I loved bard so much in the main game and was so excited when machinist was announced but this class just doesn't compare to other dps classes.
I regularly find myself out aggroed by every other dps, even when the rng goes right. And use of reload and speed reload are so few that a notable amount of times I find myself with both on cooldown just firing off split shoots 4-5-6 times in a row.
I get games like this have rng factors, like firestorm buff abd bloodletter coming off cooldown but your main damage dealing combo shouldn't be dependant on the flip of a coin!