All physical range DPS are perfect now!

[Connor]

Not really. In the 75th percentile Bard a and MCH are about dead even, and Bards are bringing more to the table. At the 90th percentile, ranged phys dps is 3 of the 4 lowest.

Of course, the isnt that accurate yet, but every job beside NIN is well represented. From the looks of it, this role is bad at the moment.

I've tried checking again and you're right that Bard and Machinist are about equal at the 75th percentile I used, so at least in terms of balance within the role things seem ok. That said, considering they're using rDPS instead of pDPS, I don't think it's quite right to say that Bards are bringing more to the table than Machinist in regards to utility, even with Battle Voice. I'm not sure if Paean or Minne see any use within Savage, so can't comment on them or whether they'd add dps that isn't considered by the logs. That's not to say that Bard is in any way worse off than Machinist, since it closes any potential gaps with its high personal DPS. And while I do think that the main draw of the job being its fast-paced damage/mobility and not its utility is completely antithetical to what the job is supposed to be, in terms of number balance Bard does fulfill its role well

As for Dancer, even in rDPS they're still the lowest of all the jobs which seems kinda sad. In an ideal world a Dancer would naturally be the lowest in dps but close the gap with it's rDPS, which it doesn't seem to be doing. And as an aside, it's bizarre seeing Ninja right down the bottom with Dancer and Red Mage lol.

Lastly, you're definitely right that in terms of actual representation the ranged physical role is looking to be the most popular role of them all. Currently there are 1660 Dancer logs and 1579 Bard logs. The only job that outdoes them is Dragoon (which is way up at 2475). So numbers aside, there do seem to be a lot of ranged physical DPS being represented right now (though ranged physical has been the most popular role for a while now, particularly Ranger).

Havent read the whole thread (just the first page) but I agree, BRD is too much just a ranger at this point. The other two are in a nice place right now at the far end support DNC and the high end dps MCH. I would really like to see BRD get some more utility/song like effects back. Song like effects dont even necessarily have to be raid utility, but there needs to be more actual music connected to the class. It's also really not in a super strong place right now. Its not terribad, but its not great either.

This is just shooting ideas that may be bad here but; maybe three stances the BRD could switch between that werent cooldowns so it really was on need with simple effects coming from their 3 songs? one with a regen, one with a crit bonus, one with an MP restore for when the healers need it. all mild bonuses.
Could even give it an in combat movement speed buff song that would actually allow players to get more dps uptime before escaping, or just escape easier from AOEs in savage. In combat movement speed buff would be both very niche, nice QoL, but not a dps enhancer making it special.
Heck BRDs could even have a specialized esuna if no one wanted to go the regen route. There are so many options that still fit well in the game without unbalancing things that would just make them well... more bardy
Or just add songs that effect their own dps more. A personal speed buff on cooldown associated with a song.

Also this, I've been asking for more Bard-like aspects to the job since it came out, just to see them all be gradually dropped to the point I dropped it as my main completely. As you say there are a load of ways they could have added more 'musical' aspects without messing with balance within the role or making Bard 'compulsary' for raids like it was before. And naturally two jobs within the same role can both offer the same thing ('support') without stepping on each other's toes.
That said, if the aforementioned metrics are anything to go by there are absolutely no indicators to the developers that anyone has any issues with Bard. It does good DPS, and that's all it needs to do. And I mean, I can survive if they don't give it anything related to 'music' or 'songs' because it feels like a lost cause, but the developers really need to just rename the job Ranger and stop selling it as something that it's not. I feel like they've backed themselves into a corner now design-wise where all they really can do to fix it is remove the songs, rename the job and maybe make a real Bard job as a healer or caster dps someday. There's no way we'll get any new abilities between now and the next expansion, and looking at Bard's toolkit now just makes me feel like 'really? that's it?'