Buff Bards or Riot

[codofwisdom]

Historically the most deadly archers were also highly mobile. Egyptian chariot archers, Saracen archers, and the Mongolian horseback archers to name a few. Fun fact, the deadly accuracy and high mobility of the Mongolian archers were a major factor for the spread of their empire under Genghis Khan.

You are correct, but to be fair: Two out of three of your examples had something else doing the moving.
And if you believe some of the stuff you see nowadays, Archer's were very mobile:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEG-ly9tQGk

I'm just talking about conventional knowledge. Most archers were stationary, in the same way that Snipers are stationary.

Either would be much better in my opinion than this attempt to turn bards and machinists into black mage lite.

Don't know enough about Machinist, but I will say again that Bard is meant to be support. I've heard people saying that Bard needs More DPS because of DPS checks. That's not needed if one Bard can buff the shit out of their team. Unfortunately, they haven't done a great job with that.
If I had my way, Mages Ballad would buff INT and MIN, while Army's Paeon buffed STR and DEX.