Bard Changes I would love to see for End Walker

[Easayia]

Power house in Heavensward you mean Bow Mage the thing no one wanted? Sure it was a power house at the cost of no mobility and it playing like a mage........

[Cetonis]

At the end of 3.x, Bard was the fourth-best dps by a smidge over Summoner, if memory serves. It was laughably weak in Midas because of extremely hostile fight design, and made Machinist appear weak in Gordias due to extremely Bard-friendly fight design.

SE was even worse at grasping job balance nuance back then than they are now, though, so we got a silly ranged dps arms race that was never remotely necessary, and continue to pay the price for SE's 3.x mistakes with the ranged tax now.

[Rymi64]

Power house in Heavensward you mean Bow Mage the thing no one wanted? Sure it was a power house at the cost of no mobility and it playing like a mage........

i mean saying no mobility is kinda a over statement since it was only a 1.5 cast time and you could take off the cast times for times you had to move a lot. Plus lets be honest, no one needs to be moving the whole time during an encounter.

[Easayia]

Its not worth the mobility trade off Bard should never be set up as a caster no one liked it thats why its no longer in its identity.

[Rymi64]

Its not worth the mobility trade off Bard should never be set up as a caster no one liked it thats why its no longer in its identity.

The thing is that it wasn't that big of a mobility trade off since you could turn it off for big long moves or slide cast for shorter moves. I know a bunch of people that liked it, myself included, and it added a nice thing to try to overcome and plan around. People really just blew it out of proportion as a big problem when it wasn't.

[ReiganCross]

I wasn't there to know, I just heard that Bard was a strong DPS choice. Right now all Ranged Physical classes are being taxed way too low just because "They can keep moving and attacking, so they must deal less damage to balance it."

In a way I don't even mind that being the case, but can the less damage not be "Bottom of the DPS Barrel"? I dunno, I feel like a Caster should be struggling to deal the same damage as a Ranged, and not absolutely destroy the Ranged on a Target Dummy comparison. The movement tax is WAY too strong right now.

[Rymi64]

In a way I don't even mind that being the case, but can the less damage not be "Bottom of the DPS Barrel"? I dunno, I feel like a Caster should be struggling to deal the same damage as a Ranged, and not absolutely destroy the Ranged on a Target Dummy comparison. The movement tax is WAY too strong right now.

Why should a perfectly played blm, that has to deal with cast times and not being able to attack as easily while moving, struggle to do the same damage as a perfectly played mch, which can attack and move like a physical dps but don't need to worry about being up next to the boss the whole time to do their damage and have 100% up time? Same case as a perfectly played rdm vs a perfectly played dnc. Yea both rdm and dancer have utility but I don't have to worry as much about my positioning and needing to move as a dancer compared to rdm.

This is the main complaint about mch's damage, they are supposed to be the selfish dps of physical range but they do too little damage compared to the other selfish dps. But it can't be doing top of the charts dps without having something to worry about like they do. Though I feel in it's current state it should be above ninja and rdm but below everyone else. This wasn't a problem in hw however because they had cast times that they can turn on and off. It's just that they were also a little over tuned damage wise since they were still new to the balancing thing XD

[Beddict]

I wasn't there to know, I just heard that Bard was a strong DPS choice. Right now all Ranged Physical classes are being taxed way too low just because "They can keep moving and attacking, so they must deal less damage to balance it."

In a way I don't even mind that being the case, but can the less damage not be "Bottom of the DPS Barrel"? I dunno, I feel like a Caster should be struggling to deal the same damage as a Ranged, and not absolutely destroy the Ranged on a Target Dummy comparison. The movement tax is WAY too strong right now.

One thing contributing to the Physical Ranged role being so strong back in late HW and throughout SB was DRG bringing a Piercing debuff. Add in DoT procs working off Crit Chance and surprise, it was super strong in SB. A BRD in a party with DRG, SCH, and AST could have an absolute field day with the increased damage from the Piercing debuff, and all the Crit Chance buffs from Battle Litany, Chain Stratagem, and The Arrow (or Spear, I forget, was one of the two) meant they were firing off a hell of a lot of Pitch Perfects and Bloodletters. I wanna say Crit Chance could hit as high 65%? 70%? I don't remember exactly, but BRD's burst phase had a far higher proc rate than the current 40% we have now. Then going into ShB SE decided to remove all the Job synergy that contributed to BRD being so busted by removing the Piercing debuff and making DoTs have a flat proc rate, but then they nerfed the damage as an added "screw you". I honestly think they don't want the Physical Ranged role to have any power, and I'm pretty sure the only thing keeping them in parties nowadays is the 1% role bonus they bring.

I really expect nothing for the role going into Endwalker because it seems like SE is scared of how powerful it was back in SB. They're probably going to keep the role intentionally weak, using the "mobility tax" argument which is hilarious since Yoshi-P said in an interview they've begun designing fights to allow for more Melee uptime. Melee are getting better uptime and thus higher DPS, Physical Ranged get the middle finger.

[Easayia]

? it was a big problem we are not mages and should not have cast times on everything animation times are plenty no need for cast times on everything.

[Jirah]

Why should a perfectly played blm, that has to deal with cast times and not being able to attack as easily while moving, struggle to do the same damage as a perfectly played mch, which can attack and move like a physical dps but don't need to worry about being up next to the boss the whole time to do their damage and have 100% up time? Same case as a perfectly played rdm vs a perfectly played dnc. Yea both rdm and dancer have utility but I don't have to worry as much about my positioning and needing to move as a dancer compared to rdm.

This is the main complaint about mch's damage, they are supposed to be the selfish dps of physical range but they do too little damage compared to the other selfish dps. But it can't be doing top of the charts dps without having something to worry about like they do. Though I feel in it's current state it should be above ninja and rdm but below everyone else. This wasn't a problem in hw however because they had cast times that they can turn on and off. It's just that they were also a little over tuned damage wise since they were still new to the balancing thing XD

Probably off topic but this is mostly what I mean when I say MCH is probably the worst job in the game under these conditions ignoring the fragmented kit and Shallow mechanics

Job identity is a mess with it, it’s not ranged support, it’s not a valid pet job, it’s not selfish dps, it’s barley a gunner job with its ogcd gadget concoctions center stage. Once again cast times would only marginally make things better, it’s kit would remain shallow adding something so benign and regressive from the past isn’t somthing I’d recommend for any job. It got removed for a reason