what can be done to improve the phys ranged situation?

[Memoranda]

As someone who plays a lot of Bard despite the fact it doesn't perform well, my primary gripes with the job boil down to less damage than the melee jobs who have (arguably) less demanding rotations and the fact that generally speaking a raid or group or whatever isn't going to miss my songs and would rather just bring in yet another melee or even a caster. The buffs a Bard provides just feel too inconsequential to even bother with bringing one along. Realistically a party isn't going to notice a 3% increase to direct hit, or a 2% increase to critical. Why Wanderer's and Army's just isn't a flat 5% to direct hit and critical will always baffle me. I can get Mage's only being 1% damage increase, seeing as Dancer can give a constant 5% just to one member of the party, but the other two? Is there any (valid) reason for Bard to offer so little direct and critical hit when Dancer can also give both at the same time to a Dance Partner on a 120 second cool down?

This brings me to my second gripe: Bard still suffers from having Dancer in the game. A Bard's buffs and utility got neutered as soon as Square decided to add a new primary support class in the game. There are a myriad of other things a Bard could buff. Mage's could offer a boost to Determination instead of just damage done, and this would have the side effect of affecting a healer's healing output instead of just more damage. Wanderer's could offer a 2% increase to a primary stat. If Blizzard can figure out a way to make a buff or a food item that says, "Increase primary attribute by X% amount" and have the primary attribute be increased no matter what class receives that buff, surely its not too hard for Square to implement something similar. Army's could offer a boost like 2%-3% decreased damage taken. If they want to keep Dancer as the more offensive support fine, but don't also slap Bards with the exact same buffs but at lesser values just because a Bard's buffs affect more players, especially since those buffs are tuned so low that parties would simply rather take another melee and a Dancer who'll supercharge said melee better than a Bard ever will.

Finally, Sidewinder feels bad because its nothing but another button for damage and a strangely long cool down. I would prefer Sidewinder to just be removed entirely, but honestly at this point I would take the potencies for Sidewinger and Refulgent Arrow being swapped. It feels really bad using such a boring weapon skill in conjunction with Barrage, but this combo happens anyway because Sidewinder is our hardest hitting attack outside Apex Arrow and Blast Arrow.

At the end of the day, I guess those of us who play physical ranged will just have to wait and see what exactly they end up doing when they supposedly go to look at the "Ranged Tax". More likely than not its going to be nothing but very tiny potency buffs that aren't going to do much of anything, but I guess something is better than nothing at all at this point.

[Akiudo]

my primary gripes with the job boil down to less damage than the melee jobs who have (arguably) less demanding rotations

this is a big aspect many overlook, or just go "duh, you can move totally freely, phys ranged are all easy" while never having actively played one (or at least bard for that matter).

i'll admit i haven't played melee in ages, but i've tanked, i've healed, i've played caster (at least 2 of each of these roles in a raid setting in the last 18 months), none of those came close to the stress i felt on bard.

if i want to optimize my dps on redmage i try to get in an extra cast in a situation where its hard to do so and the second i manage that i gain 40-50 dps.

optimizing dps on bard ? changing up my song rotation, pooling blodletter stacks, making sure i cut my dots as closely as possible while risking for them to fall of completly and costing me 3 times the dps i can ever gain by perfecting it, permanently watch out for proccs so i don't miss one by reacting too late and than theres refulgant arrow and barrage optimization aswell. not even saying bard is hard, but bard is a class that tends to die a death of a thousand cuts when it comes to optimizing it (and dying is brutal as heck depending on where you are in your rotation, not a bard exclusive problem but its definitely one of the classes that get hit the hardest by it).

the procc gameplay honestly takes an enourmos toll on me compared to other classes with a more static rotation. i can raid 4 hours on healer or caster without issues, but 2 hours on bard and i get headaches because the amount of concentration it takes me to optimize the class simply put is exhausting.

[Memoranda]

this is a big aspect many overlook, or just go "duh, you can move totally freely, phys ranged are all easy" while never having actively played one (or at least bard for that matter).

i'll admit i haven't played melee in ages, but i've tanked, i've healed, i've played caster (at least 2 of each of these roles in a raid setting in the last 18 months), none of those came close to the stress i felt on bard.

if i want to optimize my dps on redmage i try to get in an extra cast in a situation where its hard to do so and the second i manage that i gain 40-50 dps.

optimizing dps on bard ? changing up my song rotation, pooling blodletter stacks, making sure i cut my dots as closely as possible while risking for them to fall of completly and costing me 3 times the dps i can ever gain by perfecting it, permanently watch out for proccs so i don't miss one by reacting too late and than theres refulgant arrow and barrage optimization aswell. not even saying bard is hard, but bard is a class that tends to die a death of a thousand cuts when it comes to optimizing it (and dying is brutal as heck depending on where you are in your rotation, not a bard exclusive problem but its definitely one of the classes that get hit the hardest by it).

the procc gameplay honestly takes an enourmos toll on me compared to other classes with a more static rotation. i can raid 4 hours on healer or caster without issues, but 2 hours on bard and i get headaches because the amount of concentration it takes me to optimize the class simply put is exhausting.

See, and I just personally like the satisfaction of playing Bard well and optimizing it as well as is physically possible. It feels really good to hit all my procs and keep an eye on DoT uptime (even if I do kind of find the DoTs in general to be an ancient relic of how the Bard used to be) and correctly managing my songs and their Repertoire stacks.

That good feeling dissipates when I realize that I'm contributing less than a player who's really optimized whatever melee job they're currently on. This is especially true for Ninja, who arguably has a rotation every bit as strict as a Bard does yet aren't saddled with the ranged and support tax ensuring their DPS is barely above Dancer, who is also the support job that provides more meaningful support than the Bard actually does. Like, I'm not asking for Bards to be doing Samurai or Black Mage levels of damage. But there is also no valid reason for them to be at the very bottom of the barrel just because they have a bit of utility and are ranged. The same kind of applies to Dancer, although with how much a Dancer can supercharge a single player I do feel that Dancer itself shouldn't be anywhere other than towards the bottom of the charts.

[Akiudo]

snip

oh totally, i love playing bard, i just don't think its as easy as people make it out to be, in fact i find it harder than a lot of other classes. and yes, dealing shitty damage (and having no meaningfull support while at it) most certainly contributes to people not liking to play bard.