Curious on opinion. Smn or Mch. Which would you pick?

[Minorinz]

Those downtimes still exist is what I'm getting at.

They better exist, otherwise it'll be miserable for the brd/mch to sing 24/7. What matters is the duration of the downtime and its frequency and honestly, so far they are not that frequent. What do you mean unless they use their high cost ability? In savage, everyone will be going all out on dps there is no holding back especially when its a dps races? Could you clarify what you were referring to? Also, the current alex story mode is literally a punching bag, even better there is a lot of AOE going on and guess what? Melee can AOE too!! But you know that takes the fun away, they should make savage more than just a dps race, they should add those kind of mechanics that require much movement to make it a living hell for caster and melee so then a bard/mch can be happy.

Back on t13, plds covered melees over casters, melees are literally dps bots. The whole party would run around getting mechanics done just so melee can sit there and dps. It's the party's choice, this doesn't mean melee isn't capable of doing mechanics, it means the party has decided to adjust and set the melee top priority on the dps list in exchange of the extra effort. Sounds fair to be honest. Melees have the freedom to go and get things done themselves if they want to, SE made sure of that option.

I can think of an encounter than made our melees cry, T6 savage, where rafflesia had to move everytime a bulb spawned near it. Their dps was taking a hit, it was fluctuating so bad, the bard and caster were a little higher during that phase. Also t7, whenever they got shriek, it was always a pain. Did I forget to mention that melee have positionals? so it's not only about the target moving but also they also need to get their positionals and combos running while having the target stroll around. Lovely. Yup I totally get it, melee should get punished even harder and the party should assign them mechanics because they are supposed to be equal in dps with casters and ranged physical dps.


Bard's rewards are reasonable, they are not extreme or worthless. People are addressing bard's issues as if they are still back in 2.0, why is bard's dps low? what? you just realized what playing bard is like?
I do understand that weaving during WM is a pain and oh god the mobility vs dps choice, but SE isn't that heartless and cruel, I'm sure they are studying the case. Just don't expect a bard or a machinist going anywhere near melee's level of damage on a dummy fight or something similar.

[RiceisNice]

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The point I was getting across is that those downtimes exist to the extent that TP songs are not necessarily needed. Otherwise, you'd have a repeat of fights like T11 or T7 where it's a punching bag and TP regen is absolutely required (not that I necessarily agree with this design choice either since you're pretty much forcing a specific class rather than role into the composition). Whether or not you hold back or not wouldn't matter if you still had downtimes that would downplay the necessity of a TP song.

Dont mind the following responses since I'm just nitpicking your examples, but know that while I do understand your context, its just that it's not to an extreme degree that it gets detrimental *that* to melee.
>T13 my group had melees (and offtank) dancing in an out inbetween each earthshaker to minimize their downtime (unless it was last phase).
>Shriek isn't exclusive to melee and often the placement puts them out of range of ranged attacks anyway, at least with how we placed the renauds so they were never standing on the glowing platforms or risk clipping through the renaud's hitbox.
>I've never seen T6 savage as an issue for melee when it came to moving raff because of it's large hitbox. The tanks always communicated (or at least established a pre-determined direction) where they're going to be taking raff anyway. It wasn't enough of an issue to still pull ahead of me or the summoner.

In the end to me, it boils down to what's justifying their overall lower damage output. Even with their 100% uptime, other classes are finding ways to topple their damage output anyway. Now with 3.0 out, the damage difference is still relatively the same (throwing out random numbers here) as it was in 2.0, except now that 5-10% difference between a physical ranged and a caster is also with WM/GB in mind, dropping lower than it was before if they have to end up disabling it to dps on the go. It's not necessarily a damage increase compared to how it was in 2.0 because everyone's optimal damage is balanced around the new abilities they've received.

[Sleigh]

In the end to me, it boils down to what's justifying their overall lower damage output. Even with their 100% uptime, other classes are finding ways to topple their damage output anyway. Now with 3.0 out, the damage difference is still relatively the same (throwing out random numbers here) as it was in 2.0, except now that 5-10% difference between a physical ranged and a caster is also with WM/GB in mind, dropping lower than it was before if they have to end up disabling it to dps on the go. It's not necessarily a damage increase compared to how it was in 2.0 because everyone's optimal damage is balanced around the new abilities they've received.

It boils down to, because they're ranged (which is useful for adds/mechanics/multi-DoTs, not necessarily hitting the main target), they give very generous raid DPS boosts with Foe's/Hypercharge, and they enable Disembowel, they are already worth a slot even in content without TP/MP requirements. You can't just put in another caster or melee over BRD/MCH and have more or even equal raid DPS, it doesn't work that way, and I'm getting the impression people who ask for BRD/MCH buffs don't realize this point (or play at a level where Foe's/Hypercharge are strong enough to justify the slot). BRD/MCH are presently as balanced as they were at the end of ARR, which is saying a heck of a lot.

Really the only thing ranged have to complain about is the playstyle differences aren't as fun/fluid to them as they could be, not much else IMO.

[RiceisNice]

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Hypercharge honestly is not *that* good as people make it out to be, it's certainly not to the same degree of effectiveness as trick attack or (even foe requiem since you have to overcharge a bishop for that, which adds on a potency loss) considering the uptime and cooldown. Nor is the multidotting aspect exclusive to BRD since summoner can do that too (and much more effectively in some scenarios).


You brought up raid dps which is also an important factor, but also consider how much raid dps/utility other classes can bring as well outside of tp/mp regne (which we've already beaten senseless in regards to how needed it is). It's diverse enough that you certainly do not want to class stack, but the bottom line is that BRD/MCH really does not have much unique utility that exclusive to themselves that isn't regen.

But you're right on your last statement (even though this topic has gone off rail enough as it is...) I absolutely hate playing bard and I'm leveling it in the laziest way possible right now out of principle since it was my main. The damage difference is nowhere near to the point as it was in 3.00 or even to bench them out of a raid slot, but I always wonder what are they trying to go for with where BRD/MCH is supposed to stand; they're passed off a a dps class in a LL, but now its a support class that takes up a dps slot in another LL. I'd rather balanced content around having 2 melee and 2 ranged, rather than 2 melee, 1 physical ranged, 1 caster range. It'd make it so much easier to approach with group comp and homogenization, especially if they're going to add more classes down the road.

[Sleigh]

It is bad design to "balance" things around a minority of the game. It is also bad design to give any single class "a guaranteed space" in a raid because they bring "necessary utility". If you need a Bard otherwise you'll end up running out of resources, then that's just bad design. Classes should be taken because they're all equally viable, not because they need one.

Except you have to design classes around high level play with consideration to party buffs and contributions. You can't buff things because crap players can't do well, then the top players will completely go out of whack - if even 1/10 the BRD suggestions the OF presented would go through, the world would start to stack BRDs/MCHs because people don't understand what they actually do in strong hands, in the right group. If you wanna complain about BRD/MCH being less desirable in non-raid content (when they're really, really quite desirable in all forms of content, including dungeon speed runs and hunts and solo play), then everyone should complain that they're not SMN in dungeons.

You brought up raid dps which is also an important factor, but also consider how much raid dps/utility other classes can bring as well outside of tp/mp regne (which we've already beaten senseless in regards to how needed it is). It's diverse enough that you certainly do not want to class stack, but the bottom line is that BRD/MCH really does not have much unique utility that exclusive to themselves that isn't regen.

It's still enough to combine with everything to produce the highest raid DPS. You can talk about how DRG gives Disembowel and Litany, and NIN gives TA, and yes they produce similar raid buffs as Hyper/Foe's, but it doesn't change the fact that with everything multiplying together, you do more with a melee melee ranged caster comp. It's just the perfectly designed comp, and why any speed run you see is gonna have that comp regardless of fight duration. Moving away from the max DPS side of it, fights are just really well designed for the comp too.

Sorry if I'm choosing you as the BRD doesn't need buffs scapegoat, but man I can't stand hearing this stuff anymore. I'm not sure why I even click these topics.

[Aiselia]

Except you have to design classes around high level play with consideration to party buffs and contributions.

Not when you can apply limitations exclusive to where it's relevant. If they want to force class diversity, they can apply a condition to the fight where the more (class) you have, the less damage (class) does. Or just limit it to 1 of each if they're that worried. If they find classes doing piercing damage are doing too much, they can apply a condition to the boss that he has higher piercing resistance.

If you punish every person who plays a class because some groups in a raid use too many of them, how is that fair to the people who aren't in those groups? Why is it fair to make every Bard do less damage even when they're soloing or not supporting at all because some people who aren't on their world or possibly even on their data centre used too many?

Why should a bad player be made worse because a good player can do better?

[Sleigh]

If you punish every person who plays a class because some groups in a raid use too many of them, how is that fair to the people who aren't in those groups? Why is it fair to make every Bard do less damage even when they're soloing or not supporting at all because some people who aren't on their world or possibly even on their data centre used too many?

Why should a bad player be made worse because a good player can do better?

In what world does BRD do less damage while soloing? It's one of the best solo classes in the game. MCH and BRD both are, they're bursty as all can be which is more than enough for any mob, and most hunts barely live beyond their opener, and the ones that do, you use support abilities. Great in dungeons too, they're only below SMN when it comes to AoE, WM/GB have turned them into something ridiculous in the AoE department.

I'm sorry but you are exaggerating how bad BRD/MCH are without giving raid buffs. I know BRDs and MCHs who would beat 99.9% of melee and casters out there, including some high level ones, fight dependent. Numbers in the actual raids you won't believe without proof, let's just say higher than most melee do even on dummy fights. You buff BRD for the casuals, or make their support even stronger, then the raid community has a huge mess on their hands.