I chose BRD for swift gameplay, if I wanted to cast I would have chosen a Mage.

[Hyrist]

Got my MCH to 52 today, was looking forward to Gauss Barrel. Once I got it, it felt slow, clunky, looked awful, etc. I retired my MCH immediately and decided I probably won't ever touch the Bard either. It's just...not very fun or exciting, IMO.

inb4 "Good, we don't want you running around the battlefield anyways and ruining our day!" Well, news flash, I stood still as a MCH the entire time I DPSed except for when it was necessary to move.

So you're saying you ragequit before seeing a class's completed kit? Good to know, NEXT!

[Raist]

So you're saying you ragequit before seeing a class's completed kit? Good to know, NEXT!

Shouldn't have to complete it to 60 to see the benefit. You should feel empowered by it from day one, which is not the case.

Everyone wants to keep bringing up BLM for comparison, don't mean to add more fuel to the fire--but it is my main and BRD is one of my alts. By comparison, you benefit from Enochian immediately upon unlocking it. It boosts your output without hindering the job/class skills--I immediately felt a decrease in the time it took to solo mobs once I started using it. It is purely an enhancement to your kit as soon as you unlock it. This is not the case with BRD (and apparently MCH as well?).

[Verius_Nox]

Shouldn't have to complete it to 60 to see the benefit. You should feel empowered by it from day one, which is not the case.

Everyone wants to keep bringing up BLM for comparison, don't mean to add more fuel to the fire--but it is my main and BRD is one of my alts. By comparison, you benefit from Enochian immediately upon unlocking it. It boosts your output without hindering the job/class skills--I immediately felt a decrease in the time it took to solo mobs once I started using it. It is purely an enhancement to your kit as soon as you unlock it. This is not the case with BRD (and apparently MCH as well?).

You felt nothing with a 30% increase in -all your abilities-, but felt something with a 5% increase in magic damage?

[Raist]

You felt nothing with a 30% increase in -all your abilities-, but felt something with a 5% increase in magic damage?

yeah... about got my face eaten off by mobs I could solo no problem otherwise.

Enochian is an additional damage boost that could be worked into your original rotation (as in you could now rotate RS and Eno with no penalty to game play). WM changed the mechanics on us. The loss of auto attack and having to stay rooted to fire off WS you normally didn't have to DOES make a difference when you are the one with hate (as in soloing, as I mentioned earlier).

Edit:
By no means scientific and not a parse over time, but just went out to fart around on a dummy in Falcon's. SS normal is 370-380-ish, crits 580-ish. With WM up, it's 470-480-ish with crits for 780-ish. Yeah.. that sounds great right? Well... you have to figure in also that I'm loosing my 220-230 auto attacks that can also crit up to 360-ish. The AA's fire between the CD on SS. So without WM, I can spam SS and get SS, AA, SS, AA, SS, AA.... That extra damage stacks up nicely...to the point on that it nearly balances out over time.

Now, with HS, we're talking 420-ish normal, 620-ish Crit normally, with WM up it is around 510 with 760-ish crits---but again, loosing the 220-ish/360'ish AA in between each one. Look at that really closely now. Say the crit rate was consistent and was a good rate of proc: 420 HS, 220 AA, 420 HS, 220 AA, 620 HS---vs 510 HS, 510 HS, 760 HS. Without WM up, that is 1900 damage in the same time frame for 1780 with it up. Over the course of spamming a very basic WS--and that is base damage by the way--SS was not up for crit bonuses at the time. Now run the numbers against the SS spam I gave earlier: 370 SS, 220 AA, 370 SS, 220 AA, 370 SS (1550) vs 470 SS, 470 SS, 780 SS (1720).

Now combine them... 1550 +1900=3450 no WM, 1780 + 1720=3500 with WM up. All it takes is one more AA (not even a crit even) during the span of 6 WS to give you MORE DPS with WM down. And with the CD timers, you likely WILL in fact get that 5th AA in during those 6 WS (remember---those comparisons only included 4 AA's).

Where is that great 30% increase in damage? Is it really worth putting myself at greater risk to stance dance my butt off for minimal improvement over time---a boost I can get from food FFS.

Granted, as you get higher levels and unlock the special weapon skills and get better gears and such it may scale better---but you shouldn't HAVE to wait until you earn another 6million+ in exp for WM to be any manner of a significant benefit like it was with other job's new abilities.

To draw a better contrast with Eno on BLM... with Eno up, a F3 opener and 2 F1's obliterated a dummy. With Eno off.. the same exact spell sequence left it with 27% health the first time. This was fairly consistent--with Eno off, the BEST I got one down was to 13%--and MP was to the point of needing to refresh mind you. I consistently obliterated the dummies with just the same three casting while Eno was up... every... bleeding... time.

That is what is at issue here... the skill is still too grossly unbalanced. It's better then when first added... but it still is not there yet until you get to the top of your class so to speak.

[Torunya]

I think Machinist is absolutely fantastic, and firing magic bullets is right up my alley.

But I don't see how giving Bard the same treatment makes that much sense. Now I haven't played Bard past 50 so I can't speak from experience there, but it would make more sense to me if Bards had something other than a carboncopy of Machinist's Gauss Barrel. I mean, magic bullets are awesome. But magic arrows? I mean... wait, hey, that actually sounds kind of cool.

[Greven]

Then honestly, you have two ranged class, why give them the same skill and role?

[Lewtskie]

You felt nothing with a 30% increase in -all your abilities-, but felt something with a 5% increase in magic damage?

5-10% Increase* 20-25% of that was what our autos already offered, that's why they boosted it with 3.01. When it was just 20% you felt almost no benefits until you started unlocking everything else that had to work in tandem. And even still, without Empyreal Arrow you're working with a stunted rotation.

[Wavaryen]

Lmao I still laugh at people who are telling others what they should feel is fun and not to others. Who the heck do some of you think you are? It does not matter what dps it does if players don't like the core change of the class to do that dps.

/thread and that is that. You can't argue with it. Fun is subjective and you don't have any say on what is fun to a person.

[QiLymePye]

Lmao I still laugh at people who are telling others what they should feel is fun and not to others. Who the heck do some of you think you are? It does not matter what dps it does if players don't like the core change of the class to do that dps.

/thread and that is that. You can't argue with it. Fun is subjective and you don't have any say on what is fun to a person.

This is what I posted in another thread about why I think people are upset about the BRD playstyle chg. I think the mistake is people are saying "mobility" but its really "utility" which mobility and fluidity plays a huge role in. I apologize in advance, its rather lengthy but I think many will understand what I mean:

I think that the problem is that people who normally don't play the Job are trying to tell people that do play not only that the Job is ok, but also how to play it. I think people complaining about BRDs complaining need to chill out and listen more. I have BRD lvl 50, NIN lvl 50, and MNK lvl50. I haven't done any Heavensward stuff yet, so I can't comment on how the BRD job plays now. But I rolled/played the job not only because of the mobility(Not running around like crazy, but knowing that I could move when needed and still keep my dps was important to me), but because of its utility. Not support, Utility.

For example: I felt as a BRD, my job was to help with adapting to new situations. If an add popped, I felt like it was my job to tag that ass...I mean ADD..lol..even before melee dps can move. I felt if I can help whittle away at enemies and finish them off, thats less time the melee dps has to spend away from boss. Also, not only did I have range, but mobility. I could attack pretty much almost anywhere on battlefield. Add popped to my left, turn fire off shots, another popped on my right a few yalms further away, I might not even have to move to target that one. Oh, attack boss some more, reset DoTs..etc. Kiting when necessary, pulling when necessary, finishing off that mob. Having a BRD was like those movies when the good guy was like "Hey, cover me" and you would provide it.

As a BRD, I didn't ask for more dps to catch up to melee and be on even par, we asked to be SCALED properly to keep the same distance behind melee in dps, whether through scaling weapon dmg properly or scaling dps in general. IMO, BRD would be considered a sidekick, similar to Hawkeye in the Avengers. Yes, he was support, Yes he wasn't super duper like Hulk or Thor, or Ironman, but he had utility. Well placed arrow..finishing off enemy at right time. Even shifting focus from other players. Do you know how many times I have covered healers cause if they are being attacked, its easier for me to shift focus from boss to add attacking healer in an instant whithout moving, without forcing a melee thats already working boss to stop rotation, chase add thats attacking healers, losing dps as a result. Thats what BRD brought to the table.

And from what I'm hearing, SE hurt the Utility of BRD. BRD didn't get invited to raids just because of songs. That was a bonus, yes. But what I see as the problem is that alot of you who never played BRD, but maybe played with the in your group can't look past the songs. Im pretty sure if you were to go back and watch old videos of BRDs prior to this update, and actually look at what they did during fights, you would understand where BRD players are coming from and why they are concerned.

Also, I would like to point out, because I've been on these forums for a while and have read and commented on many BRD threads, that there have been a very small percentage, very very small, that asked for DPS to rival/be even/ match melee DPS. BRD's don't want to kick ass like a mnk or nin or drg, they just wanted their dps to scale to remain the same distance behind, not drop farther behind with every patch and update. With that drop in DPS, its makes it harder for BRDS utility to shine. Now, I challenge all non-BRDS to, if you have the time and ability, to actually watch what the BRDS bring to the table and how they operate. Its like music the way we flow in a fight. Take this analogy:

If party members were compared to musical Instruments in an orchestra: MeleeDPS=percussion Section (Drums), Tank =brass section, Heals=Woodwind/flutes, and Ranged DPS=Percussion(Xylophones, Timpani, Piano, Cymbals, etc) AND String section. The Music heads will understand this analogy but in case you don't understand:

Melee DPS dictates the tempo of the party, like the drums in a band. If you can't meet DPS checks, not going anywhere.

Tank is the Backbone. They are the ones that are flashy and stand out more, especially when you need a solo, like sax, trumpet, etc. When people look and listen to bands(talking classical music here) they tend to focus on drums and brass, cause they are showy and bring fun to the songs, like melee dps and tanks bring to the party

Heals make me think of woodwinds, especially flutes. They play that melody but when they need to make an appearance, they show up loud and fast, like spam healing. lol.

And now Ranged DPS. I think of their songs like the strings section. Playing in the background..soothing and accompanying the woodwinds melody(heals) with the occasional solo(think BLM). BRDS do that but a little extra. Remember those instruments in school that many people didn't know how to play, or play well, or passed them up because they didn't look interesting, like tambourine, triangle, xylophones, timpani, etc? Thats the class I put BRD/MCH into. Most of the time, a band that has those instruments has one person (sometimes two) that play all of those instruments when needed.They jump from cymbals to xylophone, from tambourine to maracas. From the triangle to the woodblocks. Each of those instruments might not seem important and even many of them seem they would be easy, but it doesn't mean they are unnecessary.

The person that plays all of those and fills those roles isn't skating by. Its a challenge. They read the same sheet music as a trumpeter and have to be on time and consistent just like everyone else. Its their utility that makes them unique and important. I am sorry about the long post. I've been trying to get people that don't play the job on a regular to understand why BRDS were upset. From what I'm hearing from most of the BRD's using WM, that its like telling the percussionist to now play with one stick or mallet while waiting for next Bar to load on your sheet music, without moving. Remember...its about Utility and adaptability with this class

[Kaedan94]

Lmao I still laugh at people who are telling others what they should feel is fun and not to others. Who the heck do some of you think you are? It does not matter what dps it does if players don't like the core change of the class to do that dps.

/thread and that is that. You can't argue with it. Fun is subjective and you don't have any say on what is fun to a person.

Ironically, your own argument can be used against you and your side.

Many whiners are attempting to speak for all BRD players, saying the new playstyle choices "aren't fun". I've been running Alex on my BRD and been doing just fine, having a blast. To me, WM is perfectly "fun".