Bard songs, changes are needed! Support orientated

Hello everyone,

I've been pondering about the Bard songs for some time now and here is what I think about them and what I'd like to see changed.

Mage's Ballad: Mage's Ballad is alright as a song because if a fight just drags on and on it is definitely needed to keep the mana pool of healers up, however since there aren't a whole lot of fights yet that take this long (sure you need to use it after Heart phase Titan HM but this is one of the very very fights where it's needed) Mage's Ballad hasn't had it's time to shine yet in my opinion.

Part one

Part two

Foe Requiem: Foe Requiem is hardly needed and hardly used I guess (personally I hardly use it since people are asking for Mage's Ballad which is the only viable song in my opinion at the moment, not including Battle Voice), Change: just completely change Foe Requiem to a song which slowly regenerates the health of party members (please note I'm not talking about a full blown heal I'm talking about something which is similar to Mage's Ballad, a regen aimed at health instead of mana). The Bard won't be able to do any damage while 'singing' this song although the mechanics will be just like the Mage's Ballad song, a song which can be turned on and off and has no cooldown, however the MP drain on this song will be bigger than on Mage's Ballad and it's nothing more than a supporting heal it won't be on the same level as a heal that comes from an actual healer.

Part Three

Army's Paeon: This song is pretty much useless if I'm brutally honest.. If and when a party member runs out of TP all they have to is auto attack (which fills your LB) for 20-30 seconds and they're able to use their skills again for the next 2-3 minutes. Change: change this song to a buff with an actual cooldown. Effect: when the Bard plays this song the damage of all party members will go up with 25%, however the Bard won't be able to move for 30 seconds while 'singing' this song and the song will have a 3-4 minute cooldown. This way the song becomes viable and crucial because you will need to think about when to use it since using it at the wrong moment will only backfire on you since you won't be able to use it at the time you need it most.

Part Four

Rain of Death: Nothing wrong with Rain of Death really, it places a debuff on the enemy target which lets it do 10% less damage which makes it a pretty good and viable skill in my opinion.

Battle Voice: Battle Voice is a great final skill to get as a Bard if the other songs were actually viable which sadly they aren't so no changes needed for Battle Voice although changes are needed to the other songs

Final Part

Whole story wrapped up
These are the changes I would like to see made to Bard songs (where changes have been made), this way you will have the following:
- Mana regeneration (Mage's Ballad)
- Health regeneration (Foe Requiem, maybe a new name)
- An actual party buff (Army's Paeon)
- Damage debuff on enemy target (Rain of Death)
- Buff to Bard songs (Battle Voice)

Please let me know what you think and if you also think that Bard songs need to be changed or include your own changes in your reply!

Cheers!

Use edit to bypass the 1000 character limit.

Ah lol ok xD well I'm done with the story anyways xD will keep it in mind for future posts though thanks!

If you are playing with Casters in the party, Foe Requiem is an extremely useful song and you should try to have it up whenever you can, while making sure that you have enough MP to help the Healers get their mp back with Mage's Ballad. There are plenty of encounters where this can come in handy. Any Primal, Any dungeon, any Turn in Coil. As long as you have one Caster DPS, you can increase their overall damage by quite a bit with Foe Requiem up. I don't see it as a waste.

For Army's Paeon, This song is less useful than Foe's or Ballad, however, it is still useful in many occasions. The most powerful example I can think of is Coil Turn 4, if you play Army's Paeon in between Phase 3 and Phase 4, your Melee DPS, and to a small extent yourself, will have more TP to help AoE down the adds that spawn during this phase. I have seen a significant increase in kill time during the phase when I rotate Army's Paeon and Foe Requiem, so I definitely see it as worth it.

As the encounters become more complex, the powerful support abilities of Bard really shine. I wouldn't be surprised if in the future your opinion on certain abilities will change.

I don't have any experience with Coil yet so I can't say anything about that but it's just that the feeling I get from these songs is that they aren't crucial, they don't have a clutch moment when they need to be used and when I think about a Bard I think about a decent mix of support and dps (just a personal opinion) but right now it seems to be a lot more dps (not necessarily a bad thing ;D) and you don't really have those moments where you go like 'Yeah! I'm really using this song to it's full potential and I'm actually supporting my party', it just doesn't really feel like you're bringing support to the party, but you may be right and this may be just my inexperience as a Bard.

And while you're right about Foe Requiem there isn't any buff that ups the damage that comes from melee leaving the melee dps out of it which leaves a gap in the song really.

And what you say about Army's Paeon makes sense but like I've said before it doesn't feel crucial because from what I understand from your post it (Turn 4) is doable without Army's Paeon it just takes a bit longer (please note this is just me replying and trying to understand things from your post since I don't have any experience with Coil yet).

Mage's Ballad works fine as is. It is a VERY big boost especially in chaining / long fights where you don't see much/any out of combat mana regen.
-Speed Running (whm holy-spam!)
-Titan HM
-Coil (various places)

Foe Requiem: +10% elemental damage (+20% with battle voice), works GREAT with Monk / Black Mage... lackluster with other classes
Army's Peon: Active TP regeneration, works fine... not often needed
Rain of Death: stacking dmg debuff, works fine
Blunt Arrow: off GCD silence, works fine

Bard has a LOT of support, that's why SE is considering if they gave it TOO much damage and looking at how to scale it back... and hopefully keep it in the same ballpark as other classes.

-20% damage while playing song and still depleting mana

Requiem doesn't give you the damage penalty.... so you can be providing a "free" 20% boost too 2 other classes DPS for a short time.
If you're worried about mages MP, *usually* you're not worried about bursting out damage.
If you're worried about melee TP, *usually* -20% from you is better than the team adding 1-2 GCD's between ability chains.

What I can tell from your posts, you are kinda of expecting songs be essential and truly turn the tide of battle. Unfortunately songs do not work like this and are more of an added convenience thing. The utility that they give is good however it is not required. Whether that makes them useless to you or not is your choice.

Battle Voice is the only ability that truly makes you feel like you are turning the tide of battle, with Battle Voice, Ballad with give Healers more MP than they can use, Paeon will give Melee/Tanks more TP than they could use, and Requiem spikes Caster DPS tremendously.

yup songs here don't have as big of an impact as XI but still enough of a difference

If your party is offensive caster heavy, you should always try to run with requiem on. No damage penalty for having it on and in most cases Bard's mp is being unused anyways. Just be careful when running around. The debuff from the song can pull unwanted attention.

That's exactly what I meant Lefeauge and I admit that my expectations may have been too high, I won't deny that the songs do have their uses (I know I've used the wrong words in my descriptions though so don't say I'm contradicting myself :P I'm correcting myself here) it's just that I feel like I'm missing something since the songs of a Bard feel like they should be a pretty big thing but they seem to be lacking the actual impact I was expecting them to have but like you say that's more of a personal thing rather than a real issue it just would have been nice if there was something that like you say could turn the tide of a battle.

I think you're greatly under appreciating the songs. Bards are by far the best utility dps in the game and songs are a big part of it.

Mage's Ballad can "turn the tide of battle", because when your progression fights drag on that ballad can mean the difference between a wipe and a kill.

Foe Requiem is even better, it dictates where the tide turns. The damage buff is extremely powerful, and you don't lose 20% damage playing it. That's free damage.
Mage's Ballad can be used to save a party, but Foe Requiem is a constant support otherwise. You should be able to keep doing it and stop to save mana if you know you'll have to help the healer's mana.

You said you only need Mage's Ballad for Titan's heart, right? But then you say you don't play Requiem much cause people always ask for the Ballad.
You should be using Requiem as much as you can. It even buffs your own damage, but it's bigger deal if you have a mage.

Army's Paeon is not as useful, I'll admit. However, no one should ever auto-attack for 20-30s to do normal dps for a few more minutes. That's bad and will probably kill your group in the long run if you're doing coil (or even Titan's phase 5, maybe).
It's not as useful, because it's usually not needed since all TP users have Invigorate. However, when it is needed bard's are the only ones that can and should provide. There are times when this can also turn the tide of battle when you're pushing an enrage in T4 or even just trying to get the kill before you all die.

Of course mistakes like that go away as people know the fights by heart. But that just means bard songs shine in progression fights.
They're a safety net that can help you push through odds that you aren't necessarily ready for otherwise.
If that's not turning the tide of battle, I'm not sure what is.

I don't mind bard's having all the utility it does, while pulling decent dps and being extremely mobile. But you really can't ask them to be any more important.
They're the only required dps in a group already.

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Originally Posted by Allyrion

You should be using Requiem as much as you can. It even buffs your own damage, but it's bigger deal if you have a mage.

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Agree with the rest of your post, but I have to point out that Foe's does nothing for our damage. It does, however, affect all caster dps. WHM, BLM, SMN, SCH, all get a boost.

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Originally Posted by Viridiana

Agree with the rest of your post, but I have to point out that Foe's does nothing for our damage. It does, however, affect all caster dps. WHM, BLM, SMN, SCH, all get a boost.

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I've heard in multiple places that foe buffs your dots. It's not a huge dps increase, maybe not even significant personally for the bard, but I was pretty sure it does that.
Am I wrong? I'd like to know.

EDIT:
I see it's been proven not to work on bard dots. I retract that statement then.

Bard songs are fine as it is, if there will be some changes, I'd say it's the MP consumption of songs, making Bards more support oriented.

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Originally Posted by Teleniel

Bard has a LOT of support, that's why SE is considering if they gave it TOO much damage and looking at how to scale it back... and hopefully keep it in the same ballpark as other classes.

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Bards don't do more damage than other classes. On Coil Turn 4 you are much better off with a double caster + bard combination than a double bard + caster.

I also think you're mistaking monks for summoners.

I see.. I would like to thank you all for replying to this and helping me get more insight in the usefulness of all songs this helped me a lot although everyone seems to agree on the point that Army's Paeon isn't that useful xD. There is 1 thing that's kinda bothering me though and that's the fact that Foe's Requiem only seems to affect casters leaving the MDPS out which in turn leaves a gap in the great buff (as I understand it from you all) that a Bard gives to casters, sure MDPS got their own buffs but some of these buffs are also cross skills for other jobs and they don't compare to the duration of Foe's Requiem (which can be kept up for as long as you want if you got the mana) or is it just me and do the MDPS get their similar buff from another job?

Please Note: I only have a lvl 50 MNK and BRD (and I haven't been lvl 50 on my BRD for that long) so I don't know if Foe's Requiem affect a DRG in any way so please forgive me for my ignorance if it does :).

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Originally Posted by Kurotab0

Snip.

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Bards buff magic users. Dragoons buff bards and themselves. Monks buff themselves.
Though by buff I mean debuff.

Foe requiem is a debuff to reduce magic resistance on enemies.
Disembowel from the Dragoon reduces piercing resistance on enemies. Bards and dragoons both do piercing damage. (This, I'm sure about)
Dragon Kick from the Monk reduces Blunt resistance. Monk attacks are the only blunt ones (for now!). I guess you know this one since you have a 50 mnk.

So everyone's accounted for. Not sure what the tanks do, not like it matters much.
Dragon Kick and Disembowel can be kept up constantly. Just like requiem.

Hmm that's true, didn't consider it from the debuff point of view was only thinking about 'buffs' >.<' my bad..

By the way Allryion (and every other MNK out there) I got a certain issue with Dragon Kick. If I open with Dragon Kick it doesn't register the debuff, I've always gotta open with Bootshine and work my way through forms to Demolish and then to ToD before I use Dragon Kick since I first need to place other DoTs to be able to register Dragon Kick as a debuff since I won't see it otherwise..

Here is my rotation as a MNK: Bootshine, Twin Snakes, Demolish, ToD, Dragon Kick, Twin Snakes, Snap Punch. Then I use Bootshine, Twin Snakes, Snap Punch and the occasional Steel Peak if it's up until I need to refresh my DoT's. (I know I haven't included buffs like Internal Release but I use those whenever they're up)

Is this the same for you guys or am I doing something wrong because I was/am pretty sure about my rotation.

this is like the 5th time this support role is going around

4 man parties will never make this happen, there is no support role

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Originally Posted by Lecreuset

this is like the 5th time this support role is going around

4 man parties will never make this happen, there is no support role

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Just posting to say "this ^" so they make us support, we use df for wp or ak. Oh look we got a bard we can't do it now. Looking for speed runs well sorry you are a brd.
Until brds get there own role to queue into we are dps.
I would like our songs to be buffs, like casting haste, or shell, or attack buff
Drg and mnks also need party buffs as well (besides mantra)

Lecreuset if you'd actually read what I posted you would read that I actually only proposed 2 changes to 2 songs to give it more of a support like feeling, although some people have already gone through the trouble to patiently explaining the actual usefulness in some situations of these songs to me, and if you think about it for a moment you'll come to the conclusion that I wasn't saying "OMG make Bard damage obsolete and nerf their damage and make them only sing songs" and that all I posted were some changes to songs. Because if you think about it, all the damage a Bard does comes from the skills they get from their Archer base class and not from their actual songs.

What I envisioned was what NyssaElf said about some buffs like Haste, Shell or attack buff would've been nice however I never said that the damage that Bards do should just disappear.

Oh I read it, but if you'd actually get to higher tier fights you'd know that you would need to use everything you have and learn to manage your mp.
"Mage's Ballad hasn't had it's time to shine yet in my opinion". Well you've never been to coil on your bard it seems.
Monks/dragoons run out of TP especially in turn 4 and 5 even with invigorate. I use Army's Paeon alot. Foe Requiem is awesome especially if you have more than 1 caster.

There will be no more buffs/utility that bard will provide until more expansions come out. More songs would be nice but they're not going to give anymore things to any classes so they can give it in the next expansions.

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Originally Posted by ProxyTooMuch

Bards don't do more damage than other classes. On Coil Turn 4 you are much better off with a double caster + bard combination than a double bard + caster.

I also think you're mistaking monks for summoners.

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Summoner does un-aspected damage, so it *should* not get the bonus damage from requiem. Monk has Fists of Fire (punch damage is elemental fire) so they DO get it.

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Originally Posted by Kurotab0

By the way Allryion (and every other MNK out there) I got a certain issue with Dragon Kick.

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It's my understanding (not being a MNK) that it requires Opo-opo form or Perfect Balance to get the debuff rolling. You don't actually start in Opo-opo, you start with "no form."

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Originally Posted by Teleniel

Summoner does un-aspected damage, so it *should* not get the bonus damage from requiem. Monk has Fists of Fire (punch damage is elemental fire) so they DO get it.

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Testing indicates that SMN *does* get it, and MNK *does not*.

@Viridiana ... Foe Requiem increases elemental damage by 10%, or by 20% with voice active.
Summoner does not do elemental damage (un-aspected)
Monk can do elemental damage (fists of fire)

that being said ... I haven't tried parsing it nor have I seen any testing show it but then I haven't looked for it.

http://ns.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comment...d_foe_requiem/

>_>

Also, just to nitpick, nowhere does Fist of Fire say that it does elemental damage. I mean, logically I get why one would get that impression, but it really doesn't say anything at all about doing fire damage.

it lists it in the buff tool tip

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Originally Posted by Teleniel

it lists it in the buff tool tip

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The outdated buff tooltip from 1.0 that also says it drains your MP while you have it active? :p

Foes' Requiem also helps SMN damage.

BRD needs more songs in general, after all it is BRD...

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Originally Posted by Teleniel

it lists it in the buff tool tip

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All the fists tooltips are incorrect and come from 1.0.
This has been tested. They only provide buffs.
Their tooltip when you mouse over the actual ability is accurate but not the one on the buff bar.

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Originally Posted by Kurotab0

Hmm that's true, didn't consider it from the debuff point of view was only thinking about 'buffs' >.<' my bad..

By the way Allryion (and every other MNK out there) I got a certain issue with Dragon Kick. If I open with Dragon Kick it doesn't register the debuff, I've always gotta open with Bootshine and work my way through forms to Demolish and then to ToD before I use Dragon Kick since I first need to place other DoTs to be able to register Dragon Kick as a debuff since I won't see it otherwise..

Here is my rotation as a MNK: Bootshine, Twin Snakes, Demolish, ToD, Dragon Kick, Twin Snakes, Snap Punch. Then I use Bootshine, Twin Snakes, Snap Punch and the occasional Steel Peak if it's up until I need to refresh my DoT's. (I know I haven't included buffs like Internal Release but I use those whenever they're up)

Is this the same for you guys or am I doing something wrong because I was/am pretty sure about my rotation.

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As Viridiana said, the debuff from dragon kick requires a stance.
You don't start in opo-opo stance, you only get it after coerl stance (snap/demolish/rockbreaker). So you're right that you need one rotation before getting it up.

You should still start with Dragon Kick however! Bootshine does not get automatic crit without opo-opo stance as well.
That means that the choice is between a 130 potency Bootshine or a 150 potency Dragon Kick. Obviously the latter wins.

My rotation is something like:
Dragon Kick - Twin Snakes - Demolish
Dragon Kick - Twin Snakes - Snap Punch
Bootshine - Twin Snakes - Snap Punch
Dragon Kick - Twin Snakes - Snap Punch
Bootshine - (Internal Release) Twin Snakes - (Blood for Blood) Demolish - (Steel Peak) Touch of Death - (Howling Fist) Fracture
Dragon Kick - Twin Snakes - Snap Punch etc.

Important points:
- It's best to wait for GL3 to put up dots with the exception of Demolish.
This is because Touch of Death and Fracture do not move your stance, which means you're delaying getting to GL3 as fast as possible.
They are also buffed by GL so you want them fully buffed as well.

- Fracture is optional, though I use it. You should really only not use it if you have TP problems.

- Don't use Bootshine under Internal Release.

- This is usually my opening, however you can use Perfect Balance to open the fight. You will also get the Dragon Kick debuff if you use it under Perfect Balance.
However, you will not refresh the debuff after Perfect Balance ends, because it wipes your stances.
A good Perfect Balance starting is
(PB) Twin - Snap Punch x 3 - Dragon Kick (PB)
Dragon Kick-Twin-Demolish (dots)
Dragon Kick (yes again!) - Twin - Snap

Sorry if this is a bit off topic, but you did ask!