Please boost BRD to make it competitive again

[OmnysValefor]

"You're right, good thing that has nothing to do with why I said what I said, and as in other threads, you tend to purposefully try to misinterpret the other person to make your own position stronger whether you do it through red herring, strawman, or just good old cherry picking all of it has the same effect, it makes it a lot less worthwhile to reply."

Actually, I tend to debate posts as a whole. Here in this this thread, I dissected one of your extremely long posts, agreed with some of it, and disagreed with other parts. I did cut off the end as I had nothing left to reply to.

"It leads to running around in circles accomplishing nothing. You're clearly set on your views which I won't hold against you, and I won't hold this against you either but you have less game knowledge and experience than me and while I tend to not discount people on that alone, it goes miles further for stating your perspective if you can admit as much."

Less? That's likely. Enough less that it matters? Probably not. One of the things I've stood by is the disparity in what's required to be a good geomancer and what's required to be a good bard.

"I've said my view and answers to things like why 2.5 bubbles already (only 2 is geomancy enhanced, and entrust isn't up full time)."

Okay.

"What you're doing will only get emotional upvotes from people that already share your view,"

Only? No. But yes, some of it. And that's true on both sides. There are a few knowledgeable people that still come to these forums but most stay away, or have been banned. I admit when I haven't played a job, or it's been so long that my opinion may be faulty. I admit my experience.

Support, however, isn't really something you have to play (though I do play GEO and have played Bard) to understand their weaknesses and their strengths because what they do is for the rest of the party. Especially when you know the player playing it.

"For example all you said in your post had some truth to it, but you purposefully left out context, weights and amounts which purposefully paints a false picture, to a smart outside observer this lends your posts less weight not more, and though it can be effective at swaying people that don't care about the integrity of the argument or getting agreements from those who already agree with you,"

I know and have known that a threnody is more potent than Focus or Languor, and can be both. I also know/have known that it's seldom just one element that applies to the boss. I suppose Dark Threnody would be nice on Maju but if the Bard doesn't have Aeonic, you're probably better bringing second a second GEO (for a melee kill). If you're only bringing one buffer, you're definitely better bringing a GEO. Enfeebles aren't usually critical to fights anymore. Blind or not, Maju's still going to hit the tank or his shadows (of course, that's not why you blind Maju). As for nuking, if a group's mages are appropriately geared to the content, bursting is not usually an issue, coupled with the inherent m.acc boost on bursts.

You don't paralyze meteor anymore, you vex/attune it.

"it's not a worthwhile discussion. What my comment said and was stated to mean is comparing a part of what BRD does to all of what GEO does, and that is the branded comparison made everywhere, is not an intelligent conversation or a good place to talk about design or balance."

That may well have been what you intended it to mean but it didn't come across well. You seemed to be discounting the entire discussion because you disapprove of the stance. I gave you a long reply and you replied with a few words.

Balance, as you know, doesn't just matter at the very-top or even the higher up rank. Bard and Geomancer will never be completely interchangeable (at least I hope not), but it would be nice to see Bard at any decent level of gear more practical.

Would you advise a new person playing the game to pick Bard or Geomancer if the choice was between the two? I know I'd tell them Geomancer, because they'll have immediate use in any group they're part of (well, once they have JSE gear and Dunna).

And hey, like I said, if SE is fine with where Bard is at, just explain that position (please). Bard has remained unchanged, with the exception of another difficult/expensive/tedious to obtain necessary weapon. I think the community, as a whole, might have a different stance on bard if Honor March was part of JP. I get that melee burns love their aeonic bards, and for obvious reasons.

Edit: The irony is that the weapon is necessary to make bard 'relevant' more often, it's not necessary to get the first wave of kills on presently the hardest content in the game. It can't be, because that's how you obtain it.

Send me a message on FFXIAH, if you like

[Zhronne]

I don't know if SE refuse to buff BRD is because they're worried about people stacking BRD+GEO in endgame accomplishing higher DPS output than T4 difficulty should be.

I hardly think that's the case, even without taking into account the frequent dispelga mechanics.
What can BRD provide to a melee setup? Attack, Accuracy, Haste. Arguably single stats but the amounts are really small unless you SV them. (and it takes two slots out of teh 4-5 available for songs)

Haste is usually irrelevant and even when it is an entrusted indihaste takes care of that for a zerg setup.
With Idris using Bolster you can easily cap attack without minuet.
Now accuracy is a different story and I can see madrigals/honor being useful, if only to free up other buffers so they can use stuff other than acc buffs.


But I don't think we can call that something SE should be scared of. There's hardly anything BRD can provide atm in a world where every organized group has at least an Idris GEO =/
Buffing BRD somehow (make so SV/Nitro songs can't be dispelled, powering up minuets or something) wouldn't make BRD+GEO too scary, if anything it would just make BRD a valid alternative to GEO, and that's it.

[Zhronne]

I don't want geo nerfed, I just want bard to be buffed a bit so it's a closer thing.

I don't want GEO nerfed either, it's way too late. If they wanted to nerf GEO they had to do it years ago, not now. (GEO has been already hiddenly nerfed in Master Battles anyway).

To be fair COR would need a buff too, but less than BRD.
COR has the same problem as BRD with dispel mechanics, and they have a harder time than BRD in overwriting buffs, plus they don't have the versatility BRD have (but slightly more than GEO).
COR can provide some DPS (in some content it's quite an useful DPS), can boost next spell cast on a target, has scaling, powerful buffs (not as much as GEO but better than BRD) and last but not least has a plethora of pretty unique buffs.
So... COR situation isn't ideal either, but it's in a much better place than BRD.

And it's no surprise, you still see CORs being used for rotations and utility (random deal etc), yet how often do you see that happening with BRD? Exactely

[Zhronne]

Something that would put BRD in a better spot, even if no new songs were added, would be to simply adjust the skill caps and have them scale to 900 combined skill. As it stands a level 99 BRD can cap all song skill caps naked without any job points, unless I'm mistaken. Since I don't think it was ever adjusted from level 75.

There are songs added after 75 cap, but yeah pretty much you can cap every song (except maybe scherzo?) without skill gear. Except for range, of course, can't cap that on the post 75 songs.
Not sure this would be a good solution though. Atm BRD midcasts with Song duration gear. Forcing them to choose between duration and potency would be a bit harsh and quite annoying honestly.

Another option would be to actually make Instruments upgradable to iLvl 119 allowing the addition of bonuses like Song +, adding a special song for each instrument (not just Aeonic, etc... along those lines.

No, please no.
I have every BRD legendary weapon so I'm not saying this because of envy or anything, but fixing a job through equipment is NEVER the right thing to do in a MMO, imho.
A job should be balanced by itself, and gear should make that job more powerful, period.
If a job is so broken that it needs some fix, then you should fix the job, not make a rare item even more powerful than it already is.
I might be saying this against my interest but I really hate this way of "fixing" things.

Once you acknowledge something is not right in a job, then bloody fix the job instead of buffing already existing items and forcing people to get them to "balance" the broken job.

[Zhronne]

Threnody II values listed aren't stacked, that's just threondy II's potency.

Threnody II values officially gave to us by SE are either wrong or they use a different measurement system.
Can't compare those values 1:1 as if they were macc but for a specific element.
Which is what I assumed at first, I guess many other people too.

Truth is, Threnody II does make somewhat of a difference but it's much much weaker than even a Dunna Languor or Frazzle III (or 2...).
In addition to that, Threnodies II apply to a SINGLE element, you have to stick them on the target first, and they can be erased.
Dunna Languor is more powerful, applies to all elements, can't be erased.

See what we have here? It's exactely what I said a few pages ago.
I'm sure every developer would make things differently if they were to create stuff from zero, and the debuff which is harder to stick and to mantain and applies to a single element would be more powerful, whereas the debuff which can't be resisted, can't be erased and applies to all elements would compensate all these pros by being slightly weaker.
Here we have the opposite

Dispel is an issue but not always, where as aoe damage is something almost every mob has so is always a concern for GEO.

No.
Dispel isn't an issue on all mobs, just like erase.
LIKEWISE aoe damage isn't a concern for GEO on all mobs.
It's exactely the same, i.e. depends on teh fight.
On average I'd still say it's easier for GEO though, unless you have BoG/EA up, a Luopan is easily replaceable in an instant, songs require you to either get close (in danger) or use Pianissimo, and it takes times between fakes + real.


I'm not taking defense of BRD because it's my best friend forever job and nooo goway you evil GEO I hate you!
<== Has Idris
<== Has AG Carnwenhan, 99 Daurdabla, 99 Gjallarhorn, Marsyas

I bloody love GEO, and I would never ask for a nerf to GEO (way too late).
I'm just saying that BRD needs something, it's quite clear it does, this ain't your regular "omg SE fix my job because it sucks!" rant, there's very very valuable and unbiased reasons to justify it.

[Zhronne]

I'm not saying Scherzo is just worthless, but on a lot of fights, it's not worth it.

Can put many other buffs (or jobs) in place of that "Scherzo".
This situation is a byproduct of the scaling system.
When the monster's HP and hence its difficulty scales for every player you bring into the alliance (and it's quite a GENEROUS scaling for the monster) you need to justify every player you bring in.

Could BRD provide some moderate utility on most HELM fights? Of course it could.
Problem is: would that moderate utility justify the additional time/difficulty gained by bringing one more player into the alliance?
And the answer sadly is pretty much always a big, fat, sad "no".

It goes for many other jobs of course, but this feels especially wrong for a job whose role is that of "buffing others" and can hardly find a spot these days in any end game event =/

[OmnysValefor]

Can put many other buffs (or jobs) in place of that "Scherzo".
This situation is a byproduct of the scaling system.
When the monster's HP and hence its difficulty scales for every player you bring into the alliance (and it's quite a GENEROUS scaling for the monster) you need to justify every player you bring in.

Could BRD provide some moderate utility on most HELM fights? Of course it could.
Problem is: would that moderate utility justify the additional time/difficulty gained by bringing one more player into the alliance?
And the answer sadly is pretty much always a big, fat, sad "no".

It goes for many other jobs of course, but this feels especially wrong for a job whose role is that of "buffing others" and can hardly find a spot these days in any end game event =/

Yeah you're right, and like I pointed out. GEO has 6 spells (sometimes used in pairs, sometimes not) that are just as valid as Scherzo, and I didn't even account for EVA+/ACC-.

Order of spells +MEVA>-MACC > +DEF>-ATK (dependent on fight, usually MEVA will win for it's wider use, covering enfeebles, nukes, etc) > -MAB>+MDT > -ACC/+EVA.

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You're also right that we're not even bringing up Corsair in this discussion and it certainly could use some tweaks but Corsair is like GEO's little buddy.

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No, please no.
I have every BRD legendary weapon so I'm not saying this because of envy or anything, but fixing a job through equipment is NEVER the right thing to do in a MMO, imho.
A job should be balanced by itself, and gear should make that job more powerful, period.
If a job is so broken that it needs some fix, then you should fix the job, not make a rare item even more powerful than it already is.
I might be saying this against my interest but I really hate this way of "fixing" things.

^^^^ Ding ding ding.

I'm a full REM Paladin. I'm okay with absolutely needing aegis, needing Ochain, benefitting from Burtgang but another weapon is just over the top and like I've talked about a few times: Best-in-slot bards, lacking Aeonic, not being wanted is tragic. It's funny that while other Aeonics are good, BRD got 'the necessary one'. And like I said, not even necessary to complete [this] content, just necessary to be more desirable.

PLD Aeonic Shield apparently has no distinguishable use.

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I love HP scaling for making people contribute. I don't think people should be carried just because "it won't hurt anything" and hate HP scaling because it frequently boils down to "what's the bare minimum we can do this with?" and since BRD/COR rolls don't fade away with popping the boss, their roles often get relegated to cheerleaders outside the fight.

[Zhronne]

PLD Aeonic Shield apparently has no distinguishable use.

It's a bloody sexy /lockstyle shield!!!!
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Ok let me go back to the dark corner of the room, in silence

[Afania]

I don't want GEO nerfed either, it's way too late. If they wanted to nerf GEO they had to do it years ago, not now. (GEO has been already hiddenly nerfed in Master Battles anyway).

To be fair COR would need a buff too, but less than BRD.
COR has the same problem as BRD with dispel mechanics, and they have a harder time than BRD in overwriting buffs, plus they don't have the versatility BRD have (but slightly more than GEO).
COR can provide some DPS (in some content it's quite an useful DPS), can boost next spell cast on a target, has scaling, powerful buffs (not as much as GEO but better than BRD) and last but not least has a plethora of pretty unique buffs.
So... COR situation isn't ideal either, but it's in a much better place than BRD.

And it's no surprise, you still see CORs being used for rotations and utility (random deal etc), yet how often do you see that happening with BRD? Exactely

Nah, I think COR power is currently in a "just right" position. In fact I often think this job is a little bit too OP sometimes, buffs like allies roll which increases your dmg by % is pretty strong, and JA reset kinda doubles pt output in longer fights.

But since COR requires massive amount of effort to setup the pt in correct way to make it OP and only a few content can be abused with COR powa it's probably still fine as it is.

Also I tend to view COR as a DPS job with buff abilities, while most people view COR as support job. So the way I build pt around COR and my pov toward this job is probably different from the majority. Since COR often occupy a DPS slot in most pt of mine, the lack of 3 rolls and buffs being dispellable is less of a concern because the job is still contributing DPS in pt.

People keep screaming COR buff all day, but I honestly can't see anyway to buff the job and still keep it balanced. COR can do rolls for every single member in a pt, for example you can give tank defensive rolls AND DD or BLMs DD rolls with just 1 COR in pt, v.s you need 1 extra GEO if you want GEO defensive buffs. So COR buffs being dispellable and less potent than GEO kinda just compensate that strength.

I personally really don't want 3 rolls, because that just move the job away from it's original design direction- which is a job that spends majority of time DPSing and less time buffing. It's already time consuming as it is to do 2 rolls, especially if you do it mid-fight or in ambuscade. I often have to burn my random deal and reset random deal every ambuscade just to speed up the rolling process. The life of keeping up 3 rolls just sounds terrible. If this job gets a buff, it should be the DPS ability that gets buff, not time spent on rolling. If I really want 3 rolls I would just use 2 COR instead.

If there's any buffs that I want for this job I would say reisen level of melee weapon is probably what this job needs the most. Fettering/Blurred +1 combo is so behind at this point.

[OmnysValefor]

Very nice perspective Afania.

I don't agree 100% with it but totally get what you mean. I imagine if you wanted to be more support-oriented, you would play geomancer or bard. Also, I've never really played cor and certainly never for personal dps.

Geo may only have 2.5 buffs but can change those readily. Can't discount that.