Red mage coming

[Duelle]

As a pre- and post-HW Bard main, I'll have to say changes for both Bard and Blackmage were necessary. As a Bard, I could just carry through entire fights of doing mechanics with nearly no DPS loss at all. BLM rotation was apparently really babymode in 2.x as well.

The problem with BLM is that Enochian was wasted on them, as Enochian is the type of mechanic you could build an entire job around instead of adding it as an unstable layer to the perfect and tight design of ARR BLM. Laylines and a mechanic involving Astral Fire/Umbral Ice ("spending" AF3/UI3 for an effect/spell, "locking" AF3/UI3 for some limited-time benefit to name two) would have been enough.

The BRD excuse is flimsy at best. BRD's DPS contributions had a ceiling due to being tuned inherently lower than everyone else plus damage penalties for resource recovery. The argument would have merit if BRD had matched BLM or SMN-level DPS post-nerfs. We also can't ignore that people actually liked the mobility and that it was one of the things that helped it stand out from the other ranged DPS. Lastly, the change was implemented as a bait-and-switch (because instead of doing a class and job overhaul, they just shoved the change down people's throats at lv52), and that's pretty much inexcusable.

[ShaneDawn]

The BRD excuse is flimsy at best. BRD's DPS contributions had a ceiling due to being tuned inherently lower than everyone else plus damage penalties for resource recovery. The argument would have merit if BRD had matched BLM or SMN-level DPS post-nerfs. We also can't ignore that people actually liked the mobility and that it was one of the things that helped it stand out from the other ranged DPS. Lastly, the change was implemented as a bait-and-switch (because instead of doing a class and job overhaul, they just shoved the change down people's throats at lv52), and that's pretty much inexcusable.

With a Dragoon, Bard damage was hardly "undertuned". Sure you couldn't match Monk DPS in most fights, but decent Bards never did sub-par DPS for playing a so called "support class". The damage penalties incurred by singing mana and TP don't even apply on a lot of the fights, as those songs are generally sang during down-time periods. Only during early progression, weak runs or long fights without down-time periods did those penalties ever get prevalent.

The amount of mechanics that were made completely trivial by a good Bard are numerous. While I agree we could have taken another approach (melee-range ogcds as a part of dps rotation for example, to make excessive running around less desirable), I can understand why Minuet was implemented.

[Syll]

With a Dragoon, Bard damage was hardly "undertuned". Sure you couldn't match Monk DPS in most fights, but decent Bards never did sub-par DPS for playing a so called "support class". The damage penalties incurred by singing mana and TP don't even apply on a lot of the fights, as those songs are generally sang during down-time periods.

MCH and BRD suffer from their weapon damages being 10% lower than every other class, by default. The ballad/paeon and Promotion damage penalties only exacerbate this, but it is a constant.

Also, A DRG for instance has GCD skills that reach 290 potency... compared to a a BRD's 150, or a MCH's 200(if both Split and Slug proc)

[ShaneDawn]

MCH and BRD suffer from their weapon damages being 10% lower than every other class, by default. The ballad/paeon and Promotion damage penalties only exacerbate this, but it is a constant.

I don't disagree with this, but with a Dragoon, both Bards and Machinists get an extra 10% to all their direct damage dealt via Disembowel. While this does not affect dots, it does bring the ranged classes up-to-par (or relatively close) to most other damage classes in the game. On this meta, both Bards and Machinists outdps Ninja players of similar skill with ease if they have a Dragoon in their party.


As for the potency of the skills, we have to remember that being ranged theoretically enables a higher activity% during the fight. FFLogs shows, that both Bard and Machinist are more than capable enough of doing damage on top of their valuable support, even with the nerfed Weapon Damage. In fact, the agreed "best" overall composition of DPS players atm is NIN/DRG/BRD/MCH.

But this is getting derailed now. The thread wasn't about Bards, Machinists and the earlier discussion was about non-Minuet Bard in 2.x. This will be my last post regarding this topic.

[Leigaon]

After seeing the video it doesn't seem that bad. It's a good RDM implementation compared to what we have available to us in the game, along with what we could have in terms of not just damage dealing.

I really liked how they took the crystal and attached it to the sword (or held close?) and used it upside down as a staff then right back to being a sword. It may not be everything that would go on the checklist of "what is a RDM" but with what is and isn't available to us in this game, it's looking pretty good. SMN has the lack of pet control, though the few enhancement / debuffs that come with SMN keeps me around, so RDM would have to have something that gets me in there. There will never be a hybrid in the sense of what we're use to because of how the game is set up.

As for the level 50 part, I could care less. You have everything you need in order to test out your own UI, combos and figure things out. We will have a lot of time prior to the job coming out and people will take that information and apply the "optimal" rotations before we can even download the patches. That will help those who are going to have a bit of trouble feeling overwhelmed, along with being able to read them yourself over and over. It won't be so bad.

Though just talking about being in the game, equipped as a RDM and playing? Those of us who have played know we have all the resources available to us to do things correctly. You will have leveling roulette, you might end up with a level 30 or 15 dungeon, right there you're going through learning it with limited skills. I would think maybe 3 or so Leveling roulettes and you should feel comfortable, or just one run for others. Guildhests will limit us to 50 and below, I get that turtle one every..single..time. Then there's being able to use DF to select specific duties. Select something that you feel is within your range. With it being a new job, along with a possible tank..it won't be so bad. New players who use the leveling potion and unlock things at 60 will have to use leveling roulette..when a majority of us are stuck back at 50ish they'll be down there with us.

We have training dummies to practice our rotations on, or go back and take up the hall of novice...between all this and talking with FC / Friends, there seems to be very little reason not to learn your job even if it starts at 50. 50 is perfect, it gives people 20 levels to mess with. Stock up on some casting stuff and head out into the world.

So happy, my favourite Final Fantasy class is going to be introduced. A little sad that its not hybrid, since I prefer to heal more then dps, but ooh well, goodbye healing, hello damage dealer.

Yes looks like we won't be able to do any actual healing, but maybe with the combinations of white magic and black magic we will have some abilities that will help our healers. I think that's about as close as we will get. Would it be really game breaking though if we had a stance that would increase our healing potency and give us something we could access Cross class like Cure? Right now the cures on SMN and BLM doesn't..do much, just in a pinch and even then it's not much. En-light that has an ability to drain to the entire party, and since it would be magic it would carry through aether to casters..that would be nice. Not healing like Cure II, but a party enhancement that helps cure..to an extent.

We will have to wait until we see the details. I'm more afraid of jumping back and falling off a ledge, or jumping back from one AoE right into another AoE.

[Felis]

We have training dummies to practice our rotations on, or go back and take up the hall of novice...between all this and talking with FC / Friends, there seems to be very little reason not to learn your job even if it starts at 50. 50 is perfect, it gives people 20 levels to mess with. Stock up on some casting stuff and head out into the world.

The negative about start at 50 is less job story.

since they scrapped classes for new jobs, that's kind of irrelevant.

The class story got skipped. The class is builded into the job.
All the skills you have as AST at lv 30 and all the other skills you get by level up without questing? Those are technically class skills.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

The negative about start at 50 is less job story.


The class story got skipped. The class is builded into the job.
All the skills you have as AST at lv 30 and all the other skills you get by level up without questing? Those are technically class skills.

No, it's not less story. It'll more or less have something similar we have now. Having job quests at much lower levels would mean either we'd get a ton of filler or they'd be all spaced apart because the devs aren't going to write a ton of job quests.