Bard "buff"

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

Why does it come off as you trying to find any reason to be upset that they used a bard? Whether or not a proc is easier to manage is a matter of opinion and preference anyway.

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Nobody is upset. But the claim that DNC is harder than BRD is indeed ridiculous.

Also, player's skill =/= job's difficulty awareness.

DNC has:

- A single OGCD (Fan Dance) with 4 charges, followed by possibly another OGCD (Fan Dance III) that always either lights up after the first one or not.
- GCD procs that don't necessarily need to be pressed on your next GCD and that can perfectly be delayed one GCD (which makes the rotation sleep inducing outside your Technical Step/Devilment windows). Also, 1 procs 3, 2 procs 4. Sesame Street much?
- 3 En Avant Charges that you don't even need at this point and that are QoL overkill.
- Not a single DoT to manage or refresh.
- Quite possibly the easiest AOE rotation that has ever existed.
- Not a single timer to keep track of, other than Standard Finish. But if you are letting SF fall off...big facepalm here.
- The Esprit Gauge, which is MCH's Battery's gauge levels of easy to manage due to allowing 2 Saber's Dance before you overcap the gauge and embarrass yourself (meaning you can perfectly delay your Saber's Dance for adds phase or burst windows without any trouble).
- Easy downtimes to manage due to Standard Step and Improvisation.

BRD doesn't benefit from the charge system on any of it's OGCDs, needs to keep track of dots and refresh them in very specific moments, needs to keep track of the song gauge and apex arrow which has a small window to be used, needs to keep track of song timers, needs to keep track of dots possibly triggering your procs roughly every 3 seconds and time your EA accordingly so that it wastes as few procs as possible. Has its biggest AOE potential attached to one of your songs for no reason other than to make everything even more annoying, needs careful attention with PPs ghosting all over the place when WM is about to finish. It's too a mile and a half harder to manage than DNC on downtimes due to DoT uptime and song alignments.

Could go on.

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Originally Posted by Gallus

-SNIP-.

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And yet...somehow...there are people out there, however rare or common you think they are, that prefer, or even do better, with that management then with what dancer does.

Brings back memories when people thought BRD was broken due to having no cast bars and free reign to attack and was accommodated in the following expansion with having cast bars. imo i need to see a massive rift within gameplay or DPS numbers if the job plays fine and the numbers are fair i dont see a need to ramble on about it. Mastery of your job and mechs is and will always will be supreme

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Originally Posted by Gallus

snip
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are you ignoring the fact that Tps did practice speed runs and prep for world first prog and won it are you saying that they are lying

Everyone saying 'lol Bard is fine because world first' need to be reminded that the very first UCOB clear was done with a Dark Knight, and I am pretty sure nobody here needs a refresher on the numerous problems that class had throughout Stormblood (nor do I expect anyone here to justify any of that today).

This thread is arguing about design, not what people who are comfortable with the class are capable of doing. Or was Samurai and Black Mage still being able to clear all content in Stormblood meant they were 'fine'? Though if one really wants to get into that specific argument, there was nothing really wrong with them last expansion, the real problem was the community's over-reliance on piercing meta rather than their own class design. But Bard's issues this expansion is more about the entire ranged role in general, on top of their own personal issues (mostly revolving around how random Apex Arrow is and that it doesn't add anything but an extra layer of frustration, for a skill that isn't even that strong to begin with).

(Come to think of it, Genshin Impact recently had a character that had random resource generation for his ultimate skill, and his overall design confused the community as to whether he was supposed to be a DPS or support character. He was advertised to be a DPS, but his entire kit was geared towards support that barely functioned at all. Not only that, but testers indicated that his kit kept changing constantly right up until he was officially released. The community over there rioted over the devs' non-answers regarding his design to the point where the devs are finally planning to buff him. Bard's current situation in FF14 is actually rather comparable to what happened to Zhongli from a mechanics standpoint, though I don't expect a riot here as Zhongli was a gacha character that some people spent upwards of a hundred dollars to obtain.)

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Originally Posted by SaitoHikari

Everyone saying 'lol Bard is fine because world first' need to be reminded that the very first UCOB clear was done with a Dark Knight, and I am pretty sure nobody here needs a refresher on the numerous problems that class had throughout Stormblood (nor do I expect anyone here to justify any of that today).

This thread is arguing about design, not what people who are comfortable with the class are capable of doing. Or was Samurai and Black Mage still being able to clear all content in Stormblood meant they were 'fine'? Though if one really wants to get into that specific argument, there was nothing really wrong with them last expansion, the real problem was the community's over-reliance on piercing meta rather than their own class design. But Bard's issues this expansion is more about the entire ranged role in general, on top of their own personal issues (mostly revolving around how random Apex Arrow is and that it doesn't add anything but an extra layer of frustration, for a skill that isn't even that strong to begin with).

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Oh, finally something different. This topic has been going on about world first for no reason when the answer is obviously that people play what they want and what they are most comfortable with.
That's why there is many ranged players aswell despite the role having low rDPS.

SAM and BLM were underrated because we did not had access to rDPS calculations before and we all praised the buffs that applies to the whole party. And BLM wasn't as mobile as before.

Now that rDPS, pDPS and aDPS are well splitted we have a much better view about BLM and SAM weight in a group, how rDPS actually impact them. And it turns out they're good, even better than the other jobs in their group.

Funny enough, I remember when DNC buffs were much stronger, Devilment was at 30% crit/dh during the ShB playtest and most claimed it would be way too Overpowered.
For the 5.4 they buffed all jobs to close the gap between SMN, BLM and SAM, but forgot the ranged.

I think they either gave up for the 5.X or that's the way they intend ranged to be.
Buffing ranged for this expansion will be useless, we only have EX content and maybe one Ultimate to go through. I'm really hoping that they intend to rework the purpose of the role during the expansion. It's tiring to see that you have litterally little to no impact on the team utility, survival or DPS.

I echo the sentiment about reworking the purpose of the role. Ranged DPS are fine damage-wise, but they need a lot more to do. Casters have range and the non-selfish ones have resses, and melees have incredibly mobile (by necessity, not as an available option; there's an important distinction to be made) playstyles and the non-selfish ones have significant raid DPS boosts, many of which are unique in what they boost or how they interact with the job. Ranged DPS don't really have anything aside from generic raid DPS boosts that either feel negligible (bard) or come with a dull two-button rotation (dancer).

Honestly, I wouldn't care so much about ranged doing less damage if party support was at least more interesting.

Why can't we have party mp regen? Or a single target mitigation? Or a raidwide shield? At least then ranged would be more useful as a role because a good ranged can shield and buff to help the supports and tanks with mechanics. At the moment all we get is boring damage boost skills and a 120s cd raidwide mitigation skill, and if you're a dancer you get a small heal for stackup mechanics.

If they can't make ranged do more damage then the least they can do is make it more useful

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Originally Posted by Dogempire

Ranged support in a nutshell

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Honestly, I'd go ham with support, there is so many ways to bring the "DPS support" on a decent level.

Peloton - Makes it a 180s CD that grants a small sprint and 3 charges of instant cast, not consumed if the cast is already instant.

Leg graze - Reduces single target damage dealt by the target. Also inflicts Heavy on target if it's not immune to it. (Like Arm's Length)


Tactician/Troubadour/Samba - If they have to be a 120s CD, at least increase the healing/shield received. Addle still exists and outshine rangeds, I don't have a mechanic in mind that deals both physical and magical damages and if it was the case, there's Feint for it.

I don't want SQEX to add defensives action, ranged rotations are currently lackluster and I'm already seeing SQEX adding 3 new traits and a new action barely changing the rotation overrall.

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

I don't want SQEX to add defensives action, ranged rotations are currently lackluster and I'm already seeing SQEX adding 3 new traits and a new action barely changing the rotation overrall.

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Honestly I think that defensive actions are the way to go if they're really so scared of adding skills that buff damage. At least that way a good ranged will also need the awareness of a tank/healer and plan out mitigation/shielding to make the most of it, and in turn make the healers have to waste less gcds healing. At least that way ranged will be valuable in prog groups where healers and tanks might have trouble keeping up with all the outgoing damage.

Though an aoe sprint on a charge is definitely an interesting concept, something like that or an aoe mana regen would be pretty nice.