Bard qq

[bonez]

I've been playing bard since arr release and this total play style change sucks. I feel like I just wasted over 2 years of game play. Brd feels slow and clunky now. If I wanted to play a casting role I would have chosen one of the 5 available already. It makes me mad just thinking about all the time and money wasted for yoshi to trash my favorite job in one update. What was suppose to be fun playing the new expansion just ended up a waste of money. I don't care if they buff it to 40 percent damage increase. I played brd because of the play style not cast with a bow. I'll hold my breath for a little while but it's going to be a job swap or quit for me I have a feeling. Rant over.

[Koyuki38]

Nobody said you have to use Menuet.

[Aurakol]

Nobody said you have to use Menuet.

At this point we're pretty much forced to

[Lyaha]

Nobody said you have to use Menuet.

Nah, let's have it turned off and loose out on 30% damage buff and ignore 4 new abilities and bring down the entire group by shitty dps.

Minuet is terrible game design, it's not optional, nothing is optional in FFXIV class/job wise.

[LLamaPie]

Nobody said you have to use Menuet.

So 3/5 of our new skills revolve around this song and outside of that one of the new skills is a song that is nearly completely useless (Warden's Paeon). So no we don't have to use WM but SE pretty much forced us to. Cast times as a class that people loved for it's mobility is absurd.

[Kayote]

Some like it, some hate it. I like it. It may not be perfect or enough to bring us up to par but a DPS stance on a DPS class (thats been pigeon-holed into a non-existing role and punished on its actual role because of it) is a change in the right direction IMO. Besides, theyve made it so you can dance in and out of it without any setback. Our cast times are faster than actual paper-wearing casters and the animation locks at the end make it so we can stick and move a bit quite frequently without as big of a DPS hit. Im pretty sure we still kick ass (relative other classes) during heavy movement phases too, even without WM. Not much by itself but again, not a luxury other casters have. We're still the most mobile class in the game afaik.

[NovaLevossida]

I don't feel like changing the nature of jobs with the expansion was a good idea. Expand on them, sure. But change the way their core gameplay goes? Nah.

[fanservice]

I don't feel like changing the nature of jobs with the expansion was a good idea. Expand on them, sure. But change the way their core gameplay goes? Nah.

Then go back to dealing mediocre damage without minuet.

Balancing ranged weapons classes with instant abilities in mmos isn't simple.

In WoW, people complain about hunters because as long as they're within 40y of you, you're getting shot. Any tactic used to stop any other class' damage was rendered invalid, worthless, and did nothing to ever stop their damage (kiting, interrupting, and silencing spellcasts, displacement by threatening their well being). There was 0 counterplay to their damage besides CC, or hiding behind a pillar, which all classes are effected by.

I bring this up because BRDs, and MCHs with no cast times are effectively melee with a 30y range. Where every other damage dealing job loses out to hokey pokey movement mechanics, etc. If anything, BRD poor scaling in the latter half of ARR actually kept them balanced. If they had damage comparable to the likes of MNK, DRG, or BLM without any of the downsides each role has (close range/adversely effected by the need to move) that would be broken, and would lead to alot more BRD stacking like in 2.0 days.

In short, I hope there aren't many bards around crying for a free damage bonus without the cast times. There's no nice way of saying it, but that's like asking to faceroll.

[RiceisNice]

...

This is why you give classes differing utility outside of damage. Enough to discourage class stacking anyway. That's why you see DRGs with battle lianity, monks with mantra, so on.

Is this WoW example from a PvP perspective or PvE? If PvP, it's a whole another can of worms that's not related to the discussion at hand. If PvE, then read above what I said. A hunter wasn't going to provide utilities such as stats, spell power or versatility without taking a sub-optimal dps pet, which would not be a problem if you had a warrior, mage, paladin or druid for those instead.

And the thing is with FFXIV content, those downtimes are effectively minimized to negligible amounts by competent melee players who know the fights in and out. Bard stacking happened in 2.0 because they had (admittingly op) utility to themselves that set them aside from other classes, like a damage reduction debuff. Not to mention primal fights that made melee a liability (garuda's wicked wheel comes to mind). Though that's not the case in FCoB fights (which mostly favor melee anyway) and current Alexander fights.

[fanservice]

This is why you give classes differing utility outside of damage. Enough to discourage class stacking anyway. That's why you see DRGs with battle lianity, monks with mantra, so on.

Is this WoW example from a PvP perspective or PvE? If PvP, it's a whole another can of worms that's not related to the discussion at hand. If PvE, then read above what I said. A hunter wasn't going to provide utilities such as stats, spell power or versatility without taking a sub-optimal dps pet, which would not be a problem if you had a warrior, mage, paladin or druid for those instead.

It's a comparison to a pvp perspective of wow because both bards and hunters largely ignored anything that would ordinarily stop anyone else's damage.

I brought this up because the very idea of having a class that can pull similar dps to the best dd jobs attacking a punching bag, but no penalization for moving is a broken concept in a game where all other classes either have the majority of their damage put on hold because a mechanic made them move (BLM), or a circle on the ground says 'gtfo of kissing range' (MNK, DRG, NIN).

For quite some time, BRD players have been obviously complaining about their lack of damage as ARR went on too.

Square's choice to give them the damage they wanted, but take away the freedom to do it while bunnyhopping around between 5-30y away via a toggled ability was a choice I respect, and all of the above is why. That's all I wanted to say.

Why do they need more downsides when they already have inherently lower weapon damage on top of a 15% damage loss when they use 2/3 of their support songs, a damage drop which no other class gets?

That's one of the things I agree should be changed.

Why do they need to be punished to stand still and have cast times just to try to make up that gap in inherently lower damage?

See above. If they were putting out MNK quality damage, but from 30y away, while running around the ominous circles or the ground, it would be the DD job everyone would want more of.