Condensing Bard with Morphing Buttons

[Karishi]

After they proved they could make it work mechanically in RDM and SUM, I think it's time Bard benefitted from the programmers' ability to make morphing buttons.
1) Straight Shot/Refulgent Arrow is insufficiently advanced over Heavy Shot/Burst Shot to warrant saving a proc for burst windows.
If we accept this, we see that the only reason to have them on separate buttons is so that the job feels like it has a little more going on prior to level 12. If it weren't for macros' inability to preload, a "Straight Shot, Heavy Shot" single macro button would be mechanically identical to having the two buttons.
I would propose - with the assumption that higher-level potencies would be moved around to make this fair mechanically - that at level 2 Bards don't get Straight Shot as its own button.
Instead they'd get a trait - Straight Shooter - causing Heavy Shot to turn into Straight Shot 20% of the time.
And so that they have more than one button to push they could get a 20- or 30-second CD Ability that just gives them a free proc. This gives the Bard player a little boost they can use during burst windows; A mini-Flourish, as a treat. They'd basically use this the first time after CD that they don't already have a proc, which means for optimal use you couldn't shove this option into a one-button macro the way you can with Straight/Heavy Shot.

2) Along similar lines, The Wanderer's Minuet and Perfect Pitch shouldn't be two buttons. TWM should just turn into Perfect Pitch on cast, and turn back when the song runs out. You'd need the CD for The Wanderer's Minuet to count down in the background (or calculate 75s+[time left on song] when the song ends, I guess) but the devs have shown they can handle that kind of thing well.

3) At present, the way Barrage works only gives you the opportunity to press the wrong button and reduce its value. There's no situation where you want to spend Barrage on anything but the exact weaponskill it activates on use. This means Barrage should simply be a GCD Weaponskill that fires three hits equivalent to that of Straight/Refulgent, or that on use the button turns into Straight/Refulgent to minimize the odds of hitting the wrong thing.
The other direction to go design-wise is to give Barrage a separate option; a superior Weaponskill that's only usable every two or three Barrages, kind of like how extra Kenki goes into Shinten once Senei is on CD. At that point you'd use Barrage-"Super Shot" for the first burst, then your free Refulgent on your next GCD, and on your next Barrage cooldown you'd use Barrage-Refulgent.
At that point there'd be a worthy reason not to make Barrage into just a Weaponskill. But unless that's in the cards, it really ought to be.

[anhaato]

No

10 loporrits

[Shurrikhan]

I'll agree that Refulgent Arrow should be made to replace Heavy/Burst Shot if we are to remain unable to stack procs.

Shadowbite should probably be changed to a very wide linear AoE so that it can still reach all that Ladonsbite could and should then likewise replace Quick Nock/Ladonsbite unless able to stack multiple procs.

Personally, I'd rather Bloodletter convert to Pitch Perfect so that our songs can remain organized together. (Have Pitch Perfect essentially work as an up-to-3-charges-spent-simultaneously Bloodletter where potency per charge is increased by the number of charges simultaneously consumed. It'd still generate BL/PP charges over time and from WM just as BL does in MB, so you'd actually want to enter WM with 3 charges to instantly spend before the Repertoire server tick.)

I see no reason we'd need to turn Barrage into a direct damage GCD. However, I'd consolidate the currently separate Shadowbite and Refulgent Arrow procs into a single buff type shareable by both, which Barrage would then proc instead of just Refulgent Arrow.

[Equitable_Remedy]

Mighty Morphin Power Ra—wait, what is this thread about?

[Xiaoki]

Yeah, some buttons could be consolidated.

Mainly Burst Shot becoming Refulgent Arrow and Ladonsbite becoming Shadowbite.

Wanderer's Minuet and Pitch Perfect could work, but it would be weird if only one song did that.

Additionally, Sidewinder really doesn't serve much purpose anymore. It's just another oGCD attack on a Job that's swimming in oGCD attacks.

[Rika007]

Additionally, Sidewinder really doesn't serve much purpose anymore. It's just another oGCD attack on a Job that's swimming in oGCD attacks.

While I don't disagree that Sidewinder lacks a purpose, the idea should be is upgrading it into something that has a purpose not removing it entirely. Bard needs to be swimming in oGCD's. Heck honestly all 3 ranged should all be at the very top when it comes to APM, as thats where the justification for their mobility should lie in. We are already pressing blood letter less due to the change in resets and it being the weakest song. The last thing we should want is less oGCD's to press.

For the thread at large I would say our best bets would be to have burst change to Refulgent but keep the same rules in place. Same with Laidons into Shadow (although personally I'd like to see Bard get a third step to that AOE rotation and Shadow become guaranteed to proc). I don't like the idea of the songs changing into the abilities they represent but honestly, having one button that changes the songs could be a great way to remove button bloat.

But if we really wanna talk about button bloat lets remove some of the more useless abilities. Peloton, all 3 Graze abilities, Warden's Paean (as much as I'd love a rework, we're on 3 expansions of it being useless now). There are plenty of things we could cull from Bard without looking at the primary rotation abilities first.

[Iedarus]

For the thread at large I would say our best bets would be to have burst change to Refulgent but keep the same rules in place. Same with Laidons into Shadow (although personally I'd like to see Bard get a third step to that AOE rotation and Shadow become guaranteed to proc). I don't like the idea of the songs changing into the abilities they represent but honestly, having one button that changes the songs could be a great way to remove button bloat.

I can get behind this!

Peloton

Please, no. Peloton is great for getting through towns and dungeons faster.

[Absimiliard]

Frankly, most of the jobs could use with some morphing buttons. There's zero reason for each job's primary combo (or in the case of some two or more combos) to take up so many spaces on our hot bars. Condensing them into one button per combo would in no way impact the game's overall difficulty, but it would allow us to organize our bars in far more player-friendly ways.

[Tulzscha]

Why people would want to remove gameplay from a game I'll never understand.

Burst Shot becoming Refulgent Arrow and Ladonsbite becoming Shadowbite.

There's zero reason for each job's primary combo (or in the case of some two or more combos) to take up so many spaces on our hot bars.

The point is having to pay attention which makes for engaging gameplay. With Bard that gameplay is having a short amount of time to react and hit a different button, with 123 combos it's remembering your place in the sequence after diverting to do something else or making sure to finish the combo first. Whether you find that gameplay fun or not is a different matter ofc, some do others do not. I'm not a fan of proc jobs but I'd much rather have either of those options over spamming one button without thought.

There's no situation where you want to spend Barrage on anything but the exact weaponskill it activates on use.

AoE. It buffs Shadowbite.

The Wanderer's Minuet and Perfect Pitch shouldn't be two buttons. TWM should just turn into Perfect Pitch on cast, and turn back when the song runs out.

Ehh it could, I think it would be weird but it wouldn't hurt anything. I'd probably end up putting the same skill in two places on my bars lol.

But if we really wanna talk about button bloat lets remove some of the more useless abilities. Peloton, all 3 Graze abilities, Warden's Paean (as much as I'd love a rework, we're on 3 expansions of it being useless now). There are plenty of things we could cull from Bard without looking at the primary rotation abilities first.

Noooo ;( ok yeah most of those are useless but I'd rather have the devs give them purpose than take them away, if that's even possible. Peloton is useful though.

[Shurrikhan]

Why people would want to remove gameplay from a game I'll never understand.

Some of these suggestions do not, however, remove gameplay to nearly the extent that they improve QoL. For instance, at present, there is never a time in which it's worth wasting a Refulgent proc to hold Refulgent for one further GCD. No matter how much complexity you may desire, that is a painfully underdesigned mechanic.

The question simply becomes whether we want it primarily just for visual variance, in which it makes sense for the button to morph, or if we want to actually make use of that mechanic for further optimizations, in which case it at least needs a viable way to be held (such as a second stack).

Merely answering "Did I hear the chime?" / "Has my other button lit up?" is hardly compelling gameplay on which to spend half one's filler single-target buttons.

Ehh it could, I think it would be weird but it wouldn't hurt anything. I'd probably end up putting the same skill in two places on my bars lol.

Same, honestly. It'd be awkward placing a song (solely) in a position that'd require as much ease of reach as Bloodletter, instead of near WM and AP.

Noooo ;( ok yeah most of those are useless but I'd rather have the devs give them purpose than take them away, if that's even possible. Peloton is useful though.

If I were to get rid of any of them, I'd actually prefer to get rid of Peloton, in favor of just providing a stacking Swift aura out of combat. Though it's the most often used of those utility skills, it's the only one that has zero need for an active button-press.

Finally, Minne and Paean need buffs, not removal. We should have some meaningful point-support.