WHY ARE YOU PLAYING A BARD IF YOU'RE NOT GOING TO SING?!

It's a balancing act.

I never sing the TP song unless it's specifically asked for.

Ballad I will sing if I see it's necessary or on downtime on Boss phases (whever a boss is untargettable, might as well get a tick or two of mp back). If I'm concentrating on maximising DPS and dodging AOEs, I may not be able to pay attention to the WHM's MP (and it is only WHMs that need this) so you may need to ask for it.

Foe Requiem I will sing if there is a magic DPS and/or WHM is holying. Even then there are restrictions: I won't do it if there are mobs around I don't want to pull and I won't do it if there is a burn phase coming up and I'm worried I won't have the MP to sustain Foe's through that.

Those seem like acceptable usage guidelines to me.

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Originally Posted by Apricoth

I think I said this in another thread - Bards need to be reworked. I was pretty mad when I saw what they came out with in 1.0 and carried it over to 2.0. The Bard needs more songs to play - more supportive roll, just like they had it in FFXI except more improved. Hell, have some sort of switch like white mages and scholars have (i.e. Cleric Stance) where if they are going to play a more supportive roll, they click that special button and if they want to be more of the Archer, turn that switch off!

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There's no room in Version 2 for a support class. They've said this.

As an avid BRD fan from XI I'm disappointed too.

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Originally Posted by Madoka

It's like most other things, don't tunnel vision. Just pay attention and you'll see when its good to play

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this ^
as a former BRD main, i know when, why and where songs should be played.
i dont understand why i either have to call out for a song (minus TP) or why some BRDs seem offended when you do.

i think sometimes they get it in their heads that they need to save MP just in case things go pear shaped and a healer will need MP or whatever
but by the time anyone would need ballad (which really is unneeded in so much of current content) there would be enough time to foes, run out of MP, fill back up and be ready to help out.

mind you, there are some really good bards out there that can foes>0mp>wait>ballad/TP if need be>foes and use voice when appropriate... but they are the minority (at least in Aether group).

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Originally Posted by Fyce

Good DPS / Never sings => Bad bard.


Poor DPS / Sings at a perfect time without being asked => Good bard.

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If this is the difference between a "Good" Bard and "Bad" Bard, I wish I saw more "Bad" ones in DF.

I barded in XI as well. Barding here is not even close to the same thing. We've inherited the class of player who has recount pulled to full screen and could give flip-all about the overall team accomplishment. I partly blame the design for this. Bard isn't a support class, it's a DPS class named because of two songs. It's Ranger with Ballad.

Terrible way to design a class, but that's what they did because they literally believe we are too stupid to play challenging roles. That is also why we will not see better things added to Summoner.

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Originally Posted by scarebearz

If this is the difference between a "Good" Bard and "Bad" Bard, I wish I saw more "Bad" ones in DF.

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If you are just going no-brain DPS with a bard, then the group can just replaces you with any other DPS class with more benefits.

A bard without any songs is just a wannabe archer with a useless job crystal.

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Originally Posted by Riviere

Bad WHMs that don't know how to manage their MP blaming BRDs. Who do you blame when there's not a BRD in the group?

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The other DPS for not queing as BRD :P

Hi! All arounder noob here!

To be honest, I have never seen yet a bard using Mage's ballad when I'm with WHM... Or Foe's requiem when I feel like doing holy spam...
I don't know where's the problem at all... With my bard I like to use foe's requiem all the time I can, and mage's ballad when I see WHM's MP is in danger. (Or simply when someone dies and depending of situation... ¿A boss that is going to use areas and the WHM has yet to raise someone and then heal? Mage's ballad)

I recognize I have NEVER... Wait, Almost never? Used Army's paeon... I used it only in one emergency situation two days ago, Tam tara deepcroft hard, the other DPS disconnected in the boss fight. I needed to recover my own TP before the next adds would appear and start massacre.

bard 1v1 dps is toned down a lot compared to other dps classes. They MUST sing to make up for this, or they are just a waste of space, in all honesty.

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Originally Posted by Sessurea

bard 1v1 dps is toned down a lot compared to other dps classes. They MUST sing to make up for this, or they are just a waste of space, in all honesty.

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A half-decent Bard will still out-dps all other classes in a DF party 90% of the time.

They don't need to make up for anything, bards can do more than enough DPS on any fight to more than pull their weight regardless of songs are used or not.

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Originally Posted by scarebearz

A half-decent Bard will still out-dps all other classes in a DF party 90% of the time.

They don't need to make up for anything, bards can do more than enough DPS on any fight to more than pull their weight regardless of songs are used or not.

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Well, if you're just talking about doing more damage than a random pub MNK in Sastasha during your low roulette, then yeah, you get a point.
But you're still a bad bard.