Alright, so there have been debates on here before about the aesthetic identity of Bard. This is a job that's trying be two things at once: an archer and a musician. Some are happy with the mix while others are frustrated with it's lack of commitment to a dedicated archer or musician aesthetic, but I think there's a very easy solution that we've been overlooking.
In a similar vein to Summoner's Egi Glamour, why don't we simply add a feature called Action Glamour? Several jobs feature actions that, when learned, directly replace existing ones. A great example is with the healers' DPS actions: Stone, Stone II, Stone III, Stone IV, and Glare being one "tree" of a single action. Bard has this in the form of Heavy Shot and Burst Shot.
One thing that could be done is replace Heavy Shot's visuals with Burst Shot at level 1, then change the level 76 action from Burst Shot to a musical attack, but provide players with the option to select which of the animations they'd like to use. You could also make it so that your glamoured action animation will stay even when you sync to a lower level. The damage and effects will reduce to what they're supposed to be, but it will still look like you're using a musical attack if you have it glamoured to stay that way.
Right now, there aren't a ton of applications to this for Bard, but it seems like having a direct upgrade for other actions like Bloodletter, Rain of Death, Empyreal Arrow, etc aren't out of the cards.
With this setup, everyone wins because you'll be able to choose what kind of aesthetics you want to use without impacting your performance in any way.
Continue reading...
In a similar vein to Summoner's Egi Glamour, why don't we simply add a feature called Action Glamour? Several jobs feature actions that, when learned, directly replace existing ones. A great example is with the healers' DPS actions: Stone, Stone II, Stone III, Stone IV, and Glare being one "tree" of a single action. Bard has this in the form of Heavy Shot and Burst Shot.
One thing that could be done is replace Heavy Shot's visuals with Burst Shot at level 1, then change the level 76 action from Burst Shot to a musical attack, but provide players with the option to select which of the animations they'd like to use. You could also make it so that your glamoured action animation will stay even when you sync to a lower level. The damage and effects will reduce to what they're supposed to be, but it will still look like you're using a musical attack if you have it glamoured to stay that way.
Right now, there aren't a ton of applications to this for Bard, but it seems like having a direct upgrade for other actions like Bloodletter, Rain of Death, Empyreal Arrow, etc aren't out of the cards.
With this setup, everyone wins because you'll be able to choose what kind of aesthetics you want to use without impacting your performance in any way.
Continue reading...