I think its time BRD get some loving

[Altena]

Matters actually. Most of the contents outside FCoB are dungeons and BLM reigns King.

In terms of hunts - a damage buff to BRD is not going to "help" them be more preferred, which is the whole point of this thread. In fact the whole thread is based around 8+ man duties from my understanding. Hunts are pretty much a special case, because that's not even really a fight.. You stand there and hit 123.

As far as dungeons go - BRD is not only "good" for dungeons, they are arguably the 2nd preference after BLM - due to Foe Req (if BLM and/or WHM are in the party), Ballad (between pulls if you are speed running), and Paeon (if your other DPS is a melee for AoE sustain between pulls).

I won't even attempt to talk about the CT chains, as the jobs you play in there are practically irrelevant. In fact, BRD is actually a good choice simply because it's so easy to play that you don't need to pay attention while suffering in those instances.

[QiLymePye]

I got an idea, how about with the play of a song, while giving the dps penalty, maybe increasing # of auto attacks to 1.5? or just lower debuff to maybe 15% instead of 20%?

[Ooshima]

Snip

If you are referring to 8 man duties, then there is only Coil, which technically speaking BRDs are only technically good for progression

Those early coil clear teams are already re-positioning themselves with things like NIN-NIN-MNK-BLM or something where their BRD tries out another DPS job. Some BRDs remain as it is for stability or convenience. For whatever reason, it is no doubt that while on farm, and as the farming week goes, the party DPS and efficient is going to get better and will come to a point where Ballad/Paeon becomes less important or non-requirement and changing the BRD to a NIN/MNK/DRG would probably bring the party DPS up if they want to push numbers and clear times.

[EdwinLi]

Some of the things mentioned in this discussion are part of my reasons why I'm a bit concerned for the release of Machinist Job.

Not many people take their Job as Bard seriously and a good amount only play Bards because it is a easy DPS to get into. A certainly amount may turn to Machinist for their desire for a easy Range DPS Focused Job to play as once it is released which may leave only a few Bards left in FF14 that actually take the Bard Role at a decent level.

Of course the samething can be said for Machinist since at my best guess is that a good amount of players who may play as Machinist or switch to Machinist in 3.0 won't be using Machinist to their full potential as well and may end up becoming the new Bard Community.

[Ooshima]

Of course the samething can be said for Machinist since at my best guess is that a good amount of players who may play as Machinist or switch to Machinist in 3.0 won't be using Machinist to their full potential as well and may end up becoming the new Bard Community.

This concern doesn't really matter. It doesn't take long for the good players to pick up Ninja and use it properly in FCoB. And good Ninjas remains a minority.

Same goes to every other job. Dragoon have been up since 2.0, being buffed and what not and still many derpgoons around. The time a job existed doesn't really matter.

[DoubleD]

This concern doesn't really matter. It doesn't take long for the good players to pick up Ninja and use it properly in FCoB. And good Ninjas remains a minority.

Same goes to every other job. Dragoon have been up since 2.0, being buffed and what not and still many derpgoons around. The time a job existed doesn't really matter.

Agreed. And these are basically the people claiming that bard is fine as it is. All they see are themselves getting out parsed by decent bards.
Any sane person would realize that SMN and Bard need SE to do something to last. And TBH, especially summoner because as it is right now, there is ZERO merit to having one in a group, especially with T7 being nerfed into a complete joke.

Everyone who has never touched bard before does not realize the negative impact of the unnecessary and uncalled for Weapon Damage nerf in 2.4. This is huge.
Bard were never even close to top DPS pre 2.4. It is WORSE in 2.5 for crying out loud.

So OP stated a possible solution via negating the 20% damage debuff for singing Paeon as a possible solution.
Another poster stated shortening the Cast time of the songs, which is totally understandable because it's about 3sec cast time.

I personally would like to see WD+1 because this 2.4 nerf was totally unnecessary considering we were already the weakest DPS in the game! Then they make it worse for some bizarre reason.

[Ooshima]

Snip

Yes, in many previous threads I have also raised the opinion that a +1WD adjustment is probably the right way to go, and moving forward, maintain the WD difference instead of allowing it to widen the gap.

The 20% song penalty can stay as it will probably be the indicator to judge a few things - whether the BRD knows how to control songs to maximize his DPS, and if not really not the BRD's problem, then maybe the group has a problem to cause the BRD to over extend Ballad/Paeon.

It is pretty much straightforward and the devs can spend other time to review SMN. I don't play SMN at all, but I know one of my FC mate can pull 460DPS as a SMN in FCoB (I forgot which turn, might be T13) but then these people are a minority anyways.

[SlyRoyale]

Snip.

Won't stop me from trying, and if it isn't possible as you claim to be the best I can do is get close to it while dealing with mechanics and figuring out when is a good time to sing. As Ooshima stated, there's not much need for singing either Ballad or Paeon unless you have to. Depending on how the static handles mechanics, DPS can vary. The 460 I estimated could be lower depending on mechanics, and I'd say that 440 is a reasonable number considering my gear. Also, how each player performs varies between people. In my experience of T12, albeit limited, I never ran into TP issues upon entering the 3rd phase. I play my resource songs whenever someone asks or I develop an accurate sense of when they'll ask for what song. This was back when the group I was subbing in for was progressing on T12. I apologize if my ambitious goals made you roll your eyes in text format.

[rappa]

On T10: I play one Paeon and 3 Foes. I use Foe as tp filler.
On T11: i play one paeon at 61% and i stop to sing when the add is up.
On T12: I play paeon when Phoenix fly and bennus are not spawning. Last phase i play foe during pew pew and a fec secs or manasang when phoenix flies again. If mana is not necessary but i stop play foe to recover mana and play again when the pew pew start.
On T13: I don't play any Paeon, we enter divebombs phase quickly. So we haven't time to be starved of tp and divebombs let us to recover or our invigorate will be up. I play manasong when i can't attack anything (Dives) and the rest of the time i play foe. At start, adds phase, last phase.

When you start to don't play songs and not be necessary, then is that moment when you check your dps is low and switching for other class let you kill the boss more fast.

Manasong is only necessary in progression phase when your healers are learning the fight, a GOOD healer knows how handle with his mana pool and use potions / energy drain. Lazy healers demand manasong when they are unable to manage theirs mana. But that is other history.

[Kuwagami]

4/24 men strawman

just what are you trying this time... ? dungeons and 24 men raids are designed so that any composition can clear them. No enrage so sluggish groups have a chance nevertheless (less true in WoD but still not hard to succeed there). No mechanics which require coordination (again, slight exception in WoD this time) except maybe not being braindead (people not killing skellies in LotA first boss..) but that should be a given. One could walk in a 200ish dps party and still clear everything in this game besides Coil. Your "argument" is irrelevant.

(also 20% isn't a "large" debuff. You could cancel that if you wanted by using one of your buffs. Bard is the class with the largest pool of damage buffs after all.)

snip

So you know an raid inside-outs and you don't need xxx job because you're playing perfectly already, making up for any mistake that would make said job mandatory ? well gj, that doesn't mean the job isn't necessary for pretty much everyone else, nor that it isn't able to fulfill the duty.

People have done T5 without healers, or with 4 people only. Does that mean that everyone can do it too ? I'm curious.

snip bard damage

Bard damage had been nerfed because back in 2.0 there was no reason to bring anything else in a group. They were close to top dps, huge utility, no drawbacks, etc... They nerfed the damage. ONCE.
it is NORMAL that a bard will never reach other dps's numbers. They add way more to the table on other aspects to make it fair if they had better damages. What's more, the end game encounters are designed to be made with a bard in the team. If you struggle with a bard, then your team as a whole has a problem. It's NOT because bard's damage is lower than the others, but because your whole team has a lower dps than expected by the devs.

Also, you have not been nerfed more with i115, then i135. The scaling is the same for other dps and bards. You have less at start, so you gain less at each increase. Overall, your dps stays at the same % behind the other dps, and that's (once again) normal. of course the bigger the highest numbers are, the bigger the gap will grow. It doesn't mean you're nerfed more.

And this is true story. FC mate did a pug for T10.

BAD Bard (115 Shiva bow, Ironworks Chest, Ironworks Legs - yes seriously.) - 260 DPS
Normal Monk - 450 DPS

I've already met a 200ish dps i115 dragoon. Buff dragoons please, bad players are bad.

Your DPS doesn't drop from 550 to 0... that's a terrible misconception and you're extremely wrong. What happens when your WAR TP gets low? You stagger GCDs. What happens when you don't have a Bard and you're pushing phases? You stagger your DPS, lose about 10~15k collectively, and gain over 100k from pure DPS by switching out the Bard. It's that simple.

yeah technically it won't reach 0, but just look at it.

When TP starved, you can't use any DoTs (all would require 2 ticks to use, 6 seconds lost), any combo starter also requires 2 tick but after that you can use around 3 combos before reaching 0 again. Your dps is crippled and there is nothing you can do about it until you can use invigorate again (as a melee dps) or until you gain aetherflow again for a SMN. PLDs can just stay useless until their TP refill enough. WAR have at least the benefit of having TP free GCDs actions once in a while to ease the recovery process. You'll lose more than if you had a bard, and usually in a moment when you really don't want to lose that high dps (I've already had a TP-starved party in T5 during twister phase, it's not an appreciable experience)

If you are referring to 8 man duties, then there is only Coil, which technically speaking BRDs are only technically good for progression

which is the situation for like 97-99% of the playerbase (in practice, way less as there are way less who have tackled T9 already). There are only a few people on farm status, thus only a few who can afford not bringing a bard.

snip

no it's not worse. It hasn't changed. the % you're behind has not changed by a lot, if at all.

I know it isn't really right to do so, but I'll assume you joined the game way after 2.0 (because you joined the forum around 2.4, so I'm assuming here you didn't play before 2.2 at most. Correct me if I'm wrong)

Which means you never witnessed the god-like status of the bards, when they had the same damage as any other dps, plus a god-like Rain of Death (AoE version of storm's path), high mobility, cheated burst damage with pre-nerf IR and B4B, etc etc....

Noone had any reason to bring anything but bards. Typical relic run was 1 tank (2 for garuda), 2 heals, 5 (4 for ruda) bards. Coil was 2/3 bards + BLM (and a melee for the LB if needed, else the BLM would do it). Bards were mandatory for anything (that's the reason why I levelled bard in the first place, as WAR was considered useless back then and I was locked out of many things).

If you can't see why they nerfed bard to what it is now, considering it's STILL mandatory for progression, then you simply do not know what you're talking about.