I think its time BRD get some loving

[Izsha]

Oh and btw, those screaming bard is only supposed to be a support class, you do know they killed our best support skill right? 　Out of all the raids wiped i thing a whole lot of them would have been saved with a ROD pre nerf

People need to stop harping on rod. It's not gone. They took it from bard and gave it to war on storms path the same update. So instead of you blowing 180 tp for every tank buster, war can maintain the 10% dam reduction 100% of the time as a normal rotation. It's better this way. It's up all the time, doesn't utterly destroy your tp, and encourages tank diversity instead of 2 pld setups.

Complains about dps, also complains about not being able to blow 180 tp for every tank buster and big raid aoe when we have it for free now. #OfficialForumLogic.

[DoubleD]

If we're going to complain about bards not being close enough to casters in damage, why do casters not complain about not being near melee in damage?

Edit for DoubleD: I don't have a DRG in my group either? And I have no idea what you're talking about "melee with = gear of a bard"..?

SMN is complaining and its justified. BLM needs better single target damage, but hard to balance because they burn through pulls on dungeons. FCoB was practically made for BLM with all the adds/Melee nerf adds in T11.

And by = I mean both with 135 weapons and comparable efficient gear

Question for all the anti-bards. We were the weakest in 2.3. Was this 2.4 WD nerf that made us even weaker necessary?

[Galdous]

Bzzt. There is no debate about the role of the bard because the playerbase set the role in the form of min maxing when 2.0 came out. Our ability to give near limitless mana along with the ability to circle around all mechanics without skipping a beat along with tp song. It was an ability that strengthened the raid team so greatly with stacked bards that SE nerfed the job to where raids only utilize 1 now. The issue is how well is the bard job doing in this game. It is the most played job so we are doing better then most other jobs. If we are given more dps then we will lose our support strength which I am not willing to give up because that is how balance is done at the high end and just affects the rest of us as we are here for the ride. Bards are way stronger then other jobs right now when you equate our utility stacked against the other dps jobs. For that benefit of being able to strengthen both casters and physical dps we suffer a slight dps loss.

[Dyne_Fellpool]

"Needed" =/= "Balanced", necessarily. Just sayin.

Bards should be the lowest dps of the dps-classes, but not be a whole lot, IMO. Afterall, they have the highest utility, but not by a lot.
Anyway, in a perfect world this is what I'd do (but it wont happen):

-Swiftsong has its cast time changed to instant (stopping to cast it is just counter-intuitive to the spell's purpose of getting you places quicker, and discourages use between pulls)
-Foe Requiem, Army's Paeon, and Mage's Ballad have their cast times reduced to 2 seconds and the damage penalty on Paeon and Ballad are changed to -10%. (would encourage more singing, and BRD would still be lowest dps of dps-classes)
-cancelling a song can now be done anytime independent of the GCD (this would encourage more active MP management, something good Bards do anyway but yeah)
-the ridiculously long animation lock on Bloodletter is slightly reduced
-the Potency of Quick Nock is reduced to 100 (currently Quick Nock spam is more TP efficient than the intended Wide Volley-RoD-QN combo. This would put WV ahead of the other AEs in potency to address this)
-the additional effect on Rain of Death is changed to a piercing resist debuff (does not stack with Disembowel) for 20 sec. (not spammable or even maintainable, but would be something useful for RoD and further encourage use of the AE combo over QN spam)

I could of course be wrong, but I still think this would leave Bard with the lowest DPS of the dps-classes, but would close the gap a bit.
I think this would just cause a lot of Bards who dont sing enough to start singing more and managing their MP better.
As long as Bard is the lowest dps of the dps-classes, it will not be desireable to stack Bards (therefore no imbalance).

[Galdous]

The current gap right now is fine. If we allowed bards to have their dps bumped to within 5-4% dps of other jobs then the rotation of bards needs to be increased or force a bard to have a debuff to damage when moving around to compensate. The reason we are meant to be lowest is because our ceiling dps cap is also the easiest to achieve which is higher then most floor dps of other jobs. That is why you see bards at the top of the dps parses in the 24 man raids and most dungeons.

[lxChrisxl]

easiest to achieve which is higher then most floor dps of other jobs.

lol a lot of our bis stuff you have to craft/buy and then pentameld on top of that it's fucking 110 stuff. there is a problem with bards. it's a joke that people call it support still and it's a joke that people call it the easiest class. every bard i've known that called it an easy class did terrible damage, was terrible at support and just a terrible bard overall. we started off as a pure damage class and then was forced into some joke of a support class that really only has 3 songs (a song for slightly increasing speed doesn't not count as support. especially since it comes off the moment you're targeted). rain of death still has that stupid accuracy buff which nobody every needs. they do need love but people that aren't monk's or ninja's hate them because bards are in higher demand than they are. so stupid. instead of being mad that your class isn't being as wanted as another how about wanting equal treatment for all classes and not have certain class get the shaft.

[DoubleD]

The current gap right now is fine. If we allowed bards to have their dps bumped to within 5-4% dps of other jobs then the rotation of bards needs to be increased or force a bard to have a debuff to damage when moving around to compensate. The reason we are meant to be lowest is because our ceiling dps cap is also the easiest to achieve which is higher then most floor dps of other jobs. That is why you see bards at the top of the dps parses in the 24 man raids and most dungeons.

So just because other people can't play their class (get out DPS'd) by a bard, you feel the need to nerf it even more?
This is exactly what happened with poor Ninja when all the MNKs complained

[dice137]

^My thoughts exactly.

I main a BRD and even I think that others classes take priority over us in terms of who really needs some immediate help, if any at all. BRDs (truly good ones, that is) are still ridiculously desirable for a majority of game content -- especially Coil. We are not broken nor are we struggling to function. Just the opposite. We are fine as is, at least as far as current content is concerned.

[Dyne_Fellpool]

The current gap right now is fine. If we allowed bards to have their dps bumped to within 5-4% dps of other jobs then the rotation of bards needs to be increased or force a bard to have a debuff to damage when moving around to compensate. The reason we are meant to be lowest is because our ceiling dps cap is also the easiest to achieve which is higher then most floor dps of other jobs. That is why you see bards at the top of the dps parses in the 24 man raids and most dungeons.

You dont balance classes around ease of play. You balance them around dps and utility.

If we balanced around ease of play, WAR would be significantly stronger than PLD. (it isn't)

Some ppl like simpler classes, and some ppl get bored with simple classes and prefer more complex ones. It's a matter of preference and one isn't inherently better than the other.
A good game offers both gameplay options, but doesnt balance class power around it.

[Gilthas]

You dont balance classes around ease of play. You balance them around dps and utility.

Really?

If all the DPS classes in the game had the same damage output and utility everyone and their mother would play Bard.

If Machinist has any sort of support abilities similar to what Bards have, Bards will be thrown by the wayside.

By this logic PLD, WAR, WHM and SCH all need to be buffed or they'll also be thrown by the wayside. It's inevitable that people will flcok to the new jobs once the expansion is released. The only real way to prevent that is to make the new jobs suck/not fun to play with.

If Machinist is as mobile as Bard it's very likely that they'll have the same damage output.