Condensing Bard with Morphing Buttons

[Iscah]

Though, did Rika ask to remove Ranged jobs' ability to grant movement speed, specifically?

It's what Peleton does. They said to get rid of Peleton. How else am I supposed to interpret that sentence?

[Shurrikhan]

It's what Peleton does.

And we're in a thread that considers which actions/capacities actually need to be separate buttons given their current use(ability).

Peloton could as easily be a trait. It doesn't have to be and you might prefer it not be, but there is no unique affordance to its taking up its own separate button.

Or that movement speed aura could be a morphing utility song on Bard, a function of En Avant on Dancer, and provided some other way on MCH. Etc., etc.

Personally, I'd much prefer dynamic actions unique to each job, and a more interesting support kit on each, than to devote a separate button to the likes of Refulgent Arrow (so long as it remains unbankable and therefore never worth using Burst Shot again before consuming) or skills that could as easily be traits.

Sorry for the long tangent; I just want to get across that a given function can be had in multiple ways, and unless the separate button adds more functionality than it'd deny from elsewhere, in using that space, it might not always be the most sensible solution. Peloton, at present, is how Rangers give a movement speed aura, but movement speed auras need not be limited to it nor does such need to use up button-space. Refulgent Arrow is, at present, how Bard varies its spam skill animation and gets additional things to waste --both good things, mind you-- but it isn't the only way that'd be possible, nor does such --at least, within its current functionality-- need to use up a separate button. A kit is more a matter of its available functions, decisions, and animations than it is a simple sum of buttons.

[Rika007]

It's what Peleton does. They said to get rid of Peleton. How else am I supposed to interpret that sentence?

Look I'm just saying, that if we are gonna address the massive button bloat on Bard, the very first button's I'm looking at are the ones that are only useful in niche situations. Literally not being useful in ANY combat situation in this game is about as niche as any button on Bard (and any other Ranged DPS) bar. There are other ways to handle giving people a movement speed buff outside of combat that doesn't require me to use real estate on my hotbars, and honestly, even if they didn't find a way to handle it a different way and just axed it entirely, I really wouldn't be broken up about it.

Especially after they decided to say screw it and gave the first combat mobility party wide buff to a healer, instead of the ranged dps when we have been asking for it ever since we received Swiftsong years ago. There just isn't a viable reason to keep a non combat ability taking up hotbar real estate when the job's hotbar is already bloated.

[Jirah]

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

EA gives you rep, BL/RoD is tied to Mages ballad, wouldn’t classify it as swimming in OGCD if they serve greater purpose than fat unlike say MCH or loosely RDM. SW is the most useless skill but It’s BRD only OGCD with zero affiliation, the Flèche or the 3 drills.

Sidewinder has many avenues to make it more tangible, they can give it back the dot effect which is a organic reminder to keep them up, could be lazy and give Rep too along side EA, have some sort of link to Armys increasing the potency of SW per rep or somthing, or SW can be a super dot itself it’s nothing now and can be anything

[Ransu]

What is it with some players obsession with trying to make combat more boring? If you don't like keybinding and are clicking all the time then use a controller. We don't need combat to be boiled down into 3 buttons.

[Shurrikhan]

What is it with some players obsession with trying to make combat more boring? If you don't like keybinding and are clicking all the time then use a controller. We don't need combat to be boiled down into 3 buttons.

What is it with some players' obsession with gaslighting simple matters of "Please give us a reason and means to use Refulgent Arrow separately if it's to be a separate button" to appear as "We want combat to be more dull," let alone "We want 3-button combat"?

[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.

[HyoMinPark]

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.

Um… Iron Jaws was VERY important in Stormblood. IJ optimization was very important for snapshotting critical hit buffs and manipulating your Repertoire… IJ optimization basically died in ShB, but it is still relevant for snapshotting during buff windows for buffed DoTs. Just not nearly as critical to BRD optimization as it was in SB.

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.

The point of what you quoted was to directly contest a poster just a second ago who said that bard has a massive button bloat.