Ideas for improving Bard

[Phia]

This is primarily written for Bard, but addresses what I see as greater issues with the ranged DPS role as a whole, including some adjustments to the role abilities for ranged physical.

I’m not claiming in any way that the problems and solutions I’m proposing are universal, as they are written entirely from my perspective, based on my preferences.

For an example of my goals, I will point at Stormblood Bard as the best I’ve seen this job, and to be honest, the best version of any job I’ve seen in this game since I started playing at ARR launch. With its large array of support tools (not to be confused with dps boosts for the group), and dynamic resource generation, it was highly engaging to play at a basic level, and highly satisfying to try and optimize at a high level.

My criteria when building this out was to try and make things better without needing to do a full rework, in hopes of something that could be implemented mid-expansion. To that end, I’m not asking for anything new, everything here is a tweak of something that currently exists, or has existed in the Bard toolkit before. This is part of why I purposefully did not include a DoT-spreader in this write-up.

I’m ignoring the potency implications of the equation here to focus on the concepts, so please ignore the obvious balancing that would have to occur to compensate for what’s being added.

Current Problems

1.) Bard resource generation is boring.

I understood the move to a flat % rate on repertoire gain in ShB, as it makes things easier to balance, and makes the early expansion version of the job feel better than its crit-based counterpart.

That said, in my opinion, the current version where it’s 80% on song tick takes that too far. Double procs and staggered DoT and song timers added important spice to resource generation that is now lost. There is less room for gameplay optimization.

2.) Bard’s “support” has been reduced to just offering damage buffs to the group. Utility abilities which were once a huge part of the job’s identity have been phased out over time, and is something I miss.


Proposed Changes

1.) Reinstate River of Blood

I'd like to see River of Blood return as a base trait for Bard. It would function as it used to, resetting/reducing the cooldown of BL/RoD based on DoT ticks. It will certainly need to have a lower percent chance to proc, but could coexist alongside the existing Mages Ballad, positioning Mages Ballad as simply a higher activity version of the basic gameplay loop.

This change leans into Bard’s highly active playstyle with a focus on reacting to procs, keeping in line with how the class has frequently played over its existence. This change also serves to make Army’s Paeon less dull, since you are not just hitting gcds and waiting for BL charges to pile up for your burst window. Instead you’re encouraged to manage them to not waste resources

2.) Warden’s Paean is interesting and flavorful, let us actually use it.

I think this is a simple request, but unfortunately is more about encounter design than job design. All the same, I wanted to call out that I like this ability, and abilities like it.

3.) Remove Shadowbite ready, and allow Shadowbite to be cast when Straight Shot ready. Also bring Shadowbite up to an 8y radius

This is pure QoL. I can't imagine anyone who has played Bard this expansion has not been frustrated that Barrage does not provide you a Shadowbite cast. Likewise, Shadowbite's radius being smaller than RoD is awkward and obnoxious.

4.) Make Radiant Finale a trait that upgrades Battle Voice, they serve the exact same purpose. Do not do this with Barrage and Raging Strikes, while they are used together, they are distinct abilities.

This is just cleaning up bloat. I cannot think of any situation at level 90 where I want to provide the group with Radiant Finale, but not Battle Voice, or vice versa. Conversely, while I will always use Barrage during Raging Strikes, there are times when I do not want to use both in the same oGCD window.

5.) Add functionality to Nature’s Minne

I'm envisioning something similar to the recent tank cooldown change to reward good use, like an Excogitation effect that only goes off based on the target's health. Let the Bard actually contribute with this ability, lean into support being something other than a damage aura.

6.) Get rid of Leg Graze and Foot Graze.

Again, cleaning up bloat. PvE encounter design clearly is not interested in using them, so they serve no purpose.

7.) Move Troubadour to a role ability.

It already is one, just pick whichever name and animation people like best and give it to everyone.

8.) Reinstate Palisade as a role ability.

Since we have a free role ability slot from our pruning, we can bring back this ability. This leans further into ranged DPS as a role which brings value outside of DPS.

9.) Get rid of the ranged LB3

It’s incredibly hard to justify compared to the other LB3 options. Give us the healer LB3 like Bard had in ARR so we can function as a safety net instead to emphasize the support side of ranged DPS.

Wrap Up

These ideas are based around the fact that I recognize that while I did not like or appreciate the last minute changes to Bard between the media tour and Endwalker’s release, a great number of people do seem to like them. So, I came to this conclusion instead of asking for things like repertoire procs being returned to how they were.

I feel like emphasizing support functionality helps to compensate ranged for their lower DPS contributions, and returns some of the role’s identity that has been lost over time. Especially considering the number of mobility and uptime tools available to all jobs, and encounter design not demanding much in the way of melee or caster downtime, losing DPS due to bringing utility feels more justified than losing it for having mobility.

For those who read the entire post, I thank you for your time. I know there’s very little chance this makes it in front of anyone who can actually make changes, but very little is better than the 0% it has as just an idea in my head.

[Connor]

Posting on mobile edit with reply incoming lol

Going through each point…

1.
While I do agree that Bard can often feel dull during its rotation I dont think River of Blood is quite the way to go about fixing it. It would devalue Mage’s Ballad and it’s already our weakest song, Army’s Paeon would become the same as Ballad except better, and Minuet would become really tight in situations where you need to use an oGCD (i.e Raging Strikes or Battle Voice) but you also need to use Bloodletter and Pitch Perfect or they’ll overcap. I think it’s a good idea, in that Bard could definitely use more to do than just ‘gcd - proc - gcd - proc’ as infinitum

2.
100% agree with this. I love Warden’s Paeon…on paper. In practice, Esuna is simply too infrequent and unnecessary to warrant giving this skill the time of day as it stands. And frankly, the fact we have to wait 45 seconds just to use Esuna on a single target is laughable. They had the right idea when they initially implemented this as a GCD with a cast time. If you ask me, they should make a 1.5 second cast that restores a small amount of HP (e.g 450 potency so same as trusted Physick or Diagnosis) and keep the Esuna as an additional effect. That way we can actually use it to support the party, and not as the cool-down dictates.

3.
Yeah Shadowbite range is a pain lol so I’m all for them increasing it. Consolidating the two ‘Ready’ buffs is definitely a much-requested adjustment and I find it strange they didn’t consolidate them in the first place.

4.
This is the only thing I don’t really agree with. While I understand the point that they essentially do the same thing, Radiant Finale and Battle Voice are pretty much the only ‘Bard-like’ abilities we have that we actually get to use regularly. I’d be sad if Battle Voice was consumed by Finale. Plus, Battle Voice has been a Bard skill since 1.0 (and has had quite a few different effects in that time lol) so it’d also be sad to see Bards lose an ‘iconic ffxiv bard’ skill.

5.
Literally anything for Minne would be better than what we have now lol. Literally all four heals can do the exact same thing as it currently, except their versions aren’t on hefty 90-second cooldowns (e.g Protraction, Krasis). That not mentioning the fact that both Red Mage and Monk can do the same thing except on the entire party.
A weaker effect, sure, but still better than Minne lol. Again whilst I don’t think it would ever become a thing under any circumstances but I’d love to see it turned into a gcd regen song. Either make it work like Foe Requiem (persistent effect but drains MP whilst singing), or make it drain song gauge or something idk. If they desperately want to keep it single target then in case I’d prefer Minne to act as a gcd heal, with or without the healing boost additional effect, and then have Warden’s Paean as a gcd shield with a heal potency but no direct healing (i.e solely adds a shield worth 300 potency)

6.
I’m impartial to these. There’s not really any reason for them to exist outside of some very niche content as far as I’m aware. Maybe they could make them some kind of debuff instead of Heavy/Bind, like reducing damage dealt with Leg Graze or reducing attack speed with Foot Graze?

7 - 8
I’m doing these together since I’m not quite sure what you mean. Troubadour and Palisade are effectively the same skill - ‘reduces damage taken by target by 10%’, just that one is AoE and one is (was) single. If both of these skills existed as role skills, wouldn’t that mean we essentially have the same role skill twice? Personally, I’d like to see them add some ‘flavour’ to Samba/Tactician/Troubadour, so that if they’re going to remain class and not role skills, they could at least do something to differentiate their effects

9.
I don’t think most people will agree with us but by all that is Spoony I ask YoshiP to heed our prayer and return the ranged healingLB3 to the land of the living. It infuriates me to no end that as a Bard I’m always one of the last players to die (I hide don’t judge me it’s what we do). And despite the job’s lore literally being built around that moment (the carnage of battle unfolding etc)…the only thing I can possible do in that situation is shoot a big laser beam . Which helps nobody, not even me. And I mean I’m not saying Bards should be allowed to super spam Raise and Cure Red Mage style and invalidate the healers but by the gods do I feel wholly useless as a Bard when my party is dying. At least as a Dancer I can use Waltz and Improvisation and pretend I’m helping lol

[HappyHubris]

Strong disagree to adding healing potency to BRD support abilities; healers already have too little to do. This has been exacerbated by adding target and group heals to all kinds of classes. Unless encounters are simultaneously reworked to put out a LOT more damage, this would just devalue green DPS.

Also, I have seen no evidence that BRDs have a LB3 since Heavensward; fan fiction belongs in a different forum...

[Connor]

Strong disagree to adding healing potency to BRD support abilities; healers already have too little to do. This has been exacerbated by adding target and group heals to all kinds of classes. Unless encounters are simultaneously reworked to put out a LOT more damage, this would just devalue green DPS.

Also, I have seen no evidence that BRDs have a LB3 since Heavensward; fan fiction belongs in a different forum...

Lol what? Prior to Heavensward Bards used the healer limit break. Individual limit breaks didn’t exist nor did the ranged physical limit break. The only fan fiction here is your belief that Bard has always had a pure dps limit break.

As for the first point obviously that’s true but it’s a bit late for that considering tanks lol. I don’t think we should restrict Bards and their capabilities because of poor encounter / healer design; they should make healers fun to play instead. I mean, if we follow this logic then we should remove all support capabilities from Bard entirely, otherwise it devalues Dancer (evidenced by 6.0-6.08). And then there’s the obvious fact that if it’s a dps loss like Vercure suddenly it becomes entirely useless until the moment the healers die (at which point it becomes amazing). Having the choice to help out with healing doesn’t mean you have to spam them at every given opportunity. I mean, I don’t see Red Mages or Dancers spamming Vercure / Curing Waltz with every gcd / on cool-down and invalidating healers, so why would letting Bards help out somehow delete all the healers?

[MPNZ]

Lol what? Prior to Heavensward Bards used the healer limit break. Individual limit breaks didn’t exist nor did the ranged physical limit break. The only fan fiction here is your belief that Bard has always had a pure dps limit break.

As for the first point obviously that’s true but it’s a bit late for that considering tanks lol. I don’t think we should restrict Bards and their capabilities because of poor encounter / healer design; they should make healers fun to play instead. I mean, if we follow this logic then we should remove all support capabilities from Bard entirely, otherwise it devalues Dancer (evidenced by 6.0-6.08). And then there’s the obvious fact that if it’s a dps loss like Vercure suddenly it becomes entirely useless until the moment the healers die (at which point it becomes amazing). Having the choice to help out with healing doesn’t mean you have to spam them at every given opportunity. I mean, I don’t see Red Mages or Dancers spamming Vercure / Curing Waltz with every gcd / on cool-down and invalidating healers, so why would letting Bards help out somehow delete all the healers?

OK, he definitely has it posted "Since Heavensward" and from the start. But, Yeah, HLR design is basically super simple with questionable decision making and some recent compromises like Bole being an OGCD, and a second delayed healing spell. So, player feedback is being heard with Sge being the primary Guinea pig *end-tangent*

The role abilities and several support abolities have issues. But, RDM literally disproves that hybrid designs just destroy roles by nature in FF14. That honor goes to the "in-between" jobs within roles

Strong disagree to adding healing potency to BRD support abilities; healers already have too little to do. This has been exacerbated by adding target and group heals to all kinds of classes. Unless encounters are simultaneously reworked to put out a LOT more damage, this would just devalue green DPS.

Also, I have seen no evidence that BRDs have a LB3 since Heavensward; fan fiction belongs in a different forum...

It's not stepping on the healing roles shoes, tbh. All of the jobs need a battle raise or increased item limits for PheonixDowns with an increased affective range, at this point

Examples of what they could do: Nature minne boost the potency of the next heal cast on the player, which often registers after healing actions go into effect. It would be better if it would just buff the healing potencies across the board for 20-30 seconds that could ease the need for healing on casual parties. And, then there is like Wardens which is just a worse version of Esuna with a really long recast time. So what if Warden's had like Cure III's circle AOE or stacks. It becomes way more useful. Oh, and they can make esuna remove revive sickness so it's used in fights way more often. It's not really a detraction to impliment these changes when the job design doesn't match the existing content in the first place for skilled players as opposed to like designs implemented to fixing problems caused by players, which is what hlrs currently do


Most of the ideas are from one of my posts an a seperate BRD thread....

[Tulzscha]

1.) Bard resource generation is boring

The main thing I noticed playing Bard in Endwalker is how weirdly structured the job feels despite all its procs. Repertoire procs very consistently, WM and MB feel very similar while AP is just less, Apex Arrow isn't much different from Sidewinder in how it's used, it's all kinda lame. It looks like there's a lot going on but there really isn't. Seems like that's the case for a lot of jobs in this game.

River of Blood would give more to do which isn't bad but it'd make all the songs feel that much more similar, unless it's only applied to MB to bring up its dmg (thus being used over AP). Having procs from 3 sources would be cool, and MB would feel different from the other songs by being much more erratic.

For Radiant Finale and Battle Voice I could see combining the two, or they could be made more different. How about making Battle Voice a (weaker) 1 minute recast?

2.) Bard’s “support” has been reduced to just offering damage buffs to the group. Utility abilities which were once a huge part of the job’s identity have been phased out over time, and is something I miss.

That unfortunately has more to do with encounter design than anything. I'd love if there were more scenarios to take advantage of non-damage utility and if jobs had more robust kits to handle such mechanics. Tbh my favorite part of raiding in WoW was being able to make use of whatever niche utility my class had, it may not have been often but it was always satisfying.

LB3s are in a similar spot. It's not that there's anything wrong with a line aoe it's just that SE creates so very few scenarios where that's the best choice, especially seeing how it does less dmg than both the melee and caster LBs. It might be cool to give jobs a couple LB choices, whether it be something you select out of combat or having multiple LB abilities at all times. At least that way everyone would have more scenarios where their LB is the desired one.

When it comes to healing utility, so often it's just not needed at all. Healers have more tools than they know what to do with and if someone else starts helping them heal all they have to fall back on is spamming their one filler spell. Again this is an issue with encounter design but also healer design.

Aoe mitigation is occasionally good for high end content but otherwise is very unimpactful, it would generally be far more useful to have something like a burst heal on a long cd to actually save someone in danger of dying (like DRKs with Living Dead) or maybe some kind of movement buff. Casters (minus BLM) can prevent a wipe after people die with rez, ranged phys could be better able to prevent deaths in the first place.

[Jirah]

Snip!!

Agree with all of this besides the LB3 and the pointlessness of anything to do with role skills or adding more or removing them

Natures minne and Wardens need a tune up, I’d LOVE for it to have what GNB has and evolve into somthing more hardy, as for wardens just add charges and add more dots like necrosis in the game and I’m square. BRD could use some more organic support similar to DNC.

Also WHY haven’t you said anything about Soul voice? It’s my biggest gripe with BRD and you didn’t say a word about it *Pout pout*

River of blood and dot ticks are appreciated but, more so if we have a way to directly control them or it intertwines with Rep, if not prefer it untouched if it’ll became somthing of a third wheel.

[Rika007]

I'm down for a lot of this with the exception of Battle Voice upgrading into Radiant Finale. I would much rather just make both of them even stronger and drop the stupid passive aura's that serve absolutely no purpose. The last thing the job needs is LESS oGCD's. It's supposed to feel busy. The opener is finally back to that Stormblood level of insanity. The hotbars may be bloated but this is not the ability to get rid of. Hell if anything I'd rather they double down and next expansion provide an upgraded form of it. Removing Battle Voice from Bard would be like removing Devilment from Dancer. There is no point. It supplements the power of Radiant Finale just like it used to supplement the power of Foe's (and further back other songs). Half the reason so many of us hated ShB Bard was because Battle Voice alone as a singular offensive Buff felt like absolute crap. Radiant Finale only is just going back to that same problem. It's a step back.

If we really wanna clean up action bloat on the hotbars, get rid of several of the useless Role actions (Peloton is not only still dumb as heck, but they also insulted the ranged by making a combat mobility buff and gave it to a healer). Drop warden's if they never will make it useful. But don't touch the offensive actions. I don't need less to do between GCD's.