#NerfBRD

[Kitfox]

I'm not sure I quite understand. Is the argument that BRD should be nerfed because there's actually something wrong with BRD...?

Yes, BRD should be nerfed because they scale unfairly in a balance breaking manner by stacking critical hit. It's not that their skillset should be nerfed but their gear scaling should. Their procs need to be independent of any straight attribute factors, similar to Straighter Shot's flat 20% chance, because otherwise their damage increases much faster than anyone else. You get a problem where BRD is either underpowered at the start of an expansion and balanced at the end, or balanced at the start and overpowered at the end. The latter is what we have currently.

This is not a MCH specific issue but it further makes MCH's QoL issues worse because MCH is the direct role competitor to BRD but they're not even close to competitive in dps. If MCH had much higher relative dps, you could at least justify playing it because it was effective, but currently it's not only the worse dps, but also suffering from QoL issues that prevent most people from playing it effectively.

[Connor]

Well, given the looks of this thread it doesn’t seem like the developers will ever dare touch Bard at all in future, if not only from the sheer outcry it would cause

Maybe they’ll remember Machinist is a thing next expansion. Though, I wouldn’t be surprised if it became so amazing next expansion that it made casters redundant lol.

I wonder if next time this year, this exact thread will return but it’ll be Bards asking for Machinists to get nerfed. Then the follow expansion has, in a shocking twist, Red Mage become the ultimate guaranteed raid job.

[HyperiusUltima]

Quite a discussion I'm seeing here. What I hope for is that the dev team considers what is being said here since this is constructive debate, and could lead to them thinking up something either great, or...something else. ...I still think the consensus is that the DPS Role has a lot of stigma when it comes to Raid Buffs.

If they want to change it, they need to fix A LOT of things to make every job desirable instead of "Take BRD because it buffs everything".

[DPZ2]

I've been following this for several days. Don't have an oar to dip when it comes to end-game raiding, but I would like to point out to those who are concerned that their "fair share" of slots aren't being filled by <class-of-choice> ...

Playing Bard is fun as all get out. Playing Machinist is a chore at this point, it isn't as fun. Perhaps the popularity in raids is more of this (fun vs not as fun) and less of that (I can do 500 more damage).

[Kitfox]

I've been following this for several days. Don't have an oar to dip when it comes to end-game raiding, but I would like to point out to those who are concerned that their "fair share" of slots aren't being filled by <class-of-choice> ...

Playing Bard is fun as all get out. Playing Machinist is a chore at this point, it isn't as fun. Perhaps the popularity in raids is more of this (fun vs not as fun) and less of that (I can do 500 more damage).

I'm less concerned about there not being enough of a class and more about unbalanced class design and ignored gameplay feedback.

[Kabooa]

19%

100 x .9 = 90 x .9 = 81.

[Leiloni]

I wish they would just totally redesign BRD to be a true bard that focuses on buffs and healing. The RIFT Bard is a great example and it's so fun. This Bard is just an Archer with some extras that don't really feel like true buffs.