Does archer get more interesting at end-game?

I have level 18 Archer, and to be blunt, it's incredibly boring. For the first time in my life I actually just stand there and press 1, maybe 2 on occasion and that's it. When I first get Archer it sounds like fun because I get to kite stuff and actually asked myself why I see bards just standing there with feet planted firmly into the ground, but in dungeons I become a literal standing figurative cannon, especially because I macro Misery's End, Bloodletter and Heavy Shot all in one button. Now I know the answer to my question.

Now, considering the incredibly low level, I figure that it's not everything Archer (and Bard) has to offer, so I'm here to ask: does archer get more interesting at end-game?

Define interesting - it's very subjective to individual.

Not sure what would constitute as interesting to you. But yes, BRD is probably the most straightforward DPS job in game (I've only played BRD/DRG/BLM thou) to me. Most mobile, 100% DPS uptime, you sure don't have to manage DoTs and pets like SMN do, nor manage MP/stances like BLM do, nor worry about rotation combos like DRG/MNK do (and cope with end-game mechanics that seems to be more demanding on melees than ranged).

But when you get into a raid group, I think BRD can be interesting, at least to me. Because I'm the one that has the least thing to be bothered with, I can easily call out things to the team, like watch out on mechanics or things like "Spiney's HP dropping too fast". I'll have to monitor healer's MP and decide when and how long to play Mage's Ballad. In Garuda EX battle, I can help to mark plumes, and if I happen to play with Japanese players who often do the 3 way strat, I can pop my offensive CDs and burst at Chirada to pull her over and tank her so that our DRG/MNK can do their rotations/flanking, instead of asking DRG to do the pulling and tanking and waste time and DPS time there. In Ifrit EX battle I can mark the nails attacking order.

There are a lot of things you can do outside of the limited buttons you can press there. I often see myself and as support player/coordinator and I find it fun being so.

Yes, we got colorful pants, pink shirt, high heels for male.

Joke, in end game Bard is consider'd dps with party support skill.
You have to keep DoTs up, weaving OGCD skill/buff in GCD skill. Interrupt some boss's skill.
manage healer's mp or reduce enemy's magic resistance from songs (manage your mp as well).
That's all for Bard in FFXIV 2.1, oh and don't get hit by avoidable AoE too.

in short, with regular Bard's macro, you still keep smashing 2-3 buttons and a couple more when buff.

Single-target Bard at endgame:

Is Straight Shot up? If not, put it up.
Is Bloodletter's cooldown up? If so, use it.
Are Windbite + Venomous Bite (DoTs) up? If not, put them up.
Nothing else to do? Heavy Shot.
Got a Straighter Shot proc? Use Straight Shot.

You're already ahead of the curve making your Heavy Shot a 3-in-1 macro.

Bards are boring.

rotation wise , bards are very simple.

it's more about

maximizing cooldowns ( using them asap while having them up for the important moments) for more dps
maximizing foe requiem uptime while still having enough mana for ballads when your healers need them.
maintaining your healer's mp while having minimal impact on your own dps (ballads give -20%dmg)

Yeah bards are the do it all at one point or another type of class. Ran the healing LB often enough, MP song, Foe's, TP song at times, tanked green add in garuda hm(so I'm guessing I'd be doing something like that in ex as well), hell tanked entire sastasha during beta at one point. Frankly I'm having lot's of fun with it but yeah... there really isn't some rotation and positioning you need to know other than avoid anything avoidable.

Like ppl already said, optimizing your songs/MP/CD and using your silence at the appropriate time make BRD pretty interesting in endgame content.
And it's so easy to avoid AOE with this class, that Bard can monitor all the fight and tell the strategy/phase using TS/mumble/sound effects for primals for example.

To answer the OP's question: No.

Bard is probably not the class you're looking for. Its the simplest class out there, to be honest.

You do get a silence ability near max level that is ranged, instant, and off GCD, so you gain the role of interrupt utility. Some end-game content puts pressure on a bard to be able to silence properly, so there is that.

Bard is definitely the easiest to play out of all the jobs, possibly excepting the Black Mage.

If you are interested in clicking many buttons bard is fine. Easy to Play and screwing up things (progs, prio, rota...) doesn´t hurt as much as with other classes. That said bards do also get duties other dps don´t get. Addkiting, interrupting, songduties... Fullfilling those duties and keeping up a-game rises the difficulty to lets say moderate.

Hard to Play? No - Interesting? Yes. - Usefull? Yes. Your pick.

Remove your BL and ME from your heavy shot macro (you're hurting your dps by having oGCD attacks on a macro with a GCD). This makes bard more interesting as well because you have to weave in oGCD abilities that can refresh at a extremely fast pace between your GCD's in order to maximize dps.

General rule for playing bard the right way: Never macro oGCD abilities onto a GCD (unless you want to do less than optimal dps and sleep while you are playing your class).

off topic but I'd pick a summoner over a bard, even though I am one, anytime for the instant res just because the other people in my coil group aren't bad and actually know how to silence(scholar/monk included)

No, BRD is super easy and super boring.

I love Bard. It may be the simplest rotation but that's a good thing in my eyes. Let's me concentrate on what's going on above my hot bar.

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Originally Posted by Satsui

Remove your BL and ME from your heavy shot macro (you're hurting your dps by having oGCD attacks on a macro with a GCD). This makes bard more interesting as well because you have to weave in oGCD abilities that can refresh at a extremely fast pace between your GCD's in order to maximize dps.

General rule for playing bard the right way: Never macro oGCD abilities onto a GCD (unless you want to do less than optimal dps and sleep while you are playing your class).

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Having the 3 in 1 macro is fine, just always have Heavy Shot first so the GCD ability is always prioritised over the other 2. Forcing yourself to pay attention to Bloodletter resets and Misery's End recasts and instantly react accordingly would just be a decrease in damage for most people.

Bard is very interesting at end game in my opinion and some fights are all on you with having to Silence certain abilities like:
1. Chimeras Ram's Voice
2. ADS's High Voltage on T1 and T2.
Of course every job is subjective to who is playing it...I think Bard is very fun and rewarding to play. As I am on my 3rd 50 which is my WHM...I am finding that playing a Healer class is VERY AWESOME and rarely boring. At low levels not too much to do but a ton to do on harder fights. Melee DPS Dragoon is fantastic and really fun.
Hope this helps you decide.

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Originally Posted by Alkimi

Having the 3 in 1 macro is fine, just always have Heavy Shot first so the GCD ability is always prioritised over the other 2. Forcing yourself to pay attention to Bloodletter resets and Misery's End recasts and instantly react accordingly would just be a decrease in damage for most people.

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Yes, it is fine if you mind doing sub optimal DPS. There is another thread regarding this if you want more information as I don't want to get off topic. TLDR = Playing bard sub optimally by using a 3 in 1 macro makes it a boring class. Playing one correctly as I have stated makes it much more difficult as you pointed out (most people can't because it is too difficult so they go the easy road). To the OP, if you want to play the class correctly, there is a lot to pay attention to playing an end game bard.

Do everyone a favor and stop gloating about how much better of a DPS you are than everyone else....

Not everyone plays this game on PC..... Macro's are definitely useful for the PS3 gamers that get the core 10 abilities, 5 class abilities, and 5 cross class abilities with only 16 button spaces per page without having to use the L1 rotate skill sets to access the one global cool down that gets mixed into your rotation....

If we could set 4 full pages of skill sets on our main screen... sure, we'll do it your way.

Myself, being an end game bard.... dont see any problem putting BL and ME onto the HS macro.... as long as it is in that order with no waits in between. they fire off in priority. and saves me needed space for other buttons...... or is it not important to have Quick Nock at the ready than having to flip pages to look for it while dodging AOE's

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Originally Posted by SkyHighDN

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SkyHighDN, I apologize for coming off as gloating as that was not my intent (I don't think I ever said "hey look at me i'm an awesome dps). I was simply trying to advise the OP that playing a bard "CAN" be more than just spamming keys 1-4. It seems the OP was wondering if the class ever gets "more difficult", in which my answer is, "Yes it does, if you want to play it at an optimal level and squeezing out the maximum dps from the class".

I understand that macro's do help people especially for people playing on gamepads. You can get by all content in this game by macro'ing your oGCD abilities to your GCD's if you want to. If you want to squeeze that extra 10% dps from your class, you can do that as well while adding more difficulty.

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Originally Posted by SkyHighDN

Do everyone a favor and stop gloating about how much better of a DPS you are than everyone else....

Not everyone plays this game on PC..... Macro's are definitely useful for the PS3 gamers that get the core 10 abilities, 5 class abilities, and 5 cross class abilities with only 16 button spaces per page without having to use the L1 rotate skill sets to access the one global cool down that gets mixed into your rotation....

If we could set 4 full pages of skill sets on our main screen... sure, we'll do it your way.

Myself, being an end game bard.... dont see any problem putting BL and ME onto the HS macro.... as long as it is in that order with no waits in between. they fire off in priority. and saves me needed space for other buttons...... or is it not important to have Quick Nock at the ready than having to flip pages to look for it while dodging AOE's

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Put the discussion in context please.

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Originally Posted by Raestloz

I have level 18 Archer, and to be blunt, it's incredibly boring. For the first time in my life I actually just stand there and press 1, maybe 2 on occasion and that's it.

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The OP complains that there's not enough buttons to press, while using a macro that limits how many buttons you press.
Macros are good for PS3 users but even if the OP is using the PS3, it doesn't make sense to talk about how little buttons they use.
There is also a delay, so if you're a PC user then it's better not to use one. Then it's more interesting and you have more to track.

If you are going to use a macro, don't come on the forums to talk about how boring it is to press one or two buttons.

Also the amount of hyperbole about "not using macros = 10% DPS boost" is highly amusing.

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Originally Posted by Satsui

Yes, it is fine if you mind doing sub optimal DPS.

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3 in 1 macros can be a dps increase when made properly (heavy shot first) and used correctly (not smashing the button).

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Originally Posted by SeraviEdalborez

Also the amount of hyperbole about "not using macros = 10% DPS boost" is highly amusing.

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Yeah, as far as I can tell it really only affects when the mob is in the last 10% of it's health since you will be using both a Bloodletter and a Misery's End between a GCD instead of just one off GCD ability. This delays your Heavy Shot GCD by about 1 second once every 12 seconds 10% of the time. That's a net loss of a little less than 1% damage.

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Originally Posted by MurakumoMillennium

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Your forcing an automatic 0.2 to 0.6 delay on your GCD (depending on your latency to the server) as macro's innately cannot use the ability command queue like normal abilities can. Additionally you run the potential risk of using bloodletter right before your GCD refreshes, effectively delaying your GCD due to the animation lock of the ability. As others have pointed out in another thread, due to the way dot ticks work in this game, it's impossible to miss a bloodletter if you solely use it between GCD's (meaning there is no reason to delay a GCD to use bloodletter).

To not get off topic, there is another thread where people discuss what I am talking about at http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...D-macro/page12

I'm not saying all macros are a dps loss, only macros where you have GCD and oGCD attacks on the same macro.

Even more to the point of the OP, he is stating that Archer seems boring, which if you use 3 in 1 macros, it is. If you want to do more dps while making the class not "as boring", then do some research and some testing yourself on what I am talking about.

And if you think the delay is that significant on only a single GCD+BL+ME macro (Heavy Shot), you should be investing in Skill Speed.

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Originally Posted by SeraviEdalborez

And if you think the delay is that significant on only a single GCD+BL+ME macro (Heavy Shot), you should be investing in Skill Speed.

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Over the course of a 12 minute Turn 5 fight, you are shooting quite a few Heavy Shots.....

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Originally Posted by Alkimi

Having the 3 in 1 macro is fine, just always have Heavy Shot first so the GCD ability is always prioritised over the other 2. Forcing yourself to pay attention to Bloodletter resets and Misery's End recasts and instantly react accordingly would just be a decrease in damage for most people.

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Incorrect. The game will still attempt to use Heavy Shot first, which causes around a ~.2-.7 second delay on your other skills inside the macro, due to how macros cannot use the ability queue function, which is a DPS loss. BL/ME/heavy shot macros have been proven to be a DPS loss, it is better to just monitor them on your own and weave them correctly (it's also far more fun). By using this macro, you are losing a big aspect of the class. Bloodletters play a huge role in how BRD functions. For the OP to trivialize that function, then come onto the forums complaining about ease of difficulty is rather baffling to me.

That aside, BRD has a low skill curve, but a high skill ceiling. Utilizing OGC skills correctly, in the correct priority, especially when you get multiple BL resets can be alot of buttons to press, couple that with the fact that you are the main silencer, you have 2 DoTs to keep track of, you have to keep an eye on healers mana, know how to manage mana properly, and manage your 5 CD's correctly, etc, all makes bards have a much higher skill ceiling than people actually give it credit for.

Another important aspect of BRD is that you have more responsibility and your life carries far more value than any other DPS. This means that dying is a big deal. If you die, theres no more requiem for burst phases, you have no mana to give out ballads, theres no silences going out for interruptions, etc.
Compare that to a BLM, BRD, or MNK, who, pretty much do nothing except DPS. SMN's should be the first to raise in groups/raids, so they also have some responsibility.

I'm not sure why everyone considers BRD to be the easiest class when BLM exists. BLM has no mana management, they have a single DoT that is reapplied through their monotonous and stuck-in-stone constant rotation, and they carry zero responsibility other than DPSing. Their rotation is also pretty much four buttons with a few situational skills, they don't even really manage cooldowns either, and they don't have to weave OGC abiltiies inbetween casts. Since cancelling cast for firestarter is a DPS loss, it makes everything even simpler. The only real "hard" part of BLM is that their rotation is sedentary, so they have to scathe, firestarter, or thundercloud proc when they move, so they have to make some decisions on where to stand. They also have to time stance transitions correctly.

BRD's mobility is a bad excuse for making an argument on ease of difficulty as well. Moving out of AOE is not hard, it just causes a DPS loss. The only argument you can make for lessening difficulty is that you do not have to choose where you position yourself, which is a pretty bad excuse considering other ranged classes also have instants to give them plenty of repositionment without a huge DPS loss, if any. Besides that, it's not as if its really that hard to choose where to stand. Almost always it boils down to either group coordination on things like twisters/titan pools, or common sense.

In my opinion, no class in this game is hard to play optimally. However, I do believe some of them are rather interesting/fun, end game bard being one of them.

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Originally Posted by SeraviEdalborez

And if you think the delay is that significant on only a single GCD+BL+ME macro (Heavy Shot), you should be investing in Skill Speed.

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Your latency is not changing by increasing your skill speed, so you will not really be accomplishing anything except for burning your TP slightly faster. The latency effect actually becomes larger compared to your skill recharge time as you increase skill speed.

Even ignoring the potential DPS issues it still seems a tad silly to be complaining about the class not having enough buttons immediately before telling us that he's stuffing as many abilities as he can into a macro.

The two statements seem directly contradictory in their ends.

Let's take this to what this thread really is: I'm a lvl 18, game is boring. Does it get less boring?

Yes. Very much yes. You've got a long way to go before you can call endgame boring, BRD or any other class. Just go watch a Titan Extreme video or something.

For me, Bard is exactly like the heals. This is totally subjective but bard/healer is really boring in small instances. It gets very interesting when you go in instances which require to play our class correctly. I main dragoon, but I just love playing Bard in Bahamut for example. Doing support work, like getting the adds to the boss, staying near the heals, using the mage's ballad and more importantly having a silence to use perfectly on the 2 first turns. I enjoy being a dps, but being able to help my team in another way other than doing damage, this is a duty you need to carry on, but when you succeed you are more recognized than if you were playing any other dps classes.

I love my dragoon (lvling a monk atm) because I need to position myself correctly to get my buffs, and watch my rotations.

In conclusion what you are asking if very subjective.

Most classes are pretty barebones prior to 30. By 50 on Bard, you have a plethora of cooldowns to manage and 5 or 6 abilities that you're cycling through constantly while fighting, not to mention using songs when necessary.

I feel Bard is a pretty busy job, but it takes a while to get to that point.