BRD Wanderer's Minuet bug cause possibly identified (temporary fix till patch?)

[Storm-Driver]

I can't say for certain if this is the root cause, but I believe I've identified a crucial factor in the current bug with having multiple bards in the same party.

To describe the bug in apt detail, where there are two or more bards in the party, the execution of the skill "The Wanderer's Minuet" by one of these bards will render the skill unusable by any others in the party. Considering the order of songs being played is somewhat important to rotation, this is a rather annoying bug to work around when playing something like a long-lasting alliance raid with another bard in the party.

Was playing bard myself in the new alliance raid, there was another bard in the party who immediately started with Wanderer's Minuet, which obviously meant my Wanderer's Minuet was a tad screwed. So I went into Mage's Ballad instead and just tried my best to play well.

As the fight goes on, I'm annoyingly staring at my Wanderer's button and getting a little upset that I couldn't use it like I wanted. When I noticed it was constantly flashing between the Pitch Perfect button and the Wanderer's button. Meanwhile, the original Pitch Perfect button I had somewhere else on my hotbar wasn't changing at all.

This button was in place prior to patch 6.1 because the button for Pitch Perfect and Wanderer's Minuet were separated. In 6.1, they were collapsed into one button, where Wanderer's would shift into Pitch Perfect while playing the song itself.

When I began my round of Wanderer's, the song button was glitching out as usual, with the other bard playing a different song and our buffs constantly overriding each other. But I noticed my Pitch Perfect button, the original one before it was combined into Wanderer's, was completely fine. It didn't change, and I could use that button to hit my Pitch Perfects reliably.

I'm not a game designer, nor do I know a thing about coding beyond the absolutely bare minimum. But if I'm not mistaken, the songs are functioning normally. Rather, the thing that's breaking is the command for switching Pitch Perfect and Wanderer's properly. Without your own Wanderer's buff to switch into Pitch Perfect, obviously you can't use Pitch Perfect. Hence why other bard songs just screw you out of using it.

Unless you had the original button that was designated to use Pitch Perfect, and not the one that becomes available upon pressing the song.

Because the bard buffs also refresh constantly over the fight, and no two bard buffs are allowed to be applied at a time, it means that the songs constantly auto refresh over each other. And with that, the button for Pitch Perfect and Wanderer's is constantly jumping between which state it's supposed to be in.

Now, I have no fix for this obviously. I don't know the first thing about fixing it. I have a band-aid solution that does require you to play around your inability to activate Wanderer's whenever you want, and it only allows you to use your Pitch Perfects reliably, not function the same as before the patch.

Whatever the issue, my wildest guess is that the command that designates Wanderer's be turned into Pitch Perfect is reliant on what buffs you have applied to you. So any other Wanderer's status besides your own just turns your command into the wrong button. That's entirely conjecture, I could be wrong on that assumption. But from what I've observed, that's my theory.

[Storm-Driver]

The temporary fix is as follows, and note that it only works if you have a HUD layout saved prior to patch 6.1, or you didn't rearrange your HUD and remove the old Pitch Perfect command.

Because Pitch Perfect and Wanderer's are condensed into one button, and the bug makes them swap constantly all over the place, you cannot reliably press the button and get your Pitch Perfects out before the song ends (or even with good timing since it's possible you might be stacking on procs). However, if you still have access to the old command for Pitch Perfect, that is the level 52 action that was designated as a separate button from Wanderer's Minuet, you can still execute Pitch Perfect reliably. The original command button was not overhauled and, for whatever reason, retains it's old functionality of being a single use button. (Even the description on the button on my hotbar says it's unable to be assigned to a hotbar, but I'm able to get away with it for now).

Using the original button, you don't have to worry about another bard refreshing over your Pitch Perfect button. You can use it to hit your procs as you wish.

Of course, this is temporary. I assume the reason for collapsing Pitch Perfect and Wanderer's into a single button was to reduce button bloat on a hotbar. So it's more than likely that, once this bug is figured out, this fix may or may not work after. It's not a perfect fix either, as you'll still need to somehow activate your Wanderer's Minuet command between all the switching back and before between song buffs with the other bard. But it's worked for me to reduce a little bit of annoyance while playing the class. Hopefully the fix is soon before the new ultimate fight comes out.

[Jeeqbit]

It's like this for other abilities that were changed. On monks, if you still have Elixir Field on your hotbar, you can use that specifically instead of Masterful Blitz, even though it's not supposed to be able to be assigned to the hotbar.

[Storm-Driver]

I was super curious to know if other classes behaved the same, since I noticed it on my dragoon as well.

[ACE135]

Today I was in a group with another Bard and sometimes I couldn't even use Wanderer's Minuet because it was grayed out or it changed to Pitch Perfect but was also greyed out although my Wanderer's Minuet wasn't active. I was a bit confused.

[coldrazer]

I constantly run into this problem when i play Bard, and what you said makes sense
Too bad i already removed the old Pitch Perfect button =/ at least its not that bad of a bug, but very annoying

[Umbrakiin]

Also having this issue here- a few minutes as of posting this, I queued for Aglaia knowing this was a bug, and crossed my fingers hoping that I wouldn't get queued with another Bard in the party.

...And then I was in the only party with any Bards at all, and I was the second.

I agree with Storm-Driver here; this bug's probably a result of the Wanderer's Minuet action "checking" for the matching buff to see if it's supposed to be transformed. Unfortunately, because Bards overwrite each other's songs and don't stack them, another Bard in your party playing Wanderer's Minuet will transform your Minuet button into Pitch Perfect, so you can't play it... And then, if you dare to play another song so you can still play your class, it risks overwriting the other Bard's Minuet buff, so now they can't use Pitch Perfect either!

It's a really annoying bug; I ended up deciding to take the duty abandon penalty after the first boss, because I didn't want to put up with this bug for another hour.

For any Square Enix people reading this (small chance, but just in case!): if you want to keep the transforming action, maybe a decent fix would be to check if Wander's Minuet is on cooldown, rather than if the song buff is applied to the Bard? I'd say Bard song buffs stacking would work, too, but if most Bards open a fight with Wanderer's Minuet, that still makes this a problem... Not to mention the problems having even more Bards could bring.