Oh how your party must hate you as a melee eating aoe
The key here is freely move, Bard was able to move w/e they wanted and always be in range and dpsing full speed with a very easy rotation. Melee make no such claim. To be fair, thats why one of my main jobs was bard. As it stands, Bards and machinists need its mobility back as a staple of their job, but they need incentives on group support so they actually sing/machinisting.
Like weaken the songs but take away the damage penalty. Then tune their damage to be in line with a support type role. Then give a cooldown to give them the burst needed by some mechanics.
Like a new ability: Silent but Deadly, stops songs, adds cast times and increases damage dealt by x amount for 30 seconds. 4 minute cooldown.
