I think its time BRD get some loving

[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.

[rappa]

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.

Wrong, i send you to my post

Allagan bow 42 WD
Allagan melee 46 WD

+4 difference

High allagan bow 48 WD
High allawan melee 53 WD

+5 difference

Dreadwyrm bow 52 WD
dreadwyrm melee 58 WD

+6 difference

]--- Each patch, the WD from bards is more lower than melees ---[

95 => 115 WD from bards was increased 6 points
95 => 115 WD from melees was increased 7 points

115 => 135 WD from bards was increased 4 points
115 => 135 WD from melees was increased 5 points

The increase was the same, yeah but read below

***** The importance of Weapon Damage *****
// Maybe the stats could change i haven't time to recheck the post in reddit about new stats. //

One weapon damage equals to:
"8.73" STR on MNK.
"9.153" DEX on BRD.
"8.732" STR on DRG.
"6.625" INT on BLM/SMN

monk 115 weapon gives 53 x 8.73 462.69
brd 115 weapon gives 48 x 9.153 439.344

Difference: 23.35

monk 135 weapon gives 58 x 8.73 506.34
brd 135 weapon gives 52 x 9.153 475.956

Difference: 30.384

If the next progression would be 155 ilvl and following the curve, melee gains 3 WD more and bards only 2.

monk 155 weapon gives 61 x 8.73 532.53
brd 155 weapon gives 54 x 9.153 494.262

Difference: 38.268

It's all numbers, we are losing more dps each patch is release, you could see it or not, but the numbers are there.

Atm, the reason to bring one bard is because the "what if...", a healer die, or a melee die, but when you are pushing your limits, bards is low than others dps, maybe share the pos with summoners.

If you don't need manasong, why may one bard take one spot? Take a ninja as TP station and the dps will be more greatful than bard because you don't lose 20% playing the song.

[Kuwagami]

snip

do you realize you're ranting about a 1% loss ?

bard's WD weight is 95% of monk's one at i115, 94% at i135, would be 93% at i155 if you're correct on the curve. However, WD gets a % boost each time (14% for i115 compared to i95, 9% for i135). Even a 5% boost for i155 (so +3 WD for melee) would neat a +3 WD for bards (2.51 rounded) which would actually increase bard's stat weight and their dps compared to others.

55 x 9.153 = 503.415

Difference : 29.115

the difference in dps isn't mainly from WD but from the difference in skill's potency (no combo/positionnals as a bard) which makes up for their mobility and utility.


As for "why bard and not ninja", I'll raise Foe and mass TP regen.
If your composition has already 2 melees (no ninja), the TP regen will be tricky due to the solo target/2min CD of Goad. You might have to wait for server ticks at some point, resulting in a general dps loss that may not make it up vs a singing bard allowing going all out. Plus the 14% damage loss of your mage.
In a double mage composition, you'll lose 14% for both mages, but have an easier time on melees. Though healers will also lose the benefit of Foe if they can manage to dps (not granted to every group).

All in all, bringing ninja over a bard may be better for individual parsing, but as a group, it's a case-by-case issue. Some top end groups may (and surely will) do better. The average group will perform equal at best, worse in the most probable case.

[rappa]

Goad is 3 mins CD.

A ninja can handle 2 melees in all encounters without lose dps. Provide a 7% global dps thanks to Trick attack over foe requiem that only buff damage caster. Usually you have a blm or smn, and the scholar, and not all the time by MP resource.

You use goad on monk at a few seconds to start the combat. 2 mins after that he use Invigorate.
The other melee or a warrior dps, also a bard, receive the goad 3 mins later.
At this point, dps have enough tp regeneration to end the encounter or start again the goad rotation.

[DoubleD]

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.

I have a job and don't have the time to play 24/7 so I like when stuff gets done efficiently.

So myself and most of the guys I play with try to play efficiently to clear stuff faster so we can do other things.

Plus JP server's tend to Blist people with crap DPS. I gave an example of 260 DPS BRD on T10, but he was Blisted by the whole group even though they got a clear and he didn't die.

(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.)

20% is huge. And even with all those damage buffs our DPS is pathetic compared to everything else.

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.

I have no problem with the 2.0 nerf outside of the Foes nerf. And all those idiots complaining that got ROD nerf are paying the price for it having to spend a ton of gil just to gear up with Vit materia for T13. They wouldn't need that much HP if they had ROD + Dragon Kick. I don't really care. ROD is a dead skill now unless you're really in a jam and need some clutch Stone IIs from your WHM which is tough to accuracy cap.

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.

Ok, I'm not going to do actual math, but say an equal skilled / equal geared Bard will do 30% less DPS than DRG.

At x ILVL DRG does 100000 points of damage.
Bard does 70000 points of damage. Ok, tolerable. Barely.

Now at x ILVL DRG does 500000 points of damage.
Bard does 350000 damage.

So... what would the point be in taking a bard? At something like that it's better for melee to be TP starved waiting for Invigorate recast, and can have the ninja alternate goad.

It's the "same percentage" (even though it's worse in actuality, but I'll go along with you for the example)

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....

I've been archer since 2.0 day one (didn't play 1.0). So yes, I know our god-like status and I will admit our static
was PL PL WM SCH BLM BLM BRD BRD and we kicked ass back in the day.

And although wrong and f'd up, in most of our PUG groups we banned melee. So I do in principal agree with the 2.1 nerf.

It's just the WD scaling really needs to stop. It was fine at 2.3. 2.4 with the ILVL 135 discrepancy was ridiculous.

And I will admit. Bard is an easier class to play for general content outside 8 man raids. So it is a less common to run into a pathetic DPS Bard than a pathetic DPS Melee, which are really really abundant.

Bard #'s seem "Fine" because more often then not, the melee will not do optimal DPS compared to his max potential.

But when you put an equally skilled/gear Bard vs Equally skilled/gear anything besides SMN, the gap in DPS is just very wide. And it just got worse with patch 2.4.

[dejavutwo]

At x ILVL DRG does 100000 points of damage.
Bard does 70000 points of damage. Ok, tolerable. Barely.

Now at x ILVL DRG does 500000 points of damage.
Bard does 350000 damage.

The problem with your example is that the time it takes the bard to do the same amount of damage as the dragoon is the exact same in both cases. Say it took the dragoon seconds each time to do the stated amount of damage.

Example 1: 70,000 / 60 = 100,000 / x
x = 85.7s

Example 2: 350,000 / 60 = 500,000 / x
x = 85.7s

The absolute value of the difference in dps will grow over time, but as long as everything remains in proportions, there is no real change in the overall balance.