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

[Aiselia]

the WHOLE party

Correction:

Bards do not offer utility to the whole party. They offer utility to a limited subset of the party.

MP regen will not affect tanks, melee, or BLMs. At best, the healers are affected and maybe SMN if they need to res people.

TP regen will not affect casters or healers.

Foe's will not affect melee (except limited ninja) or melee or healers for the most part.
On the other hand, Battle Litany helps everybody. Mantra can help everybody. Trick Attack helps every class that hits the mob. All three melees have utility skills that help more people than Bard.

Please, people, stop forgetting that raiding is not the entire game. You will not always have a caster to make Foe's useful. You will not always run things that require TP/MP regen. You will not always have complete control over your party setup. You will not always be in a fight where you constantly need to be moving. You will not even always be in a dungeon because you *need* to run around the outside world to even unlock things. Why should it take me longer to kill something while I'm questing to go through the story because in a dungeon where I'm not, I might maybe play a song if I happen to need to?

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.

[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?

[Reinha]

Well to be honest, I quite dislike the melee aspect of dps. As much as I've tried since 2.0 to get into melee, I always end up going back to range, specifically Blm and Smn. Mch is actually the first job since I can actually see me giving up on Smn/Blm and going full time, but at the same time I use to WoW where people tend to favor certain dps classes/specs over others due to wanting the most dps possible to down bosses and ignoring those that were on the low end of the spectrum regardless of how skilled a person can be. I used to love Hunter but then had to go Warlock and then finally quit WoW entirely as a Mage since I just wasn't having fun anymore and hated constantly swapping specs/jobs just to satisfy groups to ensure I could always be a welcome addition while not being a hindrance.

I face the same issue here where I'm torn between Smn/Blm and Mch I do very well with Smn/Blm and have more fun with Mch (though more cause it makes me feel Megamanish in a way) and we do have several bards in our guild already and a couple of Smn with me being the only real Blm player (at least one that knows the job well enough). I just adore these 3 jobs (though Blm a little less with how tight Enochian + AF/UI can be) and at the same time I can't really just swap between all 3 whenever as that is what made me eventually quit my last MMO. I much prefer being a master of one than a jack of several.

If I read you right, you are comfortable playing any ranged job but want to make sure that you fit in regardless of the group composition, because you don't want to be asked to change jobs later on or be left out.

Here's a few things to pay attention to when it comes to being desired in groups. For savage progression, it is common to take 2 melee, 1 magic caster and 1 ranged support dps. As a MCH you will be competing with BRD and other MCH for that one support dps slot. As a SMN you would be competing with other SMN and BLM. I'm not sure if you have a static or not, but if you do, you might want to take a look if they already have someone to fill either of those roles. Then again, you might regret making a choice based on the group's current composition in the case that someone quits and the other role opens up. If you prefer non-savage content and pugging, SMN would be more likely to get into premade groups. This is because there's a chance the group won't be asking for a ranged support dps at all since their style of support is not needed in all content and they do a little less damage.

On top of which job is more desired in groups, there is of course the playstyle aspect which is subjective. If you are looking for a static, it's best you first pick your preferred job and after making that choice apply to groups who are in need of that job. There are some core differences between SMN and MCH:
-no pet VS having a pet (managing position, using it's abilities, resurrecting and healing it, but also being able to solo better with the aid of a tank pet)
-utility: weak single target debuffs, aoe mp/tp replenishment, silence and stun VS strong single target debuff, tank buff and battle ress
-rotation
-aoe and burst damage capabilities
-overall damage difference (it is intended by design that casters do higher damage than ranged support jobs, and if this is not the case at some point in time it will likely be "fixed")
-armor and weapon appearance, ability sounds and tempo - in other words the "feel" of a class

You will need to weigh the positives and negatives of each job because no one can tell you what you would enjoy more. My pick of the two is SMN, because I enjoy having a pet by my side when soloing and I find a battle ress to be more useful overall than resource restoration. Some of my pet peeves for SMN are lame looking weapons and the ramp-up time common for dot-classes that makes it difficult to burst down certain adds. Just gotta choose what minor annoyances you will be ok with during the expansion. :P

[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.

[FreeLancer4]

Mobility is the most relevant thing when I see "MCH is a ranged class, meaning it will typically have to deal with less danger". Where does the less danger factor from? Other than that, it's the same as my above reply. It's all sound on paper, but it hasn't been the case in actual practice if other classes are still pulling ahead despite all that.

Also, to my knowledge the turret isn't terribly effective at soaking damage. I've only ever heard of T5 where pets work, but not T9.

MCH's support is also not exclusive to them; its typically less effective than what's present on other dps classes (specifically trick attack and virus). If it's the regen aspect of it, then I have to ask why their natural output is supposed to be lower when using said regen will lower their damage anyway.

That quote has no mention of mobility, you would not think the same if you saw BLM instead of MCH would you? I advise you rework your way of thinking. I also really should not have to baby you and explain where that less danger factors from, you should know full well what "danger" I speak of.

T5 Fireballs and T9 Thermionic Beam are the more prevalent examples of damage soaking. Having the ability to add an extra body means you can allow for more mistakes, such as if multiple people were to miss a thermionic, relieve some healing stress (Having a SCH/SMN/MCH would effectively add 3 additional bodies to soak damage) or allow for others (BLMs/Melees) to ignore the mechanic and continue to DPS, assuming of course they were not the target of it. This should not be undervalued.

While the concept may not be new, their respective abilities to restore MP/TP and increase party damage is unique to them. An example being the NINs Vulnerability, Foe's/Turret Debuff do not overwrite this, it compliments it. Just because its effect may not be as strong does not mean it doesn't have worth.

MCH/BRD have lower damage because they offer great party support, are ranged and have the option to go mobile to deal with movement mechanics and still deal respectable DPS. This is fact. Again I feel I must restate...

It seems like you should be directing your displeasure towards the encounters and not the actual job itself, as they have not giving it a proper challenge and a chance to really shine.

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.

Also this.^ While the decision to restrict movement to optimize dps on brd/mch isn't well received it hasn't broken the class. Personally would of liked if you gained a stacking damage buff while stationary, at least then you would not lose dps from an interrupted cast. However, if you want to be that one guy feeling special about doing the most DPS then BRD/MCH is likely not for you. Accept that fact and enjoy, or move along to another job that you feel will offer you more satisfaction.

[RiceisNice]

..

>Then please explain the "danger" part, because I really have no idea what you're talking about now. Is the "ranged" aspect not referring to having mobility to avoid projected AoE or handling kiting mechanics? What other dangers can there be?

>Of course it should not be undervalued, but you're talking about old content that dates back to BCoB. It's not even relevant to most of the fights here.

>MP/TP is unique to them, but the usefulness is incredibly varied like I've been saying. Unless savage changes up the phasing mechanics for specifically A1 and A3, you'll see the same trend of melee not needing TP regen. If SCoB and SCoB Savage were anything to go by, the uptime/downtime of the fights were still the same (punching bags remained punching bags) If you want to talk strictly on savage progression then ok, I really have nothing else to add other than what I've already said; I'm speaking in perspective of the game in general including EX primals.

Whether or not I'm discontent at the content being designed to not requiring support (cause really, maybe it is the case), or that the class is undertuned because of having support, they're both imo, really shoddy designs. An encounter should not be tuned to requiring a specific class to succeed (bard back in 2.x) but rather the role. At the same time, a specific class shouldn't be handpicked out of the role because of what they can provide. Part of this has to do with the poorly defined role when bard was first determined to be a dps class, now they're backpedaling and calling it (along with MCH) a support.

Edit : Holy crap this is derailed to all hell. Perhaps start a new topic?

[Minorinz]

The point I was getting across is that those downtimes exist to the extent that TP songs are not necessarily needed.

I'll leave this to savage then. I will undoubtedly hear our melee ask for tp or healers asking for mp and surely I will be asking for foes during the fight. In the case tp/mp refreshers become necessary from a bard/mch, would that help with your insecurity on how the community needs those 2 jobs for difficult content, for a better overall dps output and smooth progression?

One more thing, go on any melee job and ask a tank to move the target around, say a target who's hitbox is as large as bahamut's. You won't be able to get your rotation/combo across with the correct positionals. Would be nice if the melee community can vouch for how impossible it is to do so even if the movement is for 3-4 seconds every 2 mins. As for earthshakers/shriek, how will you justify their bad rng luck with those? Are you saying them getting shakers/shriek is almost the same as them not getting any? what will supplement with the dps loss? When SE decides to become innovative with their battle design on savage, they will not ignore melee completely. Also, let me refresh your memory. Back in T1-T5, how bad was it for the melee back then? People didn't even bother with 2 melee, it was just one and it was for the sake of the LB. T1's ADS AOE + snakes cleaves, T2's ADS AOE disco party. I still remember ranged doing the rot mechanic because even then ranged was equal to melee's damage with their eyes closed. T4's targets being spread everywhere and on the move. T5's positioning and adds popping on a different location every 2-3 mins. I can't blame SE for considering all of this crap to give melee some room to breathe. FCOB didn't have much of a challenge for melee but it was tp starving during progression which is why bard was 100% important for it. (that's not the only reason bards were brought.)

In 3.0, the dps curve is scaling correctly, comparing it to 2.0 it does sound about right with really good players. What you see in 3.0 is literally 2.0 x2. Everything is being amplified. Casters getting extreme burst damage and can sustain single target damage while being stationary, this is the trait they wanted to share with bard/mch but apparently it failed miserably due to people having issues trying something new. Let's be real, right now bards and machinists are expecting to be able to dance around, do the same damage a caster does and be 5%-10% bellow melee damage on a stationary target. Are you guys for real?

Correction:

Bards do not offer utility to the whole party. They offer utility to a limited subset of the party.

Are you seriously explaining to me how mp/tp regen works? Oh dear God. When all the songs are combined including foes will leave no party member not benefiting from them. Bottom point is, brd/mch do buff/assist anyone and anything in the party including pets. Is there any job that can do that? Jobs that can refresh your resources anytime that is required on a PARTY WIDE range? Does that make sense to you now?

When you compare, Battle litany that's a 15% crit rng buff and trick attack that doesn't even cross a total of 3% dps boost during the whole fight, do you consider healers that dps and require mana or foes, melee/tanks that get tp starved? The difference is obvious on long fights. Foes makes a difference for casters/healers in dungeons/silly content too.

I will ask you not to forget about the reason why brds/mchs are being overly dramatic across the forums as well. First off, they are being rejected from raiding content by ignorant people who think savage will give them some space to breathe with no support, and by support I mean utility including bard/mch's ability to move freely and still be able to deal damage. Also no offense, I've known bards who were capable of leveling up lightning fast and adjusting perfectly, these are the same bards who jump in to handle mechanics while perfecting their rotation. Much respect to these kind of players.

If all jobs become the same in terms of dps then why won't people go for ranged all day every day? They are mobile, they have lovely utility, can easily dodge and perform mechanics. By that logic no casters will be needed nor melee. If all the jobs are equal in terms of utility and gameplay. I doubt anyone would want to play this game anymore, there will be no synergy between the jobs at all.

[RiceisNice]

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I don't have much else to add then on the discussion on savage, just that the roles should be clearly more defined imo (support or dps? Devs can't even keep this consistent. Break it down to ranged and melee or three different subgroups of dps?)

Let's be real, right now bards and machinists are expecting to be able to dance around, do the same damage a caster does and be 5%-10% bellow melee damage on a stationary target. Are you guys for real?

I can only speak for myself when I don't expect to outdamage a melee in the best circumstance, but it should be relatively close to that of summoner or BLM to an extent, especially regen isn't needed. The damage loss from mobility or mechanics...it's sound on paper but it's just not the case in meaningful content (such as melee being able to minimize their overall downtimes with earthshakers, otherwise they wouldn't be still pulling so far ahead of non-melees)

The amount of situational awareness and forecasting has definitely gone up from compared to 2.0 for both BRD and MCH (and is the case for pretty much every other class), but between devs saying "you will be able to use this ability to deal more damage", what is this supposed to mean? Are we giving up our freedom of movement to deal extra damage? Or is it to make up the damage difference that's naturally lower at the end of 2.x's cycle, either because of the inherent support abilities or because of said mobility? It's not more damage relative to how much we were doing at the end of 2.x's cycle to now in comparison to other DPS classes. Maybe it's in need of tweaks, maybe its not. I'm fine with either one; most of my posts here has been more on just figuring out why it's the case, whether or not its the support aspect or their freedom of uptime.

If all jobs become the same in terms of dps then why won't people go for ranged all day every day? They are mobile, they have lovely utility, can easily dodge and perform mechanics. By that logic no casters will be needed nor melee. If all the jobs are equal in terms of utility and gameplay. I doubt anyone would want to play this game anymore, there will be no synergy between the jobs at all.

This is where you'd want class diversity because of synergy or individual utility. But if every class has that, whats the next way to gauge who you want? Yo uonly get so much benefit from one class, that having a second one severely diminishes how much you get out of it (which was also why summoner was mediocre at best in 2.x since the usefulness of traited virus was incredibly diminished by a scholar). I didn't like the design of 2.x where bard was the only class with regen while being defined as a ranged dps class, and their slot pretty much went uncontested. It also didn't help that RoD initially had one of the best debuffs for progression and only made them much more desirable.

And on a side note, I apologize for how far this has gotten; I'm the sort of person that picks out arguments/debate out of the frustration of design with the classes and gameplay, but at least this one has gone a bit more civil compared to other BRD threads I've seen.