Ranged DPS jobs - disappointing?

[wereotter]

Yes range are weak and need a buff.

But if you are getting outdone by a tank you are definately doing something wrong.

Depends on the content.... they changed up the way tanks work this expansion and at low levels in dungeons, tanks will do more damage than many DPS roles. This has a lot to do with things like the removal of flash, which did no damage, and giving paladins an AOE combo that does do damage, and putting damage on unleash for dark knights. Many DPS don't get their AOE damage moves until well after tanks.

Also if the poster is leveling and get paired up with a level 80, over-geared tank, the tank will do even more damage compared to the DPS

[Tyrius]

Well as you are not level 80 bard you also have to take into account tanks that are being item level synced with you and have the best possible Ilvl for the content you are doing as you are still leveling I dont think you have that which also plays a part at 80 you do get alot more dps tools and find you wont be struggling to beat a tank at dps (unless its xenos hes a beast) also if you just dont like the flavor of the job then try machinest no song management just managing your battery and heat to summon a robot to punch things it all comes down to what flavor you prefer never stress number at not max level that would be like you saying wow i suck as a hunter my tank is trashing my dps as he is in full heirloom gear and your in just normal leveling gear

[Claire_Pendragon]

to OP, out of the physical ranged atm, BRD has the most multitasking, so if its not ur cup of tea, u may want to try MCH. Its more selfish DPS, and less multitasking.

[Vyrerus]

This thread makes me think of Bard back in 2.0 when it got access to Blood for Blood and Internal Release for +20% damage and +20% crit rate on top of Raging Strikes and Hawk's Eye. It had its time in the sun for a rather long time. Till Heavensward start really, similar to PLD. Back in the saddle of top shelf in short order though, though if you ignored the casting stance when it was initially launched, then you still could pull good numbers at the start of Heavensward too. Then it set in the meta from like 3.2 till like... idk, current day? However much people say to disregard that term and ideation, just the fact that Bard has for so long been a top tier pick, really has the idea of the thread ring hollow to me.

As far as rebalancing it just so it doesn't feel bad in one phase of UCoB or anything like that is probably something that will never happen. SE has shown us that they never rebalance for old content, not for the increase in raw potency, not for the introduction of Direct Hit, and they certainly ain't gonna do it for one fight for one job, regardless of the status of that fight.

Another reason at lower levels that tanks sorta roll over DPS is that they have more direct hit proportionally to other stats, due to Direct Hit literally being slotted into accuracy gear, which tanks needed more of back in the day, what with needing to make frontal melee accuracy requirements.

Just keep on striving on BRD, you'll be fine by the 70s.

[Akiudo]

snip

soooo.... bard was meta for so long, it doesn't matter if its utter crap today ? great argument...

while we're add it

bard during arr literally was running in a "no contest" category, there simply was no second physical ranged to fill that slot, and back than indeed the fights very clearly where designed with the free movement (heck back than it really was free) physical in mind, you had bosses/adds that where imune to either magic/physical damage at a rate clearly designed in a way for one caster and 3 physical dps, you had adds you just had to kite, and refresh (or mana song back than) was simply necessary, all this is true, however this had nothing to do with bard being overtuned, it simply ran in a category no other class was even competing in. its like making a game where monk is the only melee and than saying monk is op, literally everyone takes monk for the melee lb.

come heavensward mch actually ended up as strong if not stonger than bard, it was just that nearly no one wanted to play it, which in no small part was due to mch simply starting out way to weak, followed by a buffing arms race between bard/mch

-> stormblood may very well be when bard was at its most op aside from the original arr release(which got rectified in like week one) , i'm not even gonna deny this, however, and this is the fun part, saying "see, bard was so op" and using this as an argument for why a bard dealing actual damage breaks the game ignores so much the things bard lost. refresh in its current form would be useless, as mp regen got buffed after its removal, but back than it was every bit as big if not bigger than a redmage rezz, its other defensive cooldowns where stronger, and to top it all of bard scaling itself was way more exponential with the way reportoire proccs worked back than (i.e. on dot crits) instead of the fixed rate we have today. , also again it was mostly running no contest either way, as mch was loathed.

oh, and heres the other fun part, you know what also was allways meta ? dragoon, that allways gets conveniently ignored that it was only the extreme synergy between bard/dragoon that actually pushed bard over the edge. bard could deal exactly the same dps it did during heavensward before exponential crit scaling for final tier bis gear kicks in, and just due to the removal of the 5% piercing debuff+bards lesser reliance on crit nowadays paired with the removal of refresh it would be so much weaker a pick than back during stormblood its not funny.

was bard allways meta ? aside from a patch or two , yes. but bard also was running for its rooster position in a "no contest" category 3/5 of the time and still owed this meta spot not purely to its own strengths but also to the synergy it had with another class

[Rasikko]

I was gonna give my input, then I realized it's another BRD thread.

[Cetonis]

Bard is particularly weak at lower levels, and the reason for that is simply that SE doesn't give a damn about lower level balance. Most jobs are way stronger at lower levels now than they were back when 50 was the level cap, while Bard is only slightly stronger at best (may actually be weaker come to think of it), just as a collateral effect of what skills SE has targeted for buffs, nerfs and reworks over the years.

The ranged dps do less than other roles on purpose, as if they were just-as-good then static groups would always aim to take 2 ranged, 1 caster and 1 melee, because all other things being equal you'd just take the most mobile option for that fourth slot. A situation where groups either take a second melee or caster, and aim to avoid 2 ranged, is preferable. There's a lot of griping about whether or not ranged really need to be held as far down as they are, but the core logic of making them behind a bit is sound.

Crabby vets like me are also mad about the gutting of the flexibility / complexity of ranged jobs relative to 4.x Bard, and then you have the people who think pushing wild demands for Bard to be split into two jobs is constructive, so there's a lot of complain-about-ranged going on here and elsewhere, while the devs have either been silent or tone-deaf about ranged for pretty much the entire lifespan of the game.

[Akiudo]

The ranged dps do less than other roles on purpose, as if they were just-as-good then static groups would always aim to take 2 ranged, 1 caster and 1 melee, because all other things being equal you'd just take the most mobile option for that fourth slot. A situation where groups either take a second melee or caster, and aim to avoid 2 ranged, is preferable.

let me ask the question:"why in fact would statics prefer more mobile options in such a case ?" the obvious answer is "because mobility has value" of course, but how big is this value, and latching on to that, why is it preferable to have a situation where statics want to avoid a second physical ranged but are willing to take a second caster? (or for that matter, why would a situation where 2 melees would be a clear given be preferable even though going by class distribution that would mean melee classes would be clearly overrepresented)?


lets for a moment ignore that "all things being equal" isn't even realistic outside of damage, there are also factors like 2 out of 3 casters offering a rezz for example or if push comes to shove even things like melee having slightly higher armor/life values which in fact does sometimes lets a melee survive a mechanic that would have killed a physical ranged if failed and really go there, everything is equal, physical ranged are simply the most mobile/least restricted.

Of course in this situation there now is value in this free movement, that does however not answer why its preferable for them to be so weak as so no one would ever want 2 of them.

If anything, if less damage really has to be the tradeoff for being less glued to the boss (and if we are going there than really, all 3 casters are failing that test miserably, we got 2 out of 3 casters in the top dps spot and the third caster is on par with the weaker melees while offering outstanding support as far as this game goes) than this "less damage" should be weighted in equall to the value "free" movement offers, if your choice is to take a more mobile class but do 300-400 group dps less that may be a trade off, and a group may actually think about it if they want the extra dps potential OR the safety net against mechanics a more mobile class can offer. that would be something that penalises the value of free movement in a way giving a fair choice.

the way its handled right now its like (lets for once act like casters weren't overperforming all around) if you look at redmage, come to the conclusion the value its rezz+heal potential for clutch situations compared to blackmages "nothing" is 500 dps and than intentionally balance it 1500 dps below blackmage as to make sure that literally everyone will prefer the blackmage.

[Cetonis]

why is it preferable to have a situation where statics want to avoid a second physical ranged but are willing to take a second caster?

Second caster OR melee is a lot more possible jobs than second ranged. That's why it's preferable. Of course, it'd be even better if ranged were behind by just enough to make it an interesting tradeoff - I'm not arguing on that level of detail here. It's just that as a binary question of "should ranged be just as strong damage/defense wise as every other job", the answer is no.

[Akiudo]

Second caster OR melee is a lot more possible jobs than second ranged. That's why it's preferable. Of course, it'd be even better if ranged were behind by just enough to make it an interesting tradeoff - I'm not arguing on that level of detail here. It's just that as a binary question of "should ranged be just as strong damage/defense wise as every other job", the answer is no.

thats fair

My point was mainly that people, not you specificially mind you use what you just wrote as an argument why balance as is is just great. i didn't really wanted to disagree one the point that its preferable to have some (caster/melee) compared to no (allways phys ranged) choice, i mainly wanted to add that i nonetheless don't think this is a desirable design goal, at best its "oh well, we got 2 out of 3 right at least" .

or to take this another way, with what you wrote , that of course it'd be better if ranged were behind just enough it could be considered a tradeoff, the honest question one would have to ask here is if anyone thinks the physical ranged dps level is at a point where its anywhere close to a fair tradeoff. as literally no one intentionally takes 2 physical ranged, i would say thats very doubtfull, its just that a lot of people act like the moment you give 750 dps to bard (which would leave it like 250 above current mch) people would suddenly run all bard groups, which is something i highly doubt, if there was truth to that double mch would allready be very viable (in a way other than "for the love of god one of you go caster/melee please")