Quote Originally Posted by Risvertasashi View Post
That's some interesting... "revision" of history, shall we call it?

Bard was just flat out worse in ShB. Plenty of people liked BRD but felt forced off it.

And this sort of leapfrogging is going to continue because when SE introduced DNC, they didn't give DNC its own niche. So BRD will either be a worse DNC, or DNC will be a worse BRD.
Hasn’t this been the ranged dps role since Heavensward? I may be remembering wrong since it was a while back. Caster MCH/BRD come out, one does better than the other, SE decides to start a buff war where they were constantly adjusting potencies between the two for balancing (and failed every time from what I remember lol). Stormblood, I honestly cannot remember for some reason lol but I’m sure it was a still a case of one just being better than the other.

Shadowbringers, Dancer comes out, steals most of Bard’s support, brought healing skills that no other ranged had an answer to, becomes the ‘better’ ranged dps option. Bards give up on their job, Machinists disappear from existence.

Come Endwalker, Bard has stolen Technical Step from Dancer except 1% stronger, Dancers are now left with less personal damage and less unique things to bring to the raids. Machinists continue to be intangible (I’ve honestly seen like 4 this whole expansion lol)

Since then SE been caught in a desperate tug of war with itself to keep the ranged role balance between its own jobs and the other roles; it wouldn’t be the first time 4X Bard raids were a thing lol. The only difference is that they don’t have the resources to make as many adjustments mid-expansion, I guess because they have so much additional jobs to worry about now.

I predict that with the next expansion, Dancers will see a significant increase in their personal dps. Their support kits will be removed (both Steps are now just pure damage), Curing Waltz is now 120s cd. Machinist gets a permanent 5% damage buff to one party member, a 5% damage buff for the party every 120 seconds and it can restore HP to itself and nearby party members. It has slightly less dps to compensate (but still outdoes Dancer in rDPS). Dancers give up on their job, Bards cease to exist.

Come the next expansion…just swap the class names around lol. The ranged dps role is just an infinite game of musical chairs where everyone is too scared to sit down in case the chair is taken from under them