Questions about Bard.

[Akiudo]

Good information so far, thanks. I like the bards aesthetic; I like being an archer and I like the unique prospect of being able to create music. It's a shame that the class is so low on the tier list in terms of personal DPS. I know every class is viable for pretty much any content, but I'm still not itching to be the lowest prospective performer in any group I join.

As for the class taking a hit for being physical range and having mobility, that's a little weird to me. With my Summoner, for instance, the vast majority of my rotation is instant cast. I have very little issue with uptime. I mean, do any classes, beside maybe BLM, have real uptime issues?

BRD likely wouldn't be my main anyways, and balance does seem to shift a lot in this game, so I may level one just to have it.

lets just say there are people that work under the assumption that "free" movement means a physical ranged can and will dance around the arena 99% of the time and that this is such a boon on the group they deserve to do at least 10% less dps than anyone else otherwise no one would take these less mobile classes.

realistically ? yea that is simply not true, all casters indeed are plenty mobile to handle mechanics with "minimal" dps loss (amount may vary, but losing 200 or even 500 [and in 9 out of 10 cases it will be closer to 200] dps do to movement doesn't matter if you start with a 1000 dps headstart on the competition) and "running around in circles just because" is not just useless but actively detrimental do to the way these fights are designed+active heal ranges but hey.

at the end of the day of course "free" movement is an advantage for a class, so it needs some disadvantage to counterbalance, however as it stands this disadvantage is such a heavy baseline dps tax, its basically impossible to capitalize on the advantage the "free" movement offers, which leaves the physical ranged role right now in the realm of "whatever, you will take one anyways for the 1% buff"

[Liam_Harper]

at the end of the day of course "free" movement is an advantage for a class, so it needs some disadvantage to counterbalance, however as it stands this disadvantage is such a heavy baseline dps tax, its basically impossible to capitalize on the advantage the "free" movement offers, which leaves the physical ranged role right now in the realm of "whatever, you will take one anyways for the 1% buff"

Exactly.

Currently the movement tax on ranged is far too high. Most fights are designed so that you can keep very high uptime with nearly any class. Especially melee, where bosses have a decent sized hitbox and you have free movement within that area, usually only losing a GcD a few times per fight at most. As melee you even have tools like gap closers, Enpi, Meditate, ranged Ninjitsu and so on to reduce that downtime even further. Which is good, no one wants to twiddle their thumbs and just sit there during mechanics, but it does mean the advantage ranged have is maybe 1% or so, which the current tax doesn't reflect.