Evolved BRD ?

[Mikey_R]

It depends on how you construct the the song phases. For example, one of your songs has DOTs on them in evolved, so what if those DOTs were longer than Bard's 60 second burst cycle? Let's use 90 seconds as an example. Then, your fourth song will have a timing that you'll need to fluctuate your other songs around. But we could even take it a step further and have a DOT duration that's less clean, like 105 seconds. Now, your song rotation is still somewhat flexible, but has some aspect of structure that you adapt your rotation around. And if you want to take it even further, let's say you go with 105 seconds. You could then also have a song phase where the actions have higher potency when the target has more than 50 seconds or more remaining on the DOT durations, or when the target has 50 seconds or less, or both even. Maybe you have 5 songs, with the fifth phase being neutral to your DOT.

This is just an example, and you could take it in other directions, but there's a lot you could do to add aspects of structure that take your burst beyond hitting every button and bursting like Summoner and still have a rhythm beyond which phase has the highest potency.

With a long DoT, the only worry is, would it just feel redundant, or just put there to justify having 4 songs.. For a 90 second duration, in a 12 minute fight, you would only use the DoT song 9 times. Others might disagree.

As for doing more damage with a longer duration left, there are 2 scenarios. If it is a damage gain to clip the DoTs early, it will be optimal to do that, which leaves you with the 2 song choices out of 3 to pick from before you have to refresh the DoT. If it is not a gain, it then turns Bard into a build resources and spend in a window job that seems to be what everyone dislikes about the current system. Use DoT, blow everything, wait for the resources to build up again, refresh the DoT and unload again. The same is true if the potency increase was on a lower duration left, it is just, this time, you have to wait 50 seconds before you unleash the arrows. Not

I could fix this if I got a free choice.

So here's my idea for a very song-centric setup:

* You have 9 songs total. They are now called "Stanzas".
* You have 3 buttons dedicated to stanzas.
* Each of those holds a fixed set of 3 of the 9 stanzas, but each "cycle" (begins with a stanza, ends with Perform) the order of stanzas on each button is random. You can only see the first stanza at first, you don't know which will be #2 and #3 on that button until you press it once.
* Each stanza adds an icon to the UI.
* Once you have three (no matter which), you can Perform, which actually creates the buff for the whole group, the effects of which are depending on which 3 stanzas were combined.
* Each of the 9 stanzas also adds a "combat element".
* Combat elements are all identical in total potency. They differ in AoE pattern, in GCD speed, in need or lack of castbar, in utility. Never in damage. So if one stanza gives you a 1.0s GCD chain of 5 shots you can do while moving of 400 potency each then all options you could get for "combat element #1" will be 400 potency/second.

So the idea would be: Select a stanza each and perform over ~10s (4 GCDs, these are all GCDs!). You are in bard-mode right now. After hitting Perform, you go into "archer mode", and your available actions (including replacing the 4 buttons used for stanzas + perform) change depending on stanzas used.

This could be pared down to the 3 songs they've shown, too.

If I understand this correctly, you have 3 Stanza buttons, call them 1, 2 and 3, each one has 3 Stanzas on them, call them A, B and C, then, your buttons start with a random mix of stanzas, say, 1A, 2C, 3A. You press 1A, that moves onto the next random stanza, leaving you with 1C, 2C and 3A. The bit I don't think I quite understand is whether you have to press a different Stanza button (1, 2, 3) or if you can press the same Stanza button per cycle (1A, 1B, 1C) to get effects, even mixing and matching, 1A, 2B, 1C.

It is worth noting that this isn't a solution to the original challenge, which was, you have a free choice of 4 songs, but you only need 3 for a cycle, how do you prevent just the strongest ones from being used. Yes, by making them all the same damage, it doesn't matter, so it is down to the buff that is given, but how much control do you have over that given the RNG nature of how the songs are presented to you. Plus, how many different combinations are wee looking at? Does it matter if I do all from Stanza A or all from Stanza B? If I mix and match, does it matter if I have Stanzas AAB or CBB. With to many combinations, you make it too hard to plan what you get out of it, so noone will really interact with that system, (also, obligatory, 'It's just Ninja Mudras/Monk's Perfect Balance' system, therefore bad comment).

I do admit though, a system where it gives you 3 random songs to use and you have to adapt on the fly could be interesting to play with.going to say it is a bad idea, I just don't think it would turn out that interesting.