SE needs to be more creative when balancing party damage utility classes.

[Connor]

Nobody would ever support more non-damaging support abilities on Bard (or any job for that matter).Nor wouldthe developers themselves from how they’ve phased out all non-damage support skills. If it doesn’t deal damage, it’s ultimately useless in every way in FFXIV other than ‘I may as well because it’s free and oGCD’. I mean, there isn’t a single job in the game anymore that has even one GCD dedicated to supporting party members, which should be telling of how this game treats party support in general. Support in FFXIV in general is universally designed to be completely unintrusive to your damage rotation, with a simplistic effect (increase X by Y%), long cooldown, and is almost always related to damage in some way (less damage taken = more healer DPS GCDs, for example).

The developers have pretty much already made Bard a pure DPS, and Dancer and Astrologian deal solely in damage dealt increase buffs. Unfortunately if you want to support the party outside of free, instant-use basic damage increases that are off-cooldown, you’ll have to play a different MMO. I’d love to see more ways to help the party besides ‘increase damage passively’ but unfortunately that just isn’t going to happen in FFXIV’s lifetime anymore, unless they somehow contradict their own game design and the wishes of the vast majority of players by suddenly redesigning ranged jobs to be ‘support oriented’ and not ‘personal DPS oriented with support as a by-product of your DPS’

For the case of Bard’s overall DPS, they’ll likely just delete Minne/Paean as justification for further dps potency increases. And possibly remove the song buff effects again in exchange for more personal damage, since I honestly don’t think many Bards would care if they were gone if it meant higher personal DPS (the whole reason people wanted them back was to make up for Bard’s low overall damage at the start of SB). Basically, I think they’ll continue with their currently design philosophy for Bard which is ‘less support, more personal damage, at any cost’, so if any future buffs to overall damage potency come, they’ll likely be compensated by further cuts to Bard’s support capabilities (if such a thing is necessary for balance)

I think the confusion is that you’re assuming jobs like Bard are focused on increasing party damage. But their focus is on personal DPS (like any job, regardless of role), hence why all of their support abilities are damage increase focused and off-cooldown. I mean, Devilment and Battle Voice are the only two support abilities you’ll use often that don’t also do direct damage, not counting the damage reduction ranged role skill (aka Troubadour/Samba/Tactician). You aren’t using you’re abilities to support anyone in FFXIV, you’re using them for your damage rotation and the support is like a ‘pleasant by-product’. The support will never be the main focus though, meaning that ultimately it’s a waste of resources for them to develop non-damaging skills because they’d have to be removed or reworked at some point anyway or nobody would use them. Look at the original Warden’s Paean; there would be an uproar if SE ever attempted to make a new skill like that. A 3 second cast time, and an effect that only shields the target? And then it shields them from status effects which barely exist in ffxiv anyway lol, and when they do they’re either not removable or barely worth removing

I mean, think about how many times you’ve seen a Bard use Minne or Paean? I’d wager the reason is ‘not very much’, because as non-damaging support skills they add no meaningful contribution to anyone besides maybe giving the healers an extra gcd for DPS (but then they do all their healing through oGCDs, so it’s not like healers are all in a a GCD drought)

[AxelDH]

Nobody would ever support more non-damaging support abilities on Bard (or any job for that matter).

...

I mean, think about how many times you’ve seen a Bard use Minne or Paean? I’d wager the reason is ‘not very much’, because as non-damaging support skills they add no meaningful contribution to anyone besides maybe giving the healers an extra gcd for DPS (but then they do all their healing through oGCDs, so it’s not like healers are all in a a GCD drought)

Personally I'd like to see more non-damaging support abilities on Bard, Dancer and Machinist. I think it would be a good idea to double down on that identity rather than just buffing their personal DPS, or adding more DPS support skills.

I'd like them to bring back Palisade, Dismantle, Refresh. And add some other interesting things. As the physical ranged are already at the bottom of rDPS charts, why not give them the ability to Raise? I don't want to upset any Summoners or Red Mages, but if they were to give their Res utility to the physical ranged DPS, and they received a damage buff to compensate, it would make them a lot easier to balance with Black Mages.

Also, I use Minne all the time. And while Paean isn't useful for the vast majority of fights, I like having the option to use it when the situation arises (It saves the healers 1 GCD in Alex Ultimate at least!).

[Connor]

Personally I'd like to see more non-damaging support abilities on Bard, Dancer and Machinist. I think it would be a good idea to double down on that identity rather than just buffing their personal DPS, or adding more DPS support skills.

I'd like them to bring back Palisade, Dismantle, Refresh. And add some other interesting things. As the physical ranged are already at the bottom of rDPS charts, why not give them the ability to Raise? I don't want to upset any Summoners or Red Mages, but if they were to give their Res utility to the physical ranged DPS, and they received a damage buff to compensate, it would make them a lot easier to balance with Black Mages.

Also, I use Minne all the time. And while Paean isn't useful for the vast majority of fights, I like having the option to use it when the situation arises (It saves the healers 1 GCD in Alex Ultimate at least!).

I totally agree, I mean until 5.0 ranged have largely been about low DPS but offering utility (including non-damage utility like Palisade or Refresh), so it’s not like wanting the role to be about offering support is something coming out of nowhere. I’d love to see more songs like the original Ballad/Paeon/Requiem, with an MP and short cast to balance out the support effects (though obviously they’d have to have different effects than before). I think it’d be really cool if Dancer got more abilities that use the dance mechanics from Standard Step but with different effects, like maybe a haste or defense increase. Machinist could get back it’s debuff abilities like Dismantle/Rend Mind. They could even return Turret Promotion to make them give a support effect to compete with brd/dnc. Maybe like, the next time you summon the turret, it lowers damage dealt/taken to enemies hit by it (though I’m pretty sure that’s just Hypercharge lol)

Unfortunately though, SE seems pretty firm on their design philosophy for ranged dps, where the central part of the role is it’s damage and mobility, and not any kind of support it can bring. That said, they do seem to want Dancer to be FFXIV’s premier ‘support-like DPS’ (because apparently that’s never been bard’s thing lol, so at least there’s potential to see more support abilities on that. For Bard and Machinist though, I’d be very surprised if they get any new support abilities when the next expansion drops (not that I don’t wish they would).