What is a Bard?

[RinchanNau]

I don't want to get too into it as I've got sleeping to do. But to answer your question about what other DPS jobs have support skills that lower their DPS?

I will point out an obvious one since I recently switched to SMN main. Battle res lowers SMN DPS. In an extended fight you may be forced to use more energy drains instead of fester if you need to res. And if you don't have swiftcast up for it that is another major DPS loss.

We done yet? Every DPS job has support skills.

[Ooshima]

I don't want to get too into it as I've got sleeping to do. But to answer your question about what other DPS jobs have support skills that lower their DPS?

I will point out an obvious one since I recently switched to SMN main. Battle res lowers SMN DPS. In an extended fight you may be forced to use more energy drains instead of fester if you need to res. And if you don't have swiftcast up for it that is another major DPS loss.

We done yet? Every DPS job has support skills.

Let me add one more - PLD, as an OT in instances where it could be generally solo'd or no forced swap mechanics, is also pretty much of a support role.

Look at Twintania. Even before Echo and stuff, it can be solo tank'd. So what is the PLD for?

For the stun-lock and maybe a dmg soak whore for the adds and hatch. But more of the stun-lock, the only Job in the game capable of a stun-lock.

Does this make PLD a support job, or a support-tank job?


Oh yeah, SE took away my Rain of Death's 10% damage reduction (AoE attack) and gave it to WAR (became single target).

Does this make me less of a support DPS and WAR some sort of support tank too?

[Hybris-Maenad]

Look at all of the descriptions of your skills, abilities and cc skills. THAT is a bard.

Look at the color of your placeholder in a party, red. THAT is your job.

You do have the unique ability to top off mp and tp to bad groups that need it (outside of very select instances in coil). In 95% of content, proper cooldown usage and the ability to dodge avoidable damage will leave bards with nothing else to sing but foes.

I see the LB as an act of balancing classes. It increases the desirability to bring in melee classes in high movement fights and gives the party a slight chance to recoup when both healers die.

Bard has some "Oh S***" abilities, but that's only for parties that are s*** to begin with.

[Kaze3434]

Look at all of the descriptions of your skills, abilities and cc skills. THAT is a bard.

Look at the color of your placeholder in a party, red. THAT is your job.

You do have the unique ability to top off mp and tp to bad groups that need it (outside of very select instances in coil). In 95% of content, proper cooldown usage and the ability to dodge avoidable damage will leave bards with nothing else to sing but foes.

I see the LB as an act of balancing classes. It increases the desirability to bring in melee classes in high movement fights and gives the party a slight chance to recoup when both healers die.

Bard has some "Oh S***" abilities, but that's only for parties that are s*** to begin with.

so parties that ask for peons or mages during t8 are "s***". glad to know that the small % of the playerbase that can make it to a fight others cant are still "s***" /sarcasm

[Daeana]

I will point out an obvious one since I recently switched to SMN main. Battle res lowers SMN DPS. In an extended fight you may be forced to use more energy drains instead of fester if you need to res. And if you don't have swiftcast up for it that is another major DPS loss.

I feel that SMN could be redefined into a support category in the future. With the possibility of having more summon pets that use Avatar favor as buffs for there party.

Do you plan on adding buffer or debuffer roles?

At the moment we plan on continuing with the three current roles: tank, DPS, and healer. If we added more roles to these three, it would become more complicated to decide which job fits into which role, and I believe new players will be joining the game in 3.0 so we don't want to make it difficult for them to understand. For the time being we would like to keep the number of roles as it is as we move forward.