My only issue as a bard in 2.1

Bards have taken quite the nerf in 2.1. To be honest I am HAPPY about it, no way I wanted my Bard to be a heavy damage dealer, so everything makes sense to make sure they wouldn't be dealing as much with their cross-class skills.

The only issue I have with the changes made in 2.1 is the "nerf" or "modification" made to RAIN OF DEATH.

First off, what good is that change when you are leveling up ? You get Rain of Death at level 45. You don't MISS anything at level 45, nor do I miss anything at level 50 running Coil. So the skill becomes a useless skill for a Bard playing solo.

If you are in a situation where you are trying to hit monsters (a pack cause rain of death is aoe), and you are missing A LOT on that PACK of monsters, you probably DON'T BELONG IN THE DUNGEON YOU ARE IN.
1 Boss/Mob that dodges a lot I would understand, but why have an AOE skill remedy 1 issue that 1 unit is causing.

Wouldn't it be better for the skill to be a -5% damage and -5% Evasion ?

Rain of death isn't to help you. It's to help others that have trouble reaching the accuracy cap.

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Originally Posted by LunarEmerald

Rain of death isn't to help you. It's to help others that have trouble reaching the accuracy cap.

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Which is like... nobody who should be actually doing said content.

Maybe bards should have the damage penalty from songs removed now.

I believe the damange penalty from songs is good. Actually it should be applied to ALL SONGS, but make the songs better. Rain of death needs to go back to something more helpful, anything basically. Could even be -10% resistance for 20 seconds, increasing your party damage. The -10% evasion is the worst possible debuff that the skill could get.

Until 4 man content is removed, there is no room for a support role, SE can balance 2 melee and 2 mage ranged dps, but get an Archer in the mix they have no Clue what to do.

SE planned classes while drunk, and made them in the dark...

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Originally Posted by Phai

Until 4 man content is removed, there is no room for a support role, SE can balance 2 melee and 2 mage ranged dps, but get an Archer in the mix they have no Clue what to do.

SE planned classes while drunk, and made them in the dark...

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Even 5 man, a pure support is a waste over a 3rd DPSer. It's only in large groups, aka raids, that pure support vastly outweighs the loss of a DPS overall. Depending on the support abilities of course. Starting to think that outside coil (inside if party geared enough) better to roll as ARC and be more versatile as DPS due to the increased number of cross class skills as compared to BRDs with support buffs that for the majority of content are wasted slots on the action bars.

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Originally Posted by Sapphic

Even 5 man, a pure support is a waste over a 3rd DPSer. It's only in large groups, aka raids, that pure support vastly outweighs the loss of a DPS overall. Depending on the support abilities of course. Starting to think that outside coil (inside if party geared enough) better to roll as ARC and be more versatile as DPS due to the increased number of cross class skills as compared to BRDs with support buffs that for the majority of content are wasted slots on the action bars.

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Cant argue on that, thats for sure..

SE should just remove songs and make it a pure dps class, and balance it toward rest of dps.
If not, they should make Brd's utility so strong, it makes up for the dps loss and make the other PT members realy benefit from it.

But imo, my statment still stands, planned while drunk, made in the dark.... SE try make an effort plz...


When talking about coil, Brd is only usefull for progressing grp's. after ppl get geard up, brd becomes obselete.

Agreeing with OP. No idea what SE is doing. Claims to nerf bard because bard can support and damage is OP (really?).

Okay, nerf BfB from 20% to 10% is fine, but RoD? :rolleyes:

Honestly, at times in coil, I think our WHM manages her MP well. And thus the 10% damage reduction were more used/useful than Mage's Ballad lol.

The problem with the evasion down is that we can't always keep it up. If someone is constantly missing they are undergeared for the content. No amount of evasion down is going to help them because the bards will be out of tp quickly trying to keep rain of death on.

With the damage -10% we could anticipate damage spikes and try to mitigate some of it. As of right now, there are no fights which require us to anticipate dropping an enemies evasion.

i think the only reason they nerfed Rain of Death because now war has a 10% dmg reduction as well, if they kept brd RoD it will be a reduction of 20% (war and brd) + 10% strength from pld which they think its too much on a single boss. So they kept the 10% of war and 10% from pld as a single debuffs.

looking at the bright side :p i guess its a save up for the brd TP as well (since it was 200 for brd and now 60 for war with rotation)

the only loss will be on multiple since it is single target debuff now for war

If only Rain of Death lowered enemy accuracy...

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Originally Posted by EdwinS

If only Rain of Death lowered enemy accuracy...

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That would be much better. ^o^

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Originally Posted by Elherm

i think the only reason they nerfed Rain of Death because now war has a 10% dmg reduction as well, if they kept brd RoD it will be a reduction of 20% (war and brd) + 10% strength from pld which they think its too much on a single boss. So they kept the 10% of war and 10% from pld as a single debuffs.

looking at the bright side :p i guess its a save up for the brd TP as well (since it was 200 for brd and now 60 for war with rotation)

the only loss will be on multiple since it is single target debuff now for war

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I rather they keep RoD because AoE reduction is still better than giving it to War which is single target. It's rather useful for moments like T4 etc.. /sigh

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Originally Posted by OPneedNerfs

Which is like... nobody who should be actually doing said content.

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No. Not all gear have sufficient accuracy, even if it is a high level.

Not all jobs are blessed with darklight giving max accuracy and most allagan pieces do not give accuracy.

Full Darklight Paladin/Warrior won't have 100% accuracy in Turn 4/5.

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Originally Posted by LunarEmerald

No. Not all gear have sufficient accuracy, even if it is a high level.

Not all jobs are blessed with darklight giving max accuracy and most allagan pieces do not give accuracy.

Full Darklight Paladin/Warrior won't have 100% accuracy in Turn 4/5.

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Then wear something else that does. Too easy.

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Originally Posted by Viridiana

Then wear something else that does. Too easy.

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There's not much alternative if you aren't rich. "wear something else", it's not that simple when few things are a high level.

Sacrificing a large amount of stats for accuracy would be dumb, too. Your new rain of death is for that. To help people who have trouble reaching max accuracy. As a bard, you probably don't realize that accuracy is a big deal for other jobs. It's not something so easily obtained.

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Originally Posted by LunarEmerald

There's not much alternative if you aren't rich. "wear something else", it's not that simple when few things are a high level.

Sacrificing a large amount of stats for accuracy would be dumb, too. Your new rain of death is for that. To help people who have trouble reaching max accuracy. As a bard, you probably don't realize that accuracy is a big deal for other jobs. It's not something so easily obtained.

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Darklight: 101
Flanchard - 43 Accuracy
Gauntlets - 16 Accuracy
Belt - 12
Bracelet - 12
Necklace - 9
Ring - 9

Hoplite: 37
Circlet - 15
Earring - 11
Ring - 11

Total: 138, making 479 Accuracy when added to baseline. That's enough for T5, and you should have better gear than this before doing T5, anyway.

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Originally Posted by LunarEmerald

There's not much alternative if you aren't rich. "wear something else", it's not that simple when few things are a high level.

Sacrificing a large amount of stats for accuracy would be dumb, too. Your new rain of death is for that. To help people who have trouble reaching max accuracy. As a bard, you probably don't realize that accuracy is a big deal for other jobs. It's not something so easily obtained.

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Myth Tomes are there for a reason. If your argument is that you don't want to wear items that provide a stat that you need to be effective in said content, then the problem lies with the player, not the system.

ACC as stats has been always a problem , because is a binary stat, u have 100%+ or u dont . if u dont u get more until u are capped.

its a lame stat if u ask me , isnt interesting (like crit or haste that are fun stats) , its just a numer u have to achieve in order to "not fail" ....once u get 100% u forgot it exist....UNTIL u change a piece of gear....then u go crazy on math at how u have to gain another gear piece in order to able to put the piece u won now because u are losing ACC

FFXI was all about ACC , as ranger back then i hated that with pasion , all my gear with Racc , Racc food and missing a barrage still.....RETARDED

i say remove acc already from rpgs

I'd say the main issue is with accuracy in general. You're not supposed to even fight enemies of higher level than you for the vast majority of the game. That renders accuracy as a stat nigh-useless.

Personally, I feel the change to RoD was thrown in due to the War change and they had pvp in mind. With the change to the warrior skill they had to change RoD to something else. I think they could have went a few other routes with it, but I also feel they thought what a great chance to put in something that could be beneficial in pvp. Now, Im not saying that currently with pvp being fresh that this helps a ton in pvp... but if you think about it, eventually this could be a wanted and very dependable debuff in higher tier pvp. Many of the melee classes get keen flury as a cross class ability, which ups evasion... this is a good counter to that.

Other than this.. which honestly is the only reason I can see them going this route since it could be valuable in both pve and pvp down the road.. I don't see how this is helpful over a different debuff they could have chosen.

RoD change was stupid and I don't play bard. THey could have made it increase the damage of AoEs or reduce the accuracy of enemies...

Just about anything would be better than what you got.

I understand why bards got nerfed... lots of support comes at a cost and that is fine. What I don't understand is how Smn can sit on top of the dps list while providing more support than any other job except bard. In many cases the Smn has better support options (rez).