Thread: So about bard 7.0

Originally Posted by mallleable

BRD to me is in a weird spot where it has to wear two hats at the same time.

Is that necessarily a weird spot, though, especially for a Bard? Nearly every iteration of Bard (outside of those chucking physically manifested musical notes as if a guitar were a gattling gun, which strikes me as about the least "Bard"ish form of Bard there is) has involved considerable learning in/of synergetic but separate domains.

If lore- and information-gathering is your aim, then taverns and parties are often your game, at which point a knife is very handy thing to know your way around, along with the slitting of money pouches and messenger bags, and maybe even training in dueling arts for in case your caught with your hand too near to a noblelady's ass (for different but equally damning reasons). If command and coordination is your aim, as per the Ishgardian basis for Bards seen in 1.x, then a ranged weapon is about the perfect fit to a strong voice and a winning personality -- all forming together a damn good skillset for a sergeant.

BRD has to be a good archer, a reliable DPS that feels lethal in the right hands. BRD also has to be a good bard, and provide support for its allies through music. If DNC is a cheerleader, and MCH is the big guns then BRD should be a rockstar on the battlefield.

I'd largely agree with this, but I have to point out one potential issue of scale: If DNC only needs 1 other party member to get a huge part of its value, while BRD only scales linearly with party count to reach its max at 7 other allies, there's little room for those broad support tools to become a more significant part of a Bard's total kit/value (relatively speaking) without it becoming inferior in light parties.

In my experience, PVP BRD does a decent job at conveying this fantasy (at least in Front Line). The raid buffs, and utility are strong, and its attacks secure kills. The job feels strong, and not broken and oppressive or weak and useless. PVP BRD does this without dots.

Fair, but there's little reason to look at a massively reduced kit size as per every job's PvP version and think that DoTs were removed from that kit because they're DoTs and DoTs are an ill fit to Bard's being able to complement (and maybe even supplement) its party's needs. That a given tool is trimmed along with half or more of the original kit does not mean the job would be more thematic without it. While it'd suggest that DoTs don't need to be part of the kit, any further conclusion would seem spuriously ad-hoc.

The recent buff to Nature's Minne was a great bard buff, but I feel the archer part still needs some love. I am totally biased, and I am not in the BRD is a pure support crowd, so I think in terms of firepower, BRD should be right in the middle of DNC, and MCH, and not where it it currently being interchangeable with DNC. BRD is the only physical ranged DPS that a new player can start the game with so I feel like it should be a branching point into the other two jobs in terms of damage vs. utility while also remaining a strong pick if they want to stick with it.

Almost fully agreed. My own take is basically just a small twist on this. Personally, I think Bard's rDPS tax on even having support available to it should be very minimal, but that there should be an rDPS cost for using those tools, albeit to a net gain in value.

Its ideal scenario, then, would max out the effective use of broad tools in a full party or a balance of broad tools (e.g., only during raid buffs per 2 minutes) and more focused or single-target ones in smaller parties, but I feel it should still be able to dig deeper towards DNC levels of support (again, at cost) or MCH levels of "selfishness" if all is going well but no one else has the Bard's level of skill + gear.

Of course, to me, DNC should also have even deeper support pockets and MCH should be capable of some at-cost support, with each just having rather different portions of their value built into support during ideal or "meta" play, and each performing those support functions by means that pretty darn distinct from each other.

Just my headcanon/pipedream $0.02, ofc.

I'm going with a single DOT is what we'll have. They love to remove abilities with every expansion. They can claim two abilities at once - 1 DOT and Iron Jaws. IJ would become redundant at that point. Just reapply the single DOT.

Otherwise, I think BRD will get an ability like MCH has: Barrel Stabilizer. Something that bumps up their soul gauge to be used earlier. It can't bring it to 100, that might be a bit OP. But, I could see it going to 50. If not that, then possibly a MNK-like ability akin to Brotherhood. Party attacks something, Soul Gauge goes up.

A feature I've been hoping for with all jobs in mind is adding in "action skins" where you can select between different animations for one ability. The immediately easiest thing to do in this regard is allow players to choose between past iterations of spells that have upgraded over time, such as replacing Glare III's animation with Stone IV without losing the potency on White Mage. This could also be used to restore removed animations from the past as well, such as having the option to swap Rain of Death for Wide Volley, or another example could be swapping Aeolian Edge with Dancing Edge on Ninja... the list goes on.

But what you could also do is add new animations that can either be unlocked in game or even just purchased on the online store that allow you to retheme your job more drastically. Why I bring this up here is because you could have reskinned versions of archery-themed actions that turn them into musical attacks and vice versa for Bard's current songs. This way, players would have the ability to choose if they want to go full archer, full bard, or stay as a mixture without compromising any gameplay.

We already see an example of this from Atori in Bozja, an NPC that assists in skirmishes who is a Dragoon with entirely original cherry blossom themed animations, something that could become available for our Dragoon.

Originally Posted by SaitoHikari

The Bard rotation barely changes at all from level 52 all the way to level cap. We get a grand total of 1 skill on the GCD that isn't tied to some kind of proc at 56 (Iron Jaws), 1 GCD tied to the Soul Voice gauge at 80 (Apex Arrow), and 2 damaging oGCDs (Empryeal Arrow at 54 and Sidewinder at 60). Everything else is tied to a proc that is merely a higher damaging version of the skill used to trigger it, a party buff, or is merely a damage increasing trait.

I'd actually consider this a positive if they didn't manage to butcher bard back in 5.0. A job feeling complete at level 60? You mean I don't need to be max level for my job to work properly? Count me in.

Originally Posted by Absurdity

I'd actually consider this a positive if they didn't manage to butcher bard back in 5.0. A job feeling complete at level 60? You mean I don't need to be max level for my job to work properly? Count me in.

That gets us to the difference between satisfyingly complete (has plenty of stuff to do) and relatively complete (as good as it's going to get, as low a bar as that may be), though.

I'd have to consider Bard only the latter at level 60, even back in Stormblood.

I love ElysiumDragon’s idea. Just incorporate the dots into the songs. They last 45 seconds anyway. It’s just redundant to use them then keep using iron jaws when the dots do nothing for the soul voice gauge anymore. Plus it will free up 3 spots for new abilities/spells.

For my part, I'd love to see certain mechanical sets streamlined, but with the intention of greater total depth, not less. (None of this "just combine the DoTs with the songs!" stuff.) Atop that, I want to see greater song depth, remove ability bloat by allowing the 'bloat' skills to function in unbloated ways, and to increase our diversity of casts (rather than spending two-thirds of all casts spamming BS, or ~93% of all casts key-swiping RA->BS).

To that end:

• Consolidate/name the charges used for Bloodletter and Rain of Death. Let's call it, say, Wild Quiver.
• Have Pitch Perfect consume up to 3 charges of Wild Quiver at a time. It now replaced Bloodletter instead of acting as a separate skill. Pitch Perfect potency increased in compensation. New AoE version of Pitch Perfect added; it replaces Rain of Death while WM is active.
• Repertoire is now gone except as an additional effect on each song; songs no longer have constituent stacks/charges of Repertoire. Instead, we again generate charges of Wild Quiver independently of singing -- from critical hits and direct hits (chance increasingly reduced per further target from AoEs). Empyreal Arrow guarantees a charge of Wild Quiver, and the Soul Gauge charges from WQ generated. DoT ticks are therefore again valuable to gauge generation but don't quite so heavily scale with target count.
  
  
• Reshape Shadowbite into a combined geometry or a wide linear AoE so that it doesn't sacrifice total area covered (relative to Quick Nock/Ladonsbite) in order to function also at range.
• Consolidate/name the charges used for Refulgent Arrow and Shadowbite. Let's call it, say, Heavens' Quiver.
• To give reason for Refulgent Arrow and Shadowbite to exist as separate buttons, Heaven's Quiver is allowed to accumulate a second | third (after trait) stack.
  
  
• Barrage now grants a charge each of Wild Quiver and Heavens' Quiver.
• Raging Strikes replaced with Hawk's Eye, which guarantees hits and increases critical strike chance by 30%. This should feel more interactive and more thematic than Raging Strikes.
  
  
• Songs no longer have CDs. Instead, they drain MP upon activation and per second at amounts that increase with time spent in that song and fall back normal with time spent outside that song. This allows for a softer rotation of songs and more frequent switches, which in turns allow for greater use of dynamic keys (actions with effects dependent upon one's current song), if we so wish.
• Songs no longer deal damage and therefore no longer require a target. (Potencies increased elsewhere in compensation.)
• Army's Paeon instead simply grants bonus Attack Speed for 10 seconds each time one generates a charge of Wild Quiver. Additional instances extend its duration. That's it. No stacks.
• Mage's Ballad increases your critical hit chance, thereby increasing WQ proc chance. That's it. (Note that, yes, oGCD crits, including from Wild Quiver spenders can proc additional WQ charges, which makes Ballad especially high apm.)
• Wanderer's Minuet increases critical hit damage and the maximum stack count of Wild Quiver by 1 and upgrades Bloodletter to Pitch Perfect and Rain of Death to Dissonance, which each deal increased damage per charge consumed... per charge consumed (i.e., they're most efficient at maximum charge consumption per use). That's it.
  
  
• The miniscule raid buffs provided by having a song active have been removed and their rDPS value shifted into more active means via Radiant Finale (completely reworked, below) and Battle Shout (also revised, below). We should get our rDPS from doing Bard things, not just existing. The more of it is passive, the less agency and reward we have for doing it well.
• The effect of Battle Voice now varies with one's song and functions more situationally instead of as a knockoff Battle Litany. Rather than carrying a CD, it now rapidly, increasingly reduces max MP over use until toggled off; as with the individual songs, this cost reverts over time spent with Battle Voice off. Army's Paeon generates increased Defense and Magic Defense and a %HP-based shield over time. Ballad heals over time and grants a stacking healing modifier (3% per second, up to 15%, each stack fading after 5 seconds). Minuet causes time spent still to rapidly increase movement speed (each .1s still generates .33s at 30% increased movement speed, stacking with Sprint) while granting increasing resistance to non-beneficial knockbacks.
• The Warden's Paeon and Nature's Minne has been consolidated into a single dynamic action with multiple charges and a ~40s recast time.
• Radiant Finale now grants a 10% buff to all stats, fading linearly over up to 20 seconds (averaging 3-6%), in addition to echoing a portion of your song bonuses (Haste, Crit Chance, Crit Bonus) to the whole raid [exact workings TBD]. Rather than simply counting song swaps, RF now uses a separate gauge that generates count through a variety of means (similar to the Limit Break Gauge) focused on time spent singing and on healing potency done or increased, debuffs or knockbacks prevented, bonus movement performed, etc. I.e., the more you can exploit the active Bard powers above, the more you can exploit Bard's raid buff, but its flexibility almost always allows it to be used for the 2-minute bursts even though you may want also to cover shorter mini-burst periods between or use it to survive a raid-wide attack.
  
  
• Iron Jaws turned into a sort of Tri-Disaster (instantly applies both DoTs, oGCD) opposite Sidewinder (shared resource cost, 40s recharge, 2 charges), which now ricochets (better fitting its name) among all targets inflicted with Stormbite and deals an additional 50% damage to the main target per DoT. (Or something like that for each.)
• Stormbite and Caustic Bite durations reduced to 24 and 18 seconds, respectively. Total potency slightly reduced, but their relative value (over non-use) per minute has been greatly increased.
• Maybe Caustic and Stormbite each do... something extra in themselves.

All suggestions spitball and subject to change, but the general ideas is to go for something more intuitive, more anchored, more flexible, capable of a greater range of support, and less spammy.

give them a k9 with big teeth and a bear and you dont need a bow lol the bear dog will eat all

I don't know if it'd be practical, but caustic/stormbite applying a debuff to the enemy that gives the other some effect could be interesting with the varied timings - similar to white/black knight's tour. Stormbite's effect making caustic's ticks double in potency for the full duration and caustic giving a spread chance per tick or buffed mp regen or something that would be useful in single target?