Beastlords get a mildly "meaningful" mod of this type in group bestial alignment. It's toned down because it's a group buff. It's 45%. So I don't really consider 8% or 12% meaningful. 45% is the low, low end of meaningful. In fact if you look at battle leap, which is now just a permanent buff for berserkers and warriors (?), 45% is the gold standard for "utility level meaningful" when it comes to all skills % damage modifiers. Look at Eye of the storm for monks. Look at Knifeplay. These are the discs melee use when their real discs are down. Knifeplay rank 2 for rogues is 130% increase to all skills damage modifier. Again, you just brought up an 8% and a 12%. And I guess if Jonthan's Mightful Caretaker had max focus, 8 * 3.2 you're just under 26%, but still... knifeplay lasts 3 minutes and is up every 5 minutes from what I'm reading on it. Eye of the storm rk. III is 45% (again, gold standard of minimum). This lasts 2 minutes. and is up every 7.5 minutes (has a 5% duration type 3 as well, but if I'm being fair, this one is knifeplay junior.) Beastlords can give the whole group 45% for 2 minutes or so. I wonder how useful that is because when I look at all these other melee classes, they constantly have something higher going until their burns ALL run out. The only exception here is bards, and monks during that point where infusion of thunder is not up, but they are still using ironfist (I would assume they use IoT during heel and speed focus). It's an interesting situation. And bards are capped at 26% as a max. Rangers get a 38% group mod for ~2 minutes, but the interesting thing is that this mod also gives 20% v3 overhaste. That really feels like a sort of bard thing. What's the bard one for that cap at? 25%? Anyways, if a bard is in the group, generally it seems to make sense to wait on these ranger/beastlord abilities until discs are down for enough of the group for them to matter. I guess in a very fast fight you could just blow them at the start for the bard, and no one else really benefits due to other discs. But it would make more sense for bards to have something reasonable, and then to save those discs for later probably. Maybe an easy fix would just be to give bards battle leap.
beastlords: Bestial Alignment X 275%. Savage Rancor Rk. III 153% Ferociousness II, 100% Group Bestial Alignment: 45% rangers: Guardian of the Forest XXVII 75% and also 25% overhaste and 515 attack. pureshot is only for archery, but it gives rangers a 190% damage modifier. Outrider's Accuracy is meant to increase ranger's accuracy, but just on the side, let's give it Increase All Skills Damage Modifier by 76%. That's only 3x stronger than a bard gets with their best as far as this forum is telling me. Group Guardian of the Forest IX: 38% monks: terrorpalm: 157% infusion of thunder V: 90% heel of zagali gives a 74% mod, but only for flying kick. ironfist: 260% but only to specialized kick/punch attacks, not primary/secondary weapons. Eye of the Storm: 45% rogues: rogue's fury XX: 270% eradicator's disc rk. III: 114% knifeplay rk. III: 137% warriors: Two-Handed proficiency for warriors: 90% constant (when using a 2hander). This adds to 2handed skills, but they also add in 1hslash for attacks that are based on 1hslashing that warriors get, so it's fairly complete. I don't see what attacks a warrior would do aside from ranged throwing items that it is missing a mod for. Battle leap 45% constant. possibly others, I think this is more than enough to make the point. Bards:.............. fierce eye 12% weird song between 8% and 26% Bards are probably capped a bit too low here in this metric. Do they get some other metric aside from selos that makes this reasonable? I don't see it. Is there some ability we're all missing that gives bards at least one fast 100% + damage modifier? Or maybe a long term modifier that is over 40%? I think bards are more of an adps class, and I think diversity is hugely important. They add a diverse set of modifiers and some interesting mechanics to raids and are a needed class. But still, this is a bit much. Also, other classes that are dps classes are getting a bit more adps as time goes by, so I don't think that it is unreasonable for bards to get a bit of a boost here. Look at the berserker synergy and cry havoc and epic 2.0. Look at mana burn from wizards. It's not like ADPS is mutually exclusive, so why is DPS so geared against bards? And don't go overboard and make bards the king of all dps, but come on. If I see a bard in the top 10 dps fairly often on raids I'm not going to be bothered by this. Instead I'll be glad that the class has enough worthwhile things to do outside of melody, epic, fierce eye, quick time, and funeral dirge that it is a more fulfilling class to play on raids.
But bards were never intended to be top dps. And well coming higher would require to also get higher and then it is back to were it was. Imo it is good as it is. Bards never lacking a group so they get xp. And their seemingly lack of dps are made up in a group for what they bring to the group in add dps buffs.
Weak, generalized points sir. If bards can "always just get groups", you shouldn't use that as an excuse for the class to be a lesser. I mean your class can get groups too, so let's change your % damage modifier to 10% forever. That's the dumbest excuse ever. If they're in a group, they still want to contribute. What if the group only has 3 players, so 2 cleric mercs, a caster merc, a tank, a magician, and a bard. Now the dps the bard does being better would really matter because merc dps sucks compared to high end player dps. In that same group, you would get more dps in a full group out of a solid dps class than the bard, so that denotes a drastic failure in bard dps that is unreasonable. If bards are based to the degree you are saying around adps, then they need a boost in that area based on the adps that dps classes have to offer. And even then, if the boost has % damage modifiers meant for the entire group, they would be higher than even the self only bard mod that was listed in defense of the current state of bards. By probably double, or if it was a good mod, quadrouple. I don't really see giving them the battle leap buff or giving them some sort of self only hit mod as unreasonable, but if they get group buffs that deal in this, they should at least be as strong as what a ranger gets in this area. Rangers are dps first and adps second, and their % damage mod destroys the best a bard has. Plus they're giving overhaste with group guardian. So if you want to try to make it a "well bards do this and rangers do that" argument about adps, rangers are walking all over bards in that respect. If rangers can give 20% overhaste for 2 minutes, maybe bards should be able to hit like at least a bicycle while other "real" melee dps classes are hitting like trucks. Also, what does this mean? I really don't get what you're trying to say there. P.S. just give them battle leap. Who's got an honest complaint about bards having battle leap? That's from what I can see the perfect amount of boost for bards. It's not insane. They won't be beating all the berserkers, but it does enough that it pushes the class back into a good range for dps given their adps. It might even not be enough of a boost, but better to go that way than to go full out and then risk a backlash.
I'm not even a bard. My signature image is supposed to be the tiniest violin, for other reasons. But I stand by what I've said as far as giving bards a boost.
Give bards some more dps and monks. Don't give rogues anything else, they become lazy and don't work for it. Ruven
I agree bard dps is horrible but in terms of where they fall in line it makes perfect sense really. They should not be on the same level in terms of dps as a monk, rogue or zerker and really none of the hybrid classes should be able to out melee a pure melee class. So then you compare them to the other hybrid classes excluding pally and sk since they are centered more around tanking than dps. Bard vs ranger and bst. All 3 have great group buffs/songs but bards have a much larger selection depending on the group makeup. Both bard and ranger can track so they have a leg up vs Bst there. Bst has a pet so they have a leg up there. Bards are far superior pullers compared to either class so advantage bard. I know we could sit here and compare abilities and such all day but its to point out that a class is more than numbers on a parse. Bards are the jack of all trades and provide a lot of things to a group that would take several different classes in that group to do. If you want to kill things faster play a pure dps class. I am sure zerkers would love to punt and fade when ever they want.
I'll be serious. The issue with both bard and monks is that pulling is pretty much died recently, but they are paying a huge dps price for a skill not needed anymore. The other issue, is there isn't consistency anymore with classes on utility versus dps. There are some huge holes that on paper make no sense. A bump in some sustainable dps for bards, and some love to monks isn't uncalled for. And this isn't advocating lowering everyone else to boost them up. Ruven
Pulling is still a useful skill in less than ideal groups. Sure if you have a good tank it doesnt matter, but not all groups go with a good tank. If you have an upcoming lightly geared tank, or a pet tank, or a merc tank you have to watch your pulls. Id like to have more dps as much as anyone, but I dont like hearing that pulling is dead.
more DPS a bard has the less likely someone will not just have them be a buff bot and they will be in melee range and die. More dead bards is what I want to see!
I like the idea of battle leap but maybe also a lesser clone of warriors duel wield stance. id like to either do more dps or have our nitch back for mana and end regen for groups i feel dicho needed to be adjusted but how it was done was to extreme. At the end of the day I want to feel like as a bard I contributed in a meaningful way to a group or raid. When we had dicho and we could refill end and mana so fast that we cranked up others dps i can see where it was balanced to keep bard dps low. But with all our power for that nitch roll removed i cant see a justification for it. If i cant be like wow i just refilled my teams kill juice id like to put up competitive numbers with other hybrids <------- i want to be in a close dps ball park with rangers and beastlords...not rogue or zerks.
Say no to dual wield stance. All that does is make you a bad tank and bad dps. I call that stance the monk stance.
introduce another aa imo, Selo's Dropkick, with an animation like flying kick, but it does more damage and is 30 second cooldown.
what's up with people saying that beastlords and rangers are less dps than rogues? did something change since last time I raided?
They all end up pretty close depending on group/players etc.. I think the two fair things to say are that monks have been a bit low, and berserkers have been a bit high out of the non bard melees.
To see the game as "hybrid" vs "pure classes" is an outdated and irrelevant vision of the game. Now it's about tanks, healers, dps and support (whatever you want to name the category bard/enc are in). You have to understand the modern game to come up with reasonable solutions or you end up comparing all the abilities, trying to give them the weight you want (and that will be different from everyone else) to make your point. There's no way something productive comes out of this. The real question is, does the class can fullfill its current role in the game? (Can a tank class tanks, can a healer class heals and so on) While bards provide a great boost to melee dps groups, they still could use a dps boost to be worth more than another dps in their raid group. That dps boost would also make them a bit more attractive in the group content where their support will likely not be used to its full extent unlike in raid. With the current gap in dps between them and the others there's a good margin of improvement before they reach the dps classes.
This is far from outdated or irrelevant and I think I have a pretty good "understanding" of the game. As I understand your position why not just scrap everything and just have a warrior, cleric, wizard and rogue. I mean what point is there in having several different types of tanks, healers, casters and melee classes based on your "understanding" of the game? Bards are a unique class all to their own. They have abilities of multiple classes which makes them the jack of all trades. If they were on par with any of those abilities with the class that's suppose to be the best at said ability it would make that other class rather useless. I do agree that bard dps on their own is rather horrible and could use a boost but it should not even be in the same ballpark are the pure melee and should fall short of a ranger and bst but that's just my opinion. Bards have more to offer than just a number on a parse. I honestly question people who only see the game based on numbers spit out on a parse. Sure dps is important but that does not tell you anything more than the amount of damage or healing. It says nothing about the identity of a class and the other things they bring to the table.
