Bard in the party... thoughts?

[RiceisNice]

like I said, it's a suggestion (my mistake on the Drg combo potency)

'Most?' maybe. But not every group does and Bard needs something for itself when a Drg isn't present (my static is with Mnk and Nin as the melee atm). That's why I said either the piercing debuff or adjusting Foe's to properly affect Windbite and Flaming Arrow.

It's the same principle for when MCH doesn't have a DRG in the party. It's silly to say a MCH is doing more damage than BRD because they can "buff" their own damage with hypercharge; That makes just as contextual sense as a DRG buffing his own damage with disembowel, or a MNK buffing his own damage with dragon kick.

Beyond people showing logs which have been either padded or skewed through faster clear times (and I'm talking an entire minute at the minimum), there's no solid fact that MCH is blowing BRD out of the water as far as dps is concerend. The two, when compared to each other, are relatively close to each other, before and after 3.1 when they had buffed mch (whom at the time had consistently lower personal dps than BRD in the same circumstances)

[Greywolfamakir]

You can say "FFlogs proves nothing....ble ble ble" but currently , in Alexander Midas, MCH is doing better DPS than BRD at the same point of gear/skill. It's a fact.

But personal DPS is not "all", i mean, MCH is doing better personal DPS than BRD but with a 2 mages comp, the overall DPS is gonna be worse than with a BRD, then BRD is better than MCH with a 2 Mages comp, it's a fact too.

The true "issue" for BRD here is just the current meta, i mean, 2 meles + 1 ranged + 1 mage. Why this meta?
--Melee comp brings better overall DPS than Mage comp. (Mages just bring personal DPS in terms of overall DPS, They don't have tools like Trick Attack, Battle Litany, Dissembowel, Dragon Kick...etc)

BRD can't be the master of everything, i mean, BRD can't be better than MCH doing enything...BRD is really good with 2 mages comp, but MCH is better with 2 meles, just that. Current BRD's state is a direct consecuence of current meta, it's not by the personal state of BRD/MCH themselves.

BRD doesn't need buffs because current state, maybe in the future 2 mages comp could be the popular meta and the BRD turns into "Best support of the patch".

[Slyqc]

You guys really seem to forget the important part and focus on the DPS... repeating the same thing again an again...

[Kelevra]

The true "issue" for BRD here is just the current meta, i mean, 2 meles + 1 ranged + 1 mage. Why this meta?
--Melee comp brings better overall DPS than Mage comp. (Mages just bring personal DPS in terms of overall DPS, They don't have tools like Trick Attack, Battle Litany, Dissembowel, Dragon Kick...etc)

BRD can't be the master of everything, i mean, BRD can't be better than MCH doing enything...BRD is really good with 2 mages comp, but MCH is better with 2 meles, just that. Current BRD's state is a direct consecuence of current meta, it's not by the personal state of BRD/MCH themselves.

BRD doesn't need buffs because current state, maybe in the future 2 mages comp could be the popular meta and the BRD turns into "Best support of the patch".

The 'typical' 8 man composition consisting of 2 physical melee, one physical ranged, and one caster has been common for a while though. If we're talking end game raid, there some that may run one physical ranged, one physical melee, and two casters...but it doesn't happen often (not to my own experience anyway). There are some that would try one melee (no Drg), one caster, two ranged...rarely see these, if ever. The 'current meta' as far dps comp goes isn't something that just started recently.

However, if the Piercing debuff was shared...that could change. And not for the worst. Parties wouldn't always have to try and seek out a Drg for one of there melee spots to always accommodate the ranged dps (if that ranged dps happened to be Brd and Brd was given access to the piercing debuff). May also get to see more compositions featuring both a Machinist and a Bard...seeing as Machinist is really good now. Machinist and Bard would be able to benefit each other in a composition like that.

[ashwich]

You guys really seem to forget the important part and focus on the DPS... repeating the same thing again an again...

^ This, again.

[RiceisNice]

You can say "FFlogs proves nothing....ble ble ble" but currently , in Alexander Midas, MCH is doing better DPS than BRD at the same point of gear/skill. It's a fact.

That's the problem with constantly going back to FFlogs. There is no direct 1:1 comparison when you're looking at fflogs the way it is right now because when you look at the top MCH and BRD, it swings widly because of clear times being a difference of over a minute, and/or astros being present (and balance being given to the MCH, no less). I'm not arguing that on record BRD is doing the same amount of dps as MCH, but that doesn't prove that BRD is behind MCH in dps objectively. This was exactly the same during gordias, except it had gone on enough times that you'd sitll have some resembelence of similiar environments between the two (and BRD was still ahead by a few digits, on top of better group dps), and MCH representation was only at double digits at the time.

The uptime on foe combined with RoD has always put BRD ahead of MCH even with 1 casters during 3.0, as far as raid dps was concerned. The functionality of hypercharge also makes it less flexible to use for damage debuff or doubled regen without directly affecting MCH's personal dps (since it is a turret potency boost). The change to hypercharge has leveled the field, if not shifted the advantage to MCH a little bit.

It's a problem in the current meta just as how much the previous meta was favoring BRD with foe reqiuem with a caster and healer dps (which is still applicable provided the group is capable enough) If you say it's a problem with the meta, then sure. But we're just gonna be moving the problem around if we give BRD an edge toward caster comps (which means you won't have melee, or just stick with DRG, because the crit buff is just too good to pass up compared to other buffs).

And even then, this only really matters when we're talking min/maxing, something that you really shouldn't make a big deal out of unless you're going for world firsts.

However, if the Piercing debuff was shared...that could change. And not for the worst. Parties wouldn't always have to try and seek out a Drg for one of there melee spots to always accommodate the ranged dps (if that ranged dps happened to be Brd and Brd was given access to the piercing debuff). May also get to see more compositions featuring both a Machinist and a Bard...seeing as Machinist is really good now. Machinist and Bard would be able to benefit each other in a composition like that.

And then throw out casters? Giving BRD a piercing debuff doesn't even make sense because it's not going to level them to where MCH is. Again, Yoshi's stance on BRD/MCH is that they both sahre the same role of "support" dps. MCH is not a full dps job as much something as the melee/casters are.

You guys really seem to forget the important part and focus on the DPS... repeating the same thing again an again...

Then stop bringing up damage or the "dps gap" as a thing then, because that's what most of your points come back to. If a fight isn't designed around BRD, that's very much so the case for the 3.0-1 days for other jobs when they weren't preferable. You also mentioned that they could make MCH a pure-dps job instead of dps-support, making BRD once again uncontested in party compositions.

[Greywolfamakir]

It's a problem in the current meta just as how much the previous meta was favoring BRD with foe reqiuem with a caster and healer dps (which is still applicable provided the group is capable enough) If you say it's a problem with the meta, then sure. But we're just gonna be moving the problem around if we give BRD an edge toward caster comps (which means you won't have melee, or just stick with DRG, because the crit buff is just too good to pass up compared to other buffs).

I totally agree, i mean, its a problem in the current meta, but meta is not defined or selected by players, just SE manage meta when they do changes to clases.

MCH was out of meta during 3.0-3.1, actually he is better with the same meta and now BRD is out.

But like you said, meta is about min-max, and min-max is pretty serious when you are searching for first world of something close to first world.

[RiceisNice]

But like you said, meta is about min-max, and min-max is pretty serious when you are searching for first world of something close to first world.

This is the big thing. If groups are going as far as excluding jobs for the sake of performance or the min/maxing, then they're probably not a very good group to be in if they feel they need that edge this late into the raid tier, because I'm sure as hell that these most of these groups aren't world first material to begin with.

[Slyqc]

@RiceisNice

Are you drunk? I think I probably mentionned the DPS gap like once or maybe twice if you count the moment I have bring concrete proof of that DPS gap, after that we just discussed about it without really pointing it.
I really don't want to repeat myself (Again) but I'll make an exception for you.

The problem lies in the kit of both classes, they are almost clone with only few difference but these difference are gigantic when it comes on deciding a class for raid. Currently the perfect exemple is the Heavy + Stun the MCH can bring on the table while BRD don't have anything.
But the fact that they are almost clone classes bring the real problem when you look at the DPS Gap, since MCH is holding it's place near BLM and SMN, is MCH a support DPS or a High DPS class.
You can't have both, currently MCH got both, THIS is where the problem is!

[RiceisNice]

@RiceisNice

Are you drunk? I think I probably mentionned the DPS gap like once or maybe twice if you count the moment I have bring concrete proof of that DPS gap, after that we just discussed about it without really pointing it.

...
But the fact that they are almost clone classes bring the real problem when you look at the DPS Gap, since MCH is holding it's place near BLM and SMN, is MCH a support DPS or a High DPS class.
You can't have both, currently MCH got both, THIS is where the problem is!

You're still bringing it up in your problem example, nor is it even entirely validated like I've been saying because you keep trying to bring it up as a comparison to what they can bring to the table. There's a discrepancy because you're looking at comparisons that's consistently skewed toward MCH in either clear times, buffs or both. An average MCH certainly is not pulling the numbers that an average melee/caster would be. Your point rests entirely on the fact that MCH can do both high dps comparable to a melee/caster (which isn't completely true) and support, while bard is delegated to the latter. It always comes back to your perspective of how MCH brings more to the party than a BRD does (including damage), at least that's what I'm getting.

As far as fights are concerned, that will always be the case and it's been the other way around since 3.0-3.1; during at which time their personal dps and party dps was still lower than that of a BRD. But that still wasn't a good excuse for them to exclude MCH out of groups (much like how it's not a good excuse now to exclude BRD). This has always been the case for the melees and casters, but at this point they've also dealed with it. It's entirely new to BRD because they have been the uncontested job role for the entity of 2.x, and arguably for 3.0-3.1 since they were superior to MCH for min/maxing under normal circumstances (esp when the name of the game was dps checks(