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

[Kicoe]

Yes, I am.

How could I not be, since everyone throws parses at me as if the high end players are the ones people are basing their prejudices on when they get a Bard in a roulette?

It's never "Oh, I saw So-and-So in this raid and he did awesome DPS, this run will be super fast!" It's "Oh, a Bard. Well, I wanted to take an extra half hour to complete this."

And then I start tanking the trash because they didn't think they needed to worry about AOE threat for some reason.

In that case I would suggest to stop worrying about what the roulette crowd is thinking or doing. Bard is very much appreciated in endgame in terms of utility and damage output.

[Minorinz]

No, I'm pretty sure that how punctuation works is rather objective.

That sounds subjective to me, ironically. I'm literally telling you what I meant yet you are seeing it the way you want to. Can't help you there.

Because we're talking about non-raids. Y'know, things like soloing or roulette dungeons. Things where you won't always have a caster.

I mean, I could have said "A song that increases magic damage when you may not even have a caster because you don't control roulette groups".

Healers do magical damage, healers always count. Also, what makes you think a drg/nin/monk will be using any of their utility correctly? They are not really required or expected to in df parties. As for pre-mades then taking a caster is always a choice. The thing about low level or easy content is, the teamplay is very poor, it's basically everyone for themselves .

For someone who griped about me missing context, you certainly seem to have forgotten that. We're talking about non-raids, remember? Where either you don't control the makeup of your group (roulette) or things like TP/MP songs are not needed because fights don't last long enough.

Maybe you are the one constantly talking or being limited about dungeons, however I'm not so don't think that please. Also, I do understand the implications of what could happen if jobs were balanced around dungeon content not raid, because lol I do raid.

Would I favour a DRG who does more damage and can increase damage of the entire party plus the healing of the healer (Extra crit chance on a SCH makes for lovely Adloq shields that let me pop into Cleric stance for a while longer) over a BRD who can refill TP that won't need refilling, refill MP that won't need refilling, or potentially buff caster damage if we have a caster or they happen to play it during a time the healer has a chance to attack?

Or buff the healer's damage with foes while they are on cleric? didn't think you'd miss that one. Believe me when I say, a healer would prefer that lovely foes to dps over a crit adlo.

"but why would anyone jump off a cliff to begin with?"

You are not going to jump off a cliff unless someone pushes you off by telling you not to bring a bard along for difficult content.

What am I expecting? Nothing.

What am I hoping for? Their play style back, and hopefully equalized weapon damage, even if it means moving that loss of weapon damage to the penalty for playing songs.

Not gonna happen, gotta work on them hopes.

Actually, they'd most likely not stack, like how Dancing Edge and Storm's Eye don't.

So you want to take one of drg's utilities and pass it to a bard so then drg won't be as desirable for utility purposes. For that to be viable drg must remain top melee dps over monk and ninja. Which means that it won't be balanced, also means that it is not fair for other melee jobs. A piercing buff though shouldn't be applicable during minuet because then with minuet that's a 40% damage buff, that's too much in one go without even off GCDs. This won't be dynamic for a priority system job like bard that's all over the place, this will actually increase the skillcap even more. I would suggest you forget about the piercing damage buff altogether because it doesn't make sense with the current bard gameplay.

[Aiselia]

I'm literally telling you what I meant yet you are seeing it the way you want to.

I'm seeing it the way it was written. If you meant something else, you should have said it that way. The funny thing about text is that there's no such thing as tone. If you end a sentence with terminating punctuation, then you ended the sentence.

Healers do magical damage, healers always count.

Healers also heal. If they don't get a break to go into cleric's stance, Foe's does nothing for them.

Also, what makes you think a drg/nin/monk will be using any of their utility correctly?

Sorry, are you suggesting that their utilities are less useful because people MIGHT not use them, as opposed to it being useless entirely for the situation?

I'd like to get this clear, because that seems to be what you're saying, but you've already said things you didn't mean.

however I'm not so don't think that please.

Which is nice for you, I'm sure, but unfortunately, since that was the context of what I'm talking about, it makes your comments irrelevant to what I was talking about, therefore being useless answers.

Believe me when I say, a healer would prefer that lovely foes to dps over a crit adlo.

As a healer, believe me when I say that if a tank is too squishy or a group is taking too much damage to go into Cleric stance, Foe's is useless. A crit adloq that gives the tank enough of a cushion to go into cleric stance and actually cast more than one spell before panicking about their health is always more welcome than Foe's.

Not gonna happen, gotta work on them hopes.

We'll see. I'm sure people thought the same thing about original WM until it got buffed.

So you want to take one of drg's utilities

I do? Where did I say that, then?

I would suggest you forget about the piercing damage buff

Easily done, since I'm not the one that brought it up.

[Greedalox]

This thread is so sassy now. OP asked a basic question with one of two responses and people had to turn it into a cat fight.

[Ryaz]

The problem with utility comes down to this: Utility is only useful in certain situations. More DPS is ALWAYS useful. It's an unfortunate part of every MMO. It was the same way with The Secret World when I played it. Sure, fist weapon healers (which were standard healers like WHM) were great at healing. But so were leech healers... And they brought good dps. Pretty soon every group advertised wanted Leech healers only while fist other healing types were pushed to the side.

If a class is giving up dps for utility, that's fine, but in any content where that utility isn't needed, they're basically treated as second class citizens because having more dps is seen as the better option. Unless the class is given some way of making up for their lower dps in all content, that probably won't change.

[Minorinz]

I'm seeing it the way it was written. If you meant something else, you should have said it that way. The funny thing about text is that there's no such thing as tone. If you end a sentence with terminating punctuation, then you ended the sentence.

common sense says hi. For the question to make sense you need to understand the context, if you do not understand it then it will be obvious and it is because you are going around in circles!

Healers also heal. If they don't get a break to go into cleric's stance, Foe's does nothing for them.

So you just said a crit adlo will help a sch go into cleric, then why are they even bothering with whm/ast dps spells since they won't be dpsing? shame on SE for this.

Sorry, are you suggesting that their utilities are less useful because people MIGHT not use them, as opposed to it being useless entirely for the situation?

You said whats the point of playing foes without a caster even though the healer could be standing right there dps'ing. Unfortunately, even with a caster present foes is not being used due to df players' mentality. All of them utilities are optional, they are not mandatory. Unless it is during a raid, where the teamplay is real.

I'd like to get this clear, because that seems to be what you're saying, but you've already said things you didn't mean.

Or things you can't seem to understand. I hope it gets across one day.

Which is nice for you, I'm sure, but unfortunately, since that was the context of what I'm talking about, it makes your comments irrelevant to what I was talking about, therefore being useless answers.

The buffs or adjustments bards will receive is also affecting the raiding system, ding ding, this concerns me. Dungeons and silly content are simply silly so them buffs are definitely useless. It's like asking for more dps on content you already cleared instead of asking for buffs on content that's more difficult than anything you've ever seen yet.

As a healer, believe me when I say that if a tank is too squishy or a group is taking too much damage to go into Cleric stance, Foe's is useless. A crit adloq that gives the tank enough of a cushion to go into cleric stance and actually cast more than one spell before panicking about their health is always more welcome than Foe's.

They can still crit even without litany lol, foes is there for over a minute. I also heal, surprisingly. I would know.

We'll see. I'm sure people thought the same thing about original WM until it got buffed.

What are you even talking about? The forums were swarming with bard complain threads that didn't even make sense. Also, they weren't hoping. They were demanding.

I do? Where did I say that, then?
Easily done, since I'm not the one that brought it up.

O right I forgot that you are picking up statements then write random comments that lead to nowhere!! My bad again. Although that was too easy. I'm glad the 10% buff is out of the way, even though if you truly played bard you'd know what that meant.

Btw this weird statement you posted earlier, what the hell does it mean?

how much balance would be lost if they shifted the 10% weapon damage loss to extra damage loss during songs so that we're not punished for having the songs and then punished again for playing them.

Are you talking about the 15% dps penalty when playing paeon or ballad? Because to you that seems like some "balanced" solution so let's cut it down to that.

[FreeLancer4]

>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?

Range does not equate to mobility, both black mage and summoner are ranged, but a blm must remain stationary to compete with dps and smn, while having the ability to be mobile risks depleting their resource if abused to much. While "Range" and "Mobile" are often put together, they are not one in the same. You do little but insult your own intelligence when you even tried to explain this earlier.

Mobility is hardly a good reason for ranged to deal less damage because some of them (speicifcally BLM) can't afford to move as much anyway, not to mention GB/WM restricts movement anyway and its supposed to boost their dps.

Anyway, those dangers I speak of are for the most part Melee mechanics (Seriously have to explain this...), things that they must deal with because of the need to be up close and personal. You as a ranged class will not have to deal with some knockbacks, boss/target centered aoe's, rear attacks, damage pools etc, that is to say so long as you plan a bit ahead and position yourself out of the way of it, where a melee would instead lose uptime or be denied positionals. Besides Ravana's Seeing ability (Correct me if I'm wrong), there isn't a need to move around on anything else since your attack potencies are not affected by positional requirements.

So long as you position yourself well you can multi-dot with ease and will also not have to move to attack an another enemy, whereas a melee would obviously have travel time. This can be mitigated with gap closers, but the point still stands that being ranged alone can be a fairly large advantage already.

>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.

FCOB I'm fairly certain T11 seed of the river/sea (Forget Which) could be split with pets, Shiva's Ice Brand and Ravana's Laughing Rose. While I haven't seen anything in normal Alex there may yet be something in Savage, as such it should not be dismissed.

>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.

This...

I'm certain Turn 2 of Savage alex will be requiring a lot of AoE out of everyone, TP is like to be an issue as DPS checks will no doubt be a lot rougher. Turns 1 and 3 may see some song/turret dancing to sneak in a few ticks of mp for healers as there are a good few pauses and turn 4 will likely be something akin to Turn 11, so you can expect the encounter to last a fair bit longer and have TP/MP being drained.

and as I said before, being humans mistakes can and will be made. Having a MP/TP restore on EX or even other content can and have saved potentially botched attempts, and even then mch/brd are nowhere near being a burden for clearing or farming, the player more then anything is the primary factor. You yourself have stated such already.

[Aiselia]

For the question to make sense you need to understand the context

If you were as clever as you seem to think you are, you COULD have pointed out I did the same thing.

then why are they even bothering with whm/ast dps spells

So they don't have to kill things with their stick/globe when they're questing/soloing, of course.

My understanding, though admittedly I can't recall where I heard it, is that they have said that they do not take healer DPS into account when designing encounters. Healer DPS is a bonus, not a point of balance.

They can still crit even without litany

And with Litany, they have a higher chance.

What are you even talking about?

You said it won't happen.
I said we'll see.
What do you think I'm talking about?

I forgot that you are picking up statements then write random comments that lead to nowhere!!

You're the one that brought up giving a piercing buff to Bards. I didn't. At no point did I even suggest that Bards should be able to buff piercing damage. You made that up yourself.

Don't blame me if you can't recall what you said.

Are you talking about the 15% dps penalty when playing paeon or ballad? Because to you that seems like some "balanced" solution so let's cut it down to that.

I'm talking about how Bard weapons have an inherent 10% lower weapon damage on top of the 15% damage loss on Ballad/Paeon.

So I asked what balance would be lost if the 10% lower weapon damage was removed and the loss on Ballad/Paeon went up to 25%. It still results in the same DPS loss for playing the songs, and doesn't punish for having the songs but not playing them.

[Adventica6]

Was this a serious question Op? I think your bait worked rather well for 12 pages.

[Minorinz]

If you were as clever as you seem to think you are, you COULD have pointed out I did the same thing.
So they don't have to kill things with their stick/globe when they're questing/soloing, of course.
My understanding, though admittedly I can't recall where I heard it, is that they have said that they do not take healer DPS into account when designing encounters. Healer DPS is a bonus, not a point of balance. And with Litany, they have a higher chance. You said it won't happen. I said we'll see. What do you think I'm talking about? You're the one that brought up giving a piercing buff to Bards. I didn't. At no point did I even suggest that Bards should be able to buff piercing damage. You made that up yourself. Don't blame me if you can't recall what you said. I'm talking about how Bard weapons have an inherent 10% lower weapon damage on top of the 15% damage loss on Ballad/Paeon. So I asked what balance would be lost if the 10% lower weapon damage was removed and the loss on Ballad/Paeon went up to 25%. It still results in the same DPS loss for playing the songs, and doesn't punish for having the songs but not playing them.

You read what I wrote and chose to answer one question instead of all of them, then proceeded to say the rest of the questions are irrelevant when I clearly wrote a paragraph discussing why I was asking in the first place. Yes, I am apparently too smart to think it was obvious lmao

SE is impressed that healers are dealing higher numbers during raid content and they are aware that tanks do the same thing. this is a quote from the an interview with Yoshi:

This is also one of the reasons we decided to implement both a normal and savage version of Alexander. Once again, healer DPS was not included in the development team's calculation as it was for other jobs, so you should just think of healer DPS as a last way to get your overall party's DPS up to where it needs to be.

Healer's dps is very important during raid and is a nice bonus during other easy content. Things you already cleared, basically. Now, Just like how dps's utility is optional, healer's going cleric is optional as well for dungeons. Guess what though, it's balanced, because both litany and healer dpsing are optional. In other words, it simply depends on how good the player is.

I honestly don't think you know what you are talking. Some people on this thread already posted video proof of bard's/machinist's dps being high. You also seem to ignore this lovely post:

BRD is high-tier for the non-raid stuff, please enlighten me how having some of the highest burst and AoE, even with lower WD, is "punished."

10% extra damage with a bigger hit to songs, you would have to completely rebalance all DPS to do this. Every single one of them. Right now BRD does add more damage to a good group rather than being canned for ANY melee/caster, I've seen 1400 A1, I've seen higher than 1,000 for all of A1-4. I don't think you truly realize what's so strong about BRD ... it's how they translate into fights - not necessarily the movement aspect, but everything about them (minus WM's new semi-mobility loss) is strong in real fights.

- 12s Misery's End, no other class gets that. That by itself skews the dummy <-> real fight barrier.
- Ranged, on the very high end of multi-DoTing, which means they are add slayers and gain more from adds than most classes, and most encounters do have adds.
- Bursty. This is strong in its own right - you'll have encounters where there are constant phase shifts and breaks, like T9, where a truly skilled BRD will be nearly if not completely topping the parse because they're constantly gaining more strength from downtime than other classes.
- Still pretty dang mobile. More mobile than the majority of classes. The only forced movement/disconnect that truly hurts DPS now is having to move during an Iron Jaws recast, everything else is minor compared to a melee disconnecting or BLM moving.

BRD has every fight advantage. Because of these they do frighteningly close to melee in real fights as is, and then on top of these things you've got Foe's, TP, and MP regen. They're so strong and I don't think you even know it, and you want ... BRD/MCH to do the same damage as everyone else by default? Yeah because then they'll beat everyone by 10% in real fights, and you'll stack DRG BRD BRD BRD unless you put into place those silly class restriction ideas you have. So we're going to punish statics that already punish themselves by stacking classes? Or we just straight up increase BRD DPS so it can be less support, more DPS, because of some completely-unrelated-to-balance morals? I don't understand.

You seem to highlight statements and twist them the way you like and you cannot seem to give examples or proof of how lacking bard is.
Bad bards doing bad dps =\= the job needs to get buffed.


Where did you get this 10% lower weapon damage info from??? Do you know how weapon damage works to be asking for that 10%?