Issue with double standards with Se and defining between dps and support.

[JackFross]

Just because content is easy doesn't mean that groups don't fail due to the party composition.

This is patently false. There is no instance in the entire game where party composition will be the sole reason for failing to kill the instance, assuming players are all item level 208-210. This extends to DF, only you just need to assume players average at item level 190+. Meeting these circumstances and hitting enrage implies much more that the PLAYERS ARE BAD than it says anything at all about the party composition.

2. I wouldn't downplay Dragon Kick.

3. Drg has awesome dps and Battle Litany. Battle Litany is an awesome utility imo.

Dragon Kick, even keeping in mind traited Mantra and the presence of Delirium on Dark Knight, does absolutely nowhere NEAR as much utility as Battle Litany and Disembowel. Regardless what you think about Bard/Machinist DPS, Disembowel is a significant boost to raid dps.

Battle Litany cannot by any stretch be compared to Foe Requiem, Hypercharge, Balance/Arrow/Spear, Mage Ballad/Army' Paeon, Promotion, or Trick Attack. All of those bring considerably better overall dps gains than Battle Litany, which is a 15% crit buff for 1/9th of the fight, at best.

I took the top 400 (if available) and averaged the dps.

This is an incredibly inaccurate way to measure DPS parity. The amount of parses make the "top 400" vary WILDLY in quality. If you want to really compare DPS parity, the site already has tools for that:

Faust: http://www.fflogs.com/statistics/7/#class=Any&boss=5001
A1S: http://www.fflogs.com/statistics/7/#boss=18&class=Any
A2S: http://www.fflogs.com/statistics/7/#...Any&dataset=95
A3S: http://www.fflogs.com/statistics/7/#boss=20&class=Any
A4S: http://www.fflogs.com/statistics/7/#boss=21&class=Any

Overall: http://www.fflogs.com/statistics/7/#class=Any

Had to take a smaller sample for A2S because too many Ninjas drive the gobwalker.
A4S is skewed lower due to the fact that the vast majority of Bards and Machinists are sent to explode to Pentacle, since it would be less of a dps loss for them than a melee due to travel time.

tl;dr: The differences are hardly important, and there is no fight in the game where tanks are beating Bards, on average.

Someone mentioned Thordan, so:
http://www.fflogs.com/statistics/4/#class=Any

Though it only takes data from the past two weeks, and most of the top Thordan players have only been selling the past two weeks or they've already gotten what they need and don't do it anymore.



I skimmed most of the thread and picked out a couple of points I felt needed to be stated. I'd also like to take this time to lay out all of the dps classes and what utility they bring to the table, and how that justifies the general ranking seen in a straightforward single-target fight like A3S:

Monk
-- Dragon Kick - 10% INT debuff (doubled by DRK in 3.x)
-- Mantra - 20% healing buff

Black Mage
-- Apocatastasis - 20% magic damage reduction on one target.

Dragoon
-- Disembowel - Buffs BRD/MCH dps, if they're present
-- Battle Litany - 15% crit buff for 20s with 180s cooldown

Ninja
-- Trick Attack - 10% damage boost for 10s with 60s cooldown
-- Goad - TP regeneration on a single target
-- Shadewalker - Transfers enmity to target
-- Smoke Screen - Quelling Strikes for a target

Summoner
-- Virus - 15% INT/MND/STR/DEX debuff on the target
-- Eye for an Eye - 20% chance of 10% damage reduction after physical damage
-- Resurrection - additional party raise

Bard
-- Mage Ballad - regen party Mana
-- Army's Paeon - regen party TP
-- Foe Requiem - 10% damage boost to Magic damage
---- Battle Voice - doubles efficacy of above songs
-- The Warden's Paean - Prevents incoming status curable status ailment

Machinist
-- Promotion - regen party Mana (Bishop) or TP (Rook)
-- Hypercharge - 5% damage increase for ~22s with 120s cooldown
---- Can also double Promotion Mana/TP regen
-- Dismantle - 5% physical mitigation - 0 damage
-- Rend Mind - 5% magical mitigation - 0 damage

The general scale of highest to lowest single-target damage is:
Monk
Black Mage
Dragoon
Ninja
Summoner
Bard
Machinist

If you look at the above utility skills, this gradient makes perfect sense. The more effective utility skills that a job has, the lower its personal dps becomes. I don't think it's very strange. And the numbers shown above show that these differences are more-or-less proportional with the disparities in utility skills.

Shrug. I think Machinist needs a bit of a boost, but I think Bard is fine. If you are unhappy with your own dps as a Bard, I recommend re-evaluating what you're doing, rather than blaming the class. I assure you, it's not the Job's fault.