Bard in the party... thoughts?

[Greywolfamakir]

You can say "FFlogs proves nothing....ble ble ble" but currently , in Alexander Midas, MCH is doing better DPS than BRD at the same point of gear/skill. It's a fact.

But personal DPS is not "all", i mean, MCH is doing better personal DPS than BRD but with a 2 mages comp, the overall DPS is gonna be worse than with a BRD, then BRD is better than MCH with a 2 Mages comp, it's a fact too.

The true "issue" for BRD here is just the current meta, i mean, 2 meles + 1 ranged + 1 mage. Why this meta?
--Melee comp brings better overall DPS than Mage comp. (Mages just bring personal DPS in terms of overall DPS, They don't have tools like Trick Attack, Battle Litany, Dissembowel, Dragon Kick...etc)

BRD can't be the master of everything, i mean, BRD can't be better than MCH doing enything...BRD is really good with 2 mages comp, but MCH is better with 2 meles, just that. Current BRD's state is a direct consecuence of current meta, it's not by the personal state of BRD/MCH themselves.

BRD doesn't need buffs because current state, maybe in the future 2 mages comp could be the popular meta and the BRD turns into "Best support of the patch".

[Kelevra]

The true "issue" for BRD here is just the current meta, i mean, 2 meles + 1 ranged + 1 mage. Why this meta?
--Melee comp brings better overall DPS than Mage comp. (Mages just bring personal DPS in terms of overall DPS, They don't have tools like Trick Attack, Battle Litany, Dissembowel, Dragon Kick...etc)

BRD can't be the master of everything, i mean, BRD can't be better than MCH doing enything...BRD is really good with 2 mages comp, but MCH is better with 2 meles, just that. Current BRD's state is a direct consecuence of current meta, it's not by the personal state of BRD/MCH themselves.

BRD doesn't need buffs because current state, maybe in the future 2 mages comp could be the popular meta and the BRD turns into "Best support of the patch".

The 'typical' 8 man composition consisting of 2 physical melee, one physical ranged, and one caster has been common for a while though. If we're talking end game raid, there some that may run one physical ranged, one physical melee, and two casters...but it doesn't happen often (not to my own experience anyway). There are some that would try one melee (no Drg), one caster, two ranged...rarely see these, if ever. The 'current meta' as far dps comp goes isn't something that just started recently.

However, if the Piercing debuff was shared...that could change. And not for the worst. Parties wouldn't always have to try and seek out a Drg for one of there melee spots to always accommodate the ranged dps (if that ranged dps happened to be Brd and Brd was given access to the piercing debuff). May also get to see more compositions featuring both a Machinist and a Bard...seeing as Machinist is really good now. Machinist and Bard would be able to benefit each other in a composition like that.

[RiceisNice]

You can say "FFlogs proves nothing....ble ble ble" but currently , in Alexander Midas, MCH is doing better DPS than BRD at the same point of gear/skill. It's a fact.

That's the problem with constantly going back to FFlogs. There is no direct 1:1 comparison when you're looking at fflogs the way it is right now because when you look at the top MCH and BRD, it swings widly because of clear times being a difference of over a minute, and/or astros being present (and balance being given to the MCH, no less). I'm not arguing that on record BRD is doing the same amount of dps as MCH, but that doesn't prove that BRD is behind MCH in dps objectively. This was exactly the same during gordias, except it had gone on enough times that you'd sitll have some resembelence of similiar environments between the two (and BRD was still ahead by a few digits, on top of better group dps), and MCH representation was only at double digits at the time.

The uptime on foe combined with RoD has always put BRD ahead of MCH even with 1 casters during 3.0, as far as raid dps was concerned. The functionality of hypercharge also makes it less flexible to use for damage debuff or doubled regen without directly affecting MCH's personal dps (since it is a turret potency boost). The change to hypercharge has leveled the field, if not shifted the advantage to MCH a little bit.

It's a problem in the current meta just as how much the previous meta was favoring BRD with foe reqiuem with a caster and healer dps (which is still applicable provided the group is capable enough) If you say it's a problem with the meta, then sure. But we're just gonna be moving the problem around if we give BRD an edge toward caster comps (which means you won't have melee, or just stick with DRG, because the crit buff is just too good to pass up compared to other buffs).

And even then, this only really matters when we're talking min/maxing, something that you really shouldn't make a big deal out of unless you're going for world firsts.

However, if the Piercing debuff was shared...that could change. And not for the worst. Parties wouldn't always have to try and seek out a Drg for one of there melee spots to always accommodate the ranged dps (if that ranged dps happened to be Brd and Brd was given access to the piercing debuff). May also get to see more compositions featuring both a Machinist and a Bard...seeing as Machinist is really good now. Machinist and Bard would be able to benefit each other in a composition like that.

And then throw out casters? Giving BRD a piercing debuff doesn't even make sense because it's not going to level them to where MCH is. Again, Yoshi's stance on BRD/MCH is that they both sahre the same role of "support" dps. MCH is not a full dps job as much something as the melee/casters are.

You guys really seem to forget the important part and focus on the DPS... repeating the same thing again an again...

Then stop bringing up damage or the "dps gap" as a thing then, because that's what most of your points come back to. If a fight isn't designed around BRD, that's very much so the case for the 3.0-1 days for other jobs when they weren't preferable. You also mentioned that they could make MCH a pure-dps job instead of dps-support, making BRD once again uncontested in party compositions.

[Greywolfamakir]

It's a problem in the current meta just as how much the previous meta was favoring BRD with foe reqiuem with a caster and healer dps (which is still applicable provided the group is capable enough) If you say it's a problem with the meta, then sure. But we're just gonna be moving the problem around if we give BRD an edge toward caster comps (which means you won't have melee, or just stick with DRG, because the crit buff is just too good to pass up compared to other buffs).

I totally agree, i mean, its a problem in the current meta, but meta is not defined or selected by players, just SE manage meta when they do changes to clases.

MCH was out of meta during 3.0-3.1, actually he is better with the same meta and now BRD is out.

But like you said, meta is about min-max, and min-max is pretty serious when you are searching for first world of something close to first world.

[RiceisNice]

But like you said, meta is about min-max, and min-max is pretty serious when you are searching for first world of something close to first world.

This is the big thing. If groups are going as far as excluding jobs for the sake of performance or the min/maxing, then they're probably not a very good group to be in if they feel they need that edge this late into the raid tier, because I'm sure as hell that these most of these groups aren't world first material to begin with.

[Kelevra]

And then throw out casters? Giving BRD a piercing debuff doesn't even make sense because it's not going to level them to where MCH is. Again, Yoshi's stance on BRD/MCH is that they both sahre the same role of "support" dps. MCH is not a full dps job as much something as the melee/casters are.

The response wasn't to make it seem like casters would be less important or not needed as much. All I was trying to say is maybe people wouldn't always have to default to the common dps composition of Melee, Melee, Ranged, Caster all the time if Brd had access to the piercing debuff. Maybe. You say giving Brd a piercing debuff doesn't make sense and won't help them.....before those Mch changes, I didn't think an additional 5% to Hypercharge and the Gauss Round change would help them as much either.

I've given my suggestions earlier, but I don't think Brd needs all the buffs for improvement (I want a few improvements, just not something 'overkill' like stated earlier). Just one thing (or two) to help it out a bit. If not the piercing debuff then, adjust Foe's. If not that, then something else.

[RiceisNice]

The response wasn't to make it seem like casters would be less important or not needed as much. All I was trying to say is maybe people wouldn't always have to default to the common dps composition of Melee, Melee, Ranged, Caster all the time if Brd had access to the piercing debuff. Maybe. You say giving Brd a piercing debuff doesn't make sense and won't help them.....before those Mch changes, I didn't think an additional 5% to Hypercharge and the Gauss Round change wouldn't help them as much either.

Giving brd a piercing debuff doesn't make any sense in their placement in a party composition if they're competing with MCH. It doesn't make sense from a damage perspective either because at that point, they'd probably balance bard dps around having the debuff (it doesn't make contextual sense by saying DRG does more damage because of the piercing debuff, because that's part of their kit and would be part of their inherent, personal damage). Nearly every example in this discussion has been directed to a MCH that has a DRG in their party for piercing debuff, giving that to BRD wouldn't change a thing in this regard because as of now, any BRD that wants to maximize their dps would have a DRG anyway for the piercing debuff.

But if you want toe encourage a BRD/MCH composition, then you're effectively throwing casters out of the equation unless you're looking at a triple ranged dps group, because MCH directly benefits BRD through hypercharge as well.

[Kelevra]

snip.

Again, if not a piercing debuff (which would allow the Bard to hit harder w/o a Drg while still benefiting casters and healers that want to dps with Foes)...then something else. Several things they can improve or adjust on Brd to help the job.