Preliminary 7.0 BRD feedback

[mallleable]

First of all, making songs aoe is such a welcome change! A Small concern, and while it is not a lot of damage, but BRD will be missing some of its personal damage when the changes go through. So please make sure that BRD still has its damage.

Merging the proc for Refulgent Arrow, and Shadowbite is way overdue, but good. Thanks.

Making Pitch Perfect deal AOE damage is also great, but my only nitpick is that I wish the AOE shape was a line instead of a circle because line AOE attacks like Apex, and Blast Arrow are fun to aim. The job that uses aiming gear should have to aim their attacks after all.

Like DRG, BRD starts fights feeling a bit weak so it should have more up front damage. Perhaps if Barrage remains a 2 minute cool down could grant a free use of a fully charged Apex Arrow on top of the triple hit Refulgent Arrow so it can have a stronger opener.

[Valence]

I agree for the shape of the PP AoE. Did they show it was an actual radius/circle instead of another shape? Yeah it needs to be a line, especially regarding the animation...

The new big nukes BRD gets from Radiant Finale and the follow up wind attack after Barrage/Refulgent are kinda boring mechanically like for most jobs that get the same kind of tools, but at least it fills up the burst window significantly. Current BRD's issue right now unlike DNC with its Sabre Dance rng spamm (esprit gauge) is that once you have exhausted your Barrage and Apex, you're left with nothing much but random filler attacks until the Iron Jaw dot refresh at the end. It makes the burst feel over after barely 3 GCDs way too prematurely, so I'll definitely take more things to put inside.

[currentlemon]

I don't really have much say in BRD because I just started playing it now. Don't have any experience with BRD during it's previous iterations, but I do like the job and I do like what I saw on the Job Action Trailer.

BRD's actually kept the DoTs. Happy about this.

Procing both Refulgent Arrow and Shadowbite is a good thing.

AoE Pitch Perfect is good too.

The only thing that needs changing in my opinion is to alleviate some of the issues when you are playing BRD at low level content. Getting Wander's Minute at level 50 to complete the song rotation early would be nice. You still get Pitch Perfect at level 52, but I'd prefer it that we get all three songs in the level 30 to 50 range. Also, something needs to change about Sidewinder. Not sure what we do with that skill, but it's still in DT. SE needs to think of something.

[mallleable]

Another bit of feedback while they are improving Refulgent Arrow, and Shadowbite procs, but please make it so that Barrage doesn't overwrite any existing Refulgent Arrow/Shadowbite procs in a similar fashion that DNC's Flourish doesn't overwrite their procs.

[ZmireTia]

I am glad that bard looks more magical.

[VentVanitas]

very shocked that the DoTs are untouched. I was absolutely convinced they'd remove them, but I'm actually glad they're staying even if they're still not tied to repertoire procs. I'd rather have them than nothing y'know.

[Valence]

Another bit of feedback while they are improving Refulgent Arrow, and Shadowbite procs, but please make it so that Barrage doesn't overwrite any existing Refulgent Arrow/Shadowbite procs in a similar fashion that DNC's Flourish doesn't overwrite their procs.

What's the reasoning behind out of curiosity? Drifting Barrage over time?

[mallleable]

What's the reasoning behind out of curiosity? Drifting Barrage over time?

Yeah. I've had Barrage get pushed back super late into burst windows, and almost out of them because I would keep getting Refulgent procs. And because of it's super long cooldown, it stays there. I've began to just press it even when I have a proc, and just eat the damage loss when the proc gets overwritten. So I feel like we should be able to use Barrage even when we already have a Refulgent proc.

[Valence]

Huh. Never happened to me and I actually have raided with bard for the whole expansion... At best it got pushed by 3-4 GCDs... when very unlucky. You literally need 5+ GCDs to proc and push it out, which means over 10min of fight with 100% RA procs at exactly the wrong time each burst... Although I guess it could happen. Although just overwriting a RA proc isn't gonna be the end of the world either. If you do like for DNC, it's removing skill expression as well.

Either way I don't feel strongly about it anyway.

[Budew]

I agree with pitch perfect being a line. I love cone/line-shaped aoes (which is why I kind of dislike shadowbite randomly being a circle on a target lol). Cone/line aoes can also reach farther and allow you to cleave more units.

Some other feedback: I hope they make songs more flexible in DT. Bard is one of the worst classes to die on, since you lose everything and it's hard to recover your song rotation if you die at an unfortunate time. Songs should have a lower cooldown and (maybe) be longer as well. This can help bards recover more easily when they die early/mid-song. It makes no sense that bard is punished this hard for dying, when most other classes lose little to nothing when they die. Also, flexible songs can lead to more skill expression in song rotations/order if the encounter allows for it.