FFXIV 2.0 Random Speculation/Question Thread XII: End Of An Era - ASK YOUR QUESTIONS HERE!

[Fayttt]

Am I the only person who's actually really furious with Archer turning into Bard? (I've been aware of this since I quit way back when, but holy fuck, knowing I'm going back to have to willingly go do a quest to turn into a BARD from an ARCHER seriously burns my ass.) And on that note, how relevant are the songs that they sing? I really hope it's not FFXI-esque songs and they at least actually last more than a minute.
Fuck, I thought I was done casting spells and shit so I rolled an archer in 14 after like 5-7 years of RDM in FFXI. NOPE, guess not.
Sorry for the rant. Not very happy about it still. But yeah, are they at least not as high maintenance? i.e. can I actually still just focus on DPS for the most part? At least, how was it like in 1.0? I left a bit before it was introduced and was too busy with classes to worry about going back to XIV.

[Fievel]

Am I the only person who's actually really furious with Archer turning into Bard? (I've been aware of this since I quit way back when, but holy fuck, knowing I'm going back to have to willingly go do a quest to turn into a BARD from an ARCHER seriously burns my ass.) And on that note, how relevant are the songs that they sing? I really hope it's not FFXI-esque songs and they at least actually last more than a minute.
Fuck, I thought I was done casting spells and shit so I rolled an archer in 14 after like 5-7 years of RDM in FFXI. NOPE, guess not.
Sorry for the rant. Not very happy about it still. But yeah, are they at least not as high maintenance? i.e. can I actually still just focus on DPS for the most part? At least, how was it like in 1.0? I left a bit before it was introduced and was too busy with classes to worry about going back to XIV.

You're not the only person mad, but you are just like everybody else in the sense that you're mad because you automatically assume XIV bard = XI bard.

You will take like 10 seconds to sing one song, then you focus on DPS. If anything it just adds value to the job, you're more than JUST a DD, so you'll always be desired.

[Iremire]

Archer / Bard Was the last class i lvld before the servers turned off and it was my favorite job. It's way more interesting that you would assume. Also yeah what Fievel said XIV BRD is no where near XI BRD

[Churchill]

You are mad because you assumed things and their result wasn't what you wanted.

Also, assuming 2.0 follows 1.0, there will be zero situations in group play where you can roll your Archer over your Bard unless you're RP'ing.

[Niiro]

You will take like 10 seconds to sing two songs, then you focus on DPS.

fixd

Songs were 3 sec casting time, add a few seconds used to get from mages to melees.

(eh, for two songs it might have taken up to 15 secs if positioning wasn't easy, you usually threw up a fresh ballad before the fight starts anyway tho)

[Fievel]

fixd

Songs were 3 sec casting time, add a few seconds used to get from mages to melees.

(eh, for two songs it might have taken up to 15 secs if positioning wasn't easy, you usually threw up a fresh ballad before the fight starts anyway tho)

shaddup

Don't correct me!

[gaogaostegosaurus]

I was kinda miffed too (if only because it meant that it wasn't pure support... Like in XI lol), but if you think about it the standard RPG bard seems to be closer to the XIV concept. If anything the XI bard is the anomaly.

[Fayttt]

You are mad because you assumed things and their result wasn't what you wanted.

Also, assuming 2.0 follows 1.0, there will be zero situations in group play where you can roll your Archer over your Bard unless you're RP'ing.

Well, I assumed being an Archer, I would be using a bow and arrow and not a fucking harp. I guess that's a huge leap, though.
And yeah, that's my concern precisely; I can take an educated guess as to how things will go having a class like bard be an attachment onto Archer; that's why I'm upset lol. I'll never get to play Archer. I guess I'll suck it up until NIN comes out eventually.

But oh well, as long as I don't have to sit there singing songs every minute I'll live I guess. Still ticks me off, though.

[Alkar]

Well, I assumed being an Archer, I would be using a bow and arrow and not a fucking harp. I guess that's a huge leap, though.
And yeah, that's my concern precisely; I can take an educated guess as to how things will go having a class like bard be an attachment onto Archer; that's why I'm upset lol. I'll never get to play Archer. I guess I'll suck it up until NIN comes out eventually.

But oh well, as long as I don't have to sit there singing songs every minute I'll live I guess. Still ticks me off, though.

But you don't use an harp as Bard, you still shoot arrows and tons of them. Songs last like 3 mins if it's like 1.0 (more with AF maybe, I don't remember) and aren't really your main thing because you can only have one song effect active at a time.
You're still an Archer but you also have buffs to increase your party's performance. Forget XI's Bard, this new one is simply an Archer with party buffs.
Things are different in ARR but I really can't go into details because NDA. All of the above is from 1.0's version of Bard.
I guess the point is: if you think Bard is a dedicated buffer job like in XI you're wrong and should really give it a try before writing it off completely.

[Evane]

Well, I assumed being an Archer, I would be using a bow and arrow and not a fucking harp. I guess that's a huge leap, though.
And yeah, that's my concern precisely; I can take an educated guess as to how things will go having a class like bard be an attachment onto Archer; that's why I'm upset lol. I'll never get to play Archer. I guess I'll suck it up until NIN comes out eventually.

But oh well, as long as I don't have to sit there singing songs every minute I'll live I guess. Still ticks me off, though.

Please, I'm begging you! Give Bard a chance. Don't turn your back away so quickly! I was like you once, waiting for the devs to reintroduce Mime again into an FF game when a Dunesfolk, female Lalafell Bard ran past me heading to the Sapphire Avenue Exchange with her white shirt and pants of blue and red. From that moment I was forever changed.

Your support to the Bard job means a lot to us, Bards of Eorzea, so please don't write us off.

[Gulkeeva]

From my experience... I must say bard isn't bad, and I can't say a lot NDA etc etc , gotta love the rape power... RRAAAPPPPEEE (especially when a boss looks at me from poking it...)

[Katlan]

From my experience... I must say bard isn't bad, and I can't say a lot NDA etc etc , gotta love the rape power... RRAAAPPPPEEE (especially when a boss looks at me from poking it...)

All your experience from bard is 1.0... is that NDA'd now?

[Madeline]

BRD DPS was fairly horrid compared to everything else in 1.0. I can't imagine him talking about that lol.

[Pyree]

Well, the BRD skill descriptions for the songs are in the beta game files, people have data mined them. I believe sharing info gathered from those may still break the NDA. But I'll just say that, currently, it doesn't look like you'll be spending a lot of time at all playing songs. Pretty sure they'll primarily get to DPS, but they probably won't see big numbers like other DPS classes since a portion of their contribution to the party is their songs.

[Alkar]

Well, the BRD skill descriptions for the songs are in the beta game files, people have data mined them. I believe sharing info gathered from those may still break the NDA. But I'll just say that, currently, it doesn't look like you'll be spending a lot of time at all playing songs. Pretty sure they'll primarily get to DPS, but they probably won't see big numbers like other DPS classes since a portion of their contribution to the party is their songs.

Yes it still breaks the NDA and those may change anyway so until Phase 3 we won't really know for sure (assuming the level 50s have access to jobs). There are also other details but until they lift NDA we'll have to wait. It's gonna happen soon.

[Niiro]

BRD DPS was fairly horrid compared to everything else in 1.0. I can't imagine him talking about that lol.

They weren't nearly as bad as a lot of people thought. So many ran around in full AF using ghetto arrows and trying to play support (which outside of the occasional AoE Stoneskin was a massive waste of time) more than DPS and it kinda hurt their image.

That said, their damage wasn't supposed to stack up to other pure DDs, they had the advantages of mobility and range (as well as combo requirements that were very hard to fuck up) in addition to their songs.

[niwaar]

Im sitting here reading all this stuff about BRD, but I guess I am just confused as to what the job was actually supposed to do in 1.0. Was BRD a support class? Was it a damage class? You guys are talking about "trying to play support" but doing it was a waste of time. So it sounds more and more like it was designed to be a buffer class with damage. Sounds more like it was more akin to XI Corsair than it was to XI Bard. Cast a couple of buffs and then go to town shooting until it was time to recast? Or were your combos more about debuffing or buffing than doing any real throughput in terms of damage?

[Grey Jorildyn]

They weren't nearly as bad as a lot of people thought. So many ran around in full AF using ghetto arrows and trying to play support (which outside of the occasional AoE Stoneskin was a massive waste of time) more than DPS and it kinda hurt their image.

That said, their damage wasn't supposed to stack up to other pure DDs, they had the advantages of mobility and range (as well as combo requirements that were very hard to fuck up) in addition to their songs.

The damage definitely wasn't supposed to stack up to the others and it was a trade-off from more than just songs. For those that didn't play 1.0--jobs were paired with two others classes to draw abilities from. BRD got CNJ and THM "subjobs", two mage classes. The intention was to allow them to play a support role as needed, but their cross-class abilities were heavily under-used by comparison to other classes in terms of frequency of use. Sacred Prism (next spell AoE) didn't fulfill the same niche purpose on BRD as it did on WHM due to WHM having Regen. Stoneskin wasn't considered an amazing spell but it was useful in a few situations coming from a BRD, just like Sanguine Rite was when cast by a BRD on a party of BLMs or cure to save the day. What it in turn made was a BRD that was very jack-of-all trades. Its high mobility lent well to the same situations as it did in XI for instances and it was able to actually deal damage.

Im sitting here reading all this stuff about BRD, but I guess I am just confused as to what the job was actually supposed to do in 1.0. Was BRD a support class? Was it a damage class? You guys are talking about "trying to play support" but doing it was a waste of time. So it sounds more and more like it was designed to be a buffer class with damage. Sounds more like it was more akin to XI Corsair than it was to XI Bard. Cast a couple of buffs and then go to town shooting until it was time to recast? Or were your combos more about debuffing or buffing than doing any real throughput in terms of damage?

I've basically answered your question above. To understand BRD though, you'd have to watch BRD videos from 1.0. In every instance, BRD had a different "support" role. It was far more flexible and outgoing than any other job in the game. In Aurum Vale, for example, BRD was a chest-grabber (it helped fulfill one of the requirements for 5-chest runs), a swiftsonger (movement speed), and a ballad box, plus a DPS all-in-one. In Cutter's Cry it was all of those, but dropped Stoneskins here and there when time allowed and spent less time getting chests and more time keeping Ballad up while DPS'ing. In Garuda battle, BRD was a clutch DPS because of its AoE ability Rain of Death (which also had a chance to stun but was on a long recast). That instance was one of the few where two BRDs were utilized with good efficiency.

To understand BRD you have to think a bit wider than with most other jobs. There wasn't exactly a lot of variety in its subjob loadouts, but how those abilities were utilized mattered greatly. It allowed for variation in strategies here and there. BRD was a game-changing job; a DPS that could hold its own, and a support class that wasn't time-consuming to play like XI's BRD. The difference between a good BRD and a bad BRD was huge.

[solracht]

BRD DPS was fairly horrid compared to everything else in 1.0. I can't imagine him talking about that lol.

This is why some people are/were pissed about ARC->BRD. They rolled this class to kill things and top meters (like LNC and PUG people did, I'd wager), and now they find themselves with a job that will never be able to compete with real DPSers (rightfully so since they have buffs). Not sure why it's hard to understand or unexpected, I'm convinced people would be whining too if GLA had ended up being a healer or PUG a buffer.

Either way pretty sure Gulk is talking about ARR ARC up to level35. Not sure why that's relevant though.

[niwaar]

I've basically answered your question above. To understand BRD though, you'd have to watch BRD videos from 1.0. In every instance, BRD had a different "support" role.

Thanks for that answer. It was exactly what I was looking for. My first main job in XI was BRD. When BRD's paradigm shifted in later expansions I shifted my focus to NIN and RDM, then to SMN and SCH. I was looking for a real pure support class, but I guess there simply is only WHM/CNJ in this iteration of the game. I am still saddened by the lack of casting/ranged job/classes that will be at launch. I am really looking forward to seeing what they do with ARC/SMN at launch. I am still hoping we will see a 9th class/job enter the fray as a surprise addition. Either SCT/THF or another caster. Hell I'd take Fencer/Red but give us another caster please!