You want to see overraction? Go check out the DPS forums...

[Viridiana]

Bards aren't nerfed that badly. Add everything up it amounts to about a 3.75% to 5% damage nerf

We also lost a good bit of the utility that supposedly justified nerfing our already-low dps. . .

Seems like everyone wants to talk about BRD losing one piece or the other, but so few want to talk about how we lost both at the same time.

[PriyaJugulataris]

I qualified said drops in bard as significant because they already were at the bottom of the DPS pool. Any DPS drop from that point only serves to lower them further. At said point, any DPS drops I felt were significant. Also, god knows I've seen more paladins complain about warriors in server then anything else.

[Ispen]

These changes were made for PvP purposes for arena class balance, and that sucks because they are screwing up our pve ability for pvp.. WoW did this often and remember after a couple of changes, suddenly people would not invite certain talent trees into raids, i.e., for a while arcane mages could not raid, then it switched to fire mages.. etc etc..

Most of what I'm reading as changes, except for the warrior changes, everything else really feels more centered around pvp. Monks got a huge buff, and their dps was already tops, dragoons were given vast improvements, but still most of this feels like pvp.

How is it centered around pvp when we will be using different skills for pvp?

[Viridiana]

How is it centered around pvp when we will be using different skills for pvp?

Class and Job Actions
All class and job actions acquired as a Disciple of War or Magic can be used in the Wolves' Den.

Plus the ones they're adding.

[Avenol]

At least when the tank forum overreacted, it was because one class received significant changes that will actually mix up the class paradigm a little bit. SMNs lose one dot, BRDs lose a utility spell, and BLMs get a bad aoe spell nerfed, and it's the end of the world.

BLM got far more then a bad aoe spell nerfed, the update to fire/ice buffs means our rotations will take longer, each single rotaton about 1 to 1.5 sec longer, and we'll loose the clip speed from the first flare on AE if we f3 for the fire buff +dmg. No one knows any hard numbers yet, but for BLM, I can tell ya we're holding our breath for sure. Some numbers being tossed around to about a 10 or 15pct dps loss due to the changes for us.

[ProxyTooMuch]

I qualified said drops in bard as significant because they already were at the bottom of the DPS pool. Any DPS drop from that point only serves to lower them further. At said point, any DPS drops I felt were significant. Also, god knows I've seen more paladins complain about warriors in server then anything else.

Summoners got nerfed worse in terms of overall damage. Black Mages did, too (presumably no more double dipping in UI/AF buffs), along with their aoe damage. So overall bards actually came closer to summoners/black mages in terms of dps, especially since the 200 TP/global cooldown spent on RoD will now be spent on real damage abilities.

[YuiSasaki]

BLM got their aoe damage nerfed quite dramatically (no more Blizz III -> Fire III -> Flare).

Who'd use a full mana flare to begin with....

[YuiSasaki]

-Because WHMs get infinite mana regeneration like BLMs... (still rather insignificant change that got hyped up)

You do realize that the Umbral Ice stack is a THM trait do you?

Potency has been reduced from 100 to 50, and the bind effect has been increased from 4 to 8 seconds. Can now be used by all Disciples of Magic.
* Only thaumaturge and black mage gain the effect of Umbral Ice.

[Sleigh]

Who'd use a full mana flare to begin with....

There are some rotations, optimal ones from my testing in fact, that base AoE around Flare. It's not about having full MP, it's about being in Umbral Ice III to get faster cast times on both your Fire III or Flare (with the double Flare method being taken away in 2.1) and then again faster cast time on Flare. It is/was quite effective, more so than Fire II rotations.

[PriyaJugulataris]

Summoners got nerfed worse in terms of overall damage. Black Mages did, too (presumably no more double dipping in UI/AF buffs), along with their aoe damage. So overall bards actually came closer to summoners/black mages in terms of dps, especially since the 200 TP/global cooldown spent on RoD will now be spent on real damage abilities.

ST wise, Bard DPS is still the weakest of the DPS classes, that is something that's been well agreed upon. As a summoner, thunder lowered our overall dps by 6%. Black Mage Single Target hasn't changed one bit. Monks are top single target damage now, with the other three classes still safely above Bard DPS.