Is bard in a bad spot right now?

[Minnel]

I've been asking about dps jobs to my dps friends and they are kind of acting like bard is sort of 0.9 of a dps. I thought bard was a good dps to have with the buffs and all but I guess not?

[Mondy]

As a new player bard main myself, I wanna find out too.

so far, I've been enjoying playing bard tho.

[CKNovel]

All ranged are 0.9 of a DPS.

However there is a role bonus for each different role you have in your party, Tank, Healer, Melee DPS, Caster DPS, Physical Ranged DPS.
That bonus is 1% of main stats, including HP.

It's quite strong and never worth to replace a ranged for a BLM/SAM/MNK/SMN composition.

In simpler words, you'll always get a spot as a ranged DPS in any party.

[Endariel]

All ranged DPS are in a tough spot. Dancer can go away at least thanks to the huge buffs he gives.
But machinist and bard.. oh boy

[Yuella]

Peloton shaves 1 minute off a dungeon run though, that's something.

[Taranok]

I've been asking about dps jobs to my dps friends and they are kind of acting like bard is sort of 0.9 of a dps. I thought bard was a good dps to have with the buffs and all but I guess not?

BRD has the unfortunate distinction of basically having its primary role stolen by DNC, while also having a rotation that's not quite there, that's getting worse in EW, and in general it's just outclassed by DNC.

It's perfectly valid. I've cleared Ultimate fights with a bard in my group, as well as all of Eden's third tier. It just has the luxury of not caring about what the boss is doing (provided it's handling mechanics otherwise correctly) and it pays for that luxury with lower-than-average damage.

Since Summoner is going to be about 84% free movement as well, I'm expecting it to be similarly penalized and just not do full damage compared to a RDM or BLM as well.

Peloton shaves 1 minute off a dungeon run though, that's something.

Don't forget having AoE rotations that scale at 2+ targets. While definitely not the best AoE in the game, all 3 rDPS tend to crush other classes not named BLM in AoE damage due to ease of use and how well it scales compared to single target.

[ForteNightshade]

Since Summoner is going to be about 84% free movement as well, I'm expecting it to be similarly penalized and just not do full damage compared to a RDM or BLM as well.

Funny thing about that is SMN can't be weaker than RDM as it lacks the utility to compensate. Therefore, it'll likely stay in its current position just under Black Mage and Samurai despite having near free mobility. Further proving the 1% party bonus exists only because the dev team doesn't want to balance the Range against other jobs.

[Noctisnine]

Right now? I would say yes, Bard lost his popularity from Stormblood because he gives mostly nothing to the party when dancer gives so much more. That will change in 3 weeks, for the better I hope.

[Risvertasashi]

I've been asking about dps jobs to my dps friends and they are kind of acting like bard is sort of 0.9 of a dps. I thought bard was a good dps to have with the buffs and all but I guess not?

So basically what happened is this.

SE wanted to introduce a new physical ranged DPS based around buffs while also wanting to reduce job synergies generally, so they severely weakened bard's buffs. But physical ranged already had a job for dealing pure damage, so said job was just better.

Problem is, this new job still outperformed bard via buffs. So, it was just worse from both standpoints - contribution via buffs, and contribution via pure damage.

Now with the buffs it got in recent patches, it's pretty much a wash.

But then bard also has this other problem - it's very easy to play imperfectly and "leak" DPS via imperfectly catching procs and so forth. e.g., if you delay that bloodletter by a GCD because you didn't notice it fast enough or incorrectly prioritize it, that all adds up.

And so in the hands of imperfect players, bard goes from "lowest red DPS in our group" to "really, really cruddy DPS".

-

And none of this matters if you don't raid. It's always been "enough DPS to clear content."

[Aiscence]

Most other jobs gives buffs too (outside of sam and blm), so in the end what you bring is just a subpar version of what a ninja or a rdm can bring while having 10 to 15% less dps than them, let alone a higher dps job. The only reason you'll be taken in a group is the 1% role bonus for bringing 1 of each tank, healer, caster, melee, ranged and that's it.