Confusion: Archer to Bard? Where is the Ranger Job?

[DeadRiser]

You don't have to be a Bard in all parties. It's simply an add on to Archer that gives you some new skills and I think it prevents you from using certain ones. You don't HAVE to be them in a party, it just gives you a certain job to do outside of Archer.

Just speculation.

[Ruisu]

Barcher looks great, I'm gonna play that all day. Bard in FFXI was pretty boring, but now that I'll be able to DD when I'm not buffing, it seems pretty cool.

[Lavani]

Cool, they killed my favorite type of class GG.

You don't have to be a Bard in all parties. It's simply an add on to Archer that gives you some new skills and I think it prevents you from using certain ones. You don't HAVE to be them in a party, it just gives you a certain job to do outside of Archer.

Just speculation.

So why nerf their damage so much?

[Anonymoose]

Cool, they killed my favorite type of class GG.

It's likely that neither Archer nor Bard would have fared well in XIV alone. - However, since I'm not the type of person to make a claim and not back it up, a bit of a history lesson and update on MMO building.

Ranged DPS is hard to fit into modern MMO mechanics, where classes have more responsibilities than they used to. In early MMOs, especially over dial-up, battle was basic, laggy, and slow - every class's job was simple. It had to be. Either take damage, do damage, make people take less or do more damage, or heal people who are taking damage. Today, that's not the case. Every job has more responsibilities. Hate rotations, skillchains, snap judgment on single-target heals, timing on "support" abilities - but ranged DPS remains largely unaltered. Stand back, hit hard, don't get yourself killed. While every other job gets more complex, ranged DPS still just stands off to the side and tries to not get hate. This can't continue to be the case; it's not fair, it's not balanced, and it throws the responsibility scale way off.

This is related to, but the flip-side of, the problem that plagues non-damage support classes such as Bard. Jobs that DPS but have support abilities (crowd control, hate management, acute cures, etc.) fare better now than ever - we've brought in the mechanics of split-second timing, positioning, etc. However, non-damage support faces problems from two directions: One, like Archer, it's hard to expand its responsibilities without expanding its capabilities, non-damage support classes still just buff and run (sometimes pulling, but in XIV there really isn't much "pulling"). In order to remain relevant, these classes have to take part in battle to a more complex degree.

Most importantly, in FFXIV, where every class should be able to hold its own solo; at the very least, either the starter class, or the job it evolves into, need to be combat capable. Support-to-Support class-to-job evolution would leave the player helpless to do anything alone.

The solution here, as far as SE is concerned, was to combine the responsibilities of these two jobs, ensuring their continued relevance in the modern MMO age. I think it's a brilliant idea; the job sounds fast-paced, multi-faceted, fun as hell, and their concept art is BEYOND GORGEOUS.

I don't see what all the hubbub is about. Archers in this game, even now, rush into battle, do damage willynilly until the dot goes red, and then just stand there until it goes away. When someone runs off without paying attention and gets aggro? it's usually an archer. When someone's not paying attention and takes hate? It's usually an archer. A little more responsibility, ironically, isn't going to get them (or me) killed.

[Lavani]

Nope, supporting is not my cup of tea, and now i'm forced into it. I wouldn't mind improving the raid DPS as long as I don't lose DPS for having those spells or be forced into a stupid song rotation so everyone else can DPS. As of right now, archers dps is terrible, and with them getting support spells, they will be forced to do just sing.

[Anonymoose]

Nope, supporting is not my cup of tea, and now i'm forced into it. I wouldn't mind improving the raid DPS as long as I don't lose DPS for having those spells or be forced into a stupid song rotation so everyone else can DPS. As of right now, archers dps is terrible, and with them getting support spells, they will be forced to do just sing.

Chances are that Archer's base damage is dropping because damage buffs will be among the job form's repertoire of songs. Like I said above, in a fast-paced battle, too much of either job's time is spent going back and forth between repeating the same type of thing, or doing no things. Switching back and forth between damaging until you're in danger, and then hitting Chameleon and rebuffing while you cool down will probably go smoothly and look bad-ass.

I'd say to wait and try it before you preemptively go all (no offense) cranky child with a slow-to-warm-up temperament on it. If you still think it sucks, level MRD. Warrior is probably the only job who will never have more responsibilities other than, "Keep kicking that ass."

You'll just see responsibilities like:

• "Kick more ass at the appropriate time."
• "Kick less for a second so I can get hate back."
• "Maybe kick some ass positioning yourself from this angle for a minute."
• "Keep kicking ass, but tank this for a second."
• "Quick, kick more ass than usual before it kills us."
• "Kick a lot of ass from behind me so the mob thinks I did it."

[Lum]

A battle Bard would actually be pretty fun, a couple other select MMO's have them and they end up being a great support DD if this is anything like those you won't be disappointed.

[Viridiana]

Nope, supporting is not my cup of tea, and now i'm forced into it. I wouldn't mind improving the raid DPS as long as I don't lose DPS for having those spells or be forced into a stupid song rotation so everyone else can DPS. As of right now, archers dps is terrible, and with them getting support spells, they will be forced to do just sing.

So, wait, you're specifically saying that your dps is more important than the overall raid dps? That's. . . outstanding. . .

[Skuld]

I wonder if when they implement musketeer we can switch, or if we can get both jobs cause it will be quest based.

[Anonymoose]

I wonder if when they implement musketeer we can switch, or if we can get both jobs cause it will be quest based.

My bet is that Musketeer will evolve into Corsair.