(06-22-2015, 05:10 PM)Natalie Mcbeef Wrote: If it doesn't, then so what?

I don't get the outrage. SMN spent all of 2.0 as the sub optimal magical dps after BLM got its buff. It's cool, people still played SMN, life went on.

Maybe MCH just isn't what you want it to be and that's ok. Either way we'll find out over the next few weeks.

(06-22-2015, 05:06 PM)Verad Wrote: You seem really upset about this. Don't worry, they'll probably fix it.

(06-22-2015, 05:19 PM)Verad Wrote: Do you feel ashamed for having chosen an at-present weaker class and a burden on your party, then? Is that the frustration?

(06-22-2015, 05:28 PM)Manari Wrote: Apparently that is "working as intended" for Bard because they can give mages some MP back slowly.

(06-22-2015, 05:39 PM)Zyrusticae Wrote: That's all well and good, but the fact remains that BRDs and MCHs get to deal with an entirely different playstyle once they hit level 52+. It's a rather harsh and jarring transition, to be sure.

(06-22-2015, 05:19 PM)Verad Wrote: Do you feel ashamed for having chosen an at-present weaker class and a burden on your party, then? Is that the frustration?

Pretty much. That, and spending the dozens of hours needed to get it to its current level.

Well, it's not wasted, since I'll still be playing it and it will most likely get buffed pretty quick. It's just quite unpleasant, and a rather bizarre sort of oversight considering how good they've been about balance before 3.0. Of course, I am biased as I would gladly have accepted an OP class that got nerfed down the line ala NIN than the opposite.

(06-22-2015, 05:28 PM)Manari Wrote: I sort of understand.  I loved Bard until I finally decided to get serious in early 2.0 and downloaded a parser.  I had equal or close gear ilvl and knew exactly how to DPS but I couldn't match or surpass anyone.  Apparently that is "working as intended" for Bard because they can give mages some MP back slowly.  (Which lowers their DPS even MORE) When I learned that, switched to Monk instead until NIN came out (which I wanted since 1.0 anyway).  I never felt that being able to give mages some slightly faster MP regeneration would ever make up for the lower DPS bard has, especially when MP is almost meaningless to BLM and even SCH and SMN for the most part.  But that was a long time ago, I'm probably never going back to Bard either way.  I'll wait for Ranger!

(06-22-2015, 05:40 PM)Melkire Wrote:

Show Content

spoiler'd for length
My understanding of game design is that melee damage dealers should always deal more damage than ranged damage dealers based on risk vs. reward.

A melee character is going to more at risk, given how most MMORPGs heavily feature enemies that have close-range damage skills, AoE or otherwise, that force melee characters to play it safe or risk dying. In return for skillful play that risks death, they come out with dividends. FFXIV:ARR had a perfect example of this in the PGL class and MNK job: you had to occasionally take risks to keep up your most important buff, or else your damage would fall off significantly.

Contrast this with ranged characters. Typically, you have two types of ranged damage dealers: the casters/channelers, and the instant damage types. Casters and channelers are generally designed with a higher DPS ceiling, since they also incur risks. If they don't plan well ahead of time, they have to break their casts/channels, resulting in damage falloff. Ranged instant damage characters, on the other hand, are the safest damage dealers. They are typically mobile, there's never a moment in they cannot deal damage as they have no melee range requirement nor a time requirement. As such, to balance out the fact that they are constantly contributing and the skill floor is much lower, they typically deal less DPS on average.

End result: ranged having less DPS output potential than melee is always a case of "working as intended" unless a game is designed such that risk does not increase with proximity to an enemy or unless extra mobility does not make one class safer than other.

(06-22-2015, 05:41 PM)Natalie Mcbeef Wrote: You should take a moment to think of us poor PLDs. :c

I can't just hit 1-2-3 anymore for optimal dps and threat. WHY SQUARE.

WHY HAVE YOU DONE THIS TO US.

(06-22-2015, 06:00 PM)Zyrusticae Wrote: I have never seen an instance where BRD mobility actually allows them to catch up to the damage of a melee DPS class. Not once. And that just tells me they went too far. If their mobility is that much of a bonus, then there should be at least one fight where they out-damage every other class. But they never do. And that's terrible.

(06-22-2015, 06:04 PM)Melkire Wrote: Mobility isn't supposed to put you on par. A mobile class trades in damage for safety.

On an anecdotal note, I've had BRDs surpass me in damage during instances that either had me losing GL3 at key points in a fight or else during instances where I was not at liberty to take advantage of gains from positional bonuses. Would I catch back up again? Yes, but only once I was at liberty to do so without undue risk.


EDIT: I agree, though, in that ideally all DPS classes should have a similar damage ceiling when played optimally with a tunnel-vision focus on damage-dealing, with slight variations on which class deals more damage depending on their respective specialties.

(06-22-2015, 06:45 PM)Aaron Wrote: I was tanking SoF yesterday and this Bard was outdpsing two nin and a drg.

Not sure if melee were shit.... or that bard REALLY knew how to play.

Quote:54 Machinist here, I'm just a hair away from hanging up my gun, for now. I really like the potential the class has, it's fun when things work, but then there's that time period between cooldowns, where you're just spamming 1 and the proc never comes...And your already poor damage becomes even shittier.
128 ilevel with a 130 gun, my highest crit in a dungeon with Clean Shot, without a cooldown up, was 1184. I've had two WHM friends confirm that their Stone 2 crits harder than that. Gotta work hard to get mediocre damage, they gotta improve the class in a huge way. It's still early access, but I really hope there's a wave of buffs in a hotfix this week, otherwise I'm gonna have to level something else. The doing-shit-damage thing really makes me feel bad for going into dungeons.

Quote:So I did some tests in game again as well as creating a rough spreadsheet of the first 20 seconds of an opener, and yeah, Wildfire basically does more damage without Gauss Barrel even if you cancel Gauss Barrel after the first Clean Shot. The discrepancies in the opener starting with Gauss Barrel and without were taken from 20 samples, but I guess RNG acts up. And so, it's not worth hard casting Gauss Barrel either.

Here's the spreadsheet with the math done: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cB-j_r0xrHGO99H8l5eGNau_Sx-gSRhXjEehVWpYrxU/edit?usp=sharing



): Gauss Barrel is basically useless other than for AoE pulls.

EDIT: Whoops, forgot to extend the GB openers to 20 seconds, GB is worth using only until Clean Shot after all for higher overall DPS in the first 20 seconds but not higher Wildfire damage.