apply, reapply, or just remember they exist. I literally have to remind myself to apply them. They're completely unnecessary to the entire kit, and are basically only slightly bellow sidewinder because it's an OGCD. They could literally just delete these three and no one would notice. Multi-procs were like way more exciting for me, but the RNG was totally not. So this is like: One step forward and two steps back

2.) songs: Armies Paen is only good for it's buff, which should be designed as something to keep up throughout the cyclical song rotation. So, implementing an effect that, let's say, reduces the remaining CD timer for songs by like half or so as a part of Haste's effect or an OGCD ability. It would definitely make the class more active again. BTW, is BRD still singing just for itself? That's still not good, if so...

3.) Sidewinder and shadowbite: Oh, this change definitely move Shadowbite into the safe-zone! I love what you guys did with this rotation, totes! It's so good, but Sidewinder is still useless to the rotation.It's like silence shot. An extra button to press that's not really needed in the rotation. Shadowbite's animation is still ugly and slow, and it should have an the same effect as bane to reduce the need to multi-DoT

4.) ladonsbite: An ugrade to quick knock was way overdue, really. Just not at lv82, and being less impressive in aesthetics and sound than quick knock

5.) TY, for giving Bloodletter stacks. Also, read "1.)"....

6.) Nature's minne, troubadour, and Wardens: Warden's just needs stacks, a reduced CD, and cure III's AOE radius. Nature's minne is still just really inconvenient to use, and it still applies after the healer's have topped off whoever receives it. You guys might want to make it like troubadour or give it stacks too. And, troubadour really should be something we have to keep up as much as possible, but it's still useful as it is, so...

7.) Role skills: status effect skills are useless in PVE, and interrupts are just not going to be used because the whole role is just so naturally busy, which is why they're fun. You guys will never be able to get this role to pay attention to interrupts or see any use in heavy or Bind after you released PVP and nerfed them into ground to any level of popularity. The design just doesn't facilitate their use, at all. And, interrupts definitely have it the worst of them all, IMO...

8.) The new buff is great, and I'm really loving it. But, it would be nice to be able to use it more often

9.) Apex & Blast Arrow: They're still uninteresting and still GCDs. You should definitely make it more like PLD's confitiour combo that would cycle through the seven elements that would apply a unique DoT for each element at half the GCD as normal

10.) Button Bloat/consolidation and other notes: Raging strikes and barrage are still most likely candidates for consolidation, Sidewinder is completely unneeded, and Battle voice really should be a trait at this point. Mages ballad could apply "rivers of blood" like "Armies muse" to help with Armies Peaen's issues. Pitch perfect's action should still be usable after the song duration instead of deleting it's stacks entirely, and only generate stacks during Wanderer's minuet. Repelling shot needs to be reworked into something that's more generally useful like "back hopping" from fighting games (the distancing is perfect though), and the CD's for like abilities in the role need to be reduced, or given a unique GGCD as a whole. Make sure that blood letter doesn't animation lock or be be interrupted by it. And, BL's reset-cancel issues still worry me a bit after being mitigated with stacks, so if you could: please make sure it never occurs while testing it's builds for expacs and stuff...

Ok, I thinks that's everything. A few of these issues lead to dungeons giving me excuses to just be totally inattentive at the 60-75% range, and It's really hard to remember most of the visual details like boss and dungeon designs