Bard or Machinists

I played a paladin and warrior to 50 and completed up to titan before I had to quit due to real life reasons. I wish to come back with the expansion and play more of a support role. My wife is a White mage and moves the class so my question is: which will be more friendly to a wm? I've only been able to do a little research but it seems like one buffs the group while the other debuffs the mob? That sound about right?

I like the way bards look and play but I like the idea that playing a machinist will be new to fresh and not as many people playing it. Also is the game saturated with bards or are they kinda rare?

Last question ...I completed the Ultima group mission and did I frit ..titan and the wind boss...is that far enough into the story to unlock machinist at launch?

Thanks

To your question about progress to play machinist no sorry you have to do more you have to complete all main story line quest to access hw. So that includes the new jobs, the main story line will take you to all primals shiva being your last you gave to do. Then you will have to do steps of faith which will be the last trail in the 2.0 story.

Why not both?

I'm gonna play MST when it comes out, but I'll still main my bard. Bards are always needed in endgame, so... no one knows about machinist yet.

To me, both will apply buffs and debuffs. Bard is very well known for their ability to buff mp regen (great for white mage in general) and debuff enemy magic defense (great for black mages and white mage holy spam). The only difference is that the buffs/debuffs move with the bard, whereas machinst places stationary turrets for their buffs/debuffs.

If you want to be unique, you're out of luck. Bards are the most popular dps class. This might change in the future though since everyone's going to be trying out the new jobs when the expansion hits. Sticking with bard might make you an outlier in that regard. Also, Bard players are likely to split between Bard and Machinist as their favorite. Try both out and see which one you prefer. Bards and Machinists will be competing with each other for slots in static groups and premades, but it shouldn't be bad.

The way the game is designed, new jobs require you to talk to the associated job npc to unlock. This is true for rogue/ninja, who requires players to visit Limsa Lominsa to unlock it. If you start in Ul'dah, you don't get to unlock it until lv.15, whereas players starting in Limsa can unlock at 10 (when they can class change). Considering the job npcs for the new classes are in Ishgard, you will have to find a way to get in to Ishgard without completing the 2.5 story first.

It might be possible if a friend flies you there through some unexpected backdoor, but you will not be able to walk through the front door. In other words, you're relying on a glitch or bug to get in to Ishgard before completing the story (which does have some pretty big spoilers). Given SE's QA department and the game's previous history with a lack of QA (remember 1.0), I don't expect that backdoor to be easy to find.

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Originally Posted by Anova

It might be possible if a friend flies you there through some unexpected backdoor, but you will not be able to walk through the front door. In other words, you're relying on a glitch or bug to get in to Ishgard before completing the story (which does have some pretty big spoilers)..

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from a dev standpoint, its extremely simple to program countermeasures to ensure this isnt possible, such as if you enter a zone marked as Heavensward, it could compare to your account to see if you should have access, and if not simply kick you back to your recall point for example, along with notify a GM about your action.
basic version is, if you try to backdoor your way into heavensward, all your gonna end up with is a banned account.

I'm not going to try to backdoor the devs lol. It does sound like I will just have to play my paladin or just reexperience it all again on my bard thou. Thanks for the information

See, the great thing is, both jobs will use the same gear, so you can effectively keep both up to snuff with very little extra effort. I personally plan on doing both, and just using whichever one feels right at the time.

Going off of what zophar said I'd play brd and get gear for it now because most if not all gear between bard and machinist will be shared. (Screenshot of machinist in bard high allagan is out there somewhere)

@Vicus: Truthfully we don't really know what the ultimate differences between Bard and Machinist are all going to be. We know SOME of the Machinists abilities and so far it looks like the Machinist will be more of a Debuff class like you said. However since we don't yet know everything that the Machinist is able to do, we can't be 100% certain that this will hold out to be true.

I would also like to point out that the Bard is going to be losing a really HUGE aspect of its support capabilities in Heavensward when it loses the Healer Limit Break. Instead it will be using a DPS-oriented Limit Break from Heavensward forward, which while that seems all well and good, it will limit the Bard's usefulness in certain situations.

As for which is actually more friendly to a White Mage? Well, they both get an ability that regenerates the MP of the party. However the Bard's version of that ability is going to be slightly stronger than the Machinist, so looking at it purely from the perspective of supporting the White Mage, the Bard will be the better class, hands down. The Bard also has an ability that increases the amount of damage magic-based attacks do; unfortunately the Bard can only use one or the other of these two abilities at a time, not both simultaneously.

As far as your second question, no, that is not far enough into the story to unlock the Machinist. You have to have completed the storyline that was released in Patch 2.55, which is significantly AFTER the bosses you said you have completed. Of the bosses you mentioned, the one that I believe is the furthest along is from something like 2.2 I think (don't quote me on that).

I will state that the Machinist draws its Cross-Class abilities from both the Archer (Bard) and the Lancer (Dragoon), so it would probably be a very good idea to max both Archer's and Lancer's levels out as it is possible that when we get access to level 60 we may be able to gain higher level Cross-Class skills, even though the number of Cross-Class slots won't be going up. At the very least if you plan on leveling Machinist you need both Archer and Lancer to be level 34 to gain access to all of the currently available Cross-Class skills.

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Originally Posted by Tharian

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No one ever brings in a bard for healer LB exclusively, you're overexaggerating the usefulness of a healer LB (when it's arguably pretty garbage in most circumstances).

Both can bring something to the table that makes them worthy of a raid slot; Bards have their stronger song regen (at the cost of damage), while machinists do not suffer as big of a damage penalty in exchange for their weaker regens. Machinists also have more debuffs at their disposal to help mitigate damage with weapon break/mind shot.

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

No one ever brings in a bard for healer LB exclusively, you're overexaggerating the usefulness of a healer LB (when it's arguably pretty garbage in most circumstances).

Both can bring something to the table that makes them worthy of a raid slot; Bards have their stronger song regen (at the cost of damage), while machinists do not suffer as big of a damage penalty in exchange for their weaker regens. Machinists also have more debuffs at their disposal to help mitigate damage with weapon break/mind shot.

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I don't believe I ever stated that the Bard was brought in exclusively for the Healer Limit Break. What I said was that it will be losing some of it's versatility in certain situations... such as when Titan EX kills both healers, and all you have left is your bard and 3 bars on the Limit Break Meter...

Also... is that your signature that is making it look like I have a gnat crawling around on the inside of my screen?

My guesses as to BRD vs MCH:

- BRD will hopefully, in a comp with strong healer DPS and a good caster, bring more raid DPS due to Foe's. If MCH beats BRD even counting Foe's then there's no hope for BRD in 3.0 because that basically makes MCH a melee level ranged DPS with debuffs.
- BRD should have more focused TP/MP regen but presumably at a higher cost than MCH would have, if MCH's regen tools are truly weaker as currently reported.
- MCH's debuffs, like phys damage down and magic damage down, look to be unique and possibly very, very helpful for surviving hard hitting mechanics and tank killers depending on how often they can be used or how debilitating it is on MCH's TP or rotation (like how using Rain of Death in 2.0 inflicted Storm's Path but it destroyed TP). This interests me the most about MCH, and to me is what will make or break MCH in a raid environment if BRD contributes more raid DPS.

They both look to be mobile normally, but have a mode that raises their damage when stationary. They share gear, presumably but not for certain including weekly tome gear (2.0 tome gear was job locked).

Then again, this is the dev team who has thus far made the two new classes OP at the time of their launch, with SMN initially the top DPS, and NIN to this day the top melee even post-nerf. For all we know they'll screw with the numbers and balance and make AST, DRK, and MCH just plain better because they're new and enticing, who knows?

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Originally Posted by Sleigh

My guesses as to BRD vs MCH:

- BRD will hopefully, in a comp with strong healer DPS and a good caster, bring more raid DPS due to Foe's. If MCH beats BRD even counting Foe's then there's no hope for BRD in 3.0 because that basically makes MCH a melee level ranged DPS with debuffs.

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You cannot use the DPS provided by other classes when determining which class between Bard and Machinist will provide more DPS to the raid group. Yes, Bard's Foe's Requiem is a huge benefit to a raid group, but in terms of raw DPS output, the Machinist will be providing more raw DPS because the Bard suffers innate DPS loss when channeling Mage's Ballad and Army's Paeon, and Mage's Ballad tends to see more use than either Foe's Requiem or Army's Paeon in most cases due to groups needing it to keep their White Mage's operating. From what we can tell the MP and TP regeneration of the Machinist does not reduce the overall DPS output of that class.

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Originally Posted by Tharian

You cannot use the DPS provided by other classes when determining which class between Bard and Machinist will provide more DPS to the raid group. Yes, Bard's Foe's Requiem is a huge benefit to a raid group, but in terms of raw DPS output, the Machinist will be providing more raw DPS because the Bard suffers innate DPS loss when channeling Mage's Ballad and Army's Paeon, and Mage's Ballad tends to see more use than either Foe's Requiem or Army's Paeon in most cases due to groups needing it to keep their White Mage's operating. From what we can tell the MP and TP regeneration of the Machinist does not reduce the overall DPS output of that class.

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From Famitsu:

"The turrets can be summoned by the Autoturret techniques (Autoturret Rook and Autoturret Bishop). Since the turrets cannot move, the basic idea is to leave them out on the field during battle (they can be removed by the Turret Recovery action). There are also actions to enhance the turret itself and to switch the mode of the installed turret. Autoturret Rook attacks a single enemy, while the Autoturret Bishop, in addition to performing automatic AoE attacks, can change mode to grant support effects of MP or TP recovery to nearby party members."

From what we've heard, the MCH's version of Paeon is slower than BRD's, and it can only come from the AoE turret which is logically weaker ST than the ordinary turret, with probably more detriments when regening TP (if it does damage at all at that point). We'll have to see and test that aspect of BRD vs MCH but I'd imagine that aspect of their support is close to each other. For BRD vs MCH, BRD has to provide more overall raid DPS IMO unless they change BRD's current tool set, or they will be imbalanced due to MCH's damage down skills, much like how DRG/NIN must (and do) provide more raid DPS than a MNK does.

I think we are miss-communicating here. When you are referring to "raid DPS" are you referring to the total combined DPS of the entire raid group/alliance or the individual Bard/Machinist? Because if it is the former then that is a horrible way to judge which of the two classes is a superior DPS class.

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Originally Posted by Tharian

I will state that the Machinist draws its Cross-Class abilities from both the Archer (Bard) and the Lancer (Dragoon), so it would probably be a very good idea to max both Archer's and Lancer's levels out as it is possible that when we get access to level 60 we may be able to gain higher level Cross-Class skills, even though the number of Cross-Class slots won't be going up. At the very least if you plan on leveling Machinist you need both Archer and Lancer to be level 34 to gain access to all of the currently available Cross-Class skills.

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There will be no new cross class skills.

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Originally Posted by Ephier

There will be no new cross class skills.

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your source if you please...

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Originally Posted by Tharian

your source if you please...

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Think it was said at nikoniko or whatever, but he's right.

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Originally Posted by lordoftheapes79

Think it was said at nikoniko or whatever, but he's right.

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I would still prefer an actual source rather than a "but he's right."

Either way it would still probably be a good idea to level as many classes as possible as high as possible, Dragoon especially considering the emphasis that the X-pac appears to be placing on the class.

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Originally Posted by Tharian

I don't believe I ever stated that the Bard was brought in exclusively for the Healer Limit Break. What I said was that it will be losing some of it's versatility in certain situations... such as when Titan EX kills both healers, and all you have left is your bard and 3 bars on the Limit Break Meter...

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I would also like to point out that the Bard is going to be losing a really HUGE aspect of its support capabilities in Heavensward when it loses the Healer Limit Break. Instead it will be using a DPS-oriented Limit Break from Heavensward forward, which while that seems all well and good, it will limit the Bard's usefulness in certain situations.

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This makes it sound like that it is a very important feature to bard. Even in titan EX, a healer really shouldn't be dying unless its a botched landslide (in which case, you can't res them anyway). Even then it's only one fight, it has almost no utility in coil fights where one death can ruin everything (t10 for example, and you're more or less going to die anyway because of the animation lock), or they died to
Also... is that your signature that is making it look like I have a gnat crawling around on the inside of my screen?

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divebombs/touching the wall (which will kill them as soon as they res and debuff them no less)

Also, what signature ' ^'

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

divebombs/touching the wall (which will kill them as soon as they res and debuff them no less)

Also, what signature ' ^'

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"Huge" is not synonymous with "Only"

The signature that looks like a gnat walking in a figure eight... and I checked, it is actually an image in the section designated for your signature, which implies it is your signature... so you can stop trying to bluff :P

I will give you credit, when I first noticed it, it did fool me into thinking I had an insect on my screen... for about five seconds... then I got paranoid when I couldn't kill it... then I figured it out...

No one can answer your question because Machinist isn't out yet and no one has played them extensively enough to give a professional opinion about them yet.

With that out the way...it doesn't matter what you play. Since you're playing a DPS role it doesn't matter what you are as long as you can do good damage, dodge, and follow mechanics. Doing all of this will make it easier for your whm g/f, since she doesn't have to heal you or others as often.

Bard could help with ballad, but you shouldn't be using that in almost any situation as it's a big DPS hit. If you want to be a support to your g/f though, I'd go summoner. Super Virus and enhanced Eye 4 eye would at least help the tank take less damage and if for w/e reason she starts running out of mp, you can take over cures to a extent to buy time for her to regenerate MP as well as use resurrection if someone dies while your DoT's and pet keep pushing out a good portion of your damage, saving her from having to do it and allowing her to continue to focus on the rest of the party.

If you just want to play one of those two, well first comment still stands until heavensward is out for some time to see where Machinist stands in the grand scheme of things along with every other job since things are changing up

As a bard or machinist your primary role is DPS, so don't let the ability to restore MP/TP fool you into thinking that's their primary job. It IS a very important part of playing the class and if you do choose to be a bard don't be like others and never use ballad/peon because it hurts your DPS. Just from what we've been shown of machinist so far, they seem like a more "fire and forget" version of the bard: they drop their turrets down on a spot and let it do its thing while you continue to DPS. Meanwhile, Bard sacrifices their own damage to bring that utility to the party.

It's really up to you if you want the stronger MP/TP regens at the cost of lower damage when they're active vs. weaker MP/TP regens for a more consistent damage flow

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Originally Posted by Tharian

your source if you please...

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There's no new class abilities being added, only job abilties. No job skills can be crossed.

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Originally Posted by Tharian

I think we are miss-communicating here. When you are referring to "raid DPS" are you referring to the total combined DPS of the entire raid group/alliance or the individual Bard/Machinist? Because if it is the former then that is a horrible way to judge which of the two classes is a superior DPS class.

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Okay please enlighten me as to why you think this. I've seen people say this before because they haven't actually thought about it, or actually raided in an environment where comps matter and why they matter, but I'd love to see why you think this.

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Originally Posted by PinnyAerani

It's really up to you if you want the stronger MP/TP regens at the cost of lower damage when they're active vs. weaker MP/TP regens for a more consistent damage flow

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Technically, the mcn does lose dps. when their turrets are in support mode, they stop all dps. At this point, we do not have the information needed to know how big of a dps loss this is, but if things are balanced, mcn will have a slightly lower damage output than brd, which will make up for the added damage the turret provides. Just for the sake of argument, let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the turret does about 20% of mcn's total damage, that would about be the same effect as the damage debuff while singing.

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

So, regardless of how you look at it, one additional set will lose you either mitigation or threat, because of the opportunity cost of doing a second maim inside of the maim buff window. You can make the case that you don't need the threat, but the cost is there.

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It may seem that way, but honestly, the extra 30% raw damage (20% from maim and 10% from eye) actually fairly well balances out the loss of a butcher block round. And if you can hold hate fine while keeping eye or path up, there is no actual loss. If you can't keep hate and maintain your chosen storm move, you are seriously undergeared. That is not a debate. that is a fact.

If I'm basing things loosely on the compiled and translated info from Blue Gartr, Bard looks to be keeping the theme of self/party buffs while Machinist (again, based only on currently translated skill notes that may change) is more about debuffing the enemy to deal more damage. Their support utility for TP/MP regen differs slightly and the implications of that need real gameplay comparing the the two before we can judge. Really, though, play whichever you like best! I'm not making my final decision on switching from my Bard main until I have hands on experience with Machinist.

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Originally Posted by PinnyAerani

As a bard or machinist your primary role is DPS, so don't let the ability to restore MP/TP fool you into thinking that's their primary job. It IS a very important part of playing the class and if you do choose to be a bard don't be like others and never use ballad/peon because it hurts your DPS. Just from what we've been shown of machinist so far, they seem like a more "fire and forget" version of the bard: they drop their turrets down on a spot and let it do its thing while you continue to DPS. Meanwhile, Bard sacrifices their own damage to bring that utility to the party.

It's really up to you if you want the stronger MP/TP regens at the cost of lower damage when they're active vs. weaker MP/TP regens for a more consistent damage flow

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But if the turrent wasn't giving tp or mp, it would be dpsing. It's exact same concept - the machnist will give up some of their potential dps to do their support.

You are correct - though. I think it's mistake to view Bard as a support class, it's a DPS class at it's core. Just happens to have a buffs that are often needed in progression content.

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Originally Posted by PinnyAerani

As a bard or machinist your primary role is DPS, so don't let the ability to restore MP/TP fool you into thinking that's their primary job. It IS a very important part of playing the class and if you do choose to be a bard don't be like others and never use ballad/peon because it hurts your DPS.

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Not sure I can agree with that. While You are primarily doing DPS, BRD is only brought along in party for one thing, songs. If BRD's did not have songs why would I not just pick up another caster or melee who does more damage than them? People need to stop looking at the word support as some sort of insult. BRD is a support DPS class and does a great job at it.

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Originally Posted by PinnyAerani

It's really up to you if you want the stronger MP/TP regens at the cost of lower damage when they're active vs. weaker MP/TP regens for a more consistent damage flow

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No one knows their current damage potential so how can you say that?

By the looks of it MCN is going to be the one holding all of the debuffs while BRD buffs the party.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...lI1VGvrnl0/pub

In my eyes what I see machinist doing is that they take no hit to their DPS and can just lay down those tp/mp buffs without much care. Furthermore the machinist has a ridiculously vast amount of debuffs that they apply to enemies/conditions. Bard doesn't have that.

However Bard does have a massively larger chance to critically strike.


At this point it depends on the numbers, and no one is saying we can't take BOTH. The machinist can put their turret ontop of the damn white mage and then the bard can keep dpsing without needing to ballad until emergency time- in which the bard takes the DPS hit and helps the healer sustain.


At this point however I believe bard will have higher DPS than machinist merely because the bard can stack critical strikes through their monk cross class + their crit = +20% crit strike chance. But on theother hand the bard most certainly lacks the control aspect that the machinist has.

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Originally Posted by SovereignAegis

In my eyes what I see machinist doing is that they take no hit to their DPS and can just lay down those tp/mp buffs without much care. Furthermore the machinist has a ridiculously vast amount of debuffs that they apply to enemies/conditions. Bard doesn't have that.

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Except that they do take a dps hit in the form of their turrets that stop attacking in order to play a support role. This isn't theorycrafting or speculation. It's documented fact.

Go Bard, MCH is really gimp right now.

It might be because I'm coming from Ninja, which has a really nice combat flow, imo, but MCH just feels clunky to me. I spend more time looking at my bars for cooldowns and procs (which seems far less than the claimed 50% unless Reload is used) than focusing on the combat.

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

No one ever brings in a bard for healer LB exclusively, you're overexaggerating the usefulness of a healer LB (when it's arguably pretty garbage in most circumstances).

Both can bring something to the table that makes them worthy of a raid slot; Bards have their stronger song regen (at the cost of damage), while machinists do not suffer as big of a damage penalty in exchange for their weaker regens. Machinists also have more debuffs at their disposal to help mitigate damage with weapon break/mind shot.

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Yeah, I've used the bard lb exactly once - at the end of a dungeon when the boss was defeated and the lb had gone unused.

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Originally Posted by Ryaz

It might be because I'm coming from Ninja, which has a really nice combat flow, imo, but MCH just feels clunky to me. I spend more time looking at my bars for cooldowns and procs (which seems far less than the claimed 50% unless Reload is used) than focusing on the combat.

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i played a bit MHC and feel the same way D: , watching for procs....and cant wait until MCH gets the casting stance....PROCS and casting = NO NO , ask any blm :P ,or brd now :( so frustrating getting a proc of X skills while actually casting it (straight shot for example)

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Originally Posted by Warlyx

i played a bit MHC and feel the same way D: , watching for procs....and cant wait until MCH gets the casting stance....PROCS and casting = NO NO , ask any blm :P ,or brd now :( so frustrating getting a proc of X skills while actually casting it (straight shot for example)

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The only way to miss SS proc is to mash whatever button you bound SS to. SS proc is instacast which is absolutely amazing. And you just need to watch the field itself instead of your hotbars for procs.

On my laptop, I see proc on the field a second before it appears on my hotbars. Pretty useful considering that I tend to look more at what healer's doing rather than my own procs.