Dear All Bards,

Songs are highly situational and depend greatly on the class make up of the group. Sometimes if you use Foes, you'll actually lose overall group DPS due to missed attacks during the cast time and the lowering of your own DPS by 20%. 10% magic resistance debuff won't always make up for that. And even when it does, if it's only by a little amount, did it really matter?

There are some cases where songs do help (Ballad and BV should be obvious), but there are none outside of cob where it truly makes a difference. At least not enough of a difference for people to get so pissy about like in this thread. lol

Sing or don't sing, it doesn't really matter guys.

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Originally Posted by FaileExperiment

Sometimes if you use Foes, you'll actually lose overall group DPS due to cast time and

the lowering of your own DPS by 20%.

10% resistance lowering

There are some cases where songs do help, but there are none outside of cob where it truly makes a difference.

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Foe's Requiem does not reduce your damage at all while active.
The resistance is basically a 10% bonus damage for your mage.
Casting it before the fight starts negates the cast time of the spell, leaving you with only two reasons why you don't sing it:
-> You do not feel like it because it's not required
-> You do not have a Magic-DPS in the party who would benefit from it.

Ballad can always be a boon if your healers are scrapign less than 50% MP. Watching their MP and singing appropriately is good for them.
Further, Peoen is for TP users and is required in long/endurance fights, unless you enjoy your DPS doing auto attacks waiting to get TP back.

EDIT-IN:
Even taking your thoughts into consideration about losing damage, I can't help but theorize a little, so I punched some numbers

Let us say you did 300 dps over the course of a 5 minute encounter. DPS is measured in seconds, so that's 60*5 = 300 seconds. 300*300 = 90000 damage.
Now, singing Requiem takes up 3 seconds. That's 900 damage lost if we assume that it's a raw conversion. 89,100 damage done.

Now, let's assume (Even though the BLM will be doing more than you) that the BLM is only doing 300 DPS as well, over the same 5 minutes. Again, 90,000 damage.

Let's say it lasts for 30 seconds with 10% extra damage. the BLM will be doing 300 DPS for 4 minutes 30 seconds, and 330 DPS for 30 seconds.

300*270 + 330*30 = 9,900 DPS

In just that 30 seconds alone, the BLM has already made back the DPS you lost. And these are with numbers that extremely favor the BRD's DPS over the BLM's. Your Foe's Requiem will last more than 30 Seconds, and this doesn't account for using BV at the start.

This is jsut random math I did. Honestly, it'll never be this clean - like I said, the BLM should always be easily out-dps'ing the BRD. And this doesn't account for the BV (20%, doubling the BRD's input), nor the true duration of Foe's Requiem. If we assumed BV, the BLM would actually double the "Loss" the BRD put in.

Hopefully Machinists will have TP and MP regenerating turrets to replace the role of these Archers

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Originally Posted by Eidolon

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Yep you're right, Foe's doesn't decrease the BRD's damage. I must have gotten it confused with the other two. Using you're math though, it still shows (even taking into account that a BLM will normally be doing more damage than the BRD) that the DPS gained from the song isn't that large. Not enough to really make a difference that's noticeable, even over long endurance fights. So my point still stands. You shave a few seconds off a fight. We can still beat the raid whether or not the BRD does songs. Sure, it'd be nice if every BRD sang songs optimally at all the right times to minmax the groups potential, but almost no one plays their class that well. I can't count the number of times I get retarded tanks who literally cannot decide who is going to MT or OT over the course of the whole raid. Who cares? just have fun!

Consider this:

1) You always have a caster in your party: the healer. Should they decide to assist with DPS, Foe Requiem will benefit them.
2) You may get paired up with a BLM or SMN in 4-man content. You could also take NIN into account since some of their Ninjutsu deal magical damage.
3) In 8-man content, you'll always have 2-3 casters or more. In 24-man content, the minimum number of casters is at least 6. In that kind of content, one healer will usually be assisting with DPS while the other looks after the bulk of the healing. Throw in some caster DPS on top of that and you have lots of casters benefitting from the song.

Every point of DPS counts. Anyone who says that playing Foe Requiem doesn't make much of a difference are either ignorant of what it offers, or are playing with so many bad players who can't capitalize on a buff that's being handed to them that they feel disgruntled to not play it for them. Don't be lazy and just play the song, guys.

1st thing i always do when enter a dungeon via DF is look at the party makeup foes is probably my most used song out of all of them.. hope bard get some decent songs when heavensward comes even tho im switching my main to machinist lol

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Originally Posted by FaileExperiment

Snip

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Note he was only giving BLM the same dps as Bard for easy math. A BLM that is doing it right will always do more damage than a Bard even if there was no 20% debuff on Ballad or Army. And of course it also only takes into account if there is one Bard and one Caster, taking into account healer and any time you can have more than one caster along side a Bard that Foe's will rack up rapidly.

And of course you can beat the raid without them, but myself personally, I like trying to do my best even if other people really aren't. If I'm not playing to my full ability/trying to get myself better, it just isn't quite as fun. And I'm not exactly the best, and yes that includes when and when not to sing.

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Originally Posted by Dualblade

I like trying to do my best even if other people really aren't. If I'm not playing to my full ability/trying to get myself better, it just isn't quite as fun.

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Why can't more people think like this? It'd make the game far more enjoyable for everyone. It's really annoying that people get chastised for playing affectively by critics who usually perform sub-optimally. Yet, that is another discussion for another time. We're talking about the more specific case of lolBRDs not singing their songs or don't know how to use them effectively.

I look forward to some possible new songs that may be added in Heavensward. It may encourage people to sing more and how to use each song properly.

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Originally Posted by FaileExperiment

Using you're math though, it still shows (even taking into account that a BLM will normally be doing more damage than the BRD) that the DPS gained from the song isn't that large.

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My math was an absolute vacuum that does not account for the BLM's buffs, the presence of additional mages (Such as healers, who do benefit from it when adding DPS) or likewise alliance(WoD)/Hunt members. The numbers change drastically when you remove the vacuum. Keep in mind, giving a BLM during their Raging Strikes is -massive-.


Raging Strikes: 20% for 20 seconds.

So, again, let's punch it...

Requiem: 300*20%*10% = 300*1.2*1.1 = 396 DPS for 20 seconds.
No Requiem: 300*20% = 300.1.2 = 360
300 * 280 + 396 * 20 = 84000 + 7920 = 91920.
Take out Requiem (Un-BV'd) for just those 20 seconds...
300 * 280 + 360*20 = 84000 + 7200 = 91200

So you added 720 damage to the BLM in 20 seconds during that buff uptime, and this doesn't account for the fact that the BLM's burst comes during a peak of their damage. It's more substantial than it looks, but this is all to show you mathematically how it is a gain and beneficial to the party's DPS output as a whole, even if you have to sing it mid fight.


Secondary Edit-In:
I get that you want to 'have fun', but really. When you can claim the BLM's damage is a result of you doing Requiem, doesn't that boost your own ego? ;) Ninja's add like... 1.67% damage per party member that they can claim if they use Trickattack every time it's up (not accounting for buff timing.) Knowing that you're increasing other's DPS makes you look better is pretty awesome to me, and part of why I as a player -love- support jobs.