- Only range with a HEALING REDUCTION IN A PRESSURE META, this isn't 4.x

- Phoenix stance is literally black mage for a few seconds, that alone is a lot more than what bard can ever do

- COMETEOR > TERMINAL VELOCITY

- AoE healing potential for chip damage in an AoE pressure meta, no this will not worsen when healers get more AoE spells, it'll still help healers save mp more, and thats HUGE for this meta

- More AoE dmg than bard can ever ask for, literally

- Wither alone pressures the enemy team a lot more than what a bard has in its kit, what can the enemy team be afraid of? a 100 gauge Apex Arrow? LULW

- Bard has no cc in its kit unless you take additionals, thats one thing over summoner yes, but its not extremely significant when the cc additionals can't be reliably used for peel or kiting, they're used offensively too, they may make a difference, but on the long run where summoner will drain more mp with the AoE and healing reduc alone, it is overall better

- Now if we're talking feast, the gap is even bigger, summoner has a lot more comp variety, smn + sam + drk, smn + drg + war, smn + sam + sch + drk, etc, bard has literally close to no strong comps it can be in because its so insignificant compared to other range, why play bard when machinist exists?

- Bard's only spotlight is troubadour in minuet stance with repelling shot buff, you weave burst shots with empys to continuously pitch perfect back to back to back with troubadour, now thats some damage, but thats once every 30 seconds lmao, summoner can be in phoenix each 30 seconds or so as well, but that stance alone does significantly more than bard's temporary spotlight, the AoE dmg, AoE healing, and the healing reduc in general

- As for FL, the AoE dmg is a lot more noticable, lets not forget miasma is instant cast and costs only 500 mp now too, you can just spread that to everyone and you're helping your team big time, if they can capitalize on it of course


If you pit bard vs summoner and they're both being played to the best of their kit's ability, summoner is significantly better, bard was just completely gutted, thats the sad truth, the leaderboard doesn't matter if more bards rank over summoners, people will still flock to whatever is easiest to play and they'll just get carried like every single season since every leaderboard only has like 3-4 actual decent players and 96 memes, the fact of the matter is summoner is alright how it is now, it needs more defensive utility which we'll all get, and bard is lacking in EVERY department, swallow that hard pill. Machinist is definitely the 2nd best range right now for Feast, it is literally a slightly inferior version of black mage, lacking cc, mobility, and cometeor, if you really want me to give you an even bigger paragraph why machinist is ranked that high then ask.