The state of Bard

[Chantz98]

Hello,

This is my first forum post. The rework of bard in Endwalker has killed the class for some dedicated bard mains. The removal of repertoire proccing off of dots has removed a major fun factor and identity of the class. Previously bard was a fast paced RNG dependant class. This play style spoke to many people and bard had dedicated fans. The removal the RNG aspect of this job has slowed down the pace of the job to such an extreme that is now a souless husk of what it once was. Mages ballad being the shortest duration song that you stay in is a major oversight. Now when entering Army's paeon you are pressing one to two buttons for 43 seconds because you need to save your other cool downs for your burst. This is a huge chunk of time to be doing nothing with the class. Previously, Army's Paeon was the shortest song and acted as a nice reprieve from the fast paced playstyle during Wanderers Minuet and Mages ballad. The current feel of bard is over all very slow once you leave Wanderers Minuete. People who did not enjoy bard in SHB complained so loudly about it that ruined the job for those who appreciated the niche the job filled. An easy fix for the complaints about needing to add dots individually would have been adding a way to spread dots via sidewider or another skill. The removal of rep procs coming from dots has completely changed the class for the worse. Additionally, Radiant Finale should act as Battle Voice does. The skill scalling off of Coda makes no sense. It is needlessly restrictive. RF essentially acts as Divination (Astro) used to act. They decided to remove the 3 card scalling on the buff of divination, seeminly because it was unneeded, then decided to slap it on bard. Does that make any sense to you? This is not a critique that is unique to bard. The simplification of jobs has led to many dedicated playes feeling alienated while the devs try to make all of the jobs appeal to all players. This leads to a lack of identity for most jobs. In conclusion, please return the RNG to bard. Loosing repertoire procs from dots has killed the job.

Please watch the video from Stal and Heepers for more information on why this job needs improvement.

Thank you <3

[Equitable_Remedy]

The rework of bard in Endwalker has killed the class for dedicated bard mains.

Out of curiosity, what percentage of dedicated bard mains did you talk to to support this assertion?

[Chantz98]

You can watch Stal and Heepers video's and take a look at the comments for more information on the critques coming from Bard players.

[mallleable]

They are just two BRD players, and they don't speak for everyone.

As someone who misses procs coming from dots, I honestly want the dots gone or at least reduced down to just one dot. They should be replaced with more upfront arrow attacks, and music attacks. What I want them to do with BRD is to take some pages from its PVP version, and give it walking casts on its main GCDs, give it more multi hit attacks like Barraged Refulgent Arrow., and give it a party buff that increases movement speed.

There are a lot of good quality of life changes coming in DT, but still think BRD needs more attention.

[Router]

Mages ballad being the shortest duration song that you stay in is a major oversight. Now when entering Army's paeon you are pressing one to two buttons for 43 seconds because you need to save your other cool downs for your burst. This is a huge chunk of time to be doing nothing with the class. Previously, Army's Paeon was the shortest song and acted as a nice reprieve from the fast paced playstyle during Wanderers Minuet and Mages ballad.

BRD in DT will now be doing full length Ballad again so this is a bit of a moot point. I would like to see full Ballad procs back, but that's another issue.
Personally I think the biggest thing BRD needs is a complete Army's Paeon rework (and probably Ballad touchups as well). The only interesting thing about it is that it can randomly misalign your GCDs... It wasn't even a good song for ShB BRD.

[Chantz98]

Since the Bloodletter upgrade happens at level 92 that means that all content below that level would still have paeons as the longest song. This actually makes the rotation even more of a mess because your song durations will be different in all content below 92 than it is above 92. Hopefully they will increase the base Bloodletter potency so I can be wrong about this. I agree Paeon needs a rework. They should give us a full bloodletter proc instead of restoring half of its cool down when within Mage's. This would most likely solve the song duration issue.

[Chantz98]

They are just two BRD players, and they don't speak for everyone.

As someone who misses procs coming from dots, I honestly want the dots gone or at least reduced down to just one dot. They should be replaced with more upfront arrow attacks, and music attacks. What I want them to do with BRD is to take some pages from its PVP version, and give it walking casts on its main GCDs, give it more multi hit attacks like Barraged Refulgent Arrow., and give it a party buff that increases movement speed.

There are a lot of good quality of life changes coming in DT, but still think BRD needs more attention.

PVP Bard is super fun, I wouldnt mind some inclusions from it. Particularly the burst strike animation. It feels really good to press in PVP rather than it feeling like nothing in regular content. Adding a party buff to Apex arrow like is is in PVP would also be cool, that one may be a logistical issue though.

[Valence]

They are just two BRD players, and they don't speak for everyone.

As someone who misses procs coming from dots, I honestly want the dots gone or at least reduced down to just one dot. They should be replaced with more upfront arrow attacks, and music attacks. What I want them to do with BRD is to take some pages from its PVP version, and give it walking casts on its main GCDs, give it more multi hit attacks like Barraged Refulgent Arrow., and give it a party buff that increases movement speed.

There are a lot of good quality of life changes coming in DT, but still think BRD needs more attention.

Sure, but dots or no dots, the OP does have a point about BRD's pacing since Endwalker. I have mained bard for all 3 tiers of pandaemonium and the pacing is just horrible, very similar to dancer where the only interesting section of the rotation is the burst where you actually have to triage and apply priorities and juggle with procs. The rest of minuet is okay and still engaging because there is still some minor priority management with PP procs and the use of Empyreal, but then you fall into Ballad and it's just spamming bloodletter with not much behind, and then it's immediately into 45s of Army being literally resident sleepers. DNC is similar, the burst is packed (actually more packed than BRD, ironically), but once you're out of burst, it's resident sleepers. MCH is also similar. Not only the song pacing is excruciatingly slow, but the proc pacing is too predictable and while it makes it easier to... well, predict, it also removes a lot of the rng little bursts of procs we used to have, and in terms of feeling it's incredible how different and worse it feels right now. Too regular, doesnt keep you on your toes, doesnt surprise you anymore.

BRD used to have 30s long songs that made you change more often and kept you on your toes, and even though the procs were less predictable they were hectic to manage. I have progged TEA a little on old BRD, and the multi target in BJCC was actually pretty nuts skill wise to execute: extremely frantic. The job was fast paced with some rebreathers in the middle, but not literally occupying 40% of the whole rotational loop. At least I think Ballad is going to be favored again over Army for Dawntrail right? I still find it tedious with the way Bloodletter works (PP is much more enjoyable), but it's still something.

Since the Bloodletter upgrade happens at level 92 that means that all content below that level would still have paeons as the longest song. This actually makes the rotation even more of a mess because your song durations will be different in all content below 92 than it is above 92. Hopefully they will increase the base Bloodletter potency so I can be wrong about this. I agree Paeon needs a rework. They should give us a full bloodletter proc instead of restoring half of its cool down when within Mage's. This would most likely solve the song duration issue.

I personally don't see the problem beyond it being more boring below 92. The whole point of playing bard has always been also being able to adjust song timers, shorten or extend them at will, notably around downtimes.

But I'd rather have a longer Ballad than Army yes.