Bard - they broke my job

[Zyrusticae]

I just wanted to note for a moment that cast times are considerably more detrimental to DPS than melee range ever is, was, or has been.

At least playing as any melee job I can keep attacking while dodging at the same time. Even PBAoE's are easy to deal with as I can easily attack the boss once and run out for the split second I need to avoid the attack.

Meanwhile, BLMs, MCHs, and BRDs all can't attack at all until they can pull off a full cast. That's a HUGE difference. We become less adaptable than melee jobs when we become casters, and a number of encounters are geared in ways that specifically destroy casting (Neverreap final boss, Neverreap in general, Ravana EX, among others). On the flipside, melee just doesn't give a toss. Oh, tornado coming this way, I'l just sliiide on over to the other flank while swinging away. Oh, PBAoE, I'll just tap it when it's halfway through and run out just in the nick of time so I don't lose a GCD. Etc., etc.

That was the REAL value of BRD (and sub-52 MCH) mobility, and the range is frequently overstated as an 'advantage'. I'd love to see someone measure out just exactly how much downtime melee has in most boss fights in this game, because I get the distinct impression that BLMs have it worse by far (though I have to mention that their kit is geared towards compensating for this with huge burst). I would argue, unironically, that turret-like casters should just straight-up do better damage than anything else in this game, because look at all the sh*t they put up with!

People like to play up the 'weakness' of melee range, but in a game like this, especially with such a heavy emphasis on PvE, melee is really not nearly as much of a weakness as some folks would have you believe. Most encounters in this game just don't have anywhere near enough anti-melee mechanics to make the gap even partly reasonable. It's gone too far towards one end of the spectrum. Balance must needs be restored.


Edit: Let's put it this way. If BRD/MCH mobility is too large a boon, then give the melee jobs and BLM more survivability. If BRD/MCH support is too strong, then give other jobs more support OR nerf the auras OR increase the penalty for using those auras. DO NOT nerf the damage output when there are so many other levers that could be pulled to increase the desirability of other jobs.

This is why I said "these few skills" not "WM".
People want WM+IJ+Empy to combine into some magic 500 DPS increase when the problem is that bard scales like shit, not that the skills all totally suck.

Yeah, the huge weapon damage gap at 60 is likely a large part of why BRD & MCH are having such issues. I would say that, if a penalty must be given, a 4%-ish weapon damage penalty would be far more reasonable than the 10% penalty we get now. Because of the nature of weapon damage (as it acts as a multiplier), a large penalty snowballs into an even bigger one thanks to how the math works.