Bard needs some love too.

[Warlyx]

As someone who mains bard I can say that no, bards do not need a buff. They are good as is. A lot of it comes down to knowing how to play. I have been parsed by friends and have outdsped higher geared bards(by a few points)(and I don't actually have b4b while the other one had)(and from what I've been told my dps was 400+ and I was being lazy without keeping straight shot up all the time). And the only person that seems to outdps me in fights is our monk. Other bard and drg tend to be about even behind us. It's all about knowing your job and how to play it. Understanding the encounter helps as well. I have yet to have any problems with my damage - what I did have a problem for a long time was thinking that I was underperforming which probably led me to try and improve myself and get a better understanding of my job.

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give me a stance that boost dmg by 20% but heavy shot / S-shot have 2.5 cast time...and unable to cast songs....call it Ranger stance

[ruskie]

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Just my personal experience. Never had anyone complain about my DPS - it was always where it needed to be. Infact even when I was doubting my own performance a lot of the time I was asked to join for stuff and people kept telling me I'm doing fine.

[PureEclipse]

Just my personal experience. Never had anyone complain about my DPS - it was always where it needed to be. Infact even when I was doubting my own performance a lot of the time I was asked to join for stuff and people kept telling me I'm doing fine.

Bard shouldn't be about the dps but the stuff they bring to the party, right now we aren't bringing shit but dps....oh the songs are soo needed in certain fights...hooray...certain fights.

Bard should be the most sought after class for bringing benefits to the group other than DPS. So we can move around and still do dps...so can everyone else, they just refuse to move and insist the healer heal through the damage.

Bard needs more actual utility, haste song for all classes to cast faster, run song to not cut off during fights and zoning, heal over time song (yes I know people argue there wont be a need for healers, Eos has said the same damn thing)
More debuff abilities to the enemy, slow their asses down, reduce their heals, things like that. Bards should be able to juggle more songs than just 1 per time (consider old eq) And most importantly, bards should not look like they raided John Travolta's wardrobe from the 70s. (bards are traveling story tellers, apparently im suppose to travel in disco clothing because that's functional.)

[ruskie]

Bard shouldn't be about the dps but the stuff they bring to the party, right now we aren't bringing shit but dps....oh the songs are soo needed in certain fights...hooray...certain fights.

Face it... this game is about DSP, Healer and Tank checks and team coordination. Not about support. We probably have the most utility out of all the other jobs. Problem is 90% of the bards just go pew pew and ignore the rest(even I was like that at one point). I see a DPS check and we have BLM/SMNs pop Foe, we've been fighting for a while, I already used up two or 3 invigorates myself I'll pop army's for a few seconds to help out everyone with some TP regen. I see healers hitting 50% mp - I'll pop a mage's. Also you need to be familiar with the encounter to know when you can safely do a 4s cast of a song(hint don't do it when shriek is about to go off and you are not yet in position).


We have a few benefits over the other jobs one of them is there is no rotation to mess up as such so we can pay more attention to our surroundings and call out things that are needed. We are not up close and personal to mobs so we actually see the whole area more easily.

They intentionally didn't give bards all the utility... you have fey glow and ugh fey light(I HATE YOU SKILLSPEED I HATE YOU SOOOOO MUCH) from Selene so SCH has utility there. The way support is done it is spread about through all jobs - this is a good thing.

I do think a high(because we lack mind so would need to compensate for that) potency HoTs song would work as well - though I find it hard to place anywhere in the current fights... the damage output usually requires a full blown aoe heal or aoe heal+shields.

As for debuffs I'd like to see flame arrow have a slow effect(need to be careful when moving in fire afterall). I'd also like to see repelling shot have an enmity reduction element in there(something I can use just after the opener to help out the tank more because even with quelling strikes I have pulled enmity in certain fights due to mechanics or what not).

And in case you haven't noticed bards often always have atleast one spot in most PFs - I've personaly been asked a few times to help out with stuff because people were missing a bard. Is bard a requirement NO not at all(AND THIS IS A GOOD THING). But people like having a bard around for the what if moments and so on. And since we can output respectable DPS we have that as a benefit as well. And a bard LB3 has saved a wipe or few before as well.

Think of bard utility beyond the skills you have but also what you bring to the run as a highly mobile, not easy to mess up job that can do a lot more than just DPS. If you think of utility only in terms of the skills though then yeah could use a few more.