How Would You Fix Bard?

This applies mostly to non-aeonic bards. R/E (I guess mythic is "optional", but if you have 99 harp, you probably have Carnwenhan).

It applies to the NQ three song bards too. They don't belong at high-tier content more than Dunna GEOs but they could use a buff so they're more relevant in more casual content.

I should say up front that I don't play Bard. I had fun pulling in Delve trash burns a {Long time} ago. I had skill cap, and a collection of instruments, but I just like getting hit, tbh.

As we all know, Bard requires Relic and Empy (should have mythic) to ever be worthwhile for anything. People have given uses to non-RME bards but this is usually more a courtesy or desperation than want for the job.

Bard does have a few mechanical strengths over GEO (it actually does have a few, like mobility, variety of buffs to different people, no dependence on mp, unique sleep).

One of Bard's (and COR's) mechanical advantages is also one of its weaknesses. Pre-fight readiness, meaning that it can and usually is (a mule) dropped before the fight is started.

Likewise, GEO has a few mechanical strengths over Bard (undispellable, easy upkeep, can help nuke/debuff in the right content). The potency and practicality of buffs are why GEO outclasses Bard.

Fury / Frailty, like COR's Chaos Roll, being percentage based should scale just fine to the end of time. While Acumen, like Wizard's roll, is a fixed bonus to Magic Attack, Malaise essentially causes your gear, acumen, and certain other buffs to scale in potency.

Bard's buffs, beyond outdated skill caps, and gear enhancements, don't naturally scale. SE must routinely find a cap that neither makes the job OP or undervalued. (kidding, they just ignore it).

I'm not asking for Bard's buffs to convert to %. Percent buffs are added together for a cumulative increase. Static buffs increase the potency of the percentage buff. The two play together nicely.

(Base + Minuet + Minuet) * (Chaos% + Fury% + Berserk%) for instance.

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One potential fix that would have gone a long way for the job is 1200 being Honor March, but it's too late for that. The 100 could have been something comparable for mages (Spell Haste, mAtt, mAcc).

This alone would not have fixed Bard. Scaling of at least some songs needs looked at.

It adds insult to injury that Bards are required to get another weapon to be relevant.

I have no real horse in this race, I don't like playing GEO or BRD and I don't like guns and dice.

In my honest opinion, nerfing GEO is not a practical answer. It makes the ascension fights harder for people that need the help, and harder on everyone else. GEO's buffs are powerful, but the content is framed around having them, like just content was designed around having Bard prior to that.

Amnesia song

Boom!

God the '90s were weird. Unfortunately, I remember.

Haha, a dispel-protection (not immunity) song could be cool, but not game changing.

A song that flat reduced the duration of status-ailments would be awesome. And then it would have to be emergency-maintenanced because it also lowered the duration of Doom.

Turn them into castrato. That ought to fix em.

Anything that fixes Bard has to either require near-continuous reapplication or be a debuff. Otherwise people will stick to 10 minute songs + drop&pop.

Minuet: Attack % instead of Attack+

Madrigal/Prelude: Combine into one song, otherwise is fine

March: Give flurry effect

Etudes: Combine T1/T2 into 1 song to make it roughly as potent as Dunna Indi-Stat buffs.

Mambo: Add M. Eva effect

Minne: Add M. Def effect

Add: Songs that have more unique effects, like COR rolls (although not necessarily the same effect as COR rolls to avoid overlap)

also make songs undispellable

also make song effect wear off if the BRD drops (if it gets buffed)

Making SV and Clarion a 15 min JA would be a good start

I second this

Maybe not SV, but I think Marcato being changed to last for x amount of seconds rather than 1 song would be a massive improvement


edit: Remembered another buff, just combine all the status ailment resistance songs into 1 song that gives some % of resistance boost to all ailments. When was the last time someone used Scop's Opretta or Goblin Gavotte???

How easy do you want this game? If they made these changes litreally GEO and COR would be useless.

Other than under the protection of a dispel-resistance song (which should protect all buffs, or maybe have two tiers so you can decide), only SV songs should be undispellable.

I'm fully behind COR rolls being undispellable because timers, all that luck stuff.

Sure, GEO bubbles are undispellable but they can die (as can the GEO), and they cost a resource, which songs do not.

Maybe introduce new types of instruments... err revise them:
Brass | String | Woodwind | Percussion | Keyboard

A Bard should be able to play a Lute and bang on a drum (Rally Ho!) ... hehe...

also a xylophone would be pretty neat. ^^

In addition to new instruments of stringed and wind types... maybe make some new songs with unique effects.

Perhaps a new job ability or two... "Rhythm" and something else... um...

I can't think of a way to "fix" BRD that's gonna be:
1) Effective
2) Won't make BRD too OP
3) Won't be too complex for Devs

I really can't :x


Some things that come to mind
1) Make Madrigal affect Ranged Accuracy too
2) Use Preludes for a different purpose (that way we can get another buff without Devs having to find space for another song). Purpose could be anything really, possibly something magey. Doesn't have to be OP
3) Buff Etudes and especially buff Threnodies
4) Do something to make the whole mechanism of dispel less of a trouble for BRDs, especially RMEAs ones who have to go through the effort of doing "fakes" every time someone gets dispelled (or dies, etc)
5) Make so Buffs disappear when you pop a Geas Fete NM (or an Unity NM). This isn't a direct fix to BRD, but I think it could provide a small incentive into bringing BRDs inside the alliances and not just as prebuff dualboxed toons
6) We handled Threnodies above, but having another useful debuff to cast on targets would be very welcome. Nocturne II? Or something else completely.

I suggested that long ago.
SV songs undispellable, or arguably NiTro songs undispellable! /drool


Songs cost "time", especially when you have to cast 5 songs on multiple pts and then pianissimo something else on tanks or mages etc, that takes time! Effort! Coordination! Something GEOs do not have to worry about.
I'm not sure why nobody ever considers that :P

Matsui here!
We've heard many complaints about Bards - in the future we will be implementing the following changes:
Tier 3 Carols
Please look forward to it

Matsui why do you look like a bear and what are you doing to that... oh nvm :3

I mean, not really? Chaos Roll, Fury are already functions of attack, and are incredibly potent. Chaos Roll with Barataria Ring and a DRK is Attack +55%, Fury is 43%, and Frailty is OP as ***.

Precision, Torpor, Hunter's Roll all affect both types of accuracy.

Giving March a flurry effect might be a little bit excessive since COR and GEO don't get a buff that combine the 2.

Idris stat+ is +45, where as combining T1/2 is +32 with the best possible gear.

Vex/Attune give insane amounts of M. Eva, evasion is a fairly useless stat. Magus Roll gives huge amounts of M. Def (like +40). It wouldn't have to be high amounts of M. Eva/M. Def from songs, but at least some sort of incentive to use defensive buffs on BRD. The only songs worth singing on a PLD are ballad/march/scherzo, everything else sucks.

GEO still gets M. Acc, M. Atk, MDEF-, MEva-, Def-, Eva- etc. all with greater potency than BRD. COR gets unique buffs like DA+, Crit+, STP+. The goal should be to move away from having to use Chaos Roll/Hunters etc and use CORs more unique buffs, and not have to double up on the same type of buff with GEO (i.e. using Atk+ and Def-)

Not if they make so all (or most) buffs are lost when you pop a Geas Fete/Unity NM.

Altough that aspect alone wouldn't be enough to make BRD into something "more" than just a prebuff dualboxed toon.
But, in conjunction with other core adjustments, it could offer additional motivation to bring a BRD into the alliance!

So SV'd songs not dispellable and...

Soldier's Rhapsody
Greatly enhances resistance to dispel and absorption for all buffs.

Bard's Rhapsody
Grants immunity to dispel and absorption for bard songs.
Or maybe just more resistance?

Would be pretty neat. It's fine if they stack.

Then, dispel is a weakness to Bard, but they can get around by sacrificing some of their overall potency.

Step one: Turn all of the +song duration gear into a new stat, called whatever musical reference you like - let's call it "Harmony" for now.

Step two: give BRD dual hasso/seigan like modes:
- One that uses Harmony as song duration+, like currently exists, so current tactics aren't disrupted
- One that uses Harmony as song potency/accuracy, but allowing no extensions on time (120 seconds, period)

This lets current mule BRDs still work as expected, so people who have built mules with harps/carns/etc don't lose all that effort, while still allowing people who want to play BRD on their main have a chance to do so.

The thing is, we use BRD often for the content we do, but not every BRD in our LS is selected for that role. Sure BRD's are used for pre-buffs and the like, but with melee strats becoming more and more viable (and in our case, the norm), players who have taken the necessary time, effort and energy into building a high quality BRD (REMA) are indeed getting used often (beyond just pre-buffs).

Certain things are unavoidable - like having a BRD with the appropriate sleep song duration, number of songs and what not.

If you're a player (generally speaking) not really interested in end game or the highest level content available right now then there are ways to play the job without all the bells and whistles. Perception is everything, though, and unfortunately those that have are usually invited over those without.

It doesn't make it right, but it is what it is. :S

Why would people want nerfing the job as a solution to buff and drop.

If cor and brd buff wear off after dropping the pt the future endgame melee pt would look like this

Tank geo geo WHM
DD DD DD COR BRD GEO

Instead of this
Tank geo geo whm (brd cor if not using mule)
DD DD DD DD DD GEO

As you can see, DD pt now only has slot for 3 DD instead of 5, and tank pt no longer gets defensive rolls. That's difficulty increase for everyone because Alliance output decreased.

The best solution to fix buff and drop is to make buff depop after content started, or remove hp scaling in future content.

I guess, I kinda just hurriedly made it up lul

Always funny that a person who spends upwards to $60 a month talks about not making things easier... lol

back on topic - GEO and COR will always have uses... god forbid brd actually had a foot to stand on...

Make BRD not count towards mob HP. No need to drop your mules!

The inspiration for this thread is a parallel discussion on the official forums where one rather-stubborn person is insisting that Bard is more or less fine. I don't know if they're trolling, only looking at the value of an Aeonic Bard in melee-oriented fights, or just unaware.

On the topic of bard buffs disappear if they drop, that's pretty silly. GEO buffs the alliance by debuffing the boss (malaise, languor, torpor, vex, etc). Bard and Corsair buff the alliance by eating dinner at everyone's house and takes not-insigniBUST not-insignificant time to do this.

On the idea of buffs disappearing when popping, this could work if the fight timer was extended by 2-3 minutes and the boss didn't agro til engaged. This has the advantage of not using Soul Voice, doing all the prep and then finding out so-and-so forgot lens.

Leave runes, reraise, and stances (solace, light arts, hasso, etc) intact but dispel everything else. Or just dispel songs/rolls. This just turns UNM and lens fights into every other battlefield in the game.

Add song that reduce mob defense%, then you fix both attack and can't drop brd before the fight.

The problem is that it seems SE already stated that there won't be new magics, so RIP brd.

And I love brd, but that mule Just stored his instrument, grabbed a staff and started to Skillchain stuffs.