BARD 2.1 change [requesting letter from the producer explanation]

[Leon_Stormrage]

Well at least by design I think it was meant to be support...

But hey Ninja in XI was supposed to be DPS so have at it!

You should know that the text in the image is not refereeing to the same "support" as the one that the people are talking about in this thread

[Mooshywooshy]

Am I wrong in understanding the bulk of the BRD story was based on Jehantel not supporting his comrades and thus they all died? He got bored with his support role and went off to do his own thing, thus all of his friends were murdered.

Either way could one not simply look at every single skill BRD as a job gets and realize... they are all support skills? Further more if we were to look at the bulk of the Archer skills one would see that a majority are support/dot.

Again I feel that by design it was meant to be support. At least /as support/ as support can possibly be in this game without being a waste of a dps spot.

[Leon_Stormrage]

Am I wrong in understanding the bulk of the BRD story was based on Jehantel not supporting his comrades and thus they all died? He got bored with his support role and went off to do his own thing, thus all of his friends were murdered.

Either way could one not simply look at every single skill BRD as a job gets and realize... they are all support skills? Further more if we were to look at the bulk of the Archer skills one would see that a majority are support/dot.

Again I feel that by design it was meant to be support. At least /as support/ as support can possibly be in this game without being a waste of a dps spot.

The support of one Archer is stay out of the fighting lines and pew pew the enemy till they dead to clear the way
Also it was supposed to be support but right after they decided to make it DPS and the result was an hybrid, so, a DPS with good utility.

[Mooshywooshy]

Well, as there are no (and possibly never will be) full support roles I think our idea of "Support" and "DPS with good utility" coincide. They are not the best DPS but have great ability to support the party through a variety of skills, as opposed to say a Lancer who has no intentions of supporting anyone ever. lol

[WiseWolfHolo]

I for one am under the oppinion that if you are not an endgame player then you should not cry nerf or buff untill you get the full picture.

Don't cry nerf, cry buff if anything! I want to see classes like warriors fixed. I want to see dragoons and monks be able to dps and sustain dps even when dodging. Let's face it boss mechanics in this game are primarily holy shit there is a huge circle around the boss I have to dodge it. That's going to screw up dps / combos. This is not a bards fault this is the games mechanics no amount of nerfing or buffing will fix this.

I agree, right now fix classes not nerf others, like whm my god some of the skills I never even touch, such as cure 3 and medica so thus are useless. Please for the love of god give whm sacred prism back and remove some of its clutter. Also for whm plz make shroud a 1 min cd or 90 sec because their heal is way too strong, thus more agro and compared to a sch that has near infinite mana with atherflow or could even energy drain to get some back whm is just falling by the wayside. Even scholar with eos or even selene, since scholar heals different in terms of heal+negate they do not generate the hate of a whm.

Also, I blame the servers latency delay for partial reason of melee dps downfall. If the server actually was not in internet 3rd world Canada and picked up on positioning, melee dps could get another hit and keep their rotation going, but not being able to pull out at the last possible minute is really killing them and same can be said about mages. Bard only looks as if it is a top dps contender because the availability to run and gun.

[Viridiana]

Well at least by design I think it was meant to be support...

But hey Ninja in XI was supposed to be DPS so have at it!

Silly game, how can I thin their lines if you nerf my DPS!

[Etgar]

The thing is that below ilevel 70 they shine, however after this point bard seems to fall behind in damage. The thing they have is strong over all dps, good aoe, good 1v1, good debuffs, them songs, silence, and movement.
I never get out dpsed by a bard, he has more utility however so still good to bring.

[Leon_Stormrage]

Well, as there are no (and possibly never will be) full support roles I think our idea of "Support" and "DPS with good utility" coincide. They are not the best DPS but have great ability to support the party through a variety of skills, as opposed to say a Lancer who has no intentions of supporting anyone ever. lol

Exactly we are the nearest option of a support but we are not exactly a support role, The people in the forums is used to say "OMG you parsed 200 you are support you should have the same damage as a healer OMG OMG Bard OP Nerf it!!!" and this is totally wrong, I am not so bad about the Nerf, only because the time lost leveling lancer (I let it on lvl 27 because I saw it comming) for the rest we will see how it affects our dps...

[GodzillaMagnum]

How can people even say bards are support when the only support abilities they have are in their songs. By and large they are an offensive damage class. I wouldn't mind some bard nerfs once whatever other job class for archer comes out and we can choose to excel at DPS or go in favor of songs but right now I think bards are fine, especially since we are still out damaged by summoners by a huge margin and black mages are pretty close to our damage as well while offering AoE. If anything buff Melee dps and leave the rest alone.

[xcifux]

All opinions are based on the pve model. Just understanding that simple fact means that there should be no nerfs involved. If anything buff other classes. Pve is about getting the job/encounter done. Nerfing any class will just make it harder for everyone to clear content. Yes if something is blatantly op it should be fixed, but all I see are issues other classes have that should be addressed.