Its ffxiv combat really so slow and boring?

[HyoMinPark]

I don't know if it's good complexity though.

Considering BRD is the most popular job by far, it means that not a lot of people share your complaints. The complexity the job has is not nearly as complex as you seem to think.

The three main songs do the same thing in different ways, and they don't work all that well.

Sounds to me like you don’t know how to work the songs; I have no problems with getting any of the mechanics to work as they are intended.

The bloodletter proc idea isn't really designed to work in short 30 sec spans, especially when you need multiple procs to get full effect.

If you know how to manage your procs and EA timings when you force one, you don’t have issues utilitizing the River of Blood mechanic in Mage’s Ballad despite the shorter duration.

Plus they added a second proc with refulgent,

The only change they could make is turning a Straighter Shot proc into Refulgent; you will never use the former over the latter.

plus troubador, plus all the support abilities.

Troubadour can be difficult to optimize around, but you can manipulate your song rotation to an extent to have it land where you would direly need the appropriate mitigation. As for the support abilities, BRD is a support job. It’s supposed to have support abilites; that is its identity and always has been.

I feel like they punished ranged physical in order to balance out the mobility gains by making them overcomplicated messes.

The only thing we’re punished by is our reliance on Piercing. That has nothing to do with our rotation. Again, not everything needs to be braindead/mindlessly simple “just because”. Learn the job, and you don’t have problems—coming from someone who used to spam Straight Shot and never use DoTs when they started playing, and turned that behavior completely around within a couple months after being told it was wrong.

DoTs

Uhm... DoT potency adds up over time. The amount of damage BRDs get from DoTs alone is more than you would think. I’d suggest looking at some data to see just how much damage they do over time.

15 more seconds of the base potency adds 275 on Stormbite, and 225 on Caustic Bite. That brings the total potency to 825 for SB, and 675 for CB. That is ridiculously potent; as it stands now, IJ is already our strongest skill with 1100 total potency: 100 for base, and 1000 for DoTs. Adding 50 more potency to 30-second DoTs. would move SB to 105 potency for 10 ticks (1,050 total potency) and 95 potency for 10 ticks (950 potency total). That is substantially more damage overall.

Math is your friend.

Well, I'm definitely an outlier. Which is why I would like options. BRD feels absolutely awful to play for me. I don't like redundant abilities. BRD has too many things that all accomplish the same thing.

If by the last statement you mean damage, that applies to literally every job in this game. Elaboration would be appreciated.


EDIT: Nevermind, the forum lied to me and said I had no posts, but then posted my response to the elaboration anyways. Okay.

[RiyahArp]

Considering BRD is the most popular job by far, it means that not a lot of people share your complaints.

Are they? I don't think anyone has done a census for them in a while though. using sea on my server for level 70s has slightly more rdm and whm than bard. I don't see them as often as I used to, honestly.

Sounds to me like you don’t know how to work the songs; I have no problems with getting any of the mechanics to work as they are intended.

They are reliant on crits, "working as intended" is always going to have chance, the problem is bloodletter procs are ok if you don't get a lot of them for 20 seconds and a bunch after, but for the songs not so much.

If you know how to manage your procs and EA timings when you force one, you don’t have issues utilitizing the River of Blood mechanic in Mage’s Ballad despite the shorter duration.

Ah no, what I meant was they don't work so hot if you need 3 procs or 4 procs within a certain amount of time. You get the four procs early, great. You get them 20 sec in, not so good. Mages is ok ,the other two songs though lose a lot when you can't.

Uhm... DoT potency adds up over time. The amount of damage BRDs get from DoTs alone is more than you would think. I’d suggest looking at some data to see just how much damage they do over time.

You miss the point, just raw potency increases is not enough. Not everyone grinds just so they can get 50 more potency or what have you on an ability, they need more than that. The weapon is cool, or the ability looks great, or it changes how you play or gives more options.

An expansion with tiny changes and potency changes won't really help, any more than the tiny potency changes they do with Feast get people into the mode. Like FFXI when they did merits added abilities, not solely potency increases. They added those too, but weren't grinding millions of exp for them alone. Again, if the game were a bit more robust it'd be ok, but since everything boils down to damage, straight potency or minor buffs will have less impact save for the min max crowd.

[HyoMinPark]

Are they? I don't think anyone has done a census for them in a while though. using sea on my server for level 70s has slightly more rdm and whm than bard. I don't see them as often as I used to, honestly.

BRD is the most popular job and always has been. Just because you “don’t see them on your server” doesn’t change that fact. You hate the site, but even with it being a small percentage of the playerbase, the majority of uploads on that site are from BRDs. Not RDMs and not WHMs.

They are reliant on crits, "working as intended" is always going to have chance, the problem is bloodletter procs are ok if you don't get a lot of them for 20 seconds and a bunch after, but for the songs not so much.

Rarely do you ever have a Mage’s Ballad where you only get a couple procs at the end. Controlling and boosting your proc rate is something that you do have a semblance of control over: proper gear and melds, and knowing when to snapshot crit-enhancing buffs on your DoTs. I never go a run where I only get procs at the beginning or tail-end of Mage’s, and I play almost exclusively BRD at this point.

Ah no, what I meant was they don't work so hot if you need 3 procs or 4 procs within a certain amount of time. You get the four procs early, great. You get them 20 sec in, not so good. Mages is ok ,the other two songs though lose a lot when you can't.

With Army’s Paeon, where it’s ideal to get your four Repertoire stacks early on to get as much benefit as you can from them. Even so, though, the benefit is minuscule, and not enough to stay in Army’s for the full 30 second duration—especially with a Minuet+RS window coming up in 20.

Not getting a full 3-stack PP during RS is a crappy feeling, but if you time your EA usage, you are always guranteed at least a 2-stack during an RS window—EA is used once and only once in Army’s, and delayed until Minuet so that you can use it twice during your RS window to force procs.

You miss the point, just raw potency increases is not enough. Not everyone grinds just so they can get 50 more potency or what have you on an ability, they need more than that. The weapon is cool, or the ability looks great, or it changes how you play or gives more options.

I have to point out the irony that you’re complaining about jobs being overly complex and about hotbars real estate, yet you’re insisting here that jobs need more than potency increases and essentially more rotational complexity. That directly contradicts what you said earlier.

Again, if the game were a bit more robust it'd be ok, but since everything boils down to damage, straight potency or minor buffs will have less impact save for the min max crowd.

Then speak to the developers about making enmity matter in the game; about increasing the need for tanks to stay in tank stance, or for healers to actually have to heal. The latter would mean harder hitting outgoing damage from mobs/bosses though.


I’m not going to continue using posts to argue with you; it always feels like a pointless endeavor. So I am leaving the conversation at this. I still don’t think that new expansions means “add 5-10 new skills”; boosting potencies and adding traits to vary job mechanics can be just as engaging as adding an extra button to press (and considering how a lot of players in this playerbase don’t even want to press their buttons... I mean, they did nerf Heavy Thrust simply because people couldn’t it hit every 11th button...).