I'm disgusted with the bard nerf.

[Ooshima]

"I want to have utility that no other DPS has, ok? But also be better than another pure DPS. Or be counted among top DPS"

Sigh

No.

How about you actually read? Haven't seen any statement here saying that BRDs should be tweaked to be anywhere near the top DPS. We only ask that they consider tweaking it so that the DPS gap doesn't widen. Closing the disparity =/= elevate BRD to top/god DPS status please.

[Zephyranthes]

I've been seeing posts about bards having pretty good numbers in final coil, might want to search on that. Critical hit is an insane stat for them with the current ilvl of gear. Top endgame raiders are pretty satisfied with a bard's dps output.

Also, when checking dps numbers, don't just look at the base digit gap.

Eg (random numbers only):
1. 2.3
400 - Mnk
300 - Bard
Number gap : 100
% gap : 33.33%

2. 2.45
1. 2.3
500 - Mnk
375- Bard
Number gap : 125 <-- makes the gap seem more bigger each patch but the % may actually be the same
% gap : 33.33%

As of the moment, there is no need to make the dps gap smaller.

[kyuven]

Bards really ought to benefit from Skill Speed more than they do, given that they are constantly handed out SS gear. A mechanic or two more within the spam skills would be nice. .

i really wish they would. And on a related topic, MERGE SKILL AND SPELL SPEED! Eesh!

[gamesmart]

skilled caster stay in autoatk range and deal additional dmg with autoatks when possible

When my auto-attack hits for ~45 and it doesn't even go off every time because I'm casting...I'm not even going to bother with the 3 DPS it's going to add, especially if there's already two melee and an off-tank crowding around the mob's behind.

[Ooshima]

I've been seeing posts about bards having pretty good numbers in final coil, might want to search on that. Critical hit is an insane stat for them with the current ilvl of gear. Top endgame raiders are pretty satisfied with a bard's dps output.

Also, when checking dps numbers, don't just look at the base digit gap.

Eg (random numbers only):
1. 2.3
400 - Mnk
300 - Bard
Number gap : 100
% gap : 33.33%

2. 2.45
1. 2.3
500 - Mnk
375- Bard
Number gap : 125 <-- makes the gap seem more bigger each patch but the % may actually be the same
% gap : 33.33%

As of the moment, there is no need to make the dps gap smaller.

Hilde, as I have pointed out in earlier posts, I'm making awareness of the impending issues that may come. It might be in Heavensward launch or whatever, but it is a point for thought.

Raw figures will eventually meant something. For example, let's maintain the 33.33% difference. In the next level of upgrade, say MNKs will do 600DPS so the 33.33% difference would mean BRDs would be at 450.

Lets remove BRD from the team, which would result in MNKs having to slow down a little/starved TP for a few moments before Invigorate is back up. Assuming that MNKs will suffer a 50DPS loss as a result, that would bring a starved MNK to produce only 550DPS.

The typical DPS composition amongst the teams that pushed world rankings deploys 2 MNKs. That makes it MNK-MNK-BRD-BLM(no resource issues).

MNK-MNK-BRD combi would be 600-600-450, a total 1650.
3 starved MNKs would be 550 x 3 = 1650

Of course, 3 MNKs would be silly, let's say 2 MNKs and a NIN, where NIN alternates Goad on the MNKs:

600+600+500(starved NIN eventually) => 1700. That would be a 50 gain, which might be enough to cover the loss of DPS from the caster due to no Foe (or even more than enough to cover).

You can see that it can become a situation that the value of of bringing in a BRD diminish by a significant margin. In such a situation, the only grace left for BRDs would be the Ballad utility. Might be useful for progression, but again top end game healers would not need Ballad eventually (and they progress fast). I've heard Sera said he doesn't need Ballad anymore. If things remains ceteris paribus, eventually BRDs would be displaced in top endgame teams.

[DreamWeaver]

The above analysis should really only be done if there's at least some sort of math done to calculate the dps loss of a tp starved melee class.

Assuming dps loss of 30, your conclusion will be "ehhh the dps loss minimal, off with the bards!!".
Assuming dps loss of 150, your conclusion will be "that's alot of dps loss, bards are important!!".

So any math savvy min-maxing hardcore mathematician wanna help to calculate the theoretical dps loss over a 10 min fight for melee dpsers?

[ChriZirhC]

our NIN has been burning a lot of TP after the nerf as his build was skillspeed and parsing somewhere around 550. Add huton to that and holy cow I became a tp bank. lol

but yeah I agree the margin is getting bigger. The only time I was able to maintain near optimum dps was t10. We dont need to change anything with our kit. Just more WD will do.

TP shouldn't be an issue because MNKs are still the primary TP sucker, if they don't need for a TP song I don't think NINs would need.

What I really think about BRD is that it could use some adjustment. I don't think it needs to be top DPS, it will probably still be the lowest DPS but at the very least, do something about the bloody WD on weapons and scaling. At least, maintain a reasonable gap right? Every other DPS job are getting 1 more WD than BRD for that 20 item level increase and if this continues the gap would be a runaway.

[SinisterIsBack]

If they got rid of the penalty for playing songs and maybe gave us bfb back I think we would be on the right track and not getting too close to top dps. As it stands though. NIN offers far better utility than a bard does (albeit ballad) and is a top dps.

There is 0 reason for bards to suffer that penalty while playing songs. Food for thought

[ChriZirhC]

I think the reason why we're feeling the dps loss now is because fcob, especially t10-12, are like dummy fights which jsut drains our tp as well which forces us to sing songs for ourselves.

Also add the WD difference for the weapon updrade that Ooshima is saying. So not only are we experiencing dps loss because of singing but margin is also getting bigger because our weapon damage is way behind than the other jobs.

[LLSmoothJ]

At this point, I feel that they're better off adding another Archer job as a pure DPS. That way, those who like the Bard class as a support class can stay as Bard and play the job "as intended" while those who wanted to play as an Archer to DPS in the first place can finally do so without worrying about being gimped as they would be if they just played as a class instead of as a job.