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"