SE, please nerf Dancer if you aren't going to fix bard.

[Rasikko]

I honestly waited for someone to finally just come out and say nerf DNC, but the person who'd say it, I did not expect at all.

Gonna take my gloves off here.

DNC single target is too trashed to high hell for any nerfs. Any potency nerf and the job is dead, let's just forget about raid spots. SE probably knows this too as they haven't done much to it aside from that small +50 potency increase to some skills. The job really just has Technical Step going for it. Saber Dance is cool but is locked behind a meter.

I don't think it will hurt to boost bard's buff to 5% as well and just make it so it doesn't stack with Technical Step, much in the same way that Technical Step can't be stacked with itself. That way having a DNC and BRD in the same group wont be all kinds of levels of broken. I feel though that some Dancer haters wouldn't like that either. Just nerf the job into the ground and glory be to Bard.

[Rai_Takara]

you end up with perfect balance, you end up with jobs feeling the same from each other which FFXIV suffers from greatly

That's not exactly the case. It's very possible to make jobs have a different playstyle and still be balanced.

Unless you mean, jobs need weaknesses that are strengths for other jobs. Say a tank that has a magical defense strength that would do well in a magical damage based fight versus a job that focuses on physical defense. In that case, I think it's bad design to have strengths and weaknesses like that. Alternatively would be bad raid design as well to focus on one or the other.

Even though this game supports multiple jobs on one character. It's very heavily focused on one job per role rather than multiple jobs per role. Otherwise gear wouldn't share as it does since.

[IruruCece]

I honestly waited for someone to finally just come out and say nerf DNC

The idea of threads screeching for a nerf to be directed at (JOB I DONT PLAY) while also begging for buffs to (JOB I DO PLAY) was disgusting when it happening to Monks late last year, and it's not gotten better with age.

[Jkap_Goat]

yes because this game revolves around raiders, I don't think that is bad design, just weakness and cons of some jobs. all Final fantasy jobs have their strength and weakness, but that's what makes them truly unique, if ever job performed the same, some moves, actions but just different animation, you end up with jobs feeling samey which FFXIV jobs already do. I mean look at the threads with people complaining how Dark Knights loss all of its actions which made it feel truly different from the other tanks, now the job feels bland and samey as the other tanks. or SCH how it loss all it actions to feel the same as the other healers, and WHM loosing all it's unique actions and put them into roll actions. FFXIV jobs are becoming more homogenize with every expansion.

[Rika007]

I'd rather see Dancer and Machinist get buffed, while Bard gets the DOT potency nerf pulled back, Foe's Requiem returned and reworked into a more premier ability, and Warden's Paen reworked into something useable.

[HyoMinPark]

I'd rather see Dancer and Machinist get buffed, while Bard gets the DOT potency nerf pulled back, Foe's Requiem returned and reworked into a more premier ability, and Warden's Paen reworked into something useable.

Hey Warden’s Paeon finally has a use in E8S: cleanse one of the freezes and save a healer an Esuna cast. I wish it had more situations that it could be used in, though.

[Rika007]

Hey Warden’s Paeon finally has a use in E8S: cleanse one of the freezes and save a healer an Esuna cast. I wish it had more situations that it could be used in, though.

That makes what... Two raids this whole expansion? Not trying to be mean to you, I forgot about that one, I still would rather it just be reworked though, maybe bring back the effects of palisade/apoc fused into one ability, or hell let it be a Bard granted singular damage buff that effects only the person it receives, like a DRG Tether or dance partner that only works one way for a short time.

[HyperiusUltima]

DNC's contribution feels alright with both Technical and its supportive contribution; what they need to do is push BRD back up and keep an eye on Casters. If someone can get a calculation on how much the 1% grants in current DPS calculations in E8S somewhere along the line, I'm sure we can figure out whether there's an issue with Casters or not.

But as far as DNC goes, they don't need to be nerfed.

[HappyHubris]

I would rather give BRD more party synergy than Nerf the other ranged jobs. E.g. return of Foe Requiem or some other buff that makes BRD more than "Archer with stances..err..songs and marginal buffs."

[Cetonis]

Because of Dancer's design, it should be the speedkill pick. If it's equal to the other ranged in optimized scenarios, then it gets worse and worse as party quality drops, and by extension is just-worse overall.

Machinist does outpace Dancer in less optimized scenarios, so to an extent that's working out the way it should be.

The problem is that Bard is in a no-mans-land, it should not be better than Dancer in high end groups, and equally should not be better than Machinist in low end ones. Seemingly to achieve both goals, SE just made Bard the worst ranged across the board.

But in theory there should exist a point of tuning where Bard wins out at 85-95 percentile groups or something, and falls off below that while Dancer blows by it at the top end. Yet SE seems to (still) be irrationally terrified of 3.4, and treats Bard like it's some kind of volatile radioactive material.

I fear it'll probably be like this for the rest of the game's lifespan. If they haven't gotten over their weird nonsensical hangups by now, it seems unlikely that they ever will. Nor are they apt to change the core design concepts of Dancer or Machinist any time soon.