You can look WM and BRD from this perspective.

[AdamFyi]

BRDs have inferior DPS because they are a support class. That's the price they pay.

From a design perspective, I don't think support alone can be used to describe them as it is just a general term. I'd say that they also help sustain the party. That is where they take a hit in terms of damage. Being able to sustain a party is pretty vital in drawn out fights.

The biggest selling point for the support DPS is the ability to sustain the party should anything go awry. A party that can't sustain itself is doomed to fall eventually. In order to counter this, they reduced the damage output by the jobs.

You can see how screwed up that is for BRDs right?

So you would rather have redundant abilities? I'm being rather serious here. The actual Selene buff only gives a 3% haste. There's a reason why they made it very low. For other support effect, I would love to hear some ideas from you.

[RiceisNice]

I liked when my bard could fire off bloodletters like dakka dakka dakka dakka. There wasn't anything more exilherating when hearing the bow string from bloodletter repeatedly in a single GCD cycle. You can't reasonasbly fit more than 1 oGCD inbetween each weapon skill with WM up.

[Aezelas]

It is a fact WM adds to the BRD job a degree of complexity it never had

That's too bad boredom got me first. I won't be able to experience your idea of fun.

[ShaneDawn]

So, the reward for "added complexity" is getting the weakest dps position on the parser? How does it feel getting out dpsd by the Warriors that you used to beat by 200+ dps pre-expansion?

[ShaneDawn]

By this argument, the very concept of a support style class is flawed and BRDs should just be pure dps. BRDs have inferior DPS because they are a support class. That's the price they pay. Yoshi has outright stated that before. To say BRDs class focus has to be limited to keep them from being mandatory is pretty unfair to BRDs. Its effectively saying 'your a broken design'.

But it's alright for a Warrior to deal damage almost on-par with melee classes, and easily surpass the support DPS? Shouldn't they be dealing inferior damage with this very same logic? On any medium tier content the best comp is already 2 wars + 3-4 melees atm.

Fact is, bards are not really relevant and/or wanted atm. The only spot they will have, is a mobile mp bot with inferior damage output. Unless SE does something to bolster it's support/synergy/dps. Otherwise bards will be viewed as a weak class anywhere outside Alex Savage.

[Noira]

Bard has and always will be relevant, they always have a guareeted spot in a static.....Most classes can't say that. Bard can also output some decent dps.

You guys are flip flopping first it's not about the damage or getting gud, it's about the mobility. Then when the mobility argument is countered you say it's about the damage.

Which is it ? Jobs are balanced around raid content Yoshi P has said this countless times..If he finds that Bard is lacking come Alex Savage he will make changes.

[ShaneDawn]

snip.

No one is arguing that bard will be irrelevant in Alex Savage, since the healers are aure to run out of mp anyways. But; what is the redeeming feature outside it? The only thing bard has to offer that's not in some form on other classes is the mp regen (+Foe's Requiem but that's hardly significant). What reason do I have to bring a bard into medium-tier content where mp is not an issue?

If they want to keep a bard as a support class, then it needs more exclusive support/synergy buffs that keep it relevant OUTSIDE the hardest of content. Maybe give them something that let's the other dps classes shine more, withouy boosting the bard dps. Atm the tanks are also in the same situation; on current difficulty content it's always best to run double wars for damage. Paladin/DRK will have a spot in Savage mode Alex for sure, but balancing classes only for the hardest raid is a bad design concept.

[Duelle]

I felt like they tried to please those who wanted more damage and tried to appease to them and it just didn't turn out what everyone wanted.

Except they did it in a terrible way. It would have been one thing if the BRD preview had said "we're adjusting some of the existing abilities to increase BRD DPS and designing the abilities gained through Heavensward to increase DPS at the cost of some mobility", then proceeded to change things that made the transition feel natural to the job.

Instead, what the devs did is leave the job exactly as it was for the last two years 1-50, then decided to add a stance that is basically a copied mechanic from MCH. So not only did the job's gameplay get turned on its head, but it also got a copied mechanic instead of something that felt inherent to BRD. As I've said in the other thread, Bloodletter and Windbite could have gotten a 1.5 second cast time baseline, leaving Straight Shot, Heavy Shot, Misery's End and Venomous Bite instant for 1-50 gameplay. Introduce Iron Jaws, Sidewinder and Empyreal Arrow with 1.5 second cast times.

The gameplay would thus still have some aspects of what it was like through ARR but also have these new elements they obviously wanted to introduce.

[d4rkie]

if only the cast times would correlate with skillspeed/spellspeed of the bard... 1.5s for every weaponskill is slow as hell (not that I didn't add WM into my rotation) :<

[StrejdaTom]

I am really (not) interested in what people who dont even have BRD on 60 have to say about WM. You probably even havent seen 2 same equipped BRDs in same fight one with WM second without it. It is not fine even if other people have cast times because they atleast have the damage. If I am supposed to be banned from moving as others, okey, but then give me the DPS as others. If I am support and I am not supposed to have same DPS as others OK, but give me my movement back. Why should I deal with crappy off GCD skill management and no movement for like 5% dps boost in case I wont have to move. Thats a joke.