Bard - they broke my job

[Itseotle]

Btw, I think it's more like 20% now with how barrage has been changed.

Didn't consider that. That pie graph I linked was out of 4,179 "swings", and barrage was used 25 times. If you calculate that Barrage has a 10s duration, and the average delay of AA's in this data is 3.74 seconds, that means at best you get an extra 8 auto attacks per Barrage, but realistically it averages out to 7. So in this data, out of 916 AA's, Barrage most likely accounted for 175 of them, so factoring that in your AA contribution goes down to 18.5%. Still not a big difference for what you lose imo.

Its late and I can't math good but there are the numbers lol

[Boss_Koivula]

The 20% damage buff is quite nice, and as long as you rotate your self-buffs accordingly you can very easily out-dps other classes without much trouble at all

The_Last_Dragoon,

I dont know what kind of scrub you have been playing with, but you are either delusional or your company has been outright horrible. WM has been proven to be completely useless outside of start burst if you cant stay stationary for minutes. Even then our DPS wont be that much higher. Our job is broken as it is right now and we are falling behind other classes more and more when it comes to a DPS. Then again if you arent into raiding and dont care about numbers, I guess none of this matters.

[Itseotle]

Curious, does anyone have any actual DPS numbers for end-game geared bards? Word on the DRG forum is DRGs doing 1200 single target.

[Xyth]

I got my Bard to 60, and I am not exceptionally not happy with how they turned out. I'm only at iLvl 146 atm, so I can't really tell how much dmg they will do when I'm fully decked out in endgame gear. However, in the sake of just the class itself, I hate it. They lose all their mobility that was suppose to come with the class - it was their staple. Being able to move and attack was really the best thing that came out of Bards.

If Pre-3.0 had Minuet and caused them to sit still and attack, I would've never chosen that class, I would've gone with BLM. That's essentially what they've become - a physical dmg mage. The 20% dmg that comes with Minuet is debatable imo. From the spams and burst that BRD originally had vs. a 20% 2 sec cast skills, it's not that great of a trade off.

I had enough time to play around with the skills and see the parses, Minuet bursts rotation vs. Pre-3.0 bursts rotation, Minuet wins hands down. But in a prolonged fight, Pre-3.0 would easily compare.

[Xyth]

@Itseotle I'm around 900 right now, honestly not that great lol.

[The_Last_Dragoon]

The_Last_Dragoon,

I dont know what kind of scrub you have been playing with, but you are either delusional or your company has been outright horrible. WM has been proven to be completely useless outside of start burst if you cant stay stationary for minutes. Even then our DPS wont be that much higher. Our job is broken as it is right now and we are falling behind other classes more and more when it comes to a DPS. Then again if you arent into raiding and dont care about numbers, I guess none of this matters.

I'll tell you the truth, I'm only level 55, mostly because I've worked the past 3 days

I am still leveling, so I really don't know what the end-game scene is like for us. That said, I do know that minimizing movement is the new key (as well as mastering your timing) to maximizing a Bard's dps. The game has literally been out a total of 4 days, and you can't possibly expect absolutely everyone to know their job by then.

[SasakiNori]

the damage output is absolutely insane for Bard now. People seem to forget that Bard's had absolutely horrible dps in ARR

No idea what you're talking about. Bard DPS in in "ARR" was fine. You could easily sustain 500+ dps and some bards were even cutting close on reaching 600 dps in FCoB. (without echo) Obviously this wont get you the top dps spot, but that's not what bard is meant for anyway. They were pretty much in-line with casters in regards to dps, unless the fight favored blms heavy aoeing.


Oh and since we specifically stated "ARR", Bards were considered top pick in 2.0 to the point where you'd even bring 2 to raid groups.

so factoring that in your AA contribution goes down to 18.5%. Still not a big difference for what you lose imo.

Did some dummy parsing after I hit 60 2 days ago and my AA damage was pretty much sitting at literarily 20%, so I'd generally go with that number.

[HoratioTeakettle]

I'm personally thinking that parsers may not be accounting for Minuet or Gauss on dot potency which should make a large difference.

[Itseotle]

Did some dummy parsing after I hit 60 2 days ago and my AA damage was pretty much sitting at literarily 20%, so I'd generally go with that number.

Then on paper everything is rainbows and sunshine. No AAs for the 20% damage buff sounds like a good trade-off, and the easier dot management and other ability tweaks sounds like a decent adjustment for the mobility issue. Will have to see what raiding brings but I still do not like these changes because it changes the core play style of the class. But that's one Dragoons opinion.

[The_Last_Dragoon]

No idea what you're talking about. Bard DPS in in "ARR" was fine. You could easily sustain 500+ dps and some bards were even cutting close on reaching 600 dps in FCoB. (without echo) Obviously this wont get you the top dps spot, but that's not what bard is meant for anyway. They were pretty much in-line with casters in regards to dps, unless the fight favored blms heavy aoeing.

Oh and since we specifically stated "ARR", Bards were considered top pick in 2.0 to the point where you'd even bring 2 to raid groups.

In my personal experience, especially in the early 2.0 pre-50 dungeon parties would openly complain about there being 2 Bards. I'll be honest with you, I saw my fair share of extremely bad Bards, but the only real reason anyone wanted us was because of Mage's Ballad/Foe's Requiem. I had no qualms about not being the "best" dps, but normally if a party wiped back then due to a lack of dps, the blame usually went to the Bards. That is at least my personal experience from early 2.0, it's not like very many people knew how to optimize their jobs back then anyway.