It’s no secret that the Bard class needs some major fixes. Bards have been the brunt of most class jokes for a while now, and in many raid groups, being asked to go Bard for the evening almost seems like a punishment. None of the other support souls have this negative connotation surrounding them. What gives?
A lot of things, according to most players. The Bard’s lack of scaling, lack of interesting abilities, and extreme repetition rank among the important issues that need to be addressed. With patch 1.9 around the corner, many hoped that Trion would finally begin an overhaul of the Bard soul. In hopes of that overhaul, the community has created this thread on the official PTS forum.
The thread contains some good ideas and suggestions for reworking the Bard soul, making it a support role that more players enjoy. Here’s what some players are saying:
“The problem I have with bards not scaling is that it causes the bard role to be too often forced upon whichever rogue has the worst gear, or whichever does the lowest dps, and it is against a guilds best interest to gear up their bard in the same way they do their other rogues. If they made bard abilities scale even a little bit, it would greatly benefit a guild to gear up their bard. I was very happy to hear about a bard-specific sword in ID but one item isn’t enough to make a bard feel like their doing all they can, gear-wise, to be the best bard that they can be.”
“Fanfares:
Reduction of their casting would be a great benefit to raids, specially on progress bosses where a lot of people die due to mechanics. Imho Fanfares should be one 3second cast ability now, because they all stack together unlike in the past. A Fanfare where all stats are increased by 52 for 1h, so that the entire flute song can be kept.Cleanse:
Coda/verse of Purity would be a great name for a Cleansing ability. Have the Coda hit 5 people, have the Verse hit 20 people on a 1 min cooldown when in panic can be used.Motifs:
Motifs are scaling pretty badly now, and half of them are overwritten… …make them Bard unique based only (like Fanfares cannot be overwritten) and % based that the ap/sp/crit increase remains a big dps/hps boost. Motif of Regeneration have it scale much better with Attack Power.”
Most players agree on a few changes: scaling needs to be added, Cadence needs a longer range, Motifs need an adjustment (whether it be a consolidation of some of them, or a new mechanic that changes how they are used), a cleanse would be nice, and Trion also needs to look at which buffs and debuffs get overwritten. There’s always the option of providing Bard with better synergy paired with other souls, too.
There are a lot of creative ways in which Trion could address the Bard. But, the question is– When will they?
Check out the rest of the ideas here, and feel free to add your own. The more players that speak their mind about the state of the Bard, the higher our chances are of Trion finally making changes.
