Questions about Bard.

I'm thinking about making a Bard; I like the look and how it plays, and the ability to play music is unique and interesting.

The main problem is I don't like being mainly relegated to support. In general I prefer selfish DPS classes; I guess I trust myself to play well moreso than most others, so I prefer to be in near complete control of my damage output.

So, my question is, exactly how badly is the Bard class hamstrung by it's group utility? As far as personal DPS goes is it the worst... one of the worst... Is the gap between Bard and selfish DPS classes massive, or slight enough that I wouldn't really notice?

Physical ranged dps tend to be the lowest of a group's dpsers. This is mainly due to it's overall safety with most mechanics while not having to sacrifice uptime. So against a selfish dps like a SAM, they'd have to have pretty poor gear/skill to be on par with a BRD.

As far as dps penalty vs utility goes, the spectrum within p.ranged usually goes:

MCH as the most dps/least utility (though most would argue the inc. in dps doesn't make up for its lack of util. compared to BRD or DNC)

BRD middle of the road dps/mostly passive utility

DNC least dps/best util by a mile

From an objective standpoint, BRD is generally the worst out of the three. It has less damage than MCH with only slightly better utility (it has a 180s Direct Hit buff... cool?), and is outclassed in every way by DNCs utility (but does wayyy more personal damage since DNC's personal damage is laughably low, but it's raid contribution more than makes up for it). It's utility doesn't make up for it's poor damage when compared to MCH, and it's damage is significantly higher than DNC sure, but DNC's ultility is also significantly better than it, to the point that it still outperforms it in a raid setting with decent players. Main issue with BRD currently, in my opinion, is that it rotation doesn't line up with raid buffs very well naturally because of how the job was designed. BRD more or less runs on a very strict 80s rotation with it's songs (30s in Wanderer's, 30s in Ballad, 20s in Paeon), with that 80s rotation aligning with Raging Strikes (80s cooldown that increases damage dealt by 10%). The issue is that most of the major cooldowns in the game, including both raid-wide and personal, operate on 60s (Trick Attack being the most notable in this category of buffs), 120s (DNC's Technical Step, RDM's Embolden, etc), and 180s (DRG's Battle Litany, SMN's Devotion, etc). BRD very rarely aligns with these buffs naturally in it's primary burst which really does hurt its damage output, especially when you consider that MCH and DNC both align with raid buffs just fine. BRD also doesn't benefit from it's own 180s buff Battle Voice, which makes sense design/lore wise but still hurts it's personal damage even more (and again, DNC benefits from their 120s buff in comparison)

Now with all that said, please don't feel like you're hampering your group if you play BRD. If you enjoy the job and like playing it, please feel free to play it. You can clear any content in the game on any job. If you want high personal damage from physical ranged, I would recommend MCH as it's personal damage is quite a bit higher than BRD (and still beats out BRD's utility).

Good information so far, thanks. I like the bards aesthetic; I like being an archer and I like the unique prospect of being able to create music. It's a shame that the class is so low on the tier list in terms of personal DPS. I know every class is viable for pretty much any content, but I'm still not itching to be the lowest prospective performer in any group I join.

As for the class taking a hit for being physical range and having mobility, that's a little weird to me. With my Summoner, for instance, the vast majority of my rotation is instant cast. I have very little issue with uptime. I mean, do any classes, beside maybe BLM, have real uptime issues?

BRD likely wouldn't be my main anyways, and balance does seem to shift a lot in this game, so I may level one just to have it.

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Originally Posted by Goji1639

Good information so far, thanks. I like the bards aesthetic; I like being an archer and I like the unique prospect of being able to create music. It's a shame that the class is so low on the tier list in terms of personal DPS. I know every class is viable for pretty much any content, but I'm still not itching to be the lowest prospective performer in any group I join.

As for the class taking a hit for being physical range and having mobility, that's a little weird to me. With my Summoner, for instance, the vast majority of my rotation is instant cast. I have very little issue with uptime. I mean, do any classes, beside maybe BLM, have real uptime issues?

BRD likely wouldn't be my main anyways, and balance does seem to shift a lot in this game, so I may level one just to have it.

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lets just say there are people that work under the assumption that "free" movement means a physical ranged can and will dance around the arena 99% of the time and that this is such a boon on the group they deserve to do at least 10% less dps than anyone else otherwise no one would take these less mobile classes.

realistically ? yea that is simply not true, all casters indeed are plenty mobile to handle mechanics with "minimal" dps loss (amount may vary, but losing 200 or even 500 [and in 9 out of 10 cases it will be closer to 200] dps do to movement doesn't matter if you start with a 1000 dps headstart on the competition) and "running around in circles just because" is not just useless but actively detrimental do to the way these fights are designed+active heal ranges but hey.

at the end of the day of course "free" movement is an advantage for a class, so it needs some disadvantage to counterbalance, however as it stands this disadvantage is such a heavy baseline dps tax, its basically impossible to capitalize on the advantage the "free" movement offers, which leaves the physical ranged role right now in the realm of "whatever, you will take one anyways for the 1% buff"

Ranged Physical DPS need to be redesigned entirely, since the whole "free movement = less DPS" thing just isn't working out. Physical ranged have a very simple rotation on paper and that's partially why their damage is low as well, since most are very easy to pick up. DNC rotation is laughably easy and boring, MCH has an infinite 1 2 3 rotation where you occasionally hit skills on cooldown and enter your burst, and BRD that runs a strict song rotation while maintaining buffs/procs. Physical ranged can be balanced by giving them more difficult rotations, or at least more stuff to optimize (DNC), and giving them more mechanics since they have free movement. Of course that's just one idea.

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Originally Posted by Goji1639

and I like the unique prospect of being able to create music

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Not really sure what you expect bard to play like, but I don't think this is what you think it is...as far as combat is concerned. Your "songs" are hit one button (strum a chord animation) and then go right back to your dps actions. Then 30 seconds later you hit the next song button (strum a chord animation again), etc. You're not really "creating music" unless you are referring to "Performance" which has nothing to do with combat...which your post seems more concerned with.

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Originally Posted by Macleod

Not really sure what you expect bard to play like, but I don't think this is what you think it is...as far as combat is concerned. Your "songs" are hit one button (strum a chord animation) and then go right back to your dps actions. Then 30 seconds later you hit the next song button (strum a chord animation again), etc. You're not really "creating music" unless you are referring to "Performance" which has nothing to do with combat...which your post seems more concerned with.

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I am talking about "Performance" regarding creating music. I'm mostly concerned about combat, but the ability to actually play an in-game instrument is an interestingly unique bit of flavor for the class.

It's a shame the class seems to take so many personal DPS hits for seemingly dated reasons.

Yeah they recently had a nerf to their DoTs which is uh... one of the biggest optimization points in their kit, which made me really sad. It made it harder to justify optimizing DoTs on BRD since with the lower potencies the DoTs do now, there's less and less reason to snap raid buffs onto it instead of just using another Burst Shot.

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Originally Posted by Akiudo

lets just say there are people that work under the assumption that "free" movement means a physical ranged can and will dance around the arena 99% of the time and that this is such a boon on the group they deserve to do at least 10% less dps than anyone else otherwise no one would take these less mobile classes.

realistically ? yea that is simply not true, all casters indeed are plenty mobile to handle mechanics with "minimal" dps loss (amount may vary, but losing 200 or even 500 [and in 9 out of 10 cases it will be closer to 200] dps do to movement doesn't matter if you start with a 1000 dps headstart on the competition) and "running around in circles just because" is not just useless but actively detrimental do to the way these fights are designed+active heal ranges but hey.

at the end of the day of course "free" movement is an advantage for a class, so it needs some disadvantage to counterbalance, however as it stands this disadvantage is such a heavy baseline dps tax, its basically impossible to capitalize on the advantage the "free" movement offers, which leaves the physical ranged role right now in the realm of "whatever, you will take one anyways for the 1% buff"

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You’ve hit the nail on the head right here. Pretty much agree with you on every point. The fact that the lowest melee DPS is 1k ahead of the three ranged is dumb. I totally agree that there should be a gap but 1k is dumb. That gap needs halving at least. I jest I joked that giving mch as wildfire the ability to crit would buff it a tiny bit and I stand by that. It would be enough to not make a huge impact. Bards personal dps nerfs were stupid in every way. Dancer basically was the opposite of everything the job balancing in SHB brought (removal of job synergy like piercing debuff etc)

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Originally Posted by Akiudo

at the end of the day of course "free" movement is an advantage for a class, so it needs some disadvantage to counterbalance, however as it stands this disadvantage is such a heavy baseline dps tax, its basically impossible to capitalize on the advantage the "free" movement offers, which leaves the physical ranged role right now in the realm of "whatever, you will take one anyways for the 1% buff"

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Exactly.

Currently the movement tax on ranged is far too high. Most fights are designed so that you can keep very high uptime with nearly any class. Especially melee, where bosses have a decent sized hitbox and you have free movement within that area, usually only losing a GcD a few times per fight at most. As melee you even have tools like gap closers, Enpi, Meditate, ranged Ninjitsu and so on to reduce that downtime even further. Which is good, no one wants to twiddle their thumbs and just sit there during mechanics, but it does mean the advantage ranged have is maybe 1% or so, which the current tax doesn't reflect.