This new bard play style blows.

[DreameR7g]

Snip

Actually, that's the perception of the community. That's also actually why Bard was put under the DPS role. They wanted to spread out the support abilities instead of having their own job role because hardly anyone wants to play a job with nothing but support abilities. From what I've seen, Support is a dirty word among communities. A good chunk of people rather to be doing damage because they get the pleasure of "BIG NUMBERS!" It isn't typically hard to balance in its own right. It IS hard to put support abilities in games where the community shuns it, even though support abilities can actually help maximize a party's effective power.

At the end of the day, that isn't a balance problem. It's a perception problem.