Bard - they broke my job

[Kitkat]

Did a random parse, IL190 weapon @ IL180 total. 3mins exact, no food/pot/party/dragoon, 945DPS

Still not quite where I'd want output to be, but it is a start. Honestly wish they would have left Sidewinder alone. Emp Arrow wasn't affected too much by the potency change in comparison, but Sidewinder took a pretty big hit by losing 100 potency. Haven't seen that 4.2k Crits like I was; maxing around 3.8k now with my current setup and no party buff/food.

[Ooshima]

I parsed a few times today as bard (leveled machinist to 60 and wanted to compare dps) and was sustaining 980 dps over 5 minutes with party buff / food / hq x dex pot in opener / no drg / no minuet.

That's pretty damn high.

[Dante_V]

Where you want the output to be? Lol

That's like 200 dps below a monk. Converted into 2.0 dps that proportionally wayyyyy more than they used to put out in comparison.

[Kitkat]

Where you want the output to be? Lol

That's like 200 dps below a monk. Converted into 2.0 dps that proportionally wayyyyy more than they used to put out in comparison.

That is more around 230 below mnk, still about 23% lower. I'd rather be back to the 15~18% lower where we used to be which was acceptable, but at least we aren't 25~28% lower like we were before patch. The potency downgrade on Sidewinder was a little extreme by going from 350 to 250 while increasing WM 10%. If they wouldn't have lowered it below 300 Potency 200, 125 respectively it would have left us within the 15~18% margarine.

This is based on optimal of 1210~1220 DPS on mnk with all buffs in play to maximize output. Without party buff/food/pots output is approximately 1130~1150. Most youtube vids of DPS is not maximized output as the user isn't utilizing pots and additional party buffs are not in play from other sources. Factoring in some missing party buffs brd might be able to increase DPS another 10~20 based on already reported 980, but again this is still slightly lower than what we used to do. -15~18% is more in line with where optimal brds were at pre 3.0 which was made up by the fact we provided support to our party by sustaining mp/tp or buffing casters DPS with foe.

[Crim_Vicious]

EA down to 220 should be fine, but nerfing Sidewinder down to 250 was just way too extreme. 300 would have been fair.

I honestly can't tell if there was even a change. Sure, the 30% WM is nice, but not when it cost our most powerful skills a sizable amount of potency. Wouldn't this even out and put us back to square one?

[Kitkat]

EA down to 220 should be fine, but nerfing Sidewinder down to 250 was just way too extreme. 300 would have been fair.

I honestly can't tell if there was even a change. Sure, the 30% WM is nice, but not when it cost our most powerful skills a sizable amount of potency. Wouldn't this even out and put us back to square one?

If I read what you are saying correctly, the potency nerf isn't leaving us at square one as the 10% buff increase is across the board. It does however make the scaling of Sidewinder different than it would have been had they not nerfed it so much. It is now notably weaker by a few hundred to several hundred damage per use. Had they not dropped potency quite so much it would have been a smaller difference, but would have evened out over time better for an additional 10-20dps output if math serves right, but that is mostly theory since it is difficult to factor damage variance and crit chance within 100% accuracy.

[Nanga]

Yeah, what was the point of helping WM become more useful, if they just nerfed the crap out of our main abilities that either benefit from WM, or are only useable under WM?

By increasing WM to 30%, and decreasing EA to 220, that's just SLIGHTLY higher than the amount gained from WM. By slightly, I mean 4%. But sidewinder losing 100 potency really just takes all that benefit away by a huge margin.

I don't understand it. It's as if they thought we were complaining that our damage was too high, and people won't leave us alone to join their groups. Now we'll be alienated even more...sigh.

[AkashiXI]

I parsed a few times today as bard (leveled machinist to 60 and wanted to compare dps) and was sustaining 980 dps over 5 minutes with party buff / food / hq x dex pot in opener / no drg / no minuet.

Can you post your opener, please? I've been wrapping my brain on it all week ?_?

[LambLich]

Yeah, what was the point of helping WM become more useful, if they just nerfed the crap out of our main abilities that either benefit from WM, or are only useable under WM?

By increasing WM to 30%, and decreasing EA to 220, that's just SLIGHTLY higher than the amount gained from WM. By slightly, I mean 4%. But sidewinder losing 100 potency really just takes all that benefit away by a huge margin.

I don't understand it. It's as if they thought we were complaining that our damage was too high, and people won't leave us alone to join their groups. Now we'll be alienated even more...sigh.

I kinda dont understand the sidewider change its on a 60 second cd i dont see how the 350 potency would of been somehow unbalanced not like you can spam it

[Kitkat]

snip

I think this had to do with what happened with Brd when 2.0 first came out. They are afraid our burst damage could potentially get too high. While the Emp Arrow nerf isn't that big (or noticeable due to WM increase) the Sidewinder change is a bit on the extreme side. This attack is on an off GCD cool down that can't have its reuse lowered beneath 60 seconds, so the overkill nerf to damage doesn't make much sense right not. The potency change to Emp Arrow however does make sense as it has its own off GCD and the recast is affected by Skill Speed meaning there is still potential to increase its over time output, and with the 10% buff there is negligible difference leaning to the positive.