question on something Yoshi-p said

[RiceisNice]

in early 2.0 bards had the same dps than any of the other jobs, and thus you had no reason to bring anything else in raids. 3 bards 1 mage, 2 bards, 2 mages or 2 bards, 1 mage 1 melee (for lb) was the norm.

Then they got hammer nerfed to what they are now

There's more workings than just straight up damage for that to happen though, such as the utility they bring (damage down and a reliable silence which was needed in eariler encounters), or what the fights throw out (unavoidable damge at melee range, such as garuda's wicked wheel). Otherwise this principle could be applied to any job that has top dps for now. The reason people aren't stacking X jobs is because everyone now brings something to the table aside from just dps.

[Bloodb]

I'm not sure what my point is by this but garuda's wicked wheel is easily avoidable. For extreme where it matters it places a big red target on the tank beforehand so melee can run out.

[Kuwagami]

Well sure there is. But now all th fights are made not to favor anyone (or at least they are supposed to be).

Back then it was a logistical nightmare and you didn't want a melee anyway (point blank AoEs with short casts and huge lags. Looking at you caduceus and ADS).

The whole game got changed to accomodate to the melees and make them desirable over a stack of bards. Easier to avoid AoEs, less point blank stuff, nerfing bard's damage and utility (sort of, it got shifted to war) while keeping songs, and of course the LB filling speed nerf

[kingatlas]

Yeah I remember that, themain reason why I had tolevel a bard back then just to get into groups.

[Gamer3427]

Words.

You seem to have some misinformation here. First and foremost, the cast time for MCH skill with GB on is 1.5s not 3. Second, that 1.5 seconds is counted in with the 2.5s cooldown, meaning the cooldown is 1s. Third and most importantly, GB increases the damage for EVERY skill MCH has while it's active, (possible exception is the turret, as I haven't tested that), including cross-classed Feint. It also allows you access to two of your most powerful skills, Gauss Round, (200 potency on a 20s cooldown), and Ricochet, (300 potency on a 60s cooldown). All that combined with proper use of Reload and Quick Reload along with OGCD skills means that you can do significantly more damage with GB on, particularly with your, (in terms of total DPS), most powerful skill Lead Shot, which has the second highest potency of any DoT in the game.....

The only reason MCH DPS is so low compared to other DPS classes is that we have significantly lower potency on the majority of our attacks, capping at 200 potency, (220 with ammo), for a procced version of our third skill in our base rotation, where as the weakest third skill in a NIN's base rotation is 220 on Armor Crush, (280 if used properly), as a comparison. So at it's strongest, our last skill in rotation does what the weakest NIN third skill does at it's weakest, (well second weakest, but no one will use Armor Crush without the rotation). The problem isn't a GB issue, it's a pure potency issue. This particularly annoys me, because in terms of raw skills, NIN has just as many support abilities as MCH and BRD have, just not the MP/TP party wide regen, and even then it has single target TP regen.....

EDIT: I'm also not REALLY complaining on the whole, as I frequently find myself out DPSing even SMNs and BLMs in higher end content due to being a skilled MCH on my part while them being unskilled SMNs and BLMs. I am complaining though that the damage potential is a bit pointlessly nerfed when compared to other classes as most of the classes have support abilities at this point, most of which have far more use than MP/TP regen which only comes into play in chain-pulling and Savage if the other players know what they're doing. I use NIN as the main example due to the fact that it has IMO the best support skill roster available, with two damage buffs, aggro control, and TP regen, while still being at considerably higher peak DPS potential than MCH or BRD.....

[xXRaineXx]

Hmm... yes and no. Technically BRDs/MCHs do the least DPS in the DPS race, that is a fact. But it also depends on how effectively you play.

I'm a ilvl208 BRD (missing 2 210 acc's) and I do around 1350-1450DPS on dummies. Moving to raids, I can top 1700 at the end of P1 of AS3. Which is usually second top DPS in my static, behind BLM. But please do note, I technically only play BRD, so I spent a lot of time mastering the class.

If you are able to effectively use these classes, DPS can skyrocket, but most of the time it's hard to do so. Even for me, I can only manage these numbers about 70% of the time, the rest I screw up.

[saber_alter]

I'm not sure what my point is by this but garuda's wicked wheel is easily avoidable. For extreme where it matters it places a big red target on the tank beforehand so melee can run out.

it wasn't that it was difficult, it was simply a mechanic that punished hard for a mistake. even at near full i90 it could nearly one-shot.