Bard Nerfs Offically Confirmed

[Aleph_One]

It is to illustrate bards do not ignore fight mechanics, they still have to move like everyone else. If you are going to make a statement, make the correct one. Bards can do damage while avoiding aoe. This is how they are designed and why they are the current lowest dps class. The only fight they are competing at the top is Titan HM, all other fights they are behind.

There is nothing reasonable about a bard damage nerf. A support nerf, sure. Bards however need a damage buff.

Mechanic: Having to stop DPS to avoid damage from a boss; make the player decide to either use an ability, or move out of the way.
Mechanic avoidance: Not having to stop DPS in order to avoid damage.

I also didn't state that a damage nerf is warranted/appropriate for BRDs, nor do we even know if that's going to happen.

[Amas]

It is to illustrate bards do not ignore fight mechanics, they still have to move like everyone else. If you are going to make a statement, make the correct one. Bards can do damage while avoiding aoe. This is how they are designed and why they are the current lowest dps class. The only fight they are competing at the top is Titan HM, all other fights they are behind.

There is nothing reasonable about a bard damage nerf. A support nerf, sure. Bards however need a damage buff.

The one thing I would hope any reasonable BRD would agree is that the "complete package" is too strong at the moment. The combination of current single target DPS, AoE DPS, utility, mobility, and ease of use simply eclipses what any other DPS class can bring to the table. Not by such a great margin that every other DPS class is trivialized, but it's the only DPS class that is a near-certainty to find in any 8-man content and the most likely to be over-represented before Coil (and even in Coil to an extent).

I don't think a DPS nerf is the right thing to do, but even if it happens, nearly every group will still bring a BRD and look for other strategy/line-up optimizations to ensure passing DPS checks. It certainly won't make BRD a red-headed stepchild by any means, though I do agree that adjusting support abilities or reducing mobility would be preferable to straight-up nerfing DPS. Any negative adjustment to utility or mobility should be accompanied by a slight DPS increase for balance's sake.

[pandabearcat]

Hello!

On a standstill fight, lasting 10 minutes, if you have a dragoon to provide piercing, BRDs are simming at 4% higher than DRG, in pure potency, with the WD penalty probably dropping them down to maybe 2-5% lower.

If any fight has 3 seconds of disconnect every minute, you should be doing roughly on par damage with a DRG (which is simming slightly above monk atm, because its hard to sim monk rotation).

Without DRG buff, you are simming ~5% lower than DRG, 3% lower than MNK, with WD penalty maybe 8-10% lower.

So...

Bards are certainly competitive but shine in heavy movement.

Bards certainly don't need a buff.

[Woodberry]

Hello!

On a standstill fight, lasting 10 minutes, if you have a dragoon to provide piercing, BRDs are simming at 4% higher than DRG, in pure potency, with the WD penalty probably dropping them down to maybe 2-5% lower.
.

I guess I should check into your sims since you are giving information that isn't agreeing with parses in coil or on the dummy. I'd admit it could be me needing to learn to play better, but this is consistent across all bards I've parsed.

Can you share your sims?

There could be a number of issues to explain the difference. One being the parses are wrong. I do agree they are off to a certain degree for bards. Or two, gear scaling. Bards don't scale as well as other classes.

Edit: I found your sim thread. It appears from the first few paragraphs it is not used to determine dps comparisons. Looking at the original numbers, you appeared to simply use potency and not take into effect gear scaling. Have you updated this and come to a more accurate conclusion?

If you can clarify, I'll look into it deeper. I'd like an accurate representation of dps since you have made the claim. My parse data could very well be wrong.

[Mikedizzy]

I just saw that there is speculation or hope that they will put cast timer only on "Heavy Shot"...I would be fine with that if that was the only NERF they did. This we would be able to play around no problem.

[pandabearcat]

One of the biggest things I notice while playing ingame vs in the sim is that it is REALLY difficult because of lag to take advantage of every HS.

I'm sure yall have noticed that HS's stupid animation takes up almost 2 seconds, and the proc happens at the end of the animation, giving you barely 0.5 seconds, less for lag and SS to go into SS correctly.

You're right it compares potencies, but since potencies scale linearly with "stats" and since I finally got all 3 classes into the sim the next project is simulating players themselves and putting stats into the potency comparisons.

One of the reasons that bards may look better on paper is also the lack of song singing, and also the fact that at a 10 minute nonstop fight profile, which it is currently running, all 3 classes run out of TP. Thus, capped on TP usage, generally speaking monks get screwed more as its harder to keep up GL, and bards and dragoons fight over which one is more efficient with their usage.

The other thing is while I coded in priorities for bard at low TP (aka, at sub 110 TP, you never want to use HS as you need the tp for a full SS > WB > VB to keep up buffs/dots), I didn't for the other two yet since I don't know the classes well. It may be that they perform much better.

I could do more simulations with infinite TP, and I might just do that at some point to see max theoretical dps.

[Woodberry]

I run 5 min parses and haven't had an issue with TP unless I'm on debuff duty. I use invigorate when I am 450ish down.

Gear scaling is a large issue. It is one of the ways SE is controlling bard dps. For instance our relic weapons cap at 41 damage compared to the 46 damage of the other classes.

[pandabearcat]

For instance our relic weapons cap at 41 damage compared to the 46 damage of the other classes.

Yea I am aware of that, iirc all bard weapons should be 10% lower than same ilvl melee weapons.

Afaik though the offstats should be identical, as well as the damage formulas.

It certainly is a hit to damage, but it is not a 10% hit certainly, as other factors (most notably DET) are independent of weapon damage and should be roughly equivalent across classes.

If someone can give me a stat listing of all the DoW classes in DL gear (lets use that as base, then go into AF2/allagan BiS gear), I could start working on proper dps as opposed to potency checks.

[Woodberry]

Too much work, I can tell you the bard stats is all.

[Leon_Stormrage]

I don't understand why they are buffing all melee dps damage and nerfing bard.
Also other time SE say nothing about what changes they have planned for bard...