Bard needs some love too.

That yellow hurts my eyes. Also, I don't pay attention to how much damage is lost. Rarely feels like a lot.

Hey maybe the DRG buff includes a stronger disembowel for more BRD dps.

"Only people who want to challenge themselves by introducing artificial difficulty will play with less optimal setups."

Or maybe you know... people might enjoy playing their jobs and not having to swap to the new flavour of the month?
AH yes! Totally a 10-20 dps "buff" would break Bard and make it op... Oh wait other jobs would still be far from that lol

Watch a 2.0 video of a Titan or BCoB kill that has a bard PoV, and watch the endless streams of crits. This is why they have the DPS they have right now, the adjustment has already happened.

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Originally Posted by Rose-Wild

I'm not going to go as far to say that heals needing ballad suck but my static is far from the best and my heals never needed mana in our t1o and t11 kills.

Like some people mentioned it's a matter of not having your people die all the time so they don't waste mana on raising people.

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The key word there is progression. If course when you are comfortable enough for a kill, your team mates won't be dying like flies, your healers get used to the fight to be able to optimize their healing options, and your SMN (if any) should be able to optimize a little on MP usage. Then of course, Ballad become less of a need.

But during the progression parts when people are still figuring out things then you will probably need the songs to be able to push the fight as far as you can before wiping.

Unless there's a team out there there proclaims that they never required Ballad and a Bard in their team right from the start of a new coil progression patch, which I don't think so.

Nonetheless I believe that most bard's only gripe is the nerf on Rain of Death (effect being transferred to WAR), and the gear scaling compared to other jobs part. As of now it is probably still okay, but you can already noticed a widening gap where MNK/BLM seems to be running away when we compare IL70 sets with IL110 sets. Of course, this is solely based on the assumption on max potentials via testing on dummies, without taking into account of fight types where movement and boss down times may affect overall DPS potentials.

However, if moving forward to 3.0 and the kind of gearing progression remains status quo, then we could see a rather significant gap with IL150 and higher sets. I don't think BRDs need that kind of adjustment to their skills like how SE have been adjusting some of the jobs right now, but at least ensure that BRD's gear scaling is up to par and consistent with the rest of the jobs so that future upgrades will not result in other DPS jobs's max DPS potential are on a run away from BRD's max potential.

Read about half the first page, and actually use the browser's word finding tool.

Bard DPS can be fairly aweful... and painful... towards other jobs as it is. I've done dozens of ST runs, CT runs before it, done a decent share of coils 1 and 2... I don't see any reason how bard needs a boost, at all. As for measured results in ST runs, I have seen bards dominate in dps and total damage output, like high up. With only BLMs being a more dominant job followed by SMN, and occasionally an 'exceptional' MNK or DRG. I can't touch on Ninja's dps overall, but for those who actually adjusted pretty well and quickly to the job, they are pretty lethal in dps, even for the short time it's been out.

With 24 man raids like ST where mainly BLMs and BRDs tend to take the top 5 positions over multiple runs with different make ups of players (this is mainly DF Syrcus Tower), it would be hard to believe the 19 other players, Melee, caster, tank, healer or other dps. 'would suck' compared to a bard.

The word I searched for? Barrage. I can't believe no one has mentioned barrage in a post. Or at least my browser didn't find it properly spelled. As a main bard, here's my 2 cents on improving dps tremendously. Use Hawk's Eye > Barrage, like a marriage couple. Hawk's Eye is a 20 second ability that increases DEX (your ranged attack power) by 15%, and 'gaurantees all hits to land'. This isn't a joke of an ability at all. Healers get Attunement in PvP that increases evasion alot to a point where you almost dodge 'any' attack (and reduces damage by 90% but that doesn't matter here). So high, almost no attack lands, unless Hawk's Eye overrides it. Barrage, doubles auto-attacks dealt for 15 seconds, and the trait unlocked at 44 enhances that to 3x auto attack damage. Their cooldowns are synced up at 90 seconds. Splitting them can only be excused when using AoE attacks. Whenever the combination is up and you're dealing with bosses or mobs with high HP, use it... (But do pay attention to enmity, at the start of the fights, it can really rip hate quickly to a point where tanks struggle for stable hate).

Now I'm sure people have mentioned before, but I have heard some other bards don't realize exactly which songs give penalties, or rather not. Army's Paeon and Mages Ballad induce a penalty of 20% reduced damage. Foe requiem however, does not. It reduces Elemental resistances on foes. Might help 'Windbite' (wind based), Venomous bite and Flaming arrow (fire based). Poisons having a tendency to be aspected to a certain element, or at least water in FFXI (which I suspect Venomous bite be partial towards). But even if it doesn't boost your own dots, it will help out black mages a lot in damage, while you don't sacrifice any of your damage output for it. Black Mages in my opinion, are king in AoE attacks, and a bard helping with Foe boosts them to heights unattainable otherwise. This is or rather should be considered as additional DPS because of bards. While not as direct, it is as effective.

From my perspective, bards need to try and improve themselves constantly in terms of play as well as situations. Try to use most if not all abilities where it's applicable. Analyze the fights you do for patterns and plan on how to maximize your performance. This goes for song usage (no overuse and no lack of use) , flaming arrow usage and whether or not to use single target (including Barrage) or multiple target (including flaming arrow and Foe Requiem) abilities.

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Originally Posted by HiranaiVashai

Bard DPS can be fairly aweful... and painful... towards other jobs as it is. I've done dozens of ST runs, CT runs before it, done a decent share of coils 1 and 2... I don't see any reason how bard needs a boost, at all. As for measured results in ST runs, I have seen bards dominate in dps and total damage output, like high up.

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The moment I saw you used ST/CT runs as comparison....

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Originally Posted by Ooshima

The moment I saw you used ST/CT runs as comparison....

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What about!? It's not like people afk in st and are not always trying their best. The best players ghater in ST.

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Originally Posted by Rose-Wild

What about!? It's not like people afk in st and are not always trying their best. The best players ghater in ST.

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Are you even serious.

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Originally Posted by Ooshima

Are you even serious.

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Is he? Are you?

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Originally Posted by Sleigh

This thread has to be a troll thread. BRD's damage is balanced around it giving Foe's Requiem to casters to make up for its lower training dummy DPS, and its extremely high uptime on both boss and adds alike.

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And what around NIN damage balanced? Or even MNK as they can buff second monk for free?
Bard can maintain Foe only 30% of time and if he needs to sing other song (eventually he'll need to play at least paeon) - it will be even lower.

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Originally Posted by Remilia_Nightfall

Ok. Thanks for letting us know.
Ah, FYI - good bards don't need buffs to be top DPS.
You're welcome.

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This is how bards really parse in final coil - http://puu.sh/cNmNU/9e2270792f.png
You'll never get a top spot if you have good MNK, DRG, NIN, BLM in your party (probably a SMN too, but I haven't seen one perfomance in fcob).

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Originally Posted by Ooshima

Go tell all the top teams around the worlds and your server that their healers doesn't need Ballad during progression, and if they need, they suck. They would probably give you the big middle finger.

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Healers run out of mana when they a) raise a lot or b) overheal a lot and both are quite bad.
It's healers job to quickly learn a fight and optimize heal structure, same as dps should optimize their dps.
Yes, bards can make up for some healers and tank errors, but on other hand they make dps checks tighter and less room for error on dps side.

And to be clear - at start of 2.4 there was no other choice but to bring a bard as you need TP regen anyway.

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Originally Posted by Rose-Wild

Is he? Are you?

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I'm pretty serious that I actually stopped reading a little when he made reference to ST/CT though.

People usually runs CT in a relaxed mode and doesn't really care too much about top performance etc. And when you want to look at numbers and make some objective conclusions about jobs and stuff, I think it is only right to look at top performing players and the kind of benchmarks they set instead of the general player base.

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Originally Posted by Felessan

And what around NIN damage balanced? Or even MNK as they can buff second monk for free?
Bard can maintain Foe only 30% of time and if he needs to sing other song (eventually he'll need to play at least paeon) - it will be even lower.

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Ninjas are op. They give everybody a 10 second 10% damage increase every minute. Dots applied during are buffed for their entire duration too.

Ninjas are OP because they buff everyone's damage by 10%? It's not even a flat 10% like people are assuming... Like I said earlier, seems the archer mains want to do the most DPS while having everything for free.

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Originally Posted by Felessan

This is how bards really parse in final coil

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There is no way everyone in that group has the same ilevel weapon at this point.

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Originally Posted by Felessan

This is how bards really parse in final coil - http://puu.sh/cNmNU/9e2270792f.png
You'll never get a top spot if you have good MNK, DRG, NIN, BLM in your party (probably a SMN too, but I haven't seen one perfomance in fcob).

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I'm interested how much damage the Monk will do when she gets i130 weapons. The potential is crazy!

I firmly believe Bard should be lowest stand still DPS because they are allowed to be mobile and ranged.

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Originally Posted by SarcasmMisser

There is no way everyone in that group has the same ilevel weapon at this point.

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Ninja has i130 weapon, Monk has i115, Black Mage has i120, and Bard has i130.

All the screenshot proves is Bard scales poorly with gear.

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Originally Posted by Felessan

And to be clear - at start of 2.4 there was no other choice but to bring a bard as you need TP regen anyway.

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To be clear - I stand by my statement that even if Ninja is available before 2.4, any top progression team WILL still bring a BRD along. At this current meta, songs are still indispensable.

Until the day were I see a team that clears a newly released raid from scratch, went in blind, without a BRD, or the WHM claims that they don't need Ballad, then I shall concede that BRDs are useless in raids.

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Originally Posted by Exstal

I firmly believe Bard should be lowest stand still DPS because they are allowed to be mobile and ranged.

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Technically in a good group where everyone can do their job at above average or benchmark levels, yes, BRDs are typically lowest on the list. Unless the fight is so movement heavy that the melees are too often disconnected from their targets, it should be the case.

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Originally Posted by Exstal

Ninja has i130 weapon, Monk has i115, Black Mage has i120, and Bard has i130.
All the screenshot proves is Bard scales poorly with gear.

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Has always been. The fact that the other day I was discussing secondary stat stacking and parsing out the numbers with a fellow FC BRD, him at IL116 and me at IL106 pulling the same average number over a handful of parses shows that sec stats and DEX are almost interchangeable at the correct ratio and no matter what you do, if your WD is locked, you need a lot of gains in stats to see a significant difference. The scaling is pretty poor. Not a major concern for now, but like I said if gear progression is going to be status quo style in 3.0 and beyond, we will see a starking difference when IL hits like 150 and above.

The only thing I can concede on is perhaps giving BRD that WD point it is missing... Outside of that, anything else may be too drastic.

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Originally Posted by Exstal

I'm interested how much damage the Monk will do when she gets i130 weapons. The potential is crazy!

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Saw the stream other day - 580 dps with 130 weapon and 130 body with either 2 NIN or another monk in T8 (there was 2 runs with different setup but around the same dps)

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Originally Posted by Ooshima

Until the day were I see a team that clears a newly released raid from scratch, went in blind, without a BRD, or the WHM claims that they don't need Ballad, then I shall concede that BRDs are useless in raids.

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Yep, no point to argue now. Let's wait 3.0 and see :)
But for clear runs emphasis on bard will become much lower for sure.

A better solution would be to let Bard sings TWO different songs, one for mages, and one for melee DPS. Or just flat out, ANY two songs in their repertoire. Perhaps you can limit this with only last 60 seconds, and the cooldown is 2 minutes, so every other minutes, they can use two songs.

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Originally Posted by Felessan

This is how bards really parse in final coil - http://puu.sh/cNmNU/9e2270792f.png
You'll never get a top spot if you have good MNK, DRG, NIN, BLM in your party (probably a SMN too, but I haven't seen one perfomance in fcob).

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Is that you? Because if that's the case, that is how YOU really parse in FCoB, not "bards".
Our static's Bard pulls around 360-380, without HA weapon and while singing two or three times during the fight.

Very odd.

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Originally Posted by Remilia_Nightfall

Is that you? Because if that's the case, that is how YOU really parse in FCoB, not "bards".
Our static's Bard pulls around 360-380, without HA weapon and while singing two or three times during the fight.

Very odd.

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...he's the WAR in the screenshot.

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Originally Posted by Exstal

...he's the WAR in the screenshot.

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Damn, I'm retarded.

Feel free to insult me :/

Still, I believe that 370 is perfectly reasonable.

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Originally Posted by Remilia_Nightfall

Is that you? Because if that's the case, that is how YOU really parse in FCoB, not "bards".
Our static's Bard pulls around 360-380, without HA weapon and while singing two or three times during the fight.

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No, not me, just random parse as an example. I see a lot of bard parses around this point, sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less.
I do believe that one can pull close to 400 or even slightly above it with perfect execution and no/very short song duration, but it'll still be below dps range of the main dps force.

It's very few fights in the endgame where BRD should even be close to top DPS... You are doing something extremely wrong if you let a BRD do more damage than you as a MNK/NIN, and DRG/SMN should be ahead too, only BLM is acceptable to be even near BRD's DPS.

BRD is the worst made job at the moment IMO, cause Ballad is just a way to patch over their uselessness... I know that sounds dumb, because they are in every raid group, but you can't just balance it based on how useful a job is in a group.

They could nerf BRD's DPS, and groups would still bring them to the fights, does that sound fair for the BRD's? They want to be more than just a walking mana-ward....

Foe's gives your group about half the DPS that Trick Attack does in a normal group composition. DRG's piercing debuff does more overall added dps to the group than it, and DRG's get it from just another combo in their rotation... Keep in mind that BRD's DPS includes an overall increase of 10% damage if a DRG is in the party, and they still fall behind... and I consider that added DPS to DRG's.

I don't even main BRD, I main NIN right now, and I have played DRG for a year before that... BRD being mobile is just a bad excuse, cause as a DRG I lose barely no up-time at all, and I can do my rotation in the sleep while dodging mechanics just as easily as BRD.

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Originally Posted by Craiger

Keep in mind that BRD's DPS includes an overall increase of 10% damage if a DRG is in the party, and they still fall behind... and I consider that added DPS to DRG's.

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This is the usual misconception about Disembowel.

No, there is no 10% damage increase to bards. It's 6-7% at most.

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Originally Posted by Craiger

It's very few fights in the endgame where BRD should even be close to top DPS... You are doing something extremely wrong if you let a BRD do more damage than you as a MNK/NIN, and DRG/SMN should be ahead too, only BLM is acceptable to be even near BRD's DPS.

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What the ... why would you suggest this? Maybe on T11. Otherwise BLM is only behind NIN/MNK in almost every piece of content in the game, with multiple out-dated contents having BLM top DPS like T4, T5, and certain primals.

DRG and SMN are more likely to be near BRD DPS than BLM in most content.

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Originally Posted by Sleigh

What the ... why would you suggest this? Maybe on T11. Otherwise BLM is only behind NIN/MNK in almost every piece of content in the game, with multiple out-dated contents having BLM top DPS like T4, T5, and certain primals.

DRG and SMN are more likely to be near BRD DPS than BLM in most content.

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I'm a little outdated with DRG play at the moment, but why has it suddenly changed? I don't know about SMN, but as a DRG I have always been far ahead of BLM, and their buff shouldn't have been that huge... DRG's have always been about 8-10% DPS behind MNK, and BRD like 25% behind MNK

EDIT: Also, DRG and SMN are more likely to be near BRD DPS? I hope you put much emphasis on more there... Even if BLM is ahead of them, that doesn't mean BRD is any closer to them.

Ok so in regards to Ooshima i thought it was pretty obvious that i was being sarcastic. I know this is the internet and it's not that easy to see it...... Hes post was a joke.

To be honest the gear scaling is probably the biggest issue and if they fixed that i would be happy too. If that Bard did like 370 dps in t11 with a 130 weapon that shows how badly we need a fix to that because my average there is like 350-360 with a high allagan weapon and i doubt that the Bard of that party is bad at his job.

Also maybe a nice buff would be to make our dots magic damage so that they get affected by requiem but that might be a problem for t11.

And imo the only other dps Job that is usually around us is summ, but i think they are pretty good for t12 and t13. Imo they should get a buff to mana regen or make their spells consume less mana tho.

Summoner actually sucks for all of Final Coil. Black Mage is the better choice.

Finite MP < Infinite MP

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Originally Posted by Remilia_Nightfall

This is the usual misconception about Disembowel.

No, there is no 10% damage increase to bards. It's 6-7% at most.

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No. From what I've personally seen, it is close to 10%. My dps shoots up about 40 when I have disembowel for the entire encounter.

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Originally Posted by Eardstapa

Ninjas are OP because they buff everyone's damage by 10%? It's not even a flat 10% like people are assuming... Like I said earlier, seems the archer mains want to do the most DPS while having everything for free.

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Assuming? It says in the tooltip for Trick Attack that it's 10%.

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Rear Bonus: Increases target's damage taken by 10% for 10s

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Originally Posted by Rose-Wild

Ok so in regards to Ooshima i thought it was pretty obvious that i was being sarcastic. I know this is the internet and it's not that easy to see it...... Hes post was a joke.

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The person who's post you are referring to as a joke is one of my personal friends on Balmung, and has been a main BRD ever since he started playing FFXIV. In terms of his damage, he is consistently near the top in almost every content he does. When he referenced CT runs he also pointed out "before", as in "before ST even existed". Before Second Coil existed. Back when Philosophy tomestones were a reward. Back when CT filled the gap between Darklight and Allagan gear and people actually went to CT because they wanted that gear.

So, either Hiranai consistently gets paired up (even using Duty Finder) with a bunch of people who can't play their jobs and are undergeared, or other BRDs are not maximizing their potential, because I can say for an absolute fact that Hira puts out considerable damage as a BRD. Maybe not top DPS, but he keeps up with everyone well enough.

People don't invite BRDs to parties because they have amazing DPS potential. They bring them for the support they offer. This is why there should be a considerable gap between the DPS of other classes and BRD. MNKs and DRGs don't have much in the way of support to offer a party (if any), so they rely on their damage output to make them even marginally useful. BRDs will always be useful because of their utility. If SE were to make it so that BRDs put out damage comparable (even though lesser) than the other DPS classes, then I ask.. why would people bring them? If the past has taught me anything, people will elect to reduce their overall DPS by a small margin in favor of additional support options given the choice.

So yeah, BRDs don't need a buff. Would a buff be nice? Well certainly. Is it absolutely needed? No. If it ever gets to a point wherein having a BRD in your group becomes a deterrent to passing a harsh DPS check because they simply can't offer enough to push the party through it, then I'd advocate for a DPS boost.

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Originally Posted by Remilia_Nightfall

This is the usual misconception about Disembowel.
No, there is no 10% damage increase to bards. It's 6-7% at most.

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It's straight 10% damage bonus, although it does not work on DoTs ticks.
As bards dots contribute slightly more than 20% of total damage, total increase will be slightly less than 8%.

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Originally Posted by LunarEmerald

Assuming? It says in the tooltip for Trick Attack that it's 10%.

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Its flat 10% bonus that works in the same way as buffs does - i.e. dots tick damage depends only whether debuff was there or not only when dots were applied. And this part is much better than DE/Disembowel as those does not affect dots ticks.
Easily testable on dummy.

I don't know what you're talking about BRD is still the only class that can collect enmity from party members. If you have two or more you can off set each other with aoe's to have them get a chance to cost zero TP. So much diversity in a bards list of tools they can help out anywhere with mantra and a long list of cd's to help boost their dps easily doing critical damage by rotating cd's in-between their skills.

Aoe dots standard dots, they all add up if you're constantly able to maintain dps on the move and when tp is low sing a song or hit invigorate to replenish tp, I better stop going on about it I can feel the enmity rising I better use my quelling strikes.

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Originally Posted by LunarEmerald

Assuming? It says in the tooltip for Trick Attack that it's 10%.

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And that doesn't mean a 10% DPS increase... Maths. Never mind the fact it is 10 seconds, and since most people have little belief in skill or spell speed (It does require an insane amount for any real change...) most people sit comfortably around 2.45-2.5 GCD depending on their gear. That means, at worst you fit in 4 attacks during 10 seconds, at best 4.1; Point is, yes, it helps, but it's not as overbearing as many make it out to be.

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Originally Posted by Eardstapa

And that doesn't mean a 10% DPS increase... Maths.

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With a good play/teamplay it means more than 10% increase.
Afaik TA is universal - it increase damage of everything by 10%. You can also burst in this 10s (and standard rotation for NIN assumes that you'll put crit Raiton just after every second TA) and also the way damage from dots calculated is very favorable for TA.
Internal release has the same cooldown as TA so you can have 10% crit+10% damage buffs stacked together

I was actually coming here to make this same post haha. Bard got nerfed early on because people were stacking them for titan back when most people hadn't even thought of looking at coil. A lot of that had to do with scaling. From what I remember back then most people thought monks were pretty weak dps overall since no one really had good monk gear to see what their potential was.

With all the utility nin brings while being potentially the best dps in the game makes it really hard to argue that bard should have low dps since it's a "support" class

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Originally Posted by Felessan

With a good play/teamplay it means more than 10% increase.
Afaik TA is universal - it increase damage of everything by 10%. You can also burst in this 10s (and standard rotation for NIN assumes that you'll put crit Raiton just after every second TA) and also the way damage from dots calculated is very favorable for TA.
Internal release has the same cooldown as TA so you can have 10% crit+10% buff stacked together

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I could be 100% wrong here, I'm not a math wizard, but from what I remember damage increases are additive not multiplicative, so stacking other straight dps+% cooldowns during TA won't make a difference. Snapshotting DOT's and big damage cd's like Barrage/Raiton will definitely benefit from being used during TA

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Felessan

With a good play/teamplay it means more than 10% increase.
Afaik TA is universal - it increase damage of everything by 10%. You can also burst in this 10s (and standard rotation for NIN assumes that you'll put crit Raiton just after every second TA) and also the way damage from dots calculated is very favorable for TA.
Internal release has the same cooldown as TA so you can have 10% crit+10% damage buffs stacked together

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And yet according to everyone critical is a worthless stat because it is only 1.5x rather than 2x, yet here you are pulling it up. Thank you for at least acknowledging critical isn't terrible... But 10% damage taken increase does not mean 10% DPS increase over the entire course of the fight. It lasts 10 seconds, with any decent party in 4 mans, bosses last 3-4 minutes at most, you can use it 3-4 times. In raids, you may use it 10-12 times. You're just seeing the numbers and assuming...

Bard is still one of the best DPS, like the others!

I should know what Im talking about, because I still dont has any favorite class - no "main"!
I like to play as any DPS or Healer classes when I want to. (Not as tank cuz I suck as tank XP )
All different DPS classes are very balanced in my opinion.