Feeling disappointed with myself.

[Jim_Berry]

If you have accepted the fact that, as a damage dealer, you can't push high numbers on your main but you do noticable well on your secondary, would you main your secondary or continue to get better on your current main?

As a BRD, my survival rate is very high, but that does the group no good if I'm only contributing to the "burn" at minimum damage output. Personally, I don't see an increase to my damage when I was iLv90, iLv96, and now iLv100. However, as an iLv93 DRG, it HAS been recorded (had a linkshell buddy run his program on me without telling him why) that my DRG does significant more damage than my BRD. In fact, I can feel the damage.

As DRG, however, I need my Chocobo when I'm soloing content such as boss FATEs or an Alexandrite map; with BRD, I didn't. I also noticed something else (or maybe it's just my mental):

- In T6, I'd almost always get to Slug phase. While I won as BRD, it was only once with DRG winning three or four times. In T7, I kited 100% of my times going as BRD. Here, I won T7 a bunch. I won a few times stepping in as DRG.

It makes me sad that I put a lot of time, energy, and focus into BRD, but over a year later, I STILL can't reach the damage potential that BRD can reach, and it shows when I'm in groups. I know it's me because other BRDs with lesser gear than me does better damage output.

Should I hang BRD up or keep going? I'm the type who like to focus one job while using others situationally, such as tank for the daily roulette since they always ask for tank, or healer when I'm doing random stuff not involving endgame.

[dday3six]

Bards trades some DPS for mobility and utility. In most cases other DPS are going to out parse them. However in the end you should do whatever helps you enjoy the game the most.

[Adler]

My main is DRG and I usually join all new content as DRG simply because I'm so used to it that it is a lot easier to dodge and respond to stuff as DRG for me. In dungeons that I know very well I go WAR, PAL or BRD most of time.

If you can beat T6 as BRD easier than as DRG then I guess your team would want you BRD no matter how much or how little damage you do, so use DRG for fun in dungeons that can be cleared 100% anyway for training and BRD for more serious fights because clearly you still feel more comfortable as BRD.

[abzoluut]

I think BRDs are in the right place this patch. They can dish out some good dps in Coil. It all depends how familiar the group is of course. If you have to play mana song 50% of the time...

Why not stick with BRD and try to focus on your rotation? Try and look for improvments; CD management, adjust rotation with phases during a fight, ask other BRDs. I think this is an important and fun part of an MMO.

Give it another shot.

[Jim_Berry]

There are some morale-boosting comments here. I'll give it another go. I just dislike being asked to leave because I'm not pushing above ~180 dps as they say.

[HaroldSaxon]

If you are using an i90 weapon or above, honestly that is pretty poor dps. You should research a more optimal rotation and practice on a dummy.

[MercuryD]

If you are using an i90 weapon or above, honestly that is pretty poor dps. You should research a more optimal rotation and practice on a dummy.

Yeah, I have no way to tell if I'm low-high but whenever I FEEL like I'm pushing towards a lower range I think about what I'm doing, how I can improve etc. The best way to learn is to 1) know yourself and your class and 2) know the fight! Good luck~

[KeluBehemoth]

There are always improvements you can make to your class. I've played DRG for a year and just found out my rotation wasn't optimal. Sometimes things are ssituational. If you can kite T7 well, you're not a bad bard. Bard also heavily relies on having a DRG in party to optimize it's damage output. Most DRG will out DPS bard right now but that's not to say bard isn't essential in a party

[Sessurea]

you sound like you got no idea about bard utility. Imagine an 8 man party with blm, brd, smn and drg as dpsers. The bard is gonna buff the casters by 10% each ( 20% during battle voice ), and also, the drg is gonna buff your damage by 10% with disembowel. And yes, having drg and bard as mains myself, I do enjoy the sexier numbers on drg, but bard has little-no dps downtime, while a drg has noticeably more. In the above mentioned dps setup I outlined, if equal skill is assumed, the bard probably is the central character in that raid.

[AmyNeudaiz]

There has to be something simple you're missing to hit 180 DPS on Bard. I believe you can get your numbers higher if you do some research. I was the same with Whm healing that I could heal, but I couldn't excel past the standard but one day it just clicked to use all my tools available instead of the basics and I mastered Whm about as good as I have mastered Sch.

One tip I can offer on bard is to make use of strafing to keep your character looking at the target the whole time. Auto attack boosts your DPS by quite a bit, don't take it lightly. Another quick tip is to just always keep everything on cooldown. Always pop off GCD abilities whenever possible, even Repelling Shot. That's another major source of your DPS.