The bard talent is pretty bad. Not in terms of power, in that regard it's extremely strong, but it has two main problems as I see it. Firstly, it's not really possible to play as a bard. You spend 2 seconds playing a song and then there's no real bard gameplay for the next minute or 2. Secondly, some of the skills seem completely out of balance. Lullaby and Battlefield Overture are two main examples. There are other minor issues too like the fact that having a second bard is literally worthless since the worse bard will only ever overwrite the good bards' buffs.
Here are some changes I'd make to fix these issues and hopefully make it enjoyable to be a bard. Most of the numbers suggested here should be taken with a boulder of salt. They would require playtesting before finalisation, but they should roughly show what the changes are going for.
1 Flow (new system)
Flow is a new mechanic that applies when using a microphone or musical instruments. Whenever flow is triggered by a music skill, the duration of any music buff currently applied to the player is reset. For example, if a player uses enduring melody, waits 5 seconds then triggers flow, the effect will end 15 seconds after it started as opposed to 10. Also, when flow is triggered, the user gains a flow charge up to a maximum of 10. The charges expire if flow is not reapplied within 15 seconds.
Each bard has their own flow; it is not a party-wide system like bachram boost.
2 Battlefield Overture
Battlefield Overture now lasts for 5 seconds at all ranks and has 30 second cooldown. The aim of this is to make players actually think about when to use it and when not to.
Instead of boosting max/min damage on the character sheet, a percentage increase is applied to all damage dealt including magic/alchemy damage. This increase will be smaller than it currently is (around 15% at r1 if no other buffs are applied). Damage received will increase by the same amount.
Now adds a flow charge.
3 Enduring Melody
Enduring Melody now lasts for 10 seconds and has a 30 second cooldown. All effects from enduring melody will be reduced. Enduring melody now adds a flow charge.
4 Vivace
Vivace now lasts for 10 seconds and has a 30 second cooldown. The attack speed boost from vivace will be reduced. Now adds a flow charge.
5 March Song
March song's speed boost will be reduced. Now adds a flow charge
6 Harvest Song
Harvest song's base gathering speed increase will be reduced.
7 Playing Instrument
The playing instrument skill effect will be increased significantly (e.g. from 15% to ~45%). Playing instrument's effect will no longer apply when not playing an instrument. This should offset the reduced effects for many of the music skills, but only if an instrument or microphone is in use.
8 Deceptive Cadence (new skill)
This skill requires an instrument or microphone to use. It occurs instantly and stuns every enemy in a range of 2000 for 0.1 seconds and cancel any charged skills. This is meant to act as an interruption to many enemies rather than a "real stun". The stun + cancel applies to all enemies, but the same enemy cannot be interrupted again for 20 seconds. This adds a flow charge.
9 Crescendo (new skill)
Consumes all of a player's flow and deals damage to all enemies in a conical area in front of the player. Targets take 100 - 1000% damage and are stunned for 0.3 - 3.0 seconds based on the number of flow charges consumed.
10 Dischord
Dischord now adds a flow charge.
11 Lullaby
Lullaby now adds a flow charge.
Lullaby now needs to be maintained; once it stops being played, all monsters wake up.
Lullaby's success rate is increased to 90% but if an enemy fails to sleep, they will never sleep.
The duration of lullaby can no longer extend beyond 20 seconds under any circumstances. At this point the player stops using the skill at it goes into cooldown.
Sleep duration now takes target CP into account (the specifics of how this should scale need consideration, but higher CP enemies should wake up faster).
The cooldown is now increased to 40 seconds.
12 Musical knowledge
Musical knowledge no longer activates at random. Instead, it is linked to flow. Using a musical skill with 4-7 flow triggers an excellent performance, and 8-10 triggers an inspiring performance. If the same song is being maintained, it is automatically upgraded to the next tier when flow hits 4 or 7.
13 All skills
Once a buff has been applied, the player stops playing the song. I'm not sure why they keep playing right now since anyone who was out of range when a buff starts cannot receive it from any of the subsequent autoplays.
Any music buff skill and lullaby can now trigger magical music.
The music buff duration bonus (provided by the music talent, reforges, etc.) will have its effect reduced by 90% however, it will apply to how long a flow can be maintained.
It is now possible to be affected by multiple music buffs at once, if each buff comes from a different player. When two players give the same buff, the most recently applied buff is taken (i.e. you cannot have two battlefield overtures a once but you could have overture from bard A while bard b gives vivace to the same party).
Since many skills are now much less spammable and excellent/inspiring performances have changed, most training requirements will change to match.
Skill specific duration reforges will be adjusted so they're still proportionally about as good as they are now (i.e. a reforge that gives a 20% duration boost now would give a 20% boost if these changes were made).
The playing instrument changes and the new flow mechanic should both encourage players to be dedicated bards. This should increase the gap between someone who quickly sings overture whenever it runs out and someone who decides they want to primarily be a bard. Having players actively maintain their buffs should give bard mains something to actually do between recasts and the ability to keep an inspiring performance going or eventually lose flow for a large amount of damage acts as the reward for doing this.
Battlefield overture is made deliberately impossible for one bard to maintain by using flow. This should encourage players to use other buffs and think about when it's time to use overture. Ideally, people would be considering if it's worth using straight away of whether they should use other buffs until they have enough flow for an inspiring performance. Or maybe they try to save it to coincide with some of their party's hardest hitting moves. Beyond that, using it now carries a risk. The point is that using overture should be a decision from a bard figuring out what's best for their party, not the default state when running anything where enemies don't die instantly.
Lullaby is a mess currently. Enemies are either completely immune or can be put to sleep for upwards of 2 minutes with about a second of work from a player. A skill that is so powerful it has to be balanced by being made unusable seems like a bad idea. The goal here is to require some commitment to keep enemies asleep while limiting it's power against stronger enemies to a point where it doesn't have to be outright blocked.
Harvest song was deliberately left mostly unchanged since it works fine as is and dance of death was ignored because I'm not even sure why that skill exists.
All in all, this should make bard a reasonable primary talent, curb some of the damage creep (though not a lot to be honest) and create a few fun new mechanics to play with.
