A number of things i see wrong with this thread after reading through all these pages. First of all, do no compare any other dd to bard, they were designed to be stronger than everyone else while not singing because they are much weaker than everyone else when they are(-20% damage). Second, they are one of the best DD(second to only bard) at keeping uptime on bosses while everyone else is running to avoid mechanics they have a movement nuke(ruin 2) and DoTs rolling. You will realize how good the class is once u stop looking at bard abilities and going "derp bard is better" but i guess bard is the only dd that exists. In worse case bard is too powerful, doesn't mean other classes (especially summoner) are weak or useless.