Bard Nerfs Offically Confirmed

[Woodberry]

People who think BLM are going to be OP in pvp do not know how painfully easy it is to negate every one of the BLM's casts by jumping through him.

BLM has multiple binds, an aoe sleep, an instant cast slow/heavy, an instant cast on any ability, the ability to nullify physical attacks, and a run and gun attack. Not to mention they hit like a truck. They will dominate in pvp.

As to summoners, you can remove one debuff every 2.5 seconds while having a cast time. With everything being aoe capable, debuffs will have a good uptime.

[Louro999]

So something is wrong if a single class is mandatory for a 8 man? I guess you better tell most of the classes this, because most of them are mandatory, or at least FEEL mandatory.

You can replace any dps class by another one.
You can replace DRG by MNK, you can replace BLM by SMN, and vice versa. Bard can replace both.
There is only one class that cannot be replaced because no other class uses the same mechanic (regen MP + on-demand silence).
If you consider that the class also have a very good dps (easily in top 2 DPS until you reach ilvl90 then you start becoming less effective compared to others) then there is no reason why you would pick, say, a DRG over a BRD, for instance.
If Bard had a single target Limit Break, there wouldn't even have any melee dps playing this game.

There is a good reason why many people stack BRD in their party atm. Whoever disagree lives in denial.

[Saisha]

(sic) I care no more, lol.

[Woodberry]

You can replace any dps class by another one.
You can replace DRG by MNK, you can replace BLM by SMN, and vice versa. Bard can replace both.
There is only one class that cannot be replaced because no other class uses the same mechanic (regen MP + on-demand silence).
If you consider that the class also have a very good dps (easily in top 2 DPS until you reach ilvl90 then you start becoming less effective compared to others) then there is no reason why you would pick, say, a DRG over a BRD, for instance.
If Bard had a single target Limit Break, there wouldn't even have any melee dps playing this game.

There is a good reason why many people stack BRD in their party atm. Whoever disagree lives in denial.

Which is why it is odd they are nerfing dps. Already lowest dps at current endgame. Personally I have little faith in the devs after the whole pally/warrior tank fiasco. Seriously, the whole, "We had no idea pallies would use their abilities to beat content" statement was bizzare.

Personally, I think they should take the same approach here. Raise BRD dps to be in line with others and raise utility of other DPS. For example, take the mnk silence out of an ability and make it an off GCD silence on a 30 second cooldown.

[EasymodeX]

If you consider that the class also have a very good dps (easily in top 2 DPS until you reach ilvl90 then you start becoming less effective compared to others)

I'm dubious re: this supposed "i90" demarcation. From what I saw while gearing up, Bards always did less DPS even at lower gear levels. The difference seen at "i90" gear levels is not due to the gear itself, but rather due to the weeding out of bad players that can't make it into Coil, so you're left with a pool of DRG/MNK/BLM/SMN that don't fail at playing their respective classes.

[Bluewhite]

It worked in FF11 because parties were six people - 1 tank, 1 healer, 1 support, 3 dps worked pretty good (at least when I played it - may have changed now)

It worked in FFXI because BRD is way too OP as support in XI, march x2 is the strongest DPS buff in that game. XIV BRD songs is nowhere near as OP as XI march x2 in this game.

COR was the DPS/support hybrid job in XI, and it's not used in salvage/Nyzul/abyssea....basically half of the endgame content you don't need chaos roll. XIV BRD will be in even worse situation than XI COR if damage is nerfed.

BRD DPS doesn't deserve a nerf as it is, or else it's going to be useless in all lv 50 dungeons and all primals, maybe even coil.

[Bardo]

Ifrit's Bow: 35 dmg (ilvl 60)
Garuda's Spine: 37 dmg (ivl 70) = +2 dmg
Artemis Bow: 40 dmg (ilvl 80) = +3 dmg
Artemis Bow +1: 41 dmg (ilvl 90) = +1 dmg

vs literally every other class -

Ifrit's weapon: 39 dmg
Garuda's weapon: 41 dmg = +2 dmg
Relic: 44 dmg = +3 dmg
Relic +1: 46 dmg = +2 dmg

The lower starting damage makes sense to make up for the "Increased Action Damage" traits and the additional "free damage" mechanic we get with River of Blood and Bloodletter that scales with crit.
But then at ilvl 90 our base weapon damage actually SCALES worse than any other class as well.

So maybe they'll slightly lower the potency of a few abilities and then bump up Relic+1 to 42 damage to compensate at ilvl 90?

[Mikedizzy]

Sounds like they'll be switching the subclass out from lancer to something worthless like they did for MNK in beta. MNK had Archer subclass, but they switched it since raging + blood for Blood was too strong I guess. 10 to 1 This happens for BRD. Good luck, hope you don't get MRD like the poor MNKs did.

That is exactly what I think they are going to do. LNC will no longer be a sub-class so they can take away "Blood for Blood". +40% damage increase on top of the DEX buff from Hawk's Eye is pretty powerful. I did just spend a lot of time leveling LNC just to get Blood for Blood so that will piss me off that I wasted all that time now...but I guess I could live with that if they don't give us stupid cast times or lower overall damage. Then they should be giving us CNJ back as a sub class so we can heal and support again.

[Aries37]

BRD DPS doesn't deserve a nerf as it is, or else it's going to be useless in all lv 50 dungeons and all primals, maybe even coil.

You know that's just not true though.

None of the dps checks in this game are anywhere near hard enough to warrant that kind of discrimination. If there were something tuned that high then people would only ever run SMN/BLM/MNK.

All this nerf will do is make raids consider against taking 2 bards, and I think solo bard will probably become the norm just like it's the norm to take only one melee (remember though that there are TWO melee dps jobs competing for that one slot; bards have no right to complain). Bard will still be the only dps job in the game that is practically guaranteed a raid slot because mana song/foe requiem/ranged silence make content so much easier.

[Bluewhite]

None of the dps checks in this game are anywhere near hard enough to warrant that kind of discrimination. If there were something tuned that high then people would only ever run SMN/BLM/MNK.

Bard will still be the only dps job in the game that is practically guaranteed a raid slot because mana song/foe requiem/ranged silence make content so much easier.

This is not the matter of having DPS check, but about players will aim for fastest/most efficent way to do the content.

Having 2 healers make Titan hard mode so much easier, but some groups do Titan hard mode with 1 healer to increase killing speed(or to sell leech spot), because they can deal with the damage taken with just 1 healer.

If BRD DPS gets too much nerf, players will find a way to deal with song/silence issue and never invite BRD again.