Feeling disappointed with myself.

[Jim_Berry]

If you have accepted the fact that, as a damage dealer, you can't push high numbers on your main but you do noticable well on your secondary, would you main your secondary or continue to get better on your current main?

As a BRD, my survival rate is very high, but that does the group no good if I'm only contributing to the "burn" at minimum damage output. Personally, I don't see an increase to my damage when I was iLv90, iLv96, and now iLv100. However, as an iLv93 DRG, it HAS been recorded (had a linkshell buddy run his program on me without telling him why) that my DRG does significant more damage than my BRD. In fact, I can feel the damage.

As DRG, however, I need my Chocobo when I'm soloing content such as boss FATEs or an Alexandrite map; with BRD, I didn't. I also noticed something else (or maybe it's just my mental):

- In T6, I'd almost always get to Slug phase. While I won as BRD, it was only once with DRG winning three or four times. In T7, I kited 100% of my times going as BRD. Here, I won T7 a bunch. I won a few times stepping in as DRG.

It makes me sad that I put a lot of time, energy, and focus into BRD, but over a year later, I STILL can't reach the damage potential that BRD can reach, and it shows when I'm in groups. I know it's me because other BRDs with lesser gear than me does better damage output.

Should I hang BRD up or keep going? I'm the type who like to focus one job while using others situationally, such as tank for the daily roulette since they always ask for tank, or healer when I'm doing random stuff not involving endgame.

[dday3six]

Bards trades some DPS for mobility and utility. In most cases other DPS are going to out parse them. However in the end you should do whatever helps you enjoy the game the most.

[Adler]

My main is DRG and I usually join all new content as DRG simply because I'm so used to it that it is a lot easier to dodge and respond to stuff as DRG for me. In dungeons that I know very well I go WAR, PAL or BRD most of time.

If you can beat T6 as BRD easier than as DRG then I guess your team would want you BRD no matter how much or how little damage you do, so use DRG for fun in dungeons that can be cleared 100% anyway for training and BRD for more serious fights because clearly you still feel more comfortable as BRD.

[abzoluut]

I think BRDs are in the right place this patch. They can dish out some good dps in Coil. It all depends how familiar the group is of course. If you have to play mana song 50% of the time...

Why not stick with BRD and try to focus on your rotation? Try and look for improvments; CD management, adjust rotation with phases during a fight, ask other BRDs. I think this is an important and fun part of an MMO.

Give it another shot.

[Jim_Berry]

There are some morale-boosting comments here. I'll give it another go. I just dislike being asked to leave because I'm not pushing above ~180 dps as they say.

[dday3six]

There are some morale-boosting comments here. I'll give it another go. I just dislike being asked to leave because I'm not pushing above ~180 dps as they say.

A few things to remember about parsers: not all of them are accurate, not everyone knows how to read them correctly, and some people straight up lie about the results. Before you get to up in arms about what someone claims a parser says, make sure that you can trust them to be relaying accurate info to you. Often times when things are going poorly, particularly in PUG groups people look for someone to blame.

With that said, if you are looking to improve your Bard DPS there have been a couple good posts detailing methods. There are also several guides on not only on the forums but through internet which can help.

With Bard the trick is to rarely stop attacking. Weave your off GCD skills with your on GCD ones to maximize every CD.

[Adamantium]

A few things to remember about parsers: not all of them are accurate, not everyone knows how to read them correctly, and some people straight up lie about the results. Before you get to up in arms about what someone claims a parser says, make sure that you can trust them to be relaying accurate info to you. Often times when things are going poorly, particularly in PUG groups people look for someone to blame.

Agreed. Because FF14 doesn't officially support parsers, people turn to third party parsers like ACT, which have various settings to tweak that can unintentionally lead to different results across various players.

I know someone who reads their DPS by uptime on the boss/mob, completely excluding any downtime during the encounter (during phase transitions, for example), as opposed to a lot of other people who have gotten used to other games with addons supported that display DPS as a sum of the entire fight, downtime included. As a result, this person sees higher DPS on their parser than other people do, and has gotten themselves into some heated arguments over it.

[Alkimi]

There are some morale-boosting comments here. I'll give it another go. I just dislike being asked to leave because I'm not pushing above ~180 dps as they say.

Honestly, if you're struggling with the usual brd things (noticing Bloodletter procs, using off GCDs as soon as they're up etc.) then just use macros. People will say they're bad (and they are, you're sacrificing a bit of dps by using them) but it makes it a hell of a lot easier to do respectable dps if you're struggling to manage cooldowns properly.

Stick all your offensive buffs on one macro (except BfB) and stick Straight Shot, Bloodletter, Misery's End and Blunt Arrow (in that order) onto another macro which you can then spam.

Once you're a lot more comfortable you can take the training wheels away and try and do even better.

[Jim_Berry]

Honestly, if you're struggling with the usual brd things (noticing Bloodletter procs, using off GCDs as soon as they're up etc.) then just use macros. People will say they're bad (and they are, you're sacrificing a bit of dps by using them) but it makes it a hell of a lot easier to do respectable dps if you're struggling to manage cooldowns properly.

Stick all your offensive buffs on one macro (except BfB) and stick Straight Shot, Bloodletter, Misery's End and Blunt Arrow (in that order) onto another macro which you can then spam.

Once you're a lot more comfortable you can take the training wheels away and try and do even better.

As of my original posts and replies, I was on PS3. I got another PS4 (after first was stolen). The hotbar make it much easier for me to get buffs and stuff up quickly since I see them now when hidden under a single macro; I'm no longer wasting time button-mashing the macro hoping a buff is up.

[HaroldSaxon]

If you are using an i90 weapon or above, honestly that is pretty poor dps. You should research a more optimal rotation and practice on a dummy.