Quote Originally Posted by Alberel View Post
The simple fact that parties were stacking bards to rotate their songs back in 2.0 shows that the nerfs to BRD were very much needed. Other jobs have utility, yes, but none as incredibly potent as BRD and MCH have. You can argue about it as much as you like but it doesn't change the facts; we've not seen parties stacking other jobs for their utility as we saw with BRDs.
A lot of things happened since 2.0.
SE keep lessen a need to rely on bard's songs, it's understandable that they want to change situation that bard have fixed spot in group. But they add nothing to bards themselves in return. Good healers don't need ballad if they do not die, TP issue greatly reduced with all "phase combat" and fixes and NIN can cover in some situation. This means that bard utility quickly becomes obsolete and their presence in party (with their equal to tank(!) damage) is not justified.

Let's look at currently available encounters - Bismark Ex and Ravanna EX. You don't need neither ballad nor paeon on both. So bard is just taking place of someone who can pull significantly higher dps adding nothing to a party.