Bard's future

[TabrisOmbrelame]

FFXIV desperatly needs an expansion where it splits off the Classes into more jobs, just like summoner and scholar, They took awhile to figure out how to do it and i think its in a good state to do it with others:

Archer: Bard and Ranger
Marauder: Warrior and Berserker
Lancer: Dragoon and Sentinel (could be tank?)
Pugilist: Monk and Skirmisher
Conjuror: Whitemage and Geomancer
Gladiator: Paladin and Duelist

idk coming up with names out of the blue but get my point. These classes can be split to give us more variety with weapons and abilities.

Ranger could keep most of the Archer skills, but instead of songs at 30 we branch off into pets or traps or other fun Ranger gimmicks! There is no reason they are restricted from doing this. The story for bard wouldn't even need to change and we would still have our bow happy bards still on board (still would like a crossbow job too though!)

I think many people want that, such a shame it will not happen.

Square Enix said themselve that the SMN/SCH Exp share was a mistake and that they don't want to do it ever again.

BUT, what if they manage somehow to "split" without split ? Why not separating completely the SCH from the Arcanist, but keep all the low level spells exactly the same ? Making a difference between Codex and Index (SMN book will be equipable by Arcanist and SCH Book will not be able to do that) and removing the "Exp share". Maybe then, we could have "Similar" classes like what you proposed.

Now into what you propose :

Bard having a Ranger counter-part seems a good idea. Maybe turn the Bard into something more support like (why not even a completely new healer,) while the ranger specialise into DPS. The perfect exemple for the "Bard" healing, would be to look at FF4's character : Rosa, A white mage who use a Bow. That can be a design to use.

For Warrior, having a Berserker counter-part will only be logical. Pretty straight forward I must say, but effective.

Dragoon is a quite odd class to mix up with something else. A Sentinel, in my opinion, would be something like a "Hoplite" style, meaning a long lance and a shield, and that doesn't allow to be a "similar class". This one surely isn't easy to mix...

Monk and Skirmisher... I think you'll need to explain a little more what you think on this one, cause I really don't get it. To me, they have nothing in common.

White Mage for healing, and Geomancer for DPS is actually doable. Considering the White mage skill move, it use pretty much Light and Water in order to heal and protect. Geomancer could use more Earth in order to deal damage, It can even have some supportive heal or protection, because Earth Magic can be pretty vast to explore.

Paladin with a Duelist counter part, again just like the warrior and Berserker pretty straigh forward. The only difference, would be to drop the shield to focus on a gameplay that has more nerve, and speed approching the Samourai

[Eorzean_username]

Ranger not using bows could be solved with crossbows or throwing hatchets. Machinist's auto-crossbow is more akin to an automated handheld cannon than a regular crossbow.

That's a good point. I guess my perspective was along the lines of not 'possibility' but 'Would people looking for a Hunter/Ranger be satisfied with not having a Bow?' since the Bow is usually one of the big selling points of that archetype. I know that in most games with multiple ranged weapon types, Crossbows tend to be distinctly unpopular in terms of player preference.

Reusing pre-existing bow assets, slapping different stats on them and palette swapping them and calling it there isn't that far-fetched of an idea either as it saves modeling and animation costs, which squeenix loves doing. WHM and BLM both use staves and no one's complaining about that overlap. Both SCH and SMN share the same walk, run, sprint and battle pose animations and no one's complaining about that either.

And this... is a disturbingly-good point.

To be honest, maybe I'm thinking about this wrong. The ability to implement a Job that doesn't need any new weapon models and also doesn't even need a lot of new animations sounds like something that I could easily imagine Director Yoshida marketing to interviewers during the 7.00 hype phase. 'It was quite a burden for our team to always add new equipment and animations for every new Job. Now we can add more Jobs more easily!' Hmmm...

Not directing anything at you but if people were to start complaining about hypothetical Ranger sharing bows with Bard then they should begin their crusade about BLM and WHM sharing staves and SCH and SMN sharing practically everything.

Well, to be honest, I personally think that BLM/WHM and SCH/SMN have some of the most underwhelming and unexciting weapon designs in the game, partially because they overlap so heavily. It works better in games where each class can equip a variety of weapon types, since if you don't like your Staff this tier, at least you might end up with a Book or a Mace next tier, etc.

But that's totally separate from the broader applicability of the idea and so, yeah, I agree you've got a good point here, too. There's precedent for it, and most people don't seem that bothered by it... they just want to play the game and have fun with their rotation at first priority, as long as there's at least some cool glamours to be had.

[Roarmiaka]

I think many people want that, such a shame it will not happen.

Square Enix said themselve that the SMN/SCH Exp share was a mistake and that they don't want to do it ever again.

BUT, what if they manage somehow to "split" without split ? Why not separating completely the SCH from the Arcanist, but keep all the low level spells exactly the same ? Making a difference between Codex and Index (SMN book will be equipable by Arcanist and SCH Book will not be able to do that) and removing the "Exp share". Maybe then, we could have "Similar" classes like what you proposed.

Now into what you propose :

Bard having a Ranger counter-part seems a good idea. Maybe turn the Bard into something more support like (why not even a completely new healer,) while the ranger specialise into DPS. The perfect exemple for the "Bard" healing, would be to look at FF4's character : Rosa, A white mage who use a Bow. That can be a design to use.

For Warrior, having a Berserker counter-part will only be logical. Pretty straight forward I must say, but effective.

Dragoon is a quite odd class to mix up with something else. A Sentinel, in my opinion, would be something like a "Hoplite" style, meaning a long lance and a shield, and that doesn't allow to be a "similar class". This one surely isn't easy to mix...

Monk and Skirmisher... I think you'll need to explain a little more what you think on this one, cause I really don't get it. To me, they have nothing in common.

White Mage for healing, and Geomancer for DPS is actually doable. Considering the White mage skill move, it use pretty much Light and Water in order to heal and protect. Geomancer could use more Earth in order to deal damage, It can even have some supportive heal or protection, because Earth Magic can be pretty vast to explore.

Paladin with a Duelist counter part, again just like the warrior and Berserker pretty straigh forward. The only difference, would be to drop the shield to focus on a gameplay that has more nerve, and speed approching the Samourai

I was really just thinking of names off top of my head. Like Skirmisher I was thinking is less religious kungfu and more street brawler lore wise, could be a tank? haha just random thoughts.

[TabrisOmbrelame]

I was really just thinking of names off top of my head. Like Skirmisher I was thinking is less religious kungfu and more street brawler lore wise, could be a tank? haha just random thoughts.

Ho... I've missed the part where you said : "idk coming up with names out of the blue but get my point."

My bad, I though you were thinking that over many times. Still, some could lead to great idea

[taksqth]

I wouldn't call a job that basically plays like WHM to be fine. Burst Shot is Glare, Refulgent Arrow is RNG Glare, Iron Jaws is Dia, Apex Arrow is Misery, Blast Arrow is Super Misery and Sidewinder is Assize. Pitch Perfect is locked behind Wanderer's Minuet and is RNG dependent and barely feels good to use. And Bloodletter is a whopping 110 potency ability with the most bland and boring animation someone could ask for. So happy when Mage's Ballad is up so I can spam that weak and ugly ability that cancels and clips its animation faster than I skip msq cutscenes. Empyreal Arrow is the only remotely satisfying offensive ability Bard has left

This critique is way too superficial. BRD rotational identity is mixing GCD and oGCD priorities to a degree that you can't find in any other job in this game (not even DNC). I can see the exageration being intended as I agree that currently it's a bit too simple, but I feel like if we don't acknowledge the good aspects of the job we'll just scrap everything that remotely even makes sense. Let me break down the differences:

WHM
- All healer filler consists of one casted filler gcd and a instacast dot. This usually leads to dot refreshes being interesting as a movement optimization tool
- Misery serves as both a healing and damage optimization tool, as it refunds the damage lost on lily GCDs and is a damage gain in buffs
- Assize is a damage oGCD that also heals, which is sometimes good for heal planning

BRD
- Burst Shot and Refulgent Arrow are the filler buttons with RNG, similar to DNC. They also interact with the other GCD actions (Iron Jaws, Apex Arrow and Blast Arrow) and one oGCD action (Barrage) in ways that change priorities during bursts and lead to dynamic gameplay
- Iron Jaws consistently was the dot with the most reward on buff snapshot optimization. EW added a lot of flexibility to this skill, as you can sometimes use it early without losing damage and that leads to more interesting GCD priorities too
- Apex Arrow with the added Blast Arrow followup is one of the more complex tools to optimize in the game currently due to it's heavy RNG, non-linear damage scalling, opportunity cost and the way it interacts with the priorities. You can move it around based on how long you're delaying buffs, if you would hit more than 1 target, wait for a bit of extra song gauge to minimize overcapping, etc.
- First of all, I heavily disagree that Pitch Perfect (PP) barely feels good to use as it is a hard hitting ability and has a fancy animation too. Second, it is the core of the oGCD priority gameplay during burst (as WM is usually the song you have there). It leads to a lot of decision making with early PP dumps before EA/buffs expiring, interchanging BL charges with PP3, etc.
- I agree that Bloodletter and Mage's Ballad currently feel like garbage. There's been a lot of EW feedback on this already
- Sidewinder is just damage, so it's worse than Assize

[franklinwi]

Crossbows completely fail to satisfy the ranger class fantasy, as badly as the quickly abandoned macuahuitls failed to satisfy the PLD class fantasy. Think of the classic archers in fantasy and other popular media, and think of their weapons of choice. Robin Hood, Legolas, Green Arrow, Hawkeye, etc. I can't even think of a crossbow user other than Guts, and I hope you can agree that the class fantasy most associated with Guts is not, uh, ranger. Almost nobody wants crossbows except when brainstorming hypothetical ranged weapons. Archers and rangers need to use actual bows if they're spun off, or nobody will be happy with the result.

[SilverSkyway]

Crossbows completely fail to satisfy the ranger class fantasy, as badly as the quickly abandoned macuahuitls failed to satisfy the PLD class fantasy. Think of the classic archers in fantasy and other popular media, and think of their weapons of choice. Robin Hood, Legolas, Green Arrow, Hawkeye, etc. I can't even think of a crossbow user other than Guts, and I hope you can agree that the class fantasy most associated with Guts is not, uh, ranger. Almost nobody wants crossbows except when brainstorming hypothetical ranged weapons. Archers and rangers need to use actual bows if they're spun off, or nobody will be happy with the result.

I wont say nobody. I rather use a bow myself. A small reason, I'm not maining Mch anymore is I rather use a bow then a gun even though I like Mch rotation and oomph. But a Crossbow weren't be to bad. And A idea I had was have a cross bow/1h melee.

[anhaato]

I think many people want that, such a shame it will not happen.

Square Enix said themselve that the SMN/SCH Exp share was a mistake and that they don't want to do it ever again.

BUT, what if they manage somehow to "split" without split ? Why not separating completely the SCH from the Arcanist, but keep all the low level spells exactly the same ? Making a difference between Codex and Index (SMN book will be equipable by Arcanist and SCH Book will not be able to do that) and removing the "Exp share". Maybe then, we could have "Similar" classes like what you proposed.

It's really much simpler that. Make leveling a class a prerequisite to unlocking a job that doesn't share exp with the other(s) that share the same prerequisite class. Leveling archer to 30 gives you access to ranger (rdps) as a direct job upgrade and makes bard (ideally I would want it as a healer like in XI) unlockable from a separate questline; "archer xp" only counts towards ranger, while bard is an entirely separate job that retains no archer buttons. Would leveling be a bit annoying? Kinda, if you haven't already leveled archer, but if you have then it's not much different than running to Ishgard to unlock one of those jobs since you've already done the prerequisite work. That's what I wish the game did to begin with. One could argue that it would put scholar in a better position (but let's be real sch's "better position" was when it still had plenty of acn stuff.)

Hope this doesn't count as a necro, I've just been lamenting brd lately after logging in for the first time in a few weeks (hence my several day break from the msq criticism thread lol)

[anhaato]

Brd's future can be summed up easily: bleak.

I said this before the expansion dropped when we got the early tooltips for the 6.0 changes, that these changes were going to only upset older brd mains while failing to attract new mains. Plenty of people were combative but was I wrong? Those "I think these are gr9 changes" people became awfully silent when they realized it's now one of the less active, less fun jobs in the game. As is the case for all ranged. How can I confidently say that they're gone? Because people are still arguing over this shell of a ranged, but this time they're arguing over ways to improve it. The people who still care are either fighting tooth and nail for improvement or they've given up hope (me, for the most part), and the people who always hated the playstyle enough to remove the rng should've been playing other jobs to begin with. As they are now.

MisshapenChair's video from a few weeks ago perfectly sums up my issues with most job changes, brd just happens to be the one that hurts me the most because it was my main for my entire time playing. Everything about it clicked with me, the musical aesthetic combined with the active-reactive playstyle that kept me on my toes. Now... it has the aesthetic, for sure, but the playstyle is no more intricate than mch. Our weaves were cut in (less than) half for single target, and our aoe was brutally murdered. Sure we got more support, but at what cost? "Oh your buffs are too strong and you can move around so you're not allowed to do lots of damage so we won't let you press lots of buttons anymore!" It's this backwards-ass thinking that's ruining every job, but this is the one I feel most qualified (as someone who cleared ultimate on it) and compelled (as someone who used to main it) to speak on the most. Obviously there's an entire other role that's dying so I'll concede that the team should be focusing on improving life for them first, but when that's all said and done can we please have some flavor back?

"Didn't you literally just advocate for splitting the jobs?" Yeah? No reason we can't have two jobs with active-reactive playstyles in different roles. If I could play a healer with the aesthetic and level of activity (do not talk to me about ast, that's my second main) of SB-SHB brd, and then a rdps dot-oriented job that functions just about the same as brd does now, I would sub to this for LIFE and I'm not joking.

The 6.0 tooltips drop was a particularly painful night for me because the mediatour presented us with an iteration of brd that was the best of both worlds between its musical aesthetic and buff potency of SB, and its less crit heavy party-dependent rng of SHB (as if that was an issue to any of us though), the playstyle was just as active as before, even MORE active with a new superbuff to weave in and more enabling of BL/ROD spam due to far less lost procs. We were all SO excited because it felt like they listened to our every word for once, and then they dashed all of our hopes at the eleventh hour. Not just not making it any better than SHB, they made it ostensibly worse for those of us who enjoyed it in SB-SHB. The disappointment was, and still is, immeasurable. Obviously it wasn't to the degree of kaiten's removal considering we kept all of our buttons in the grand scheme of things, but god does it suck now. Sure its numbers are good but I ask of you this: who gives a damn about numbers? You know you don't give a damn about numbers as much as you claim to, otherwise you wouldn't have been playing a job you demanded better numbers for. When people demand better numbers for a job, it's because they enjoy playing it REGARDLESS of numbers but they want it to be either more rewarding or more viable (and yes, that's a valid complaint even if every job is viable).

I stuck with brd in SHB, why? Because its playstyle was still fun, even if I mourned foe requiem and refresh once a week. That's why I kept demanding returning or replacing our lost support, instead of giving up on it entirely. This time they did that, but now it's not fun anymore. That's why I've finally given up playing it. I say that but deep down I believe they can make it fun again which is why I get vocal about it every now and then. And it's not like that's even hard for them to do, the solution is literally to just GIVE US MEDIATOUR BRD! I don't give a damn if it means bloodletter has to be reduced to 20 potency so we're not brokenbusted, getting to spam it was FUN! The randomity of procs was FUN! If you didn't think it was fun that's your problem, not mine! Don't make it mine! Play a different job!

[XRuecian]

I only recently picked up bard, i mainly play melee and tanks. However i have tried of most of the jobs a little. I quickly noticed however when i played bard that this job has a huge problem of feeling OLD.
There are so many redundant skills in this class that just feel like 'leftovers' from a past age.
This class more than any i feel needs a full rework.
I like the base idea of the class, but many things jumped out at me as feeling like bad design.
First off, the fact that Straight Shot is a Weaponskill (GCD) instead of an OGCD feels like a really odd choice to me. It doesn't feel very rewarding to proc a skill if you have to use a GCD on it anyways.
Sidewinder feels like a very uninspirational skill. It literally is just 'another' OCD to push every 60 seconds with no real kit synergy or reasoning behind it existing. (FF14 seems to have a lot of these extra copy-paste skills and i consider it bad design.)

If it were up to me, i would suggest that they merge Straight Shot + Sidewinder + Bloodletter into a single OGCD skill (and an AoE version) that you proc via Heavy Shot/Quick Nock, and increase the Proc Chance to 40-50%. You could let it hold 2 charges, and Mage's Ballad could still give you a free proc for each Repertoire. By doing this, getting the proc would feel more impactful (and more fun) to hit. And by increasing the proc chance, you won't lose that feeling of it being a Weaving class.
And when i say merge, i don't mean they need to merge all their potencies together into one skill.
They could spread the potency out into other skills or new skills so that overall DPS is still the same. It just feels like all of these skills serve the same purpose (OGCD) and therefore should just be the same skill period. This would free up a lot of space in the kit for them to add more interesting abilities rather than just copy-pasted abilities like this.

I don't really have a preference for if the class is DoT focused or not. But right now the two dots on bard feel like a joke. My healers single DoT has more potency than both of Bards DoTs put together. As it is right now, they need to decide if they want to make these DoTs have impact, or just remove them altogether. Perhaps you should be rewarded for keeping BOTH DoTs on with a potency increase, or something.

Overall i feel like this class is suffering from an identity crisis. Its as if SE just cant decide on if they want it to be a Proc/Weaving class, a DoT class, or a support DPS. They REALLY need to choose one, iron out its core, and then add on from there.
A lot of times, i feel like SE often misses the mark when it comes to a jobs FANTASY. A bard at its core is supposed to be a class that supports via music. This means that ideally, the music should be the CORE FOCUS of the class. However, the songs on bard right now are like 90% self-buffs with tiny party buffs on top. Your main party buff is Battle Voice, a skill completely unrelated to your song system. If they really want to deliver on the class's fantasy identity, they should remove Battle Voice and buff all three songs to have slightly better party buffs. And perhaps each of those songs should have some sort of rhythm you need to keep up with (by pressing certain OGCDs in sequence every so often to "hit notes") to keep the buff going. This way the class has some skill involved and actually would feel like your ability to PLAY THE MUSIC is what is supporting your party.