Archer skills

Hi just wondering what are good cross skills to add to my archer class. I was looking at getting cure or protect so I can act as support or should I got for more skill speed or damage mods ?? Just want people's opinion.

Invigorate, Blood for Blood, Internal Release, Second Wind, Keen Flurry

Mantra also has merit in some situations but I tend to find Keen Flurry more useful in more situations (earthshakers, tanking adds (obviously not intentionally, but hey it happens), just about anything parry-able).

On my bard I have (in order)
Internal Release, Invigorate, Blood for Blood, Featherfoot, Second Wind.

First off I would recommend getting your soulstone and becoming a bard. Your Dps and support potential will increase dramatically.

The cross-class skills that were listed by those above are all really good choices for you. As bard, I don't think you get access to cure and protect anymore. I would not recommend continuing to play as an archer at your level and using cross class skills such as protect and cure -- many of those you party with may consider it a self-nerf and question your intentions.

Also your cure will be quite weak.

The only legitimately useful archer xclass spells are provoke and perfect dodge which can THEORETICALLY be used to eat tank busters. But its hardly viable or recommended. Just play as a bard so you have songs and +30 dex that the soul crystal gives.

Yeah I have BRD soul crystal just not used it as I only have 1 song but didnt realise it gave 30+ dex so will be usong it from now on thanks

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Originally Posted by Bramman

Yeah I have BRD soul crystal just not used it as I only have 1 song but didnt realise it gave 30+ dex so will be usong it from now on thanks

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Even if you only have one song (you only get three by the way) it's still better for groups to be a BRD.

Remember, Mage's Ballad decreases your own attack power. The way I use it is if the healer gets low on MP, say, thirty to forty percent, I start playing until they have about seventy-five percent MP again. Then I turn it off. Learning when to turn your songs on and off is important :)

As for healers, Paladins and Summoners can also use MP boosts. Black mages do not usually due to how they recover MP with their spells. Ask your party whether they want a song or not.

Use Mage's Ballad as soon as the healer's MP is too low indeed. Especially when one of the healers died and was raised. Even if you have only 500 mp yourself, it will still help him greatly. (you don't wanna die due to a lack of cure because the healer can't afford it, do you?).

Also use Peaon, to regen TP for any melee who died, or when the fight is starting to last. It will help. You don't need to let the song flow eternally though, after 40sec or so, their TP's should be back to a normal rate, if not at their 100%.

And the third, Foe Requiem, is a powerful weapon as soon as you have mages in your team. It can be BLM, SMN, AND even healers when they're in dps'ing mode. Your song will increase their damage a lot, and the mages have skills among the best aoe-wise. You shouldn't deprive them of that opportunity ^^^ (Magic Def - 10%)
Be careful though, with Requiem Foe, not only it is a strong ability, but it aggro's enemies really fast. I usually wait until the tanks settled aggro well (after a few seconds, to give them time for their initial cycle)

You have a support class. Even your LB is designed for it (you have the same LB's as healers, ie Cure/raise everyone).
Also, as a bard, you can have Mantra, as a cross skill, improving every cure (+5%) within a range for anyone inside. Doesn't sound "too great", but it helps, in particular when a boss is casting a powerful Aoe. (works under Healing-Over-Time casts, such as Medica2 / Regen, now it starts to be more interesting, right?)
Second Wind is a nice cross-skill, it will regen your HP quite a lot. (At ilvl 120, Second Wind crit at around 1400 HP). Not much in comparison with a healer's cure, but will save your life countless times. (and will save your healer some mana for free!)

As a side-note, during actions, your mates may or may not notice you are giving them the buffs. To make it clear, as you don't wan't to see your WHM or SCH run at the very opposite of you during your manasong (would be far out of range), you should mention it.

I use the following macro to tell the party :

Mantra :

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/micon Mantra
/ac "Mantra"
/p I'm using Mantra : All cures improve+5%

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Mage's Ballad :

Quote:

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/micon Mage's Ballad
/ac "Mage's Ballad"
/p Using "Mage's Ballad". Stay in range to regen MP.

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The /p line means "tell in party log", in case you're not familiar with macros. Your mates will receive the sentence you choose. The name of the skill between "----" can be auto-translated, that would make it best, so that anyone even with a different language will understand it.

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Originally Posted by cgbspender

...You have a support class. Even your LB is designed for it... .

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Don't let this mislead you. You are a damage dealer job that queues and takes up the role of damage dealer in party compositions and as such, you should be pulling off reasonable numbers. No amount of support you offer via songs will make up any deficiency in damage if you don't have an understanding of your class and DoT uptime.

In party play, managing foe is incredibly key if you have a BLM or even WHM that uses holy in small parties.

^ What others have said, learn on when to use your songs and the duration. Always check the mp bar of healers. If there is mellee classes for dps, certain fights you may want or need to play ballad for a certain duration, turn it off as you may need Paeon.
Foe benefits basically whm, sch, blm, smn and even Ninja, so usually if there is 1 or 2 caster dps more then say a group with Monk, drg then i would prioritize foe over Paeon.
Invigorate, blood for blood, internal release, second wind and mantra are my cross class abilities i use.
Also note that your songs have a hearing distance so if you are not in the range of the group it is of no benefit.

Battle Voice is an important skill as well that will make whatever song you're using 2x as strong for 30s. So if you're going to take that hit to DPS for ballad or tp regen, this lets you get the most out of it. I macro'd Battle Voice to say 'Current Bard Song 2x effective next 30s.' and that way the message applies to whichever of the three bard songs I might be using battle voice with. And party members should be able to tell which I'm using- foe requiem puts a debuff on enemy, and ballad/paean have very different looking status indicators. I save battle voice for when I really want it to count- healer is raising another healer and MP restoral needed, or burn phase where I want magic resistance to be -20% for 30 seconds (at no DPS loss to me).

Level 50 Bards who finish dungeon runs or extended battles alongside a party without using their MP for something are typically bad players, but many like that exist. It's especially sad if they have a healer in their party that's able to both heal and use cleric stance to do magic damage, but the bard can't be bothered to cast foe requiem. Using Foe Requiem while solo is usually a bad idea (unless farming lower level enemies you want to pull) but in the context of battle with a party, once a tank has initiated a fight, maintaining/regaining enmity is their responsibility and there's hardly any fight where you shouldn't be able to use foe requiem after the tank's done the initial pull.

What people don't mention, though, are the situations when your songs are not needed in the dungeons at all. Yes, you're supposed to sing Foe all the time, if you've got mages in the party, but when your only mage is WHM who doesn't spam Holy... There's not much meaning in Foe. Or spams erratically, constantly switching in and out of Cleric Stance. It all comes to reading people's preferences (the most important factor in BRD's gameplay, I think, aside from knowing how your skills work).

Anyway, not using songs in prolonged battles with Invigorate on CD/no Goad is a crime. Gives you a little room to breathe and alleviates your TP starvation. Very useful trick to get some juice to squeeze in a few more shots.

By the way, a few weeks ago, when I was leveling my WHM, ARC's were on SS spam in Sastasha x.x Level freaking 50 BRD? SS spam. Level 34 ARC? SS spam. All for the sake of getting procs. Anyone cares to explain what they were thinking giving such an excuse?