Condensing Bard with Morphing Buttons

[LeonKeyh]

If you think checking to see if Refulgent Arrow is lit up or not requires thought or any bit of effort then I don't know what to say except LOL.

It doesn't require any effort but... you want it to be in one button so that you...? What? If it doesn't require effort, it sounds like it's already easy enough. You can't play both sides here.

I agree... Most jobs do a 1, 2, 3 combo and morphing them into 1 would save a lot of space (especially for controller users that have 8 primary abilities they can set)

I play on PS5 and can tell you that controller players have no trouble with how it is currently. I'm not sure where you're getting the 8 abilities from, but starting out you have 16 and can add 16 more on screen with an additional 16 through holding in both triggers. Paladin and Samurai were really the only "rough" jobs in Shb (haven't checked them out in EW yet) requiring some abilities on the "hidden" hot bars. Controller users shouldn't be who you're fighting for this for.

[Xiaoki]

It doesn't require any effort but... you want it to be in one button so that you...? What? If it doesn't require effort, it sounds like it's already easy enough. You can't play both sides here.

Play both sides? What do you mean by that? I never said anything about wanting both ways. Seems like you're trying to fabricate a Strawman here.

If they want Refulgent Arrow to be a different button then they should make it distinct from Burst Shot. As it is, Refulgent Arrow is just a higher damage version of Burst Shot. So, why is it a separate button? Instead of Burst Shot becoming Refulgent Arrow they could make it that Burst Shot has a random chance to do more damage, as that would be the exact same thing.

How about Refulgent Arrow has a 15 second cooldown and it extends the duration of your DoT effects by 3 seconds (or something related to your DoTs) and Burst Shot as a chance to reset the cooldown. In that case have it be a different button because that would be better than what we have now.

[LeonKeyh]

Play both sides? What do you mean by that? I never said anything about wanting both ways. Seems like you're trying to fabricate a Strawman here.

If they want Refulgent Arrow to be a different button then they should make it distinct from Burst Shot. As it is, Refulgent Arrow is just a higher damage version of Burst Shot. So, why is it a separate button? Instead of Burst Shot becoming Refulgent Arrow they could make it that Burst Shot has a random chance to do more damage, as that would be the exact same thing.

How about Refulgent Arrow has a 15 second cooldown and it extends the duration of your DoT effects by 3 seconds (or something related to your DoTs) and Burst Shot as a chance to reset the cooldown. In that case have it be a different button because that would be better than what we have now.

Throwing around "straw man" as your singular defense isn't really defending your point.

Comment One: I like actual depth (that which gives engagement according to criteria X, Y, and Z).
Comment Two: This is merely bloat (uses up space otherwise available for complexity or QoL/responsiveness and does not give engagement according to criteria X, Y, and Z).

That's not exactly "playing both sides". You can be pro-depth and anti-bloat (even if there's a degree of --well, artificial-- "complexity" involved in bloat).

That's somewhat fair, but where's the line? At what point is something "bloat" and at what point isn't it? Distinct characteristics? Are you saying that every "just damage" button should be a single button then? Single button combos? Dancer having 2 buttons instead of 4 for their combo with procs replacing it? Where is the line there? MCH having a single button combo which also turns into Air Anchor/Drill whenever those abilities are up?

I think that people _greatly_ underestimate the "engagement" just from having different buttons to press. Ask healers how 1 button DPS spam is.

[Shurrikhan]

It doesn't require any effort but... you want it to be in one button so that you...? What? If it doesn't require effort, it sounds like it's already easy enough. You can't play both sides here.

Comment One: I like actual depth (that which gives engagement according to criteria X, Y, and Z).
Comment Two: This is merely bloat (uses up space otherwise available for complexity or QoL/responsiveness and does not give engagement according to criteria X, Y, and Z).

That's not exactly "playing both sides". You can be pro-depth and anti-bloat (even if there's a degree of --well, artificial-- "complexity" involved in bloat).

[HyoMinPark]

I don’t know of many abilities that could be condensed on BRD outside of Burst Shot/Refulgent procs, and Minuet/Pitch Perfect. I saw someone saying to turn Mage’s Ballad into Bloodletter, but the issue there is that BL is not used exclusively within Mage’s. All three stacks are squeezed into burst windows, which would be your Minuet + Raging window. So I fail to see how condensing these two would help. If anything, now you’ve locked BL into just Mage’s and removed the usage of them during the other two songs (and stockpiling them for bursts).

You could just outright remove Leg Graze and Foot Graze (I don’t even have them on my bar), and Repelling Shot. Repelling hasn’t been on my bar since the took the damage off it in Stormblood, and I don’t think it has much use. BRD is 100% mobile and not locked into a melee range, so a backstep doesn’t seem that useful to me (compared to how it would be a melee). Warden’s Paean is another that I think can be sent to the chopping block. It’s just too situational, and not as useful as it could be—now if they want to add in cleansing mechanics, then fine. But right now, there just aren’t enough being added to really give credence to keeping it around.

As it stands, I don’t think BRD has “button bloat”.

I agree... Most jobs do a 1, 2, 3 combo and morphing them into 1 would save a lot of space (especially for controller users that have 8 primary abilities they can set)

Controllers don’t really have a problem with button bloat. I don’t know where you’re getting the “8 primary abilities” from where 1 crossbar is 16 slots…. Enable the expanded cross and you instantly have access to 32 button slots easily.

[Silver-Strider]

As it stands, I don’t think BRD has “button bloat”.

Never stopped SE before. Considering how crazed SE has become in "streamlining" classes, I can see a number of ways they could do that for BRD.

They could merge both DoTs into 1, just like they did with Healers, which means Iron Jaws could be cut.
Burst Shot/Refulgent, Ladonsbite/Shadowbite, and Wanderer's Minuet/Pitch Perfect could be merged.
Despite their differences, I could see Battle Voice being changed to a low level version of Radiant Finale just for laughs.
Nature's Minnie and Warden's Paean could technically be merged into a single buff that removes debuff and grants extra healing on the target.
Repelling Shot could be cut entirely, as could Leg and Foot Graze.

That's 10 abilities that could very easily be cut if SE wanted to. I don't support it but it's doable. They already separated DoTs from interacting with your Songs so it just seems like the most logical next step into streamlining the job to be almost as shallow as SMN is.

[Shurrikhan]

Never stopped SE before. Considering how crazed SE has become in "streamlining" classes, I can see a number of ways they could do that for BRD.

SE's simplification has always had more to do with gutting / shallowing out playflow first and foremost; addressing button bloat has only occurred to the extent necessary to still throw shiny new skill animations into job trailers without relying entirely on upgrade traits, no matter how barren of depth or mechanics those new skills might be.


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Though, let's go ahead and consider Iron Jaws for a moment.

The last time IJ made any sort of sense was probably HW, or at the further in ShB in what incredibly few council fights-ish bosses we have or, vastly more frequent, when having multi-DoTed mid-gather during dungeons. ShB then removed most incentive for doing so anyways.

What does the skill exist to do now? To make you Refulgent>Burst more -- or, to do anything else less. That's it. It exists to reduce button-press variety after the 45+1GCD mark.

[Easayia]

No all doing this does is dumb down the gameplay to less button presses AKA making the job more boring to play.......
morphing buttons is not a good idea unless its specific skills that make sense to morph which on Bard theres not many I would suggest. IDK why people are suggesting burst shot becoming refulgent when it procs..... the whole point of Bard is weaving skills in with each other you remove that extra button press you are removing the feeling of the weave entirely.

Something that I could see maybe morph on bard would be the songs just becoming 1 button and swapping to the next after using 1 in a specific order but this is also not needed. Same with maybe the 2 dots just make 1 dot morph to the other after its used. But that feeling of quickly weaving burst shot > blood letter > burst shot refulgent > blood letter etc is what makes bard feel interesting and enjoyable to play. You never want to introduce morphing to job skills that completely would change how the job plays which doing it to refulgent and burst shot 100% does. same with bloodletters.

I mean dumbing down jobs is not a solution. Heck I would argue for most jobs they have already been dumbed down enough any more and your going to lose your hard core fans raiding with their jobs.....

No one wants to play a job that presses 3 buttons look at summoners rework its to simplistic. but it can still be built on going forward and it should be. Bard this expansion got a real opener that feels great. You finally feel like you have a well thought out burst window and the number of button presses is why it feels like that.

[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.