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

[Nestama]

Does that poll include votes from the the French, German and Japanese community as well? My scepticism isn't appropriately fed.

[Vespar]

Does that poll include votes from the the French, German and Japanese community as well? My scepticism isn't appropriately fed.

Even if it doesnt contain votes from them, it's a good rough look at the scale of things for NA. I feel like everyone used to main bard just by the sheer amount of them, but this makes me curious what the estimates were before HW. Did the bard population drop to an all time low, or have we always been around this mark?

[Kaedan]

While you are correct on these points, you are still in the minority here. Polls speak for themselves. From most popular to second least popular among DPS classes cannot be construed as a coincidence.


Take some statistics classes. You only need a sample size in the hundreds to have a statistically significant sample.

Here's a more recent poll with nearly 9000 respondents if you must be skeptical. Poor AST is doing even worse now...

LOL

Either you took 101 statistics and got a D or something, or you quickly tried to google statistics when I brought it up. Either way, you don't know what you're talking about.


1) You have no data or evidence to make any claim about minority or majority, for one. The voices of the people who are happy with the job and don't come to the forums because they are happily playing the game are not represented. Besides that, the forums themselves are an extremely small minority of players. Maybe, MAYBE about 1-5% of players post here. 5% is being extremely generous.

2) Sample size is only one part of statistics. It's true that a larger sample size reduces the margin of error. But reducing the margin of error when your data is tainted by bias is worthless. You could have a sample size of 100,000 and it wouldn't mean jack due to bias (self-selection being the major culprit).

One of the biggest things that urks me is people who tell other people to "take some classes" and the go on to spout words that prove they themselves have no idea what they're talking about.

Even if it doesnt contain votes from them, it's a good rough look at the scale of things for NA. I feel like everyone used to main bard just by the sheer amount of them, but this makes me curious what the estimates were before HW. Did the bard population drop to an all time low, or have we always been around this mark?

Absolutely not. The self-selection bias makes that data completely worthless.

[Zyrusticae]

Here's a more detailed poll showing a significant number of respondents were heavily disappointed by the state of BRD in 3.0. Amusingly, the number of people disappointed by it is twice as high as the number of respondents choosing to continue to main BRD.

Obviously, some skepticism is warranted due to the fact that people disappointed with bard want to make their grievances known, but then again, even more people are disappointed by AST and, gods, MCH is doing the worst by far on every single poll related to jobs. The trend is extremely obvious at this point.

1) You have no data or evidence to make any claim about minority or majority, for one. The voices of the people who are happy with the job and don't come to the forums because they are happily playing the game are not represented. Besides that, the forums themselves are an extremely small minority of players. Maybe, MAYBE about 1-5% of players post here. 5% is being extremely generous.

2) Sample size is only one part of statistics. It's true that a larger sample size reduces the margin of error. But reducing the margin of error when your data is tainted by bias is worthless. You could have a sample size of 100,000 and it wouldn't mean jack due to bias (self-selection being the major culprit).

First of all, you are presenting yourself with a level of arrogance that makes you completely insufferable to speak to. Maybe you'd do better by focusing more on information and less on trying to put down others.

Secondly, these polls are heavily sourced from reddit and random linking from poll participants (i.e. "word of mouth"), neither of which are heavily biased sources (especially when it comes to something as simple and inane as what class players are using). Many(/most) players use reddit simply to see content related to the game, not to complain like they often intend to do when visiting the official forums. The most-upvoted content is invariably entertaining or positive content rather than complaint threads.

Thirdly, even if there were an inherent self-selection bias, the number of bard players dropping like flies is still indicative of a worrying trend. Disappointed BRD players alone could not skew the poll so heavily towards non-BRD classes. There simply aren't enough BRD players around to do such a thing.

(The funny thing, however, is simply the fact that MCH is doing the worst by far despite all of this, and yet I have not seen nearly as much complaining about them on the forums, probably because no one plays them. All I can do is shrug my shoulders and hope SE does something to make us more desirable to play as. If not, well, I'll gladly take the hipster cred and play the undisputed least popular job in the entire bloody game.)

[Wavaryen]

This play style should have been just for mch. Why have two classes almost a like? *besides rotation* I feel like it is just bad game design. Why did bards need to have this skill and lower dps? Is it because they are support dps? If that is so why do warriors who are tanks get to do good dps?

It is all so wishy washy that I don't even know what they developers are thinking, but I can tell you this. It feels lazy in game design, and the clunky feeling of the class with WM just supports that.

[Keylus]

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

Well, the kit does't change that much after 52, you just get an extra CD and a couple of oGCD skills than can be only used with GB

[SonTensei]

I adjusted to learn the new playstyle for bard and do pretty good damage on ravana ex or alex so i can say that its possible to play at a high level , but im glad i switched my main to ninja because its just so much more fun than a pseudo black mage

[AdamFyi]

Why did bards need to have this skill and lower dps? Is it because they are support dps?

I have to stop you right there. If this notion is true in that Minuet lowers your overall damage output, then the entire "playstyle change" fiasco players have been complaining about becomes unfounded. You literally wouldn't even need to activate Minuet at all if it ever lowered the damage output.

If that is so why do warriors who are tanks get to do good dps?

Warriors, unlike the Paladin and Dark Knight, was built around high damage and high sustain. This stems from the 2.0 Warrior design in which they needed to deal high amounts of damage to sustain themselves with their HP restorative abilities. In return for their high damage and high sustain design, they had very few mitigation abilities at the time.

[Wavaryen]

snip

This is my fault for not going into details what I mean.

What I mean is that we pay a price with some songs, and not doing as much dps as other range classes in the name of support dps. This support dps gets used very rarely outside of a good chunk of the game. Yet, we have a warrior class who can do both roles and pretty darn well at them both. Mind you I have seen some amazing numbers at times from bards so things are better in that sense with the hotfix.

From my perspective, that is unfair game design. HOWEVER I can understand why people feel it is not, and respect that. It leaves a nasty taste in my mouth that a expansion comes out, and we get a play style change, instead of better songs for groups.

[m3eansean]

It's not like I get penalized when I run around willy-nilly as a DRG, as long as I hit the positionals for all of two skills in my entire arsenal..

You must be one of those melees that don't understand the significance of your Auto-Attack damage. Target lock, always face the enemy, or you will be bad.

This game needs visible parsers for everyone on the team so this kind of thing can be put to rest.