Bard - they broke my job

[Katchoo]

And this is why Bards are the way they are now, because if Bard mains have their cake and eat it too in terms of DPS output, they will be the only job in the game worth taking. I mean why would you bother with melees or even offensive casters if a ranged could bring literally all of the damage AND their utility songs?

This is very very true BUT Bards damage balance was always around it's mobility not it's songs.

Imagen if Ninja had originally had a 15% damage reduction for the duration that Goad was up, would that have been a fair balance? hmm not sure but you get the picture.

Songs have their own balance system that is independent for the most part from the rest of the job. The reason they effect our damage output in the big picture is because they take up the space of where other jobs would usually have DPS skills. Which brings me to my next point.

I'm not saying i totally disagree with you, i am happy not to be top DPS, i enjoy brining utility to the group and i think many people who play Bard would agree. The problem was that once you started to stack Bard it became detrimental to the group.

SE philosophy for this and to try and change Bard has always been "you should not need specific Jobs to play content" but it's complete bullshit. You always take at least one melee DPS, you always take a WAR and PLD combo and always take a WHM and SCH combo. It's more efficient that way, sure you can do it fine with other combinations but was not optimal.

Why did Bard have to be changed in such a way? Surly it could have had it's damage scaled along with all the other jobs quite easily? Had it's complexity enhanced in line with other jobs by, off the top off my head, being even more DoT focused in line with SMN rather than trying to be some kind of BLM.