Bard - they broke my job

First bard with the Bow wizard name has been found!

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...acter/5708052/

There are 11 OGCD's that you want to fit into your opener.
And one of these OGCD's refreshes non stop. Making it on average 12-14 OGCD's at least.

How can you throw a cast time on a class like that and think it's going to be okay?

My unique suggestion is to get out the 2 new song by global cooldown...that is very bad...and remember we are support of the party some the machanist...for the power dps there are other class

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Originally Posted by SonTensei

Like Vinestra said this isnt instant like cleric stance or one of the ninja poisons --- this requires you to cast a song (about 3.5 seconds) standing still.

We can drop the song and do the old school bard stuff... sure,. but we also need to stop dps and movement to get back into WM stance. so yeah i really dont like it.

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Yes, and even MORE downtime on top of that when you add on the use of an additional bard song like Foe Requiem. While there are bards that don't make use of their current song job abilities, those players are irrelevant in any discussion of the impact of lvl 52 + bard skills because they performed the role suboptimally as it existed at level 50. In a long, multi-phase boss fights with casters in the party I've used Foe Requem more than once... like during an initial burn add/boss phase down to half my MP or so, and then again later along with Battle Voice once my MP is back up enough to sustain Foe Requiem through the entire 30s duration of Battle Voice.

Minuet like all songs has a cast time of 3 seconds, as well as GCD of 2.5 seconds. That's 6 seconds cast time 5 seconds GCD time, for a total of 11 seconds we can't use any other GCD based abilities. The best-case scenario is I get Minuet and whatever other song I use played each followed by off-cooldown instant, without having to dodge and interrupt either of those 3 second casts. And sure I most likely wouldn't be playing these two songs right in a row, but the added downtime from Minuet contributes to the overall downtime that's there already when using a support song in the same battle.

I stopped doing MSQ on Bard at level 53 and am now working on catching up to that level on SMN/SCH so I can continue. I made use of the bard skills I had but even so, none added to the 'fun' factor unlike with other jobs and while every job has some skills that are more or less fun or useful (BLM has Apocostasis but they also got Flare when we got Battle Voice), I've come to realize this isn't the excitement I've been waiting for. So going to get two job's worth of new skills from ACN where I can feel like I'm actually doing new things rather than having what feels like a persistent debuff I have to cast on myself on me.

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Originally Posted by Misery1337

All Bards who don't hate it are pretty bad at the job then. No offense.

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Wrong. I mained BRD start to finish through all of Coil, and outside of mechanical-necessity, I didn't waste any movement. I didn't HAVE to.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should or have to. Same goes for Minuet.

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Originally Posted by Misery1337

All Bards who don't hate it are pretty bad at the job then. No offense.

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That could be turned around, saying all Bards who do hate the changes are pretty bad at the job. Of course, no offense.

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Originally Posted by SonTensei

The cast timer needs to go. so you didnt do much mechanics running around in coil in the past?

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I did plenty of mechanics. Doesnt mean I can't embrace change.

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Originally Posted by ThirdChild_ZKI

Wrong. I mained BRD start to finish through all of Coil, and outside of mechanical-necessity, I didn't waste any movement. I didn't HAVE to.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should or have to. Same goes for Minuet.

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You don't even have BRD to 52 lol. Why should anyone bother listening to you?

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Originally Posted by JohnMccain

You don't even have BRD to 52 lol. Why should anyone bother listening to you?

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I took on the challenge of leveling and learning Machinist, and I STILL don't need to move much at all to do the job right. Design differences aside, it feels no different. And lest we forget, Gauss Barrel and Minuet are fundamentally the same.

So then tell me, where are your credentials and why should anyone listen to you instead?

I dont really like this new bard.. I really did enjoy the freedom we had before.. and while we still can not use WM... it locks out most of the new stuff we 'paid' for in the exansion... so one feels obligated to use the new stance.

Bard is a gimp black mage with a bow.

The idiots who argue AAs forget that you get extra skills in WM, Emparrow only trails slightly behind autos right now (this is factoring out barrage) and the difference is more than made up by the rest.
Adding a flat damage boost scales better with crits, scales better with det (which the nerf does not effect you because AAs only) and one can assume DoT scale in the same way with the new SkSpd effect

You can now hold buffs for an IJ refresh for 33~36 seconds of fully buffed dots every time your buffs are up, reapplying at perfect timing (no clipping). IJ also gains you 100 or so potency every dot reapply because you're replacing what would be a windbite with at worst a straight shot (potency is factoring in minuet's damage bonus as well)

The job is new, it's still quite mobile and movement has not been an issue in DPS for me so far. And frankly anybody who in WM vs no WM, can honestly beat (or almost beat) WM damage without using WM, they're probably playing the job incorrectly

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Originally Posted by aabe

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I believe the bigger idiot is you (I don't think u mind being called an idiot as u are calling people idiot). No matter how you argue, WM is a dps lost in a fight such as Ravana EX or any instances for that matter which requires lots of movement because we have lost our mobility and not to mention the fact that our weapon damage is the lowest of all classes. We will never be able to do any good damage and on top of that, we lost our mobility. Any self respecting bard would not condone the existence of WM. Bards and Machinist are supposed to be the physical ranged dps class with mobility, not some pseudo caster wannabe. So don't make yourself a fool barking here.

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Originally Posted by ThirdChild_ZKI

I took on the challenge of leveling and learning Machinist, and I STILL don't need to move much at all to do the job right. Design differences aside, it feels no different. And lest we forget, Gauss Barrel and Minuet are fundamentally the same.

So then tell me, where are your credentials and why should anyone listen to you instead?

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I leveled BRD to 60(thoroughly tested it with different openers) and played it through SCoB and FCoB with some respectable numbers.

If you played BRD right you would of known:
a.) The job required movement to perform max dps potential (repelling shot).
b.) We were sometimes the mechanics bitch which most of the time also required movement (for example turn 7,8,12)
c.) The job often required you to weave in 2 abilities in order to maximize dps by making sure everything is on CD in a timely fashion.
d.) Nearly 30% of our damage was from auto attacks (roughly a 16% dps loss if you are not counting the 2 new abilities).

And what do we get now? A caster type job that does no where near what a caster should be doing.

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Originally Posted by aabe

The idiots who argue AAs forget that you get extra skills in WM, Emparrow only trails slightly behind autos right now (this is factoring out barrage) and the difference is more than made up by the rest.
Adding a flat damage boost scales better with crits, scales better with det (which the nerf does not effect you because AAs only) and one can assume DoT scale in the same way with the new SkSpd effect

You can now hold buffs for an IJ refresh for 33~36 seconds of fully buffed dots every time your buffs are up, reapplying at perfect timing (no clipping). IJ also gains you 100 or so potency every dot reapply because you're replacing what would be a windbite with at worst a straight shot (potency is factoring in minuet's damage bonus as well)

The job is new, it's still quite mobile and movement has not been an issue in DPS for me so far. And frankly anybody who in WM vs no WM, can honestly beat (or almost beat) WM damage without using WM, they're probably playing the job incorrectly

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Maybe prior to Heavensward you have been doing crap DPS as a bard that's why you find that WM improves your DPS?

You may gain new skills under WM but you forget that going back to basics you are a quick trigger job capable of firing off/weaving 2x OGCDs in between your GCD skills. Prior to Heavensward you already have quite a handful of them to weave with and with the new skills you have even more. Under the effect of WM you lose the capability to dual weave which is where your DPS loss over time comes from.

How much have you been pulling in FCoB pre-echo? What are your dummy parses (no food/party/pots) right now with/without WM?

The only BRD's that will see an increase in DPS in raid content while using WM are pre 3.0 Ballerina Bards aka BRD's who can't strafe.

If your Autos were not the highest source of your DPS then you were not playing optimally.

Autos were king and BRD's are way behind other classes not called Machinist because they nerfed Barrage and Det(which autos scaled on)

Pre 3.0 i130 BRDs were only behind melee by like 70-80 DPS, now they are behind by 300.

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Originally Posted by ChalupaBatman

The only BRD's that will see an increase in DPS in raid content while using WM are pre 3.0 Ballerina Bards aka BRD's who can't strafe.

If you're Autos were not the highest source of your DPS then you were not playing optimally.

Autos were king and BRD's are way behind other classes not called Machinist because they nerfed Barrage and Det(which autos scaled on)

Pre 3.0 i130 BRDs were only behind melee by like 70-80 DPS, now they are behind by 300.

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This man gets it.

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Originally Posted by JohnMccain

I leveled BRD to 60(thoroughly tested it with different openers) and played it through SCoB and FCoB with some respectable numbers.

If you played BRD right you would of known:
a.) The job required movement to perform max dps potential (repelling shot).
b.) We were sometimes the mechanics bitch which most of the time also required movement (for example turn 7,8,12)
c.) The job often required you to weave in 2 abilities in order to maximize dps by making sure everything is on CD in a timely fashion.
d.) Nearly 30% of our damage was from auto attacks (roughly a 16% dps loss if you are not counting the 2 new abilities).

And what do we get now? A caster type job that does no where near what a caster should be doing.

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Yes, not to mention if SE really wanted to boost our damage, they should've done so with our weapon damage first. Take a look at the Hive weapon, even the BLM's weapon physical damage is higher than BRD's weapon physical when BLM is a magic user class.

My point is, not only we have added cast time now with auto-attack disabled, our weapon damage remains sub-par compared to all other classes (except MCH because we're in the same sinking boat: Gauss Barrel = Wanderer's Minuet). Hence, the reason I scoff at those who says "WM is a huge dps increase".

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Originally Posted by ChalupaBatman

Pre 3.0 i130 BRDs were only behind melee by like 70-80 DPS, now they are behind by 300.

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WD scaling is partially at fault here as well. The higher our ilvl/WD goes the more bard falls behind due to their poor WD scaling compared to every other class.

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Originally Posted by SasakiNori

WD scaling is partially at fault here as well. The higher our ilvl/WD goes the more bard falls behind due to their poor WD scaling compared to every other class.

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Yeah we have shit WD scaling, but its been like that for a while yet we still kept up pre 3.0.

I wish I could read Japanese, google translate sucks and I want to see what they're saying about BRD over at the JP forums, if its picking up steam there then the devs will prob see it quicker.

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Originally Posted by Ooshima

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FCoB (these are all with IW bow and a DRG in group. I never got my DW bow until lockout raiding was over lol 15 clears)
530 T10, 515 T11, 512 T12 (I never did bluefire because week 1 prog had our WHM offering to do it) and 440 in T13 (you parse lower in T13 as BRD by a lot if your group bursts add phase well, best with a slower group was 495)

On dummies right now I pull 880-900 avg without food/pots/pt. 800 or a little less without Minuet at all, and a bit towards 830 if I open with Minuet and flip it off afterwards.

I mean, trust me, I'm pretty sure the job I've been playing for TWO YEARS I'm a lot more familiar with than this stance that flips everything around, which I've had for 5 days. I'm still outparsing myself very handily with WM up full-time. Movement isn't even an issue either with how scripted raids have been since First coil, considering that I've had no issue with it with RNG tornados in fights like bismarck EX and neverreap.

Also, you lose out a bit on double weaving yes, but it's not nearly as important anymore outside of the opener. In cases outside of your opener you have SS procs to double weave and situations of movement where you can pop all the stuff you want until you're done.
Like I said about CRIT/DET/SKS, there are a million cases outside of those where minuet scaling is more beneficial than autos such as selene buffs/AST cards/TA/DRG etc.

The only complaint I can see anybody having for Bard right now is that melee DPS now do exponentially more than the bard at this point, disregarding the argument of WM vs no WM melee do like 400 more DPS than bards now rather than just 100.

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Originally Posted by ChalupaBatman

Yeah we have shit WD scaling, but its been like that for a while yet we still kept up pre 3.0.

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I know it's been like that even before 3.0, but the WD margin between bard and every other classes increases with higher WD, which puts us behind even more.

at i95: Bard WD is at 42 compared to Monk at 47 (5 WD difference)
at i135: Bard WD is at 52 compared to Monk at 58 (6 WD difference)
at i190: Bard WD is at 65 compared to Monk at 72 (7 WD difference)

Meh take it all back, give back original barrage and stop trying to fix brd >_<


The difficulty and fun of bard was trying to connect every last one of your AAs...and now se want us to have none. Like wtf.....


I was up for the challenge when I saw the changes, even blindly defended them as I thought at least a substantial damage increase was there, but now that I tested a bit it's like "why even bother?" Open with minuet, switch it off, and continue on as normal. Yay for sidewinder but....oh dear, barrage sux now ( refuse to go back into minuet unless downtime + buffs off cd ). Nice freaking update =_=

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Originally Posted by aabe

FCoB (these are all with IW bow and a DRG in group. I never got my DW bow until lockout raiding was over lol 15 clears)
530 T10, 515 T11, 512 T12 (I never did bluefire because week 1 prog had our WHM offering to do it) and 440 in T13 (you parse lower in T13 as BRD by a lot if your group bursts add phase well, best with a slower group was 495)

On dummies right now I pull 880-900 avg without food/pots/pt. 800 or a little less without Minuet at all, and a bit towards 830 if I open with Minuet and flip it off afterwards.

I mean, trust me, I'm pretty sure the job I've been playing for TWO YEARS I'm a lot more familiar with than this stance that flips everything around, which I've had for 5 days. I'm still outparsing myself very handily with WM up full-time. Movement isn't even an issue either with how scripted raids have been since First coil, considering that I've had no issue with it with RNG tornados in fights like bismarck EX and neverreap.

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Your FCoB numbers, considering with IW bow and a DRG were still far off from some of the best parses/performances I've seen. DRG parses I could do 53X on T11 and T13 47X with an average speed group (which kills fast enough that leaves you about 1-2s idle time per pack of mobs and the last add dies just as Bahamut charges the last Divebomb). BTW I didn't have DW bow too until lock out was released and by then it was became a mere vanity item.

I did some dummy parses for the past 2 days and without WM it was 83X region for a 3min parse without food/party/buff. WM did either on par or worse. Double weaving isn't un-important outside opener because you are nearly doing it every now and then. BFB+Hawk, IB+Flaming Arrow, Repelling+Blunt are you most common double weave combos due to the fact that their refresh time syncs. Need not to say that you have to add in BL/SS procs and also SW as OGCD. I've lost count the number of times when everything that needs to be done falls together at the same time - SS buff and DoTs needs to be refreshed back-to-back and you have BL/Repelling/Blunt/EA all up at the same time. You are losing DPS in such situations because you can't fire them off in a timely manner unless you are off WM.

Oh BTW you must have been shit lucky if you claim that you have zero issues in Brismarck EX. The Tornados ain't an issue, it is those annoying floor AoEs that are, and if they kept spawning on you in succession there is no way that you can't lose DPS there. I have a fair share of FCoB experience as a BLM, while not doing the same level of DPS as BLM mains but still coming out top when playing with pugs so I guess that's fair enough. As a BLM I can manage with F3 procs, scathe, swiftcats and also AE but BRD in WM mode lacks such abilities to manage. You are bound to lose DPS if you are on perm WM mode for the fight in such scenarios.

The same goes to Ravana EX. I simply could not believe that for such fights, perm WM is the way to go. Of course if there are gurus out there with parses to show that they are already doing a respectable DPS on non WM mode in Brismarck/Ravana EX and they did even higher on perm WM I will be more than happy to stand corrected and learn.

and don't forget blms got sprint on demand and aetherial manipulation too and now even sharpcast as if they didn't already have enough tools to make their "hard"job a bit easier. They are built to move and always be casting, Very ironically the "new bard" , ffxiv mobile ranged class is anything but that.....

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Originally Posted by Ooshima

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I'll give you T13 but you have to remember that sometimes in T11 you need to help on the cube.
Also I already acknowledged T13 is weaker with a quicker group. On my alt group I parsed up to 495 with an average-ish kill time, in my own group where we were nearly getting 3 akh morns my DPS was much lower by the time I had T13 decently optimized because you get SO MUCH MORE flaming arrow ticks/multidots/etc. in the add phases which are very set amounts of health. No matter what I did in my main static I couldn't get higher simply because a gigantic portion of my DPS came from multidotting on add phases and such.

In Bismarck the RNG levi-plume ish AOEs take so long to drop that you can start a cast as the marker appears, finish it, and move out of the way before the aoe hits.

but I really do not know what you're doing wrong if you can't outparse WM. I'm doing 4min parses and WM is much better. 4MIN is a lot weaker on non-minuet than 3:00 or 3:30, my results are the same in any dummy timing but you're more geared than me so I can see the 30 DPS discrepancy there with no-WM if you're doing parses that are a full minute shorter than mine as a standard.

And dummies are supposed to "theoretically" be where WM would be king, if you parse 800 DPS with ~140 from autos 20% of that is around 130, the rest can easily be made up by IJ and Emp arrow. Easily. I've been doing ravana for a bit and it hasn't been too bad so far but we've just started progressing on it.

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Originally Posted by Sessurea

and don't forget blms got sprint on demand and aetherial manipulation too and now even sharpcast as if they didn't already have enough tools to make their "hard"job a bit easier. They are built to move and always be casting, Very ironically the "new bard" , ffxiv mobile ranged class is anything but that.....

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Sprint + high enough spell speed is good enough to move around back then in ARR already. There's also Manawall/Manaward to stay still at critical times if need be (albeit its nerfed now)

BRD? I laughed at myself whenever I have a supercharged EA + SW incoming (Hawk+BfB at least, best with RS) but I get targeted by a floor circle AoE that I have to move out immediately because my cast ain't fast enough to pull of the tricks you do with BLM.

Ravana EX, the opening needs to be timed so precisely that I fire off the barrage EA in time for the first all knowing stance and use the animation time of EA + SW to quickly shift to the correct position for the next all knowing stance. Just an example of some of the annoyance.

The baseline for me is the idea of WM ain't bad. Probably their testers were terribad that knew shit about the job. They forgot that BRDs are a fast pewpewpew double OGCD jobs and the way the implement WM and the WM kit into our base kit feels too forced. It's super clunky right now that it give us more problems than any benefit at all. Previously an excellent bard knows how to catch SS/BL procs before the GCD counter ends and fires it off before the next GCD skill. Now? You can't fire off SS immediately because you are facing queuing problems similar to Fire 3 procs. You are no longer reward being able to quickly spot a BL proc and fire it off together with maybe a Blunt Arrow that just refreshed at the same time before your next GCD skill, because in WM mode you can only do 1 OGCD per GCD. I'm no longer being rewarded with what I've initially signed up for as a BRD, even with all the nerfs they did to me back in ARR.

So what rewards a WM BRD now? Good control of movements? Heck, if that's what it is then I'm better off playing a BLM (which I pretty liked it too). Deals a shit ton more damage then a WM BRD with ample tools to manage movement requirements. Hell, I'm even leveling a MCN right now despite some of its woes, because MCN is designed ground up and it would be less clunky than a BRD with a new set of skills that are entirely of a different concept from its base kit being forced to work together.

For a start, if SE would make WM activation/deactivation work like Cleric Stance then that's quite a big QoL improvement. And look into how our OGCDs can be used during a "cast" too. Having to waste 1s of GCD to place a flaming arrow is pretty... meh.

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Originally Posted by aabe

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What kind of gear are you on? As long as you have an IL180 bow you shouldn't be too far off, since things like accessories gives +1DEX as an upgrade from IL170-IL180. Only WD can make up differences such as 30+DPS, unless your main stat is so lagging behind mine.

I can try comparing 4mins WM vs non-WM parses tonight.

WM mode I'm not sure. I keep finding myself having too much OGCDs to trigger off and weave.

Leaving my two cents here.

I've been a BRD ever since I started playing, at beta. I don't care if my DPS isn't the highest of all DPS jobs (for those who care about numbers, my highest was 557 at T12), I play BRD because I enjoy it's mobility and play style.
Two things that were taken away from me in Heavensward. No, I don't like any other jobs as much as I like(d) BRD, so switching is not an option. And being forced to switch because of a skill I never asked for is a bit too much. If I wanted to play a caster, there are other jobs available for me. If SE wanted to introduce a ranged physical caster DPS, they could've used MCH. Or the other way around, I wouldn't care switching to MCH if it was like the old BRD. But no, they made both dependant on a caster stance.
My problem isn't not being able to adapt. I can think of rotations, I can make optimal use of cooldowns and Wanderer's Minuet, I just don't enjoy playing BRD anymore.

Before, every time I thought about running some content, I was excited, specially new content. Now, I get excited, then remember that I'll have to go as BRD and there goes my excitement.

Uniqueness? Don't make me laugh. Because cast time is very original, right? Because we have so many jobs that can hit from a distance and keep running, right?
I never asked for a caster. If I wanted a caster I'd go play a caster.

Improve a job, yes. Don't change its play style. All my friends with their other jobs seem so excited with their new skills, while I'm hoping I'll wake up one day after a hotfix to see Wanderer's Minuet removed from the game.
It's not increasing potencies or decreasing cast times that'll make me enjoy playing BRD again.

And for those saying "You asked for higher DPS, that's the price": No, I never did. I know the price I was paying for having increased mobility and I was okay with it. AND, every other job (decently played, of course) is out-DPSing me right now anyway (except MCH, for now), even BLM in movement-intensive fights.


Oh yeah, and I won't even talk about the majority of the new fights being movement-intensive, because it's probably me never noticing before.

My two cents. Keep in mind I have raided all of 2.55 content well before nerfs and echo as a bard. I was probably one of the very few who tried really, really hard to like WM.

In the beginning I really was interested in WM because I kind of liked the idea of channeling your shots but when it was made clear that WM will not allow auto attacks and only give 20% increase in damage, that made me more cautious than curious. I parse myself constantly in FCoB to make sure I can maximize my DPS and our auto attack does roughly 20% of our damage.

First things first, the damage increase in this song should be at least 50% to even make us worth considering the mobility and auto attack lost. I don't know what SQUEE was thinking when they were developing this job but for a class to have 2 of it's new skills gated by a song is really un-intuitive. Our auto attacks make up a pretty decent portion of our damage and to only have the song increase it to 20% barely offsets that lost.

(Continue)

Secondly, synergy and oGCDs. Before, we could squeeze in 2 oGCDs between one single GCD. That means our buff management was streamlined and it doesn't take us twice the amount of time to put them up. For a class that relies so much on our buffs aligning to increase our damage output, the cast time pretty much f*ck us over. On top of that, BL is our bread and butter. With GCD and cast time gating it from being spam is a HUGE, HUGE DPS lost. There has been time where I spammed 3 or 4 BL's back to back to back...

Thirdly, movement. As other mentions we have zero mobility skills to help us reposition besides our Jump Shot. We can't use TP to sprint like BLM's.

It feels like a complete mess trying to play this class now.

I am level 59, closing on 60. I was pretty excited for Sidewinder but now that I know Barrage doesn't even proc it, that was the last nail in the coffin for me. Help me pick a new class? DRG or BLM!

There is even bigger issue for people starting to lvl bard, lvl 1-52 play COMPLETELY different from 53-60. I been trying to use WM in 4 man dungeon on trash with aoe. I am saving a bit of tp and it is hitting harder but here come another issue. It is very time consuming to apply/reapply dot on several target for the Rain of Death proc. IJ help with u are only on one target but that really only happen during boss. For boss I just use WB as opener and switch back to normal.

I'm honestly not a fan of dotting everything and relying on rain of death for aoes. It's unreliable.

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Originally Posted by LunarEmerald

I'm honestly not a fan of dotting everything and relying on rain of death for aoes. It's unreliable.

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Well, minuet made it worse with casting time for the dot. Before it is easy to apply dot to two or 3 target.

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Originally Posted by Jericho_Cross

My two cents. Keep in mind I have raided all of 2.55 content well before nerfs and echo as a bard. I was probably one of the very few who tried really, really hard to like WM.

In the beginning I really was interested in WM because I kind of liked the idea of channeling your shots but when it was made clear that WM will not allow auto attacks and only give 20% increase in damage, that made me more cautious than curious. I parse myself constantly in FCoB to make sure I can maximize my DPS and our auto attack does roughly 20% of our damage.

First things first, the damage increase in this song should be at least 50% to even make us worth considering the mobility and auto attack lost. I don't know what SQUEE was thinking when they were developing this job but for a class to have 2 of it's new skills gated by a song is really un-intuitive. Our auto attacks make up a pretty decent portion of our damage and to only have the song increase it to 20% barely offsets that lost.

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Oh, trust me, I tried hard, and I'm still trying. Only to get more and more disappointed.

At first I thought it was a good idea, and I'm not gonna lie, I like the Barrage+EA followed by Sidewinder spike damage (dat 4279 damage tho). But the casting time on skills that weren't designed to have cast times or to be used in between cast times kill it for me. And turning WM off, while being an option, is sub optimal in most cases.

Yep. I too did try hard to like WM I am not going to lie. lol... I am not even 60 yet and that burst sounds nice but once every 60-ish seconds? Nah.

With that new skill, I honestly don't see any reason to have a BRD in a party.
I don't know why it has been made a bardmage while BLM and SMN were already way above BRD in terms of DPS before 3.0.
Sorry SE but you just erased one job from the game.

My parses are coming out as more dps on a dummy with minuet but its really hard to consistently get more dps on most bosses with minuet vs without.

I dont think theres any way to really consolidate a casting playstyle with bloodletter and bards other ogcds. Even if you discount bloodletter its already going to be hard to consistently get all the ogcds used in a timely matter and they will frequently collide during your rotation forcing you to either delay once of the ogcds or delay your gcd. Then you add in bloodletter with an average cd of 6 seconds.... What the hell was square enix thinking? They're forcing players into no win situations where you constantly forced to decide between delaying an ogcd, delaying a gcd, or leaving bloodletter off cd during your next dot tick. Its always unclear what the correct choice is and its extremely unfun to be put into situations like this 10 times per minute.

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Originally Posted by MrYaah

...Its always unclear what the correct choice is and its extremely unfun to be put into situations like this 10 times per minute.

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This, so much this. This class just feels like a mess as compare to a class like DRG where all their attacks and buffs line up nicely and it feels fluid. Now for us it is just another clusterf*ck of stuff being up and us mashing which ever button we can.