Bard Silent Nocturne.

[Myrha_Lhlalheva]

when they're shotcalling and people are listening.

That's the heart of my argument right there--if a BRD is shotcalling AND people are listening AND everyone is applying their tools properly, then...of course they should be successful?? BRD has never been a soloQ spam/crutch job that can wipe teams just by existing/getting lucky. I don't understand what squex thinks is so wrong with that, so much so that they feel the need to nerf BRD's only decent utility while somehow saying that they "wish to showcase Bard's supportive abilities". It just doesn't make sense to me.

Anyway for the sake of matching your completion, here's my resumé

S1-Crystal (Primal), peak rating 1895, but I was a SGE main
S2-Crystal (Primal), SGE
S3-Crystal (Primal), BRD main from here forward (sub-job DNC/PLD)
S4-Top30 (Primal), peak rating...21xx? somewhere around there
S5-Crystal (Primal)
S6-Crystal (Primal)
S7-Top30, peak rating high 23xx I think
S8-Crystal (Primal)
S9-Crystal (Primal)

[Hik3n]

Yes, they are AoE, but at same time splash damage alone doesn't mean much in solo queue or SMN would be one of the best jobs. It puts out the same damage as BLM but BLM is a harder carry because it has higher single target burst and better cc. As for preloading, I didn't say bard didn't need to. But doing basic 1-2-3 attacks is different than have effects showing on screen that can lead to pre-guard's and needing other utility ability cooldowns available. Targeting is also sometimes an issue like with BLM. You need previous stacks on that target preloaded so you don't have the same burst options on any target on the enemy team compared to BRD. Same goes for Sage where disengage/guard can desync their dot, debuff, and burst on several different targets. Outside of Volcano, in most situations, a bard shouldn't be put down to where they can't get 2 stacks of EA from uptime if you're proven yourself decent defensively. That being said, I'm moreso coming from a full crystal lobby standpoint since I'm mainly on JP in my spare time nowadays. When you have telegraphed rotations, they punish it extremely hard. But on Mana and Gaia I've seen top 10, top 5 players like Emil, Oyalamo, Mei Co, Kappi picking up Bard on C9/Red Sands mainly just because of how strong the single target burst is when they're shotcalling and people are listening.

S1 - Crystal - Aether
S2 - Crystal - Primal
S3 - Crystal - Crystal
S4 - Top 100 - Crystal, Top 30 - Dynamis, Crystal - Mana
S5 - Crystal - Mana
S8 - Crystal - Mana, Crystal - Elemental (WAR), Crystal - Gaia (DRG), Crystal - Meteor (RPR)
S9 - 1200 Credits - Mana, 1300 Credits - Elemental (WAR), 1100 Credits - Gaia (DRG), 900 Credits - Meteor (RPR), Top 100 - Primal, Diamond 2 - Chaos

So you are saying they need to nerf Bard until, even if in a teamplay mode you make calls, it can't do anything? This is a thing in every team PVP oriented game, just look at Leage of Legends... and even if Bard has a higher dmg on paper, the dps/second is not that high as other jobs, so in the end Bard will push out less dmg if we talk about the time it needs to do that dmg, and now we have a 10Second + for Pitch Perfect, that pushes this time even higher... numbers means nothing if you don't put the time in it. I really want to see a chart that shows the DPS/Second, Bard is so slow by the time you do anything the other party is already run away, put a Guard up or pushed an Elixir.

[VoidsentStatus]

So you are saying they need to nerf Bard until, even if in a teamplay mode you make calls, it can't do anything? This is a thing in every team PVP oriented game, just look at Leage of Legends... and even if Bard has a higher dmg on paper, the dps/second is not that high as other jobs, so in the end Bard will push out less dmg if we talk about the time it needs to do that dmg, and now we have a 10Second + for Pitch Perfect, that pushes this time even higher... numbers means nothing if you don't put the time in it. I really want to see a chart that shows the DPS/Second, Bard is so slow by the time you do anything the other party is already run away, put a Guard up or pushed an Elixir.

So, dps/second is a useless stat. This is something that NA and EU have not understood besides maybe at top 30 or higher level. JP does not function under trying to do damage/sec besides in specific cases like BLM, they function under killing you in 1-2s and not giving you the chance to heal, guard, purify, or do any other type of counterplay. Their playerbase is mechanically good enough defensively to where traditional play on other data region will not get you as far. They play, in a teamwork setting, from Unranked to Gold lobbies. You will find shotcallers in 80-90% of your matches in Diamond/Crystal and you will see them from Day 1 in Unranked to Gold as well. As you climb, the % becomes higher, but it's always there. Unranked to Gold on JP is people that don't have optimized damage on their jobs yet, but, they fundamentally understand that if 3-5 of them attack 1 person, they're going to die extremely fast. Their teammates listen more often and you will find limit break synergy, coordinated cc, burst damage much more frequently and at lower tiers than other regions. Imo, the changes I've seen over time, /seem/ to be like the devs pushing people into more teamwork/calculated actions than previously. To get NA and EU playing like how JP does. NA/EU playstyle differences tend to lean more toward griefing/ratting than focusing on teamwork, hence why Monk is a significant problem on NA but not on JP. Now whether that's a good choice/decision, idk, BUT, I'm not going to complain about it since playing support/team orientated jobs like healer and bard feel unmistakeably better to play and more fun in their style of playing CC.

[VoidsentStatus]

BRD has never been a soloQ spam/crutch job that can wipe teams just by existing/getting lucky. I don't understand what squex thinks is so wrong with that, so much so that they feel the need to nerf BRD's only decent utility while somehow saying that they "wish to showcase Bard's supportive abilities".

*nods* agreed on the first bit. I was going to play a few matches later today to actually see if I noticed the cooldown change on BRD at all. I never hit silence on cooldown anyway just from JP habits where I'm saving it for shotcalls/chain cc so I'm curious to see if there's like, any situations I can /feel/ the difference. The WHM poly change I definitely noticed when I played DRG a bit. If the WHM messed up and poly'd me and didn't get a kill, I had a good bit of breathing room in the fight before I had to worry about that poly again. I'll have to queue up on Gaia and see if the amount of poly-LB combos is less throughout a match as well.

[Ibbers]

So, dps/second is a useless stat. This is something that NA and EU have not understood besides maybe at top 30 or higher level. JP does not function under trying to do damage/sec besides in specific cases like BLM, they function under killing you in 1-2s and not giving you the chance to heal, guard, purify, or do any other type of counterplay. Their playerbase is mechanically good enough defensively to where traditional play on other data region will not get you as far. They play, in a teamwork setting, from Unranked to Gold lobbies. You will find shotcallers in 80-90% of your matches in Diamond/Crystal and you will see them from Day 1 in Unranked to Gold as well. As you climb, the % becomes higher, but it's always there. Unranked to Gold on JP is people that don't have optimized damage on their jobs yet, but, they fundamentally understand that if 3-5 of them attack 1 person, they're going to die extremely fast. Their teammates listen more often and you will find limit break synergy, coordinated cc, burst damage much more frequently and at lower tiers than other regions. Imo, the changes I've seen over time, /seem/ to be like the devs pushing people into more teamwork/calculated actions than previously. To get NA and EU playing like how JP does. NA/EU playstyle differences tend to lean more toward griefing/ratting than focusing on teamwork, hence why Monk is a significant problem on NA but not on JP. Now whether that's a good choice/decision, idk, BUT, I'm not going to complain about it since playing support/team orientated jobs like healer and bard feel unmistakeably better to play and more fun in their style of playing CC.

In that case, wouldn't it be fine to compensate for the nerfs by increasing filler GCDs since they don't affect how JP plays at all but it does for the more uncoordinated non-JP environment? By that logic, Powerful Shot being 7k or 8k base wouldn't really make the job fundamentally stronger since it doesn't affect BRD's burst or CC potential, but it does help to burn MP slightly faster (which according to your JP experience, doesn't really get used anyway).

[VoidsentStatus]

In that case, wouldn't it be fine to compensate for the nerfs by increasing filler GCDs since they don't affect how JP plays at all but it does for the more uncoordinated non-JP environment? By that logic, Powerful Shot being 7k or 8k base wouldn't really make the job fundamentally stronger since it doesn't affect BRD's burst or CC potential, but it does help to burn MP slightly faster (which according to your JP experience, doesn't really get used anyway).

I believe they might in the future, it depends on the win rates. When they made BRD LB work on itself you have that type of argument where BRD needed more consistent damage itself and not necessarily more team utility. On a personal level, I'm fine with BRD's burst currently, but I do wish the consistent GCD's were just a little stronger so I could nudge frontlines a little faster even when they rotate mitigations properly. Though I'm not sure how much they are willing to buff it just because of damage buff stacking that /can/ occur technically. I was speaking to a friend a few weeks ago about the main territory that starts to get dangerous (and the reason why it's good to learn effect icons) is when you have ~30% damage increase. Things that don't kill you, that have reaction time/counterplay don't exist when you reach that level of buffing. Bard itself brings ~10-20% depending on LB status and other jobs that can affect this consistently are WAR, SAGE, SCH, RDM, NIN, MCH. If say, base potency was increased to even 7K from the 6K it sits at now, I'm going to be sitting at 9-10K GCD's with increased SKS potentially throughout most of the fights without even needing LB, which is stronger than BLM LB and it only gets 6 charges. With proper uptime, that's gonna add up a lot, especially if you have environmental effects like the Volcano fire balls that add damage on top of that for 30s. BRD and WHM were the combo they targeted in the last patch so if another combination gets too strong, they're going to nerf it somehow. If compositions were standardized, removed non-utility dps's/tanks affecting damage output and you couldn't RNG your way into massive group buff numbers, I'd be 100% behind it.

[Astralrisk]

2. One of the complaints I had as a bard main was the necessity of keeping uptime in order to build arrows. What they did was shift the damage from Empy Arrow to Blast Arrow which was commonly the ability paired with EA for a burst rotation. BA having a +2K buff makes the following situation:
(Pre Patch)
BA + EA (3) = 20K
BA + EA (2) = 16K
BA + EA (1) = 12K

(Post Patch)
BA + EA (3) = 19K
BA + EA (2) = 16K
BA + EA (1) = 13K

If you are dealing with heavy focus or have targets that need to be bursted cycling repeatedly, getting 3 stacks for each burst cycle is harder if not impossible. In those types of situations, Post Patch, your damage is the same or higher. And with BA being an AoE ability, your overall damage is going up as well especially on maps such as C9 or Red Sands where players are more funneled.

The damage is also technically higher if you factor in the damage buffs you get from Apex/Blast Arrow. I don't know if the damage buff from Blast Arrow applies to itself when you use the ability, but if you do Empyrean arrow after Blast it gets like a 10% damage buff at least. It is still a nerf, but the burst still does like 21.4k from those abilities, if my math is correct. It's still pretty good, just slightly toned back from before I feel like.

[VoidsentStatus]

The damage is also technically higher if you factor in the damage buffs you get from Apex/Blast Arrow. I don't know if the damage buff from Blast Arrow applies to itself when you use the ability, but if you do Empyrean arrow after Blast it gets like a 10% damage buff at least. It is still a nerf, but the burst still does like 21.4k from those abilities, if my math is correct. It's still pretty good, just slightly toned back from before I feel like.

*nods* I went to check since I simplified the math. for exact values:
Apex - 8,000
Blast - 10,500 so it only gets a 5% buff instead of ~10%
3307 arrows * 3 = 9921
total = 20421 for post patch.

pre-patch is 8400 for Blast
4410 arrows * 3 = 13230.
21630 total.

21630-20421 = 1209 so 200 health difference technically for 3 stacks from the simplified math.

At 2 stacks you'd be:
10500+6614=17114
vs.
8400+8820=17220.

At 1 stack you'd be:
10500+3307=13807
vs.
8400+4410=12810

[Burmecia]

Who keeps complaining about BRD? I mean, so loudly that devs take it seriously? Is it JP scene?

[Raenra]

I rather agree, if the silence is keeping us from being an actually impactful job.
In Frontline, anyone worth silencing has probably recently used cleanse, which makes them immune for 5secs.
So if (what feels like) 90% of the time I'm tossing out our "big ability" and getting zip for it, yeah, not worth having.