Why are bards / Mechanists so... Sensitive? <_<

[Eidolon]

Snippers

yes... i don't understand how good support jobs are to end-game raiding.

Oh, what's this? Your achievements...
In Another Bind I
05/27/2015
25% Echo, i130, and you finally beat T9 - congratulations!

Seriously, I'll go through and break down the rest of your points, one at a time.

#1: This is completely incorrect. On longer endurance fights with no downtime, a Bard is outright vital for your melee DPS who will not be able to sustain their DPS on their own. Requiem further increases the burst phases of key classes (BV's requiem + Raging Strikes BLM = Yes please.) Ballad assists healers who add DPS as that actually diminishes their MP -very- fast to add the extra damage. No, having another MNK or NIN is often not as much a gain as you think they are over a Bard, unless you're at a point where you can burn it -rediculously- fast. Bard's support is part of optimization of all classes.

This issue came up for me in T8 because of the nature of the Avatar. As a dragoon, I would often be running out of TP even popping my invigorates at the perfect time. I even remember my bard *****ing about his DPS loss and trying to say I "Just had too much skillspeed" back then (Which unfortunately was an issue with DRG gear in the 2.2/2.3 loadouts.)

#2: Both Mechanist and Bard are support-DPS. This is the vital spot that garuntees them a slot over every other DPS in a PF. My 8-man dynamics, that require 2tanks/2heals, often tend to be made up of 2 melee (DRG/MNK/NIN), 1 Mage (BLM/SMN), and 1 Support (BRD/MCH.) This creates the ideal scenario of DPS. If they removed your support and made you pure-DPS, my comps would like to become 2 Melee (DRG/MNK/NIN) and 2 Ranged (BLM/SMN/BRD/MCH) which only increases the amount of people you compete for a spot with.

To say the least, in farming content, no one's discincluded bards in the past. I'm interested to see if it continues to be that way. This is, however, why I said I look forward to the day we get a pure-ranged DPS without the support, more akin to a mage in terms of how their role is laid out as opposed to the Bard/Mechanist dynamic right now. If we recieve Ranger, that would be awesome in my book, and it would likely be that you could put them in a spot as the 'mage' of the group (especially wtih their fancy new LB.)

Support is not a bad thing. I played Support in FFXI. I played support in RIFT*. If they had a raw-support here instead of the DPS/Support Hybrid, I'd play that. But Bard here didn't appeal to me in the way that it did in the other games mentioned.

#3 - This is acutally the point I'll concede. I've heard a LOT of talk regarding this, and the issue that removing Auto Attacks from Wanderer's Minute has created for these jobs. It's an unfortuante scenario, and like I said - I don't know how well to balance their damage for this stance. I do think, that at the very least, there is a boon in the fact that they can turn this off and continue to be mobile DPS. I'm looking forward to leveling BRD and testing it out myself, but my focus needs to be on tanks and heals and dps first, not support classes (For me, WAR>DRG>DRK>PLD on my first, then SCH>WHM>AST on my second character)


*Edit: I had put I played a support in TERA-online. What I meant to put was RIFT. My appologies. Too many MMO's. I was a lancer in TERA-online. Amani for life o/

Edit2:

Support DPS will never find their place in an 8 man party. The DPS Classes this expansion ALSO got new utility whilst keeping their DPS.

Solution:

Make hard 24-man content and give them raid-wide effects, give underpowered classes the same treatment so they are wanted in serious raids.


The new DPS utility moves don't even cost them their damage! They just gain more damage! <3

Support-DPS will always have a place in raid content. o_o Always. There will never be a time people do not take support-DPS, especially when they area learning. I will admit, you might be able to drop the support DPS once you've mastered the fights.

However, I want to cite two sources, from different places:

Bismark-EX, order of the blue garter, has a Bard in their Clear video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udylYA0f-d4

Mister Happy Gaming (GOD I hate this guy), Ravana-EX clear video, showing 1-2 bards at any time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_q3Y5RYr_w

Willing to bet when MTQ starts posting they'll likely have a support-DPS too. =/

Edit3:

It's not about us doing the same DPS as you guys, it's about us doing enough to still be a useful party member with that support. Right now, if Savage was out and you had a bard/machinist in your static but couldn't reach the DPS check with them even if they did their rotation good and knew when to give support would you keep them? Probably not, especially if you have a better chance of just barely burning through the content by over dps'ing it with another DPS or by having that person change their job just because of the low output.

We need to reach a certain amount of DPS that's acceptable for these things and when we're tracking behind in numbers by a lot compared to every other job then it's worrisome and prompts people to want changes.

I personally wouldn't of been ok staying with someone who says that at the beginning of a run either by the way, I probably wouldn't instantly leave but I'd be super wary of them and it wouldn't give me the greatest first impressions of my party members for that run... especially when they could just be gawking at my DPS numbers for all I know with that boot button on the side just waiting...

sadly we can't really prove it one way or another. There are too many insubstantiated assumptions you're throwing out here. When a group can't clear a DPS check, they don't purely look at the DPS numbers. Yes, that is one factor - is everyone performing to the maximum their job can provide? did we have any deaths? Was there anything we could've done different to push more DPS? Did everyone use pots, food, etc? There are more facts than just a base set of numbers.

If someone dies because, say, the healer went OoM and couldn't heal them, a bard could've played ballad to restore MP to save them. Are you going to kick your healer because they ran out of MP in a heal-intensive fight?

If someone runs out of TP, the bard could play Paeoen to keep them going. Are you going to kick them all so you can set up a chain of Ninja's goading eachother for more TP without paeon?

If a tank dies to a tank buster attack once, are you going to assume he's trash and kick him from the party?

Your assumption that parties will zero in on bards just because they are the "Lowest" is the part where our opinions diverge completely. A real raiding progression group is smart enough to look at more. They look at the necessity of the job. What it provides. What it can do for the party. If progression finds it doesn't need a bard's support? Then that is when they might replace them for a stronger DPS. And I stress might.



((Posting limit has been reached! Probably gonna stop replying to anything from this point o/ take care peeps.)

[Lillia]

snip

Well I admit, I was using the 'perfect' scenario that I put us in and you have a point, we don't know if we'll be pushed out of Alex until we know the DPS check... but it does sting to have one out of 5 of our new skills to show any useful changes and see us tracking as far back as we do.... WM only increases my DoTs dmg by around 100 and any big attack that I was amazed by in the lower levels quickly got out done by the current numbers I do with AA in between my skills in a faster pace of succession.

It also bothers when we're not added into certain other contents because of our DPS, those BEX or RaEX runs with 2 bards and 2 machinist or 3 bard/machinst with 1 blm/smn etc. :/

( I just flashed back to the people who'd ditch Ifrit HM groups because no caster for LB..... )

snip

Also their positional moves at the time put them in awkward positions for maximum DPS, now that is fixed though and they can get the dmg increase buff without flanking plus have better positional moves for both sides and behind. :x

(I actually freakin love dragoons who don't die a lot... we work so well together because of the way they can support bards, I think it's really awesome)