MMOs have long since stopped catering to gameplay styles that affect the flow of a battle. No more meticulous management of buffs, debuffs, crowd control, or area denial. All of that is secondary or tertiary. All that matters now is damage. Damage dealt, damage prevented, damage healed. The “Support” role no longer exists in the MMO space.
Final Fantasy 14 has them and you can play your own music, create your own concerts if you want. Go nuts!
Eh, they have an Archer DPS class with a lute that they call a Bard with some token support abilities, but it’s not really a Bard in the RPG sense.
It plays music, sings songs, goes on adventures, and casts magic. It’s a bard.
In that case, LOTRO, then. Lord of the Rings has a minstrel.
Bard is a loaded term. It comes with both the fantasy and the mechanics. And the fantasy is the easy part to get down. MMOs today just don’t have dedicated support mechanics anymore.
It would be like a Warrior throwing axes at people to heal them. It might look like a Warrior. It might be themed like a Warrior. It might use the weapons of a Warrior. But it wouldn’t be a Warrior.
The same goes for a Priest class that is unable to heal, or a Mage that doesn’t deal damage. A Bard that is unable to primarily support is not truly a Bard, no matter how dressed up it is to match the theme.
But yeah, Minstrel is a much better realization of the class than FFXIV’s Bard or whatever abomination WoW’s Bard would be. The games just don’t support the role.
That sounds a lot like splitting hairs, but I do agree WoW’s bard would probably be a cop-out which had neither music, singing, or any elegance.
If you’ve never played a dedicated support class, I can see how you might view it as splitting hairs. But if you’ve played RPGs that had a few more corners than the trinity? The absence is very present.
Particularly as a fellow Shaman - surely you’ve felt the lack of mechanical identity we’ve had since they took away our support focus?
World of warcraft rejects the bards need to turn the world into world of lovecraft.
There is no room for bards in the war zone!
(no bards please.)
No room for any classes other than Warriors and Warlocks, in that case.
Both of us better get out of the warzone.
HA! Jokes on you, I’m a holy Warrior! Paladin is just short for that!
No room for spirituality of any kind! Get out of the warzone!
The crusade must continue on!
Yeah we all know that war has never involved music. War drummers, flute players, USO shows…all nonsense.
…Kodos with drums on them…nope…
this isn’t some hippy civil war world, this is warcraft!
Hahaha, fair enough!
I don’t even think WoW’s sound design could support dynamic music anyway.
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Arthas! Get out of the warzone! You aren’t WarCraft enough for Greatbrae!
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more like fakethas
I see you there, ETC! Out of the warzone!
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good thing this isn’t heroes of the storm!
Whoops! Sorry guys, time to get out of the warzone! You seem to have accidentally wandered in from the Nexus! You aren’t allowed in WarCraft!
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