Ranged DPS jobs - disappointing?

[Akiudo]

Bard in ARR was running in the DPS category, against all other DPS. Role competition is something that is contemporary and did not exist back then, in the form that is current. Back in ARR, for quite a bit longer than one week, BRD outperformed both melees and BLM quite easily, giving SMN a run for its money. It also had the healer LB3, allowing it to reverse wipes. On top of that, the only group wide buffs meant for more than one party member as well as the support songs. It was at such a high level of damage and utility that people would rather take two bards than diversify classes for the limit break speed.

bard in the very beginning of coil was too strong, that i won't deny but this was also literally the very first real literation of this game, it got nerfed hard (and rightfully) which set us up in a way you wanted exactly ONE OF EVERY CLASS THE GAME HAD TO OFFER (well, blackmage OR summoner, but that was only because smn was a last second addition).

during the last two tiers of coil alone we literally had a boss were you were kiting adds basically without break, something neither blackmage nor smn could ever have done, aswell as a boss with an add phase where one add only could take magic damage and one only physical which clearly was designed on a level of 3 physical damage dealers/1 caster, also mana was way more tight than today and the only class that could give mana was bard, saying fights weren't designed with a physical ranged (i.e. bard as no competition) pick as a given back than is ludicrous . Sorry but why do you think we got mch as dps after ninja (and smn, if you want to respect that it was more or less an afterthought) ? you think that was pure chance we didn't get another caster ? or a "physical ranged" without support capabilitys that simply did a shitton of damage and nothing else ? we got what we did exactly because bard had no role competition, that role may have been "class that can give mana to heals if they run low" but it sure as hell was role on its own. saying there where no roles just because square didn't hand out a marker that said "this is your physical ranged, he does physical damage in range" really is delusional.

the heavensward bit about about mch only every catching up also ain't true, it pretty much was a back and forth between both classes, its just nearly no one was playing mch, which leads into stormblood and yes, the point where even i admitted bard was probably as its most op (aside from a simple "there really is no one that can give mana aside from bard, i.e. arr), however at this point we had exponentional crit scaling as to differentiate it from direct hit, and dragoon on top of giving piercing down had a group crit buff, which was even more usefull for bard as the way bard mechanics worked (worked, not work anymore) for one profitted way more from crit than even any other class and two bard had a permanent crit buff (which at 3/8 of the time its now active would need amounts of crit not nearly reachable again unless we go on for 6 or 7 raidtiers per addon) which is also why in the end again bard beat out mch, exponentional crit scaling, amplyfied even further by dragoon, the one class that not only had the piercing down but put up a group crit buff for good measure. (and in this case absolutely necessarely because no one at this point needed bard for tp, and mana one could handle if carefull aswell so yes, at this point it was about dps and nothing else)

the last bit again is just as petty as the first time, if you strife for balance than any class being in a bad spot is one to many, thats like if warriors now lost shake it off and did 400 dps less than they do right now and everything people would say about it was "oh well, they were meta so long and often, just let them suck completly it doesn't matter"

[Vyrerus]

b

Bard never got nerfed. The only thing that got nerfed in ARR was Subclass actions. Brought down from 20% to 10% to try to help DRG not get stomped on so badly by MNK, BRD, and NIN. And no, this didn't set it up so that parties sought 1 of everything for any reason beyond Limit break gain. What happened was they buffed other classes to catch them up, particularly MNK, BLM, and DRG.

The only adds BRD ever had to kite in Coils were Renauds in Turn 7, and either healer or SMN could do this, though SMN, BRD, and SCH were the best picks due to instant cast spells/skills. SMN was rather fine at it, actually.

As for why we got MCH next, well yes, obviously we got MCH to try and get a class other than BRD for people to play since it was such a strong pick. It's not coincidental at all, and you've misunderstood my point. What's funny though is, they made every ranged into casters in Heavensward, basically to blunt just how absurdly powerful BRD had been, along with taking away its access to healer LB3(though this was partially at the playerbase's demand, since it was an insanely popular job and many people wanted to be able to DPS LB on it). With making them all casters, they were all casters and played similarly, despite different trait quirks. It wouldn't be until later that SE would decide that there needed to be explicit distinction between ranged physical and ranged magic. Of course the implementation of casting was the first time BRD suffered, pretty much the only time it has suffered, but it was rectified within one major patch, and until then as long as you simply ignored the casting stance, you still did damage comparable to other DPS, albeit slightly lower.

It's delusional to say there was a back and forth between MCH and BRD. BRD stomped MCH for almost all of Heavensward, along with every other DPS, and like I said before, once MCH did get good, it only rose up to boot the casters out of the comp, not BRD. Which it should've been competing with, but hey, at the time different jobs regardless of role = faster LB, so it wasn't competing back then either.

The reason it's ok to let jobs wane is to get people to play other ones. That is a goal of the devs. They rarely do it with nerfs, and handle it by buffing other jobs. What my point is, is that they don't cater to old content pretty much at all, and there's no need for them to cater to specific DPSes in older situations. Job balance is like a pendulum, and no job ever gets the stage forever.

Though it's funny that you mention WAR, because that was a case where they did see it as too powerful and directly nerfed it, only to get massive backlash about it. Which is understandable, because direct nerfs to a particular job suck. And that's something BRD has never experienced.

Anyway, the point of the thread is done, and so am I.

[Akiudo]

snip

see, nerfing cross class actions still hit bard about the hardest, and while i won't deny smn or scholar could do the renauds i wouldn't even deny a dragoon could kite them, just that it would be ideal. fact of the matter is there was a fight where the ability to freely run in circles while attacking was a clear cut advantage in a way one at least could argue it was expected to be done that way. maybe it wasn't, but by that logic maybe the puddles during black smokers on levi are supposed to be handled by melees running very weird circles ? i mean who knows. also as you seem to love t11, the add phase was very clearly assuming you had 1 caster and 3 physical dps, yea you totally could do them the adds with 2 casters but that mostly meant your other 2 dps working over time and your casters being mostly afk for half the add phase.

and just for funsies, if i buff every single tank but dark knight its still effectively the same as nerfing dark knight as far as competitveness goes.

also again, i didn't even say bards "role" was physical ranged so thanks for pointing out that this distinction came later. bards role was "class that can give mana back" which is exactly why it was highly sought out even when dragoon was just unviable do to a chronic case of dropping dead on unavoidable aoe.

aside from that, i didn't ask what happened the last time warrior got nerfed, while i will wholeheartily say what happened back than was stupid beyond belief, the point i was making wasn't "how would the playerbase take this" but that the argument you make against bard "it was strong so long it doesn't matter if it sucks now" can really be made for most classes.

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smn so often was the very literal top class , what does it matter if we let it suck for a patch or two ?

war was either without competition (only two tank roles for two slots) or clearly the at least second strongest tank (and therefore a given meta pick) so why can't we make it even worse ? like right now its arguably one of the weaker tanks (things get muddy if you look at more than just dps) but tank balance indeed is close enough that basically no "normal" group will really prefer one over the other, so why not nerf it by another 400 dps to let it suffer for a bit ? i mean it was strong for so long, that won't hurt the class.

also dragoon right now is pretty much middle of the pack level, like the 3 weaker melees are all neck and neck anyways, why not nerf it for a bit ? i mean sure, it wasn't meta for exactly one tier of coil because it just couldn't survive as you so helpfully pointed out, it was still meta for 8 out of 9 raid tiers until shadowbringers so really, why not bring it down a notch ? monk never was that good for that long, surely it needs some time to shine so lets buff it so it does outperform samurai by 300 dps while we're at it ?

also scholar was a default pick for arr and basically all up to the end of stormblood due to alternating suckage of ast/whm (well, mostly whm suckage once ast really got rolling), can we please make it suck for a patch or two ? like not "being the worst pick" but "being so clearly the worst pick it doesn't even have its own niche where its preferable" level bad ? i mean it was a default pick long enough.
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if jobs are well designed and work, i.e. have a compeling "class fantasy" and smooth and engaging gameplay people will use it, if a job lacks these thing than things like damage will not change that.

people that just hate the mch class fantasy won't play mch because bard sucks.

or just look at the melees. there are nearly as many dragoon parses as monk/nin parses combined even though drg technically is the weakest out of these 3.

If a class is well designed you don't need to trick people into playing it by making it deliberatly op/another class underpowered by comparison, what you mostly get out of this is people that keep on playing a class (be that bard, dragoon, redmage,whitemage during the height of ast supremacy, paladin for all of heavensward etc...) that feel shitty about their chosen class clearly falling short. the percentage of people that not only change their class but actually start to prefer that class without deeper level of changes is to small to be worthwhile as people that do this for absolute min maxing concerns will just switch back the moment the tide changes, the rest will stay where they are and feel left behind because their class is losing out compared to others.

[Vyrerus]

smh

If it did hit BRD harder than the other DPS, then it deserved it. BRD was overpowered.

No, fallacious. If DRK were leagues above the other tanks, then buffing the other tanks to catch up would not impact its performance. It just might make less people feel the need to play DRK.

BRD's role was utility DPS. Ideally it funneled its MP into Foe's Requiem, not Mage's Ballad. It had a love fest going with the other two ranged DPS.

You've put words in my mouth again and again. My argument is that the game doesn't need to retune BRD or ranged just to make sure they aren't ever outgunned in old content, and that ranged have never been and never will be a weak pick.

WAR's original competition was PLD, as original WAR had no mitigation, and many people wouldn't take WAR to raid before 2.1. Heck, people would even quit dungeon if they saw a WAR sometimes.

I never said to nerf anything. I've only said that it is OK if sometimes jobs sit on the back burner for a bit. P.S. It was 6/9.

When 2.1 hit MNK became insanely good until the start of Heavensward. Then they buffed its timers and damage. Heck, in Shadowbringers they actually did do what you joke about here. At SHB start it out DPSed SAM by a good bit with the Anatman opener and SAM not having Shoha/meditate stacks.

SCH did get some edging at the start of Stormblood when its shields were weaker than Noct Ast. They rectified that within a patch though.

It isn't so much about people just using a class or not, it's also about other people wanting to include that class in the parties they make. When one job is used too much for too long, the devs make a conscious decision to try and change things, so that there will be more variety, and so that people will stop being biased against certain jobs.

[SpeckledBurd]

When 2.1 hit MNK became insanely good until the start of Heavensward. Then they buffed its timers and damage. Heck, in Shadowbringers they actually did do what you joke about here. At SHB start it out DPSed SAM by a good bit with the Anatman opener and SAM not having Shoha/meditate stacks.

SCH did get some edging at the start of Stormblood when its shields were weaker than Noct Ast. They rectified that within a patch though.

It isn't so much about people just using a class or not, it's also about other people wanting to include that class in the parties they make. When one job is used too much for too long, the devs make a conscious decision to try and change things, so that there will be more variety, and so that people will stop being biased against certain jobs.

If the devs made a conscious decision to buff or nerf jobs based on what's been meta, you'd think Dragoon would have been short strawed at some point. The only time they were really weak was Final Coil which they immediately responded to with buffs and QoL, outside of that Dragoon has consitently the highest performing melee for the majority of the game.

As the Monk example it was strong in Final Coil so by your logic it spent the entire next two expansions in the gutter, then it got buffed for Eden Tier 1... only to land back in the gutter again. Historically Monk was incredibly weak on Heavensward Launch so they buffed Monks timers and attack damage but by the end of Heavensward it was still the weakest DPS job in the game by every measure due to TP problesm, aggro problems, still too weak personal damage, and no party support. Monk was only ever a third string to Dragoon and Ninja in Stormblood. Making Monk OP at the start of Shadowbringers was probably an accident too considering the devs didn't anticipate the Anatman opener or PB being used to spam Leaden Bootshine. Even if they were intentionally trying to boost Monk plays, they also failed completely since 5.05 really only boosted the jobs play numbers in the very early Raid progression scene and it fell back to being the least played job in everything except TEA. Overall though it's been one of the weaker jobs for the games lifespan, not a job that they've cycled in and out of prominence. Dragoon has remained in prominence pretty much entirely with Ninja sharing the spotlight for two expansions, and currently Samurai sitting there with it.

The only instances where the devs have actually buffed jobs when things were otherwise balanced has been to change player perception and every time it's been a failure on some level. They buffed Balance to 20% damage on Astrologian at the end of Heavensward after it was too weak at launch and undeprlayed in Midas, and they mady pitiful 1-2% buffs Monk and Machinist received at the end of Stormblood when no one was using them because they were terribly designed. In the former case it was unnecessary because perception of Astrologian had already begun to shift, so they shattered the game balance, and in the latter case the expansion was over and the slight buffs weren't enough to coax people to play them anyway.