EW 6.08 Bard: Improvements and Quality-of-Life adjustments

[Eorzean_username]

Context and motivations

I'm not sure exactly what to make of the current state of Bard. I feel like this job is doing better numerically and in terms of community perception after a kind-of rough time in Shadowbringers, so that's good.

On the other hand, a lot of more veteran and dedicated Bard players seem to be disappointed by the EW changes' streamlining and simplifications. I'm sympathetic to that concern, because I've personally experienced playstyles that I enjoyed being wiped away (the changes to Dark Knight since HW are a good example).

I have seen a comment from a veteran Bard player in a community discussion, for example, that said something to the effect of "Endwalker Bard changes were designed to improve the experience of playing Bard for people that don't play Bard".

But speaking personally, I did not enjoy Bard's prior emphasis on awkward and annoying optimizations, especially in multi-target situations. This dislike was primarily driven by how uncomfortable target-switching, effects tracking, and repetitive use of Bard GCD dots all are in FFXIV, rather than the actual mechanical ideas, but the end result is still that I find myself relieved at many of EW Bard's simplifications.

I say this because I'm not exactly sure what Bard does and does not need moving forward. It seems like a complicated and thorny Job to try to address, and I think that in this case, the developers are walking a tightrope in terms of trying to meet many very different opinions and desires, a situation that I think is fueled by Bard being one of the few remaining Jobs that still has a fairly unique and distinct design structure.

So, as for this post, I'm trying to target small areas of Bard design that feel rough, incomplete, or like a Quality-of-Life issue, and ideas that are, in general, unlikely to be controversial or polarizing, just to try to make the job's current state feel cleaner and more comfortable to use.

I think that most of these concerns are relatively obvious, so I suspect that much of what I try to advocate for here will not be saying anything new, but I also hope that it's still worth the effort just to try to get more visibility about some minor but easily-addressed issues ahead of Patch 6.10.

000 — Table of contents (for Ctrl+F jumping)

• ccc — Positioning Song and Soul Voice gauges separately
• 111 — Radiant Finale forced to begin at minimum effect
• 222 — Barrage doesn't generate Shadowbite
• 333 — "Straight Shot Ready" even when Straight Shot stops existing
• 444 — Weak Barrage effect on Shadowbite
• 555 — Mismatched AOE effect sizes
• 666 — AOE benefit for Wanderer's Minuet
• 777 — Songs usable without a target
• 888 — Pitch Perfect and Empyreal Arrow clashes
• 999 — Soul Voice overflow issues
• aaa — Condensing DOT actions
• bbb — Potential OGCD consolidation

ccc — Inability to separate "Soul Voice Gauge" and "Song Gauge" in HUD Layout Editor

Soul Voice and Song Timer are very different information. While they are technically connected due to Songs generating Soul Voice, I would prefer being able to place them in different locations in my HUD, due to how I personally track and organize this information.

For example, as Dark Knight, I can position "Blood Gauge" and "Darkside Gauge" separately: one is a resource that is built and spent, the other is an effect timer. To me, it makes sense that they can be positioned separately.

So, likewise, I would prefer to be able to position "Soul Voice" and "Song" gauges separately.

111 — Radiant Finale cannot be used at full benefit in encounter openers

Discussion of problem

I'm personally torn about this issue, and indeed, some players might argue that this is an "issue" quote-unquote (ie, not important at all).

Personally, I think that it's actually kind of interesting and fresh to have FFXIV dare to do something even mildly different with Job design. In this case: causing Bard's party contribution to be stronger at 2 minutes than in openers, which defies the longstanding general design trend of openers being the most powerful burst of an encounter.

However, I think that this is primarily interesting in encounters with a clean start and prolonged, sustained uptime, such as Extremes and Savage.

In more general situations such as Dungeons, I feel like Radiant Finale often ends up desyncing from the general rotation, and those of other jobs, and just erratically being all over the place in terms of whether the CD gets held, or the % boost is inconsistent and unstable.

Possible solutions

I would like it if the developers considered implementing some way for the first Radiant Finale used during a combat session to behave as if the Bard has full Coda, while any subsequent Radiant Finales require building Coda to have full effect.

For example
(personally, I don't like this idea, please don't implement it this way, this is just the first underwhelming idea that pops into the top of my head):

• Being outside combat grants the Bard "Strong Voice", which causes Radiant Finale to always behave as if the Bard has 3 Coda.
• Using Radiant Finale in combat changes "Strong Voice" to "Weakened Voice", which causes Radiant Finale to require Coda to have effect.
• Exiting combat again removes "Weakened Voice" and regrants "Strong Voice".

...So during prolonged combat, such as Extremes and Savages, Bard would keep the same minor gameplay system of building Coda to empower Radiant Finale.

However, while simply running around questing, or transitioning between the erratic pacing of Dungeon combat, and so on, and when first opening a fresh Raid pull, Bard could reliably use Radiant Finale on-cooldown for full effect.

222 — Barrage does not generate "Shadowbite Ready"

In Endwalker, "Barrage" empowers "Shadowbite", but it does not grant "Shadowbite Ready".

I think that this is quite strange, and it also feels... "gross"? "Unclean"? It just feels weird and awkward, compared to how "Barrage" functions very smoothly in single-target.

To be honest, I think it's also weird and pointless to have both "Straight Shot Ready" and "Shadowbite Ready" as separate buffs, when the two actions are hypothetically mutually-exclusive use of GCDs.

For example, EW Dancer has unified its previous cooexisting ST and AOE GCD procs into just "Flourishing Symmetry" and "Flourishing Flow", shared by both ST and AOE actions.

I realize that there are niche situations where you could end up with both "Straight Shot Ready" and "Shadowbite Ready" due to rapidly-fluctuating target quantities, and thus use both separately, but... honestly... it just feels like the design equivalent of a hangnail.

So if you just merged "Straight Shot Ready" and "Shadowbite Ready" into one buff, then "Barrage" could grant that buff when activated.

I think that this would feel a lot smoother than the weird unevenness of "Barrage" handing Bard "Refulgent Arrow" on a plate, while forcing the Bard to still fish up a "Shadowbite" proc manually.

333 — "Straight Shot Ready" effect name seems out of place past Level 70

Actually, while we're on this topic, it's also kind of weird that "Straight Shot Ready" refers to an action that ceases to exist past Level 70.

With other Jobs getting things like "Disciplined Fist", "Power Surge", "Samurai romaji gibberish", and other cute names for their personal buffs in EW, why not just unify the Bard buff effects into something that sounds less like it came from a corporate design document?

You know, something that would seem appropriate for all 3 proc GCDs, such as "Empowered Quiver", or "Imminent Arrow-Based Excitement", or whatever.

And yes, I realize that this concern is beyond trivial. But it's still weird!

444 — Shadowbite and Barrage: Potency and Effect

The threshold for most Bard AOE occurs at 2 or more targets, and this has been a distinct feature of the Bard job for as long as I can remember.

However, Barrage's effect on "Shadowbite" is relatively weak, meaning that there is a peculiar quirk wherein "Shadowbite" is stronger than "Refulgent Arrow" at 2 targets, but using "Barrage" on "Shadowbite" is inferior until 4 targets.

I think that this is weird.

To be honest, I also think that it's weird that "Barrage" doesn't make "Shadowbite" strike three times.

Perhaps the developers are concerned about the "single-target weaponskill" language in "Barrage", and that allowing "Shadowbite" to be tripled would make that confusing.

But to be honest, "Barrage" could easily read something like:

• Triples the number of strikes for a single-target weaponskill. Additional effects added only once.
• Additional Effect: Also triples the number of strikes of Shadowbite.

But maybe there is something in the Bard code that would cause the server to crash if Shadowbite struck three times.

In that case, why not have Barrage just literally triple "Shadowbite" potency, so that there is at least basic parity between the ST and AOE effects?

A flat 510-potency "Shadowbite" would still be inferior to "Refulgent Arrow" on a single target, but it would also make "Barrage"+"Shadowbite" desirable at 2 targets, syncing it with the rest of Bard's AOE.

555 — AOE action radius awkwardness and unevenness

Discussion of problem

I think that Bard can often feel uncomfortable and weird to AOE with, because there is not a clean transition between ST and AOE effect usage.

What I'm trying to say is that the area-effect regions of the various Bard AOE actions are quite mis-matched and uneven:

• Ladonsbite — Very wide and long cone
• Shadowbite — Annoyingly-tiny circle
• Rain of Death — Medium circle
• Apex/Blast — Long narrow line

...So there are situations where one AOE action can reach everything, but another cannot.

Some players might argue that this helps add texture to a Job's gameplay and therefore is a positive feature, and I can respect that argument, but...

...it also makes it much more awkward to assign hotbars between ST and AOE configurations, because it's very unstable exactly when certain actions can be effectively switched between their ST and AOE version.

For example, imagine a situation where Tanks must keep two adds somewhat-separated in a raid encounter. "Ladonsbite" has a wide and long cone, and can potentially hit both targets... but then "Shadowbite's" tiny radius has no hope of reaching both targets, and perhaps "Rain of Death" also can't.

So if the Bard tries to group hotbars by ST and AOE, then the Bard has to constantly wiggle between AOE ("Ladonsbite") and then back to ST ("Bloodletter"), and also just ignore "Shadowbite" procs... which I think feels really weird, and not satisfying.

Possible solutions

I'm honestly not sure exactly how to address this, though.

You could make "Ladonsbite" a circle-radius AOE like "Shadowbite" and "Rain of Death", but this would effectively be a nerf to "Ladonsbite" usability in many situations.

You could make "Shadowbite" and "Rain of Death" into conal AOEs like "Ladonsbite", but perhaps players would feel that this 'homogenizes' Bard's play-feel too much?

Although, I think that Bard being characterized as the "conal AOE Job" that sprays big cones of arrows all over targets actually sounds kind of cool? Maybe?

I don't know... I feel like this issue is an annoying feature of Bard, but I don't have strong ideas for how to address it without upsetting players in other ways.

666 — Wanderer's Minuet emptiness during AOE

I think that it's very weird that "Wanderer's Minuet" has essentially no real benefit in AOE situations, other than funneling "Pitch Perfect" procs onto targets with more HP. But it doesn't add anything more than it does in ST situations.

This is different than "Mage's Ballad", which enables heavier "Rain of Death" usage, and "Army's Paeon", which enables "Ladonsbite" to be used more rapidly.

I think that it would just be more fun if "Pitch Perfect" had a radius, like "Rain of Death", rather than being ST-only.

Alternatively, Bard could be given an AOE alternative to "Pitch Pefect", but I have a personal bias against gratuitous button-bloat, like the remarkably-lame "Shoha 2: Cruise Control", so I would personally be more in favor of just giving "Pitch Perfect" an inherent AOE effect.

I think this even works comfortably visually, because "Pitch Perfect's" animation is quite large and flashy, and could easily be sold as an AOE effect.

Also, this would help to make Bard more consistent in terms of "Wanderer's Minuet" always being the most desirable Song, and thus make Bard feel smoother and more natural in terms of Song flow when transitioning back and forth between ST and AOE situations.

777 — Allow Songs to be used without a target

Discussion of problem

For many reasons, Bard becomes frustrated when it cannot switch Songs at-will:

• Bard is incentivized to try to manage its Song cycle according to keeping certain timings aligned, so that strong Song phases align with personal and party buffs.
• Bard is incentivized to always have a Song running, in order to keep generating Repertoire and Soul Voice.
• Bard is incentivized to try to keep Songs active on party members for the beneficial effects that are provided.
• Bard is incentivized to try to keep the Coda system filling cleanly, so that full-strength "Radiant Finale" is not delayed or sacrificed.
• Probably more that I'm failing to think of off the top of my head

This leads to situations where it can feel very frustrating if all available enemy targets either KO, or become untargetable, just before Bard is about to start another Song.

And situations where the Bard is frantically trying to squeeze in a Song activation at the last moment before an enemy KO or phase change, and so it can feel very frustrating if encounter timings are even slightly "off".

Likewise, there are times that Bard could better-control its alignments and timings if it was possible to switch Songs during periods with no targetable enemies.

So, I think that it feels awkward, clunky, and uncomfortable to have to "shoot" Songs at an enemy target in order to activate a Song.

Possible solutions

I think that Bard would feel smoother and more comfortable to play if Songs instead had an AOE radius of effect, and could be activated without an enemy target.

Also, although, I do acknowledge that the FF franchise does have a long history of offensive Songs being targeted effects, I think that it's frankly more logical for a Song to affect the entire area around a Bard, rather than being "shot" at one target like a strange kind of "sonic bullet".

I do see a potential issue, in that such a change could cause two possible problems:

If Coda cannot be generated outside combat, then it would be punishing and annoying to Bards that, for example, try to keep their Song cycle flowing while traveling in-between Dungeon pulls, or questing in the open world.

If Coda can be generated outside combat, then it would probably tempt players into excruciating behaviors like preparing for Savage pulls by building 3 Coda, then sitting around for 120s until "Wanderer's Minuet" refreshes.

(Although, whether anyone would actually bother with something so annoying is debatable, but it would become a headache of a temptation in, for example, tight progression enrages, or speedclear teams.)

To be honest, I'm not exactly sure what the best solution to those potential issues would be.

But, I do think that it would be an overall Quality-of-Life improvement for Bard if Songs were made AOE effects, and allowed to be used without a target.

888 — Clashing between Pitch Perfect and Empyreal Arrow

Discussion of problem

Due to the very short CD on "Empyreal Arrow", combined with its relatively high potency, it's very important for Bard's personal DPS to keep "Empyreal Arrow" used precisely on-cooldown as much as possible.

However, "Empyreal Arrow" also generates a guaranteed "Repertoire" proc.

In Endwalker, this is not an issue during "Mage's Ballad", where "Empyreal Arrow" is unlikely to lead to any wasted charges of "Bloodletter", and it is also not an issue during "Army's Paeon", where there are basically no procs to waste.

However, it is possible — and frequent — to run into an uncomfortable clash during "Wanderer's Minuet" in which the Bard has:

• 2 stacks of "Repertoire"
• "Empyreal Arrow" nearly off-cooldown

This puts the Bard in a no-win situation:

• Using "Pitch Perfect" immediately costs the Bard potency, due to consuming only 2 stacks of "Repertoire"
  
• But, waiting one more GCD risks a natural "Repertoire" proc bringing Bard to 3 stacks of "Repertoire", at which point "Empyreal Arrow" will also be off-cooldown.
  
• The Bard will then be faced with either delaying "Empyreal Arrow" (very problematic choice for an OGCD with such a short cooldown), or overwriting a "Repertoire" proc by using "Empyreal Arrow" at 3 stacks of "Repertoire" (also a very wasteful and problematic choice).

The Bard community has overall seemed to agree that the best choice is to anticipate these clashes ahead of time, and spend "Pitch Perfect" at 2 stacks.

I think that this is an unintuitive and unsatisfying situation, and I think that something should be changed in the Bard design to alleviate these clashes between "Pitch Perfect" and "Empyreal Arrow".

Possible solutions

Once again... I'm not exactly sure how to solve this, without creating other problems.

I guess that one possibility is to allow "Repertoire" to stack to 4 or even 5 during "Wanderer's Minuet", but to only allow "Pitch Perfect" to consume a maximum of 3 "Repertoire" stacks.

This way, Bard could generally use "Pitch Perfect" immediately at 3 stacks, but if "Empyreal Arrow" comes off cooldown at the same time that 3 stacks are reached, there is no harm caused by delaying "Pitch Perfect" and using "Empyreal Arrow" immediately.

This would also allow for some niche optimizations, such as holding stacks of "Pitch Perfect" for a few seconds to allow more party buffs to finish activating, without risking lost procs.

999 — Apex Arrow imprecision and Soul Voice overflow

Discussion of problem

Generally, the desired policy for a Bard's rotation in Endwalker is to try to ensure that "Apex Arrow" → "Blast Arrow" always occurs during the significant damage boost of 2-minute personal and party buffs.

The average generation rate of "Soul Voice" means that usually, one extra "Apex Arrow" will occur sometime during the filler space in-between 2-minute windows, followed by a second "Apex Arrow" being ready in time for 2-minute buffs.

However, due to the weird and unstable behavior of the "Soul Voice" gauge, "Soul Voice" sometimes reaches 100 uncomfortably in advance of each 2-minute mark. But, using "Apex Arrow" at that point will guarantee not having enough "Soul Voice" to use "Apex Arrow" again during 2-minute buffs.

So, the Bard is then forced to just sit on "Apex Arrow", and deliberately allow the "Soul Voice" gauge to overflow.

The fact that this is usually the better play numerically, feels really weird to me, and unsatisfying.

Possible solutions

And... again... I'm not exactly sure how to resolve this.

For example, if "Apex Arrow" cost a flat 50 "Soul Voice", it would probably just cause Bards to still sit on 100 "Soul Voice", in order to reach a new goal of 2 "Apex/Blast Arrow" per 2-minute window... so... nothing would change logistically.

Maybe if "Apex Arrow" consumed up to 100 "Soul Voice", but Bard could accumulate up to a maximum of 150 "Soul Voice"?

That way, holding "Apex Arrow" for party buffs would not cause the unpleasant play-feel of deliberately allowing a gauge to overflow.

Although, maybe that would just cause all sorts of other cascading rotational effects...

aaa — DOT ("Caustic Bite" and "Stormbite") button bloat

Discussion of problem

I think that, especially after the changes made to Bard DOTs in Endwalker, it's becoming ridiculous to have 3 separate buttons just for Bard DOTs.

I realize that multidotting still has a purpose for Bard, and that streamlining the DOT buttons would potentially dramatically-increase the effective potency of multidotting, but I'm trying to consider the cleanliness of the overall design first and foremost.

I think that the problem is that there is now a significant divide between the usage of DOT buttons on a single target, vs. multiple targets, which is further complicated by the existence of "Iron Jaws", and the dramatically-reduced power of DOTs in many AOE situations due to the changes to "Repertoire".

Consider the current design value of the DOT actions in a purely single-target encounter:

1. Apply "Stormbite", once, at the beginning of an encounter
2. Apply "Caustic Bite", once, at the beginning of an encounter
3. Never touch either button again, unless a severe mis-play is made with keypress timing or awareness.

I do not think that this is a good justification for 2 entire GCD keys devoted to what is essentially just a single application of an effect, which is then rolled indefinitely with a 3rd entirely-separate key, "Iron Jaws".

Additionally, I think that multi-dotting with Bard feels — and has always felt — incredibly tedious and clunky, due to needing to occupy such a large quantity of staccato, uninteresting GCDs in order to finish initializing the effects.

Possible solutions

I think that it would reduce key bloat, improved usage comfortability, and open up more hotbar space for a wider variety of actions moving forward, if Bard's DOTs were streamlined down to one button.

I think that this is relatively straightforward to accomplish, design-wise.

Begin by giving Bard a new action — let's call it "Envenom", just for the sake of discussion.

And then, make "Envenom" work like so:

Envenom

• Weaponskill
• Level acquired: 6
• Effect: Afflicts the target with "Venomous Bite".

Windbite

• Trait
• Level acquired: 30
• Effect: "Envenom" now also afflicts the target with "Windbite".

Iron Jaws

• Trait
• Level acquired: 56
• Effect: "Envenom" now also deals 100 potency of direct damage.

Bite Mastery I

• Trait
• Level acquired: 64
• Effect: "Envenom" now afflicts targets with "Caustic Bite" and "Stormbite".
• Effect: "Envenom" now deals 150 potency of direct damage (up from 100).

Bite Mastery II

• Trait
• Level acquired: 76
• Effect: "Envenom" now has a 35% chance to trigger "Straight Shot Ready".

There, now "Caustic Bite", "Stormbite", and "Iron Jaws" have all been rolled into one single keypress.

Potential concerns

"But that's a buff to Iron Jaws potency!"

If that's actually a tuning problem, then just don't upgrade the direct damage at Level 64. I was only trying to keep parity with "Caustic Bite's" on-application damage.

"But now there's no skillcheck for using Iron Jaws at the correct time!"

Okay look — you are objectively correct, and I'm not denying it.

However, honestly, I think that this falls somewhat into the category of Ninja Rabbits, where it's basically a way of flogging less-experienced players, while being largely-trivial to experienced players that have developed the visual- and muscle-memory about timing the DOT refresh.

Also, failing to refresh cleanly would still either clip durations early (still a bad thing), or result in lost ticks due to a late reapplication (also still a bad thing).

So basically, yes, it removes the humiliation of having to press "Caustic Bite" and "Stormbite" manually again, but otherwise, it doesn't significantly change the Bard rotation or challenge.

In exchange, Bard frees up 2 keybinds that don't need to be reserved just for:

a) Openers
b) Spamming dots in spread-out multitarget situations

Additionally, multidotting itself becomes less clunky and tedious, by compressing the staccato grind of "Windbite" ... "Caustic Bite" ... → Tab → repeat, down into just "Envenom" → Tab → "Envenom" → Tab... which I think would feel much smoother.

bbb — Superfluous OGCDs

I'm torn on this point.

On the one hand, I think that having entire separate keybinds for something like "Pitch Perfect", that can only possibly be used 37.5% of the time (assuming full uptime), is wasteful and bloated design.

On the other hand, in its current state, I think that taking any OGCDs away from Bard runs the risk of making the job's structure feel very barren and skeletal.

But, for the sake of discussion — and I've seen similar points mentioned in other posts — I'd like to consider giving Bard a "morphing" button that changes based on the current Song.

For example, the same 2 keys could be...

Key 1:

• "Pitch Perfect" during "Wanderer's Minuet"
• "Bloodletter" during "Mage's Ballad"
• "Sidewinder" during "Army's Paeon"

Key 2:

• "Pitch Perfect 2" during "Wanderer's Minuet"
• "Rain of Death" during "Mage's Ballad"
• "Shadowbite" during "Army's Paeon"

...and then replace the current "Shadowbite" with "Refulgent Ladon", or something.

Oh, and change "Sidewinder" to consume "Repertoire" during "Army's Paeon", and then either remove the Skill Speed effect from "Army's Paeon", or... just let it get really weird with ping-ponging speed totals, I guess (but that would then have cascading effects on "Army's Muse", so probably not a good idea...)

Someone else had mentioned a different potential system, such as:

• "Wanderer's Minuet" key turns into "Pitch Perfect" while "Wanderer's Minuet" is active
• "Mage's Ballad" key turns into "Bloodletter" while "Mage's Ballad" is active
• "Army's Paeon" key turns into "Sidewinder" while "Army's Paeon" is active

...which is also pretty slick, although it creates some issues with how to handle "Rain of Death".

Anyway, this section is probably getting somewhat fanciful, in terms of ideas that are probably neither feasible nor appropriate in the middle of the 6.x design cycle.

However, I think that this might be a clean way to open more design space for other types of actions for Bard in 7.0+.

[Saimeren]

I'm not reading that. Give me a 1 paragraph TLDR version with your most important bullet points.

[HyoMinPark]

I don’t know if I’ll read through this entire thing right now—but just a quick skim, I already dislike the idea of “superfluous oGCDs” being consolidated. Minuet and Pitch Perfect is fine, but locking Bloodletter into Mage’s Ballad is not something I agree with, since you do still use the ability outside of Mage’s. I don’t like locking Sidewinder to just Paeon either, but Sidewinder is already a point of contention with me since I disliked the separation of it from the DoTs. However, maybe I am just a BRD boomer.

I’m mostly intrigued to see what the resident BRD mains and theorycrafters that lurk here have to say about this.


My BRD optimization is quite rusty since I did abandon the job in Shadowbringers due to disliking the changes to it. Playing it in EW, it’s still not the BRD I loved—but I have considered getting back into it at some point this expansion.

[Rika007]

Yeah I'm sorry the last thing I want to see is anything about consolidating oGCD's on BRD. Unless it's worthless role actions, BRD does not need to be consolidating anything. oGCD's is our thing, if anything the rate of said oGCD's needs to be upped. Having moved back into BRD after the travesty that was the job in SHB, the one thing I immediately picked back up on was having an opener that actually required me to hit as many buttons as I could. It was amazing. A breath of fresh air.

While it still might not be the perfection that was Stormblood Bard, EW Bard does not need some massive amount of improvements. Some of your ideas have merit.

-Radiant Finale starting fights with full Coda? Yeah im here for it, might not be necessary though, as right now it seems tuned to be something designed for BRD not to get full benefits of immediately and has to build too. Other jobs have this (like MNK not having access to Phantom Rush right off the bat)

-Turning the songs into AoE oGCD's without target? Hell yeah I'm down for this.

-Barrage generating Shadow Bite ready? Umm yea, this should have been a thing from the start.

-AOE radius issues being patched up? Yes please, after playing Dancer I've learned that conal AOE's are the dumbest thing in existence.

-WM getting some AOE benefits? Yeah sure, would rather just have an AOE equivalent of it but I will take this as something at least.

-Resolving Pitch Perfect and EA clashes? I like the idea of giving a fourth proc but only full power at three, but only IF we are also upping the rates at which we collect Pitch perfect procs. We need to be doing it more often, even if it requires it's potency to be adjusted.


But some of these other ones?

-Apex Arrow and Soul Voice: They finally came up with a way to make it so Apex Arrow should be available to a player during their heaviest burst windows. And also made it in a way that good players need to actually optimize and monitor it's usage properly. I originally thought I wanted it to be just useable at full power at 50 like Saber Dance but I was wrong. This does not need changing. It's only a small bit of skill expression, but it's still skill expression. It does not need to be changed.

-DOT's being consolidated: Nope. Nien. Iie. Nunca. NO. Do not freaking touch our DoTs. I'm making it my stance to react to every post that talks about removing or lowering DoT count on Bard as negatively as I can since it seems the devs are giving them some funny looks now already. Multi-Dotting is Bard's thing. It needs to remain it's thing. It's the only job left in the game with more then one active DoT for uptime. Leave it.

-Lessen amount of oGCD's: I touched it already but I'm reiterate. BRD is an oGCD heavy spam class. having to actually push different buttons is part of the engagement of it. Even if it's just moving your finger a space over, that helps keep you engaged. We do not need to lessen the amount of buttons Bard actively presses in a fight to address button bloat. There are far more other ways to address that (like going after the buttons it rarely ever presses, ie Wardens Paen or useless role actions).

[Shurrikhan]

A quick run through your sections, Eorzean:

• ccc - Yes, please.
  
  
• 111 - I don't mind Finale's being potentially desynced in dungeon environments. I certainly wouldn't compromise its uniqueness to manage that (to me, non-)issue. I'd rather go further, making it more unique.
  
  
• 222 - Ideally, I'd just consolidate "Straight Shot Ready" and "Shadowbite Ready" into a shared, more thematically-named resource, such as "Heavens' Quiver" or "Radiant Bolts," or what have you.
  
  
• 333 - Aye.
  
  
• 444 - I have no issues with Barrage-Shadowbite requiring a higher target count to surpass Barrage-Refulgent than regular Shadowbite does from regular Refulgent. Actually, I slightly prefer that added bit of complexity.
  
  
• 555 - Increase Shadowbite's radius to 8 yards, perhaps, but note that even 5 yalms has always been enough for the likes of Flare and Foul, so the only warrant for that (over)buff would be its annoyance relative to Quick/Laden.
  
  I'd actually prefer to see Shadowbite (or any replacing on-proc empowered AoE) be turned into a wide-ish line attack, shaped similarly to LB3 (and ideally following nearer to its and Refulgent's visual motif, rather than having one random shadow-motif attack among otherwise basic, nature-based, or empyreal attacks).
  
  
• 666 - I'd personally rather have the AoE variant of Pitch Perfect, with Wanderer's Minuet replacing both Bloodletter (into Pitch Perfect) and Rain of Death (into, say, Dissonance). You could even add further elements to
  
  
• 777 - I'd likewise prefer that songs be usable without a target, but primarily due to other, far more comprehensive changes that'd open up --such as in allowing for far more integral rotation-to-Song interactions and greater flexibility in song timing-- if the application potency were removed.
  
  
• 888 - Repertoire can only increase one point at a time and on known, even if potentially unfortunately timed, cycles. I'd be fine with adding a second charge of Empyreal Arrow, but I see no reason to remove the complexity of wanting to be cognizant of tick cycles when nearing Repertoire's cap.
  
  
• 999 - First, fix Apex itself; Blast Arrow itself is a wonky, depth-reducing constraint that should not be prioritized. Apex Arrow currently requires 60 gauge just to break even with Burst Shot (and its Refulgent Proc chance). At its minimum cost, it has less than half the ppgcd of Burst Shot. That's not acceptable.
  
  Increase its potency from 100-500 to 200-520, increasing Apex's own flexibility. Then, reduce the minimum threshold for using Blast Arrow from 80 gauge to 60.
  
  Ultimately, at lv86+, that will mean that there's ~64-potency bonus for using Apex at 60 gauge over 100, which would be more than made up for by raid buffs but would also compensate that bursty part of Bard's damage profile for when outside of especially bursty comps. One would typically cycle thrice per 2 minutes at 60-70, 60-70, 90-100 (or 80, 60, 80-100 if Trick Attack returns to a 1-minute CD), rather than the less modular 80-100 and 100 (with possible hold-waste). Fuller explanation below.

Increase Apex Arrow's minimum potency to 200 at 20 gauge. Let that increase at 4 potency per additional gauge (20 to 100) to a max of 520 potency.

This increase in minimum potency would mean --given Burst Shot's 241 relative ppgcd-- that Apex's relative PPG (potency-per-gauge) would be positive by 31 gauge, accelerated from 59, with a maximum of 279 ppgcd gained at 100 gauge, up from 259. More importantly, though, it'd decrease the loss from early shots; a 60-gauge shot, for instance, would still offer 119 bonus potency, 43% of the full value's bonus or 71% of its potency-bonus per gauge, as compared to the current 59 bonus potency and only 38% of the full shot's bonus potency per gauge. The lowest end for a Blast Arrow proc, 80, would produce 199 bonus potency, amounting to 89% ppg efficiency, a waste only of only ~35 potency.

Before we go further, a note: Because per 2-minute cycle, we get up to 200 (averaging 160) RNG-based gauge and a fixed 40 gauge from Empyreal Arrow, we already tend to around two full Apex Arrows, with some holding (full waste) or early use (slight waste). Dramatically changing that, especially in a way that would unalign Apex-Burst from raid CDs, would not be preferable. It takes roughly 48 seconds (and 4 Empyreal Arrows) to fully charge the Soul Voice gauge. Thus, the incentivized behavior would have to be capable of evenly fractioning across the remainder (60-120 gauge after spending 80-100 on the 2-minute burst).

When we had just Apex Arrow, this was easily doable by just reducing the penalty for early usage such that one was free to spend all gauge 15-18 server ticks (~45-54 seconds) before the 2-minute burst. But, as soon as we add Blast Arrow to the equation, things get wonkier.

At 600 potency and 40% AoE value, Blast Arrow itself offers 359 bonus ST potency over Burst Shot and 96 bonus AoE potency over Ladonsbite. That means there's 359 potency bonus upon reaching 80 gauge, enough to essentially remove all choice from Apex Arrow outside of those last 20 points. That's... not great. We will still want Blast Arrow to feel like a distinct way of using Apex Arrow, a commitment to a powerful shot and its follow-up, but it shouldn't so constrain Apex Arrow's use.

So, let's make Blast Arrow a bit more flexible. To do this, we need to consider the balance of four thresholds' bppg (bonus potency per gauge), minimum for BA proc (currently 80, though we could test other thresholds, such as 60), maximum gauge (100), just short of the minimum gauge threshold. Additionally, we'll want to consider if Blast Arrow ought to remain flat potency (which favors use at minimum proc gauge) or ought to switch to a scalar (which, in its simplest form, would simply double the penalties for early usage).

Under the earlier proposed values and still using a flat 600p Blast Arrow...
100 gauge: 279bp (2.8 bppg) from Apex and 638 bp with BA (6.38 bppg).
/80 gauge: 199bp (2.5 bppg) from Apex and 558 bp with BA (6.98 bppg).
/75 gauge: 195bp (2.4 bppg) from Apex or 554 bp with BA (7.01 bppg).
/60 gauge: 119bp (1.9 bppg) from Apex or 478 bp with BA (7.97 bppg).

We see two things here: First, as before, using Apex Arrow at less than the threshold goes from merely crippled to outright griefing; under the existing values, using Apex at 20 gauge after acquiring Blast Arrow sacrifices ~280 potency, and using it at 75 gauge would sacrifice ~390 potency). Additionally, though a bit less terribly, if we fix Apex Arrow itself enough to make use earlier than 100 gauge less crippling, the inclusion of (a flat potency) Blast Arrow then inverts the relationship between gauge expenditure and gauge efficiency, making use as quick as one can while still proccing Blast Arrow a bit superior. Essentially, 80 becomes the sweet spot, with 85-100 mere overflow, rather than 100 being the sweet spot.

More importantly, that mere 20-gauge span doesn't leave much modularity to work with, however, especially given that it'd take around 42-48 seconds and its Empyreal Arrows to regenerate 80 gauge. That's a big, clunky block of time. As such, we'll likely want to switch to a smaller block of time to work around. Let's say... 60 gauge.

At 60 gauge the "use as soon as you can" advantages from a flat potency Blast Arrow get a bit steeper, but the cycles themselves become modular enough to make up for any adverse enticement. 60 gauge, as above, has an efficiency of ~8, as compared to a full shot's ~6.4, meaning that it entices early use with ~64 potency. That's... not too bad, though, as cycles of 60 with up to 40 points of overflow would allow us easily enough to sync to 2-minute cycles via 60-60-100 casts, likely preferring casts around 70 over possibly overcapping the 100. Essentially, that little 64-potency bonus would just make up some of relative loss to features of Bard's damage profile when in less raid-buff-heavy compositions. No biggie.

To summarize:

1. Increase Apex minimum potency by 100 and max potency by 20 to make it far more flexible pre-Blast Arrow. (200-520 potency)
2. Decrease the minimum gauge requirement for Blast Arrow from 80 to 60, likewise making post-Blast Arrow cycles far more flexible as to more easily be synced to raid buffs without wasting gauge.

• aaa - No, don't condense DoT options. However, do get rid of Iron Jaws (at least outside of some sort of shared-resource dynamic action). And reduce the DoT durations while increasing their potency (for roughly equal bonus potency per minute, accounting for lost filler attack opportunities). Such would increase the prevalence of DoTs without actually increasing their importance, reducing Bard's spaminess without necessarily affecting the skill floor (as each missed second of a DoT would still be worth no more than before if accounting for their filler GCD costs).
  
  
• bbb- The only oGCDs I want to see consolidated are Bloodletter into Pitch Perfect (and Rain of Death into a new option), such that Wanderer's Minuet becomes a stance which allows one to blow all River of Blood (Bloodletter/Rain of Death) charges simultaneously at increasing efficiency per charge simultaneously discharged. That'd effectively make Wanderer's Minuet just a Ballad v2, but that's fine, imo. Just likewise have Ballad generate a full charge each proc, rather than just half a charge. Can take that added potency from the lost direct potency of the song applications themselves, and perhaps a bit more from either Burst Shot or Refulgent if need be. (The buff to Ballad would be worth 55 potency per proc. Songs give 300p per 120s. 10 Refulgent potency is worth a little under 1 ppgcd, even accounting for Barrage.)
  
  Ideally, make Sidewinder more interesting somehow and Barrage a bit more frequent, even if less powerful (e.g., merely doubling the shot), so they don't feel so lackluster. But I'd rather not remove them.

[Shurrikhan]

Counter-suggestions

Quick Fixes

• Skill Speed and Spell Speed consolidated into simply Haste.
  
  
• Apex Arrow potency increased from 100-500 to 200-520. This makes it ppgcd-positive over Burst Shot by 35 gauge, improved from 60 gauge, and greatly reducing the penalty of using it at under 100 gauge.
• The minimum Soul Voice gauge required to trigger Blast Arrow decreased from 80 to 60 gauge. This causes it to have the greatest potency-over-filler per gauge spent at 60 and allows for a more flexible 3 uses per 2 minutes (60+, 60+, and 80+), rather than so likely overcapping when only able to be split across 2 uses per 2 minutes.
  
  
• Iron Jaws removed. It was an awkward button that made bloat of two others while also cutting Bard's frequency of non-filler weaponskills in half. The skill no longer makes any sense.
• DoT durations decreased to 24 seconds. Periodic (and sometimes initial) potency increased. Does not increase DoTs bonus-potency-over-filler per minute (since they're now removing additional GCDs of filler), but they do reduce the portion of filler from >94% of GCDs to ~80%. At a 2.4 GCD, it also rounds out quite smoothly, which is better than can be managed for 18s (needs a 2.25s GCD) or 21s (2.33s GCD).
  
  
• Sidewinder now additionally refreshes DoTs on its enemy and hits all enemies, within 12 yalms of your target, that are affected by your damage-over-time effects for 150 potency per effect.
• Shadowbite radius increased to 8 yalms. Additionally, each of your DoT effects afflicting an enemy causes them to take 30 more potency of damage from Shadowbite.
• Barrage now duplicates the most recent weaponskill (other than Apex Arrow or Blast Arrow) as an oGCD. It has a 40s cooldown and two charges. It no longer grants Straighter Shot. It's now also decently useful for multi-DoTing, as given further advantage above.
  
  
• The Bloodletter/Rain of Death shared charges are now referred to simply as Wild Quiver. Shorthand: "Wild(s)". Enhanced Bloodletter renamed to Enhanced Wild Quiver.
• Straight Shot Ready and Shadowbite Ready consolidated into the Gods' Quiver buff, which now stack up to 2 times (3 times after lv84). Straight Shot renamed to Called Shot, and its animation and icon adjusted for a bit more oomph/flair so that it doesn't look weaker than Heavy Shot. Buff name TBR, but the pairing with Wild Quiver works with the earlier Miqo/Elezen styles of archery seen at Gods' Bow in Gridania, and offers decent shorthand, "God(s)".
  
  
• Repertoire gauge removed, since Song adjustments below have made it unnecessary. Song Gauge and Soul Voice gauge now separated. Wild Quiver gauge added. All three may now be hidden / disabled. Remaining song duration now listed under the current song effect on one's status bar. If the Soul Voice gauge is hidden, a Soul Voice buff will be shown on one's Status Bar, increasing up to 20 stacks (1 stack per 5 gauge).
  
  
• Mage's Ballad now grants a full charge of Wild Quiver per proc, up from a half-charge (7.5 seconds).
• Army's Paeon now simply grants 10% Haste on proc, lasting 20 seconds. Multiple applications may exist simultaneously and fade separately, though the effect of each stacked/additional application is halved (10|15|18|etc.). (Note that because it affects Haste it now also affects periodic damage dealt, meaning that you're encouraged to extend it to a DoT application; as max Song duration is 45s and two full cycles of DoTs are 48s, though, this may take mild compromise, or use of the new Sidewinder feature.)
• The lv78 trait, Enhanced Army's Paeon, has been replaced by Enhanced Empyreal Arrow II, which offers a second charge of Empyreal Arrow.
• A new Wanderer's Minuet skill, Dissonance, now acts as an AoE version of Pitch Perfect.
• The Wanderer's Minuet now converts your maximum Wild Quiver count by 1 and converts Bloodletter and Rain of Death into Pitch Perfect and Dissonance, respectively, both of which consume, in a single use, up to 3 of charges of Wild Quiver to deal increasing damage per charge consumed -- 120|260|420 for Pitch Perfect and 110|230|360 for Dissonance. These new potencies just slightly more than make up for the lack of natural Bloodletter generation atop the former potencies.
  
  
• To compensate for this increased song effectiveness per Repertoire (literally doubled MB effectiveness, hastened and enhanced AP effect, and more of your oGCD damage during WM benefiting from its damage-per-stack escalation), Burst Shot potency has been reduced from 220 to 210 and Repertoire chance has been reduced to 50% until level 58, at which point a new trait (Enhanced Repertoire) increases to 75%. More oomph per proc, with some damage shifting from filler GCDs to oGCDs.
• Songs no longer deal damage or require a target. However, if activated outside of combat, they will only generate Repertoire upon entering combat; if activated within combat, they will continue to generate Repertoire until the song ends. This, too, gives us about 150 more potency per minute to throw at enhanced Repertoire effectiveness.
• Song cooldowns reduced to 90 seconds. Due to Radiant Finale's cooldown, you'll still mostly use them as before, but the added flexibility is there for dungeons and such.

Fully Reinvigorating Bard

• In progress... May be a while.