Is it possible that your melee aren't as skilled/geared as your bards? Or that particular encounter is tailored more towards ranged utility? I haven't participated in the endgame of ARR yet, but in 1.0 I ran into a few instances where a good brd could be comparable to average drgs and mnks. HM Garuda for example, the typical brd would finish as the lowest DD, but occasionally I would get brds that would be competing for the top 3 spots. (Most likely a combination of the brd being on the ball and the drgs/mnks moving around more than needed) Then there was HM Nael van Darnus where drg would just outshine everything no matter how good the brds, blms, or mnks were. Again. I haven't gotten around to doing endgame in ARR yet, so I could be completely misguided here.