When do you need Mage's Ballad?

I've been having this issue while framing Alexander..

Situation 1:
Me: <Mage's Ballad up>
Healer: I don't need MP

Situation 2:
(After a wipe)
Healer: Bard!
Healer: No Mage's Ballad?
Me: You didn't ask for it


Even though in Situation 1 the healer had low MP. I usually sing when MP is around 10~15%

So question to healers, at what ???% do you need Mage's Ballad?:confused:

When we ask for it, that's it. Situation 2 was the healer problem, not you.

It's difficult to really say unless you know the fight mechanics but one time where all bards should be playing at least a little Mages' is when 3 or more people have died. Each raise reduces your mp by a fifth. Just keep that in mind.

Honestly...as a MCH....if it's a real situation where ballad is needed? A healer should never need ask. They should be keeping tabs on their own DPS/TP, MP, others MP, others TP, DPS, turret positions and rotation.
Same goes for BRD minus pet add some DOT/procs.

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Originally Posted by AlphaSonic

When we ask for it, that's it. Situation 2 was the healer problem, not you.

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The best bards keep an eye on on the party's status and respond without needing to be told what song to use at every moment, however. Yes, the healer can ask, but if resses are going out and they look low on MP? No shroud icon next to their name? Turn on Ballad. Like the guy below says.

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Originally Posted by Pence

Honestly...as a MCH....if it's a real situation where ballad is needed? A healer should never need ask. They should be keeping tabs on their own DPS/TP, MP, others MP, others TP, DPS, turret positions and rotation.
Same goes for BRD minus pet add some DOT/procs.

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I find that healers forget and do not ask for it and then scream at you for not watching their mp so I throw it up if I see them hit around 1500 mp in lvl 60 stuff unless there is a lull or the boss is under 5-10% depending on said boss.

I usually will have foes up if there are mages in the pt or we have a dpsing healer so in that case my own mp usually doesn't cover ballad anyway

If everyone does his job, we won't need it. We all have our own MP recovery abilities that we'll be using on cooldown.
If someone dies, we prolly still won't need it.
If a second person dies, we might need.

When my MP gets low while everyone is playing well, it means I'm ready to restore it myself and I purposely decided to splurge a little. In a farm party situation, everyone should be comfortable enough with the fight that you don't need to ballad.

But that's me. If you're playing with unfamiliar healers and you're really not sure, ask before the fight.

You need be way more specific. The only real reason you'd need ballad these days is Savage (Maybe Rav-Thor, IDK your iLvl).

I've been picked up many times. I'm hot AF. In the game? Eh, I've been around a few PUGs. Every single group has a slightly different start. You can never 'replicate' another group. My first kill? We mixed 3 different YouTube videos with our own experiences and it worked, many times. If you're having ballad problems - you're a bad MCH/BRD.

Both the above (At time of writing) are terrible at their jobs.

Eh, it's too much of a preference thing, really.

There are some spineless healers out there who feel uncomfortable at 90% MP while others keep their cool when they're at <1k. Either situation may or may not call for a ballad/Promotion. Simply use it as you see fit and don't wait for them to call it out. It'll just lead to 2 possible cases:
1) They'll just ignore it and let you do your thing
or
2) Ask you to turn it off for damage purposes

Neither of above are really bad, but not doing it leads to a possible third:
3) Blame it on you for not using it at all

edit:
In case you're collecting data for a spreadsheet or whatever reason:
Only time and place I'd want it is during transitions when you can't deal damage. Every other time I'll just have to plan it out. Exception would be Alexander Savage floor 4 so far.

I put ballad up when a healer gets raised and also, most of the time when they ask for ballad it's a bit too late.. as soon as I finish casting it healer is dead.

Oh well, I'll get better at reading the situation and act upon it :D

SCHs will almost never need Mages Ballad. As an AST/WHM I don't like to see Ballad played unless
1) I asked for it
2) I died
Or 3) It' a standard part of the fight for your party, such as A1S when The Opressor jumps and you're not DPSing anyways.

Ultimately you can't please everyone, and you don't need to try. I've accidentally depleted my MP to near-zero in dungeons and I didn't hesitate when the tank to pulled the boss, it just meant I had to take it easy for the first portion of the fight. Other healers will panic when they hit 30% MP, but that's the healers problem.

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Originally Posted by Yeol

I put ballad up when a healer gets raised and also, most of the time when they ask for ballad it's a bit too late.. as soon as I finish casting it healer is dead.

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If a healer dies, you should already start casting it, even before they accept any rez. Not only is the raiser taking an MP hit, but the raisee only has like 100 MP when they revive and can't heal themselves, so yes they will die unless the other healer heals them up before the next mechanic.

The other uses for Ballad are situational, but a healer dying is the only time when you should always have it up.

1300/1500 mp usually. Below this, I might need. At that amount or above, I dont. By the time I fall from 13k to 2k, I saw it coming. Either I dps'ed, or the party was awful. In either case, my mp managing skills are up.

I'll keep that in mind :)

I'd rather take the chance of playing it when the healer is confident and still has their recovery buffs rather than making them anxious or playing it too late to compensate for their relative inexperience/skill level.

You'll feel better the needs of an emergency Ballad if you play healer for a while. Except if you're Summoner, Mage Ballad is needed is moments of mana pressure or on "cooling down" phases. You can play it during a boss jump/transition to prevent the healer's mana to drop or cast when something unexpected happens that require healers to use more mana (death of a player, death of one of healers usually makes the other healer to spend even more mana).

For dungeons if you've a WHM/AST spamming Holy/Gravity play it between pulls! They'll love it.

Actually I don't play current endgame (Alex Savage) content and I have to say I don't expect Ballad at anytime. Not that I don't trust the bards or anything, but I trust in my owns skills to get mp back whenever I need it.

If the bard can spare his mp to stop requiem to do the ballad, Im grateful, but usually I don't need it for the content I run...

Depends. I look at the healer's MP and, since I also play healers, I can usually tell if they're going to be in trouble or not.
Like, I may have seen that WHM pop Shroud a bit ago but I know it's not on CD yet, but they're still really low...then Ballad goes on.

Especially if a few people/a healer have died, I'll play it as soon as I see the res stick to them (before they've accepted usually unless they do so asap).

On an unrelated note, is using Paean on a Warrior worth interrupting your own DPS for? Even if not, I imagine the difference is negligible enough to not care and just make the tank's life a little happier.

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Originally Posted by Knahli

On an unrelated note, is using Paean on a Warrior worth interrupting your own DPS for? Even if not, I imagine the difference is negligible enough to not care and just make the tank's life a little happier.

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Depends... if they give me enough warning then sure. I'm not a healer though I'm not going to be looking at your buff bar. Also if I'm not too busy obviously. A good ideal macro is when they pop the buff. "Five seconds" (like I see many) isn't enough time, sorry.

Also on principle I don't do anything for WARs who have like fifty warnings about when Berserk is going to fall off. It's annoying and you aren't going to be handicapped that long.

Mage's Ballad means I haven't been managing my MP properly. Usually on learning new content where I panic a bit more. When I get the hang of it I can manage my MP just fine on my own and would rather the BRD do their proper DPS.

As an AST if I need Ballad it means, I suck. Or that my group are not dodging and dealing with mechanics properly, so they require needless healing.

I have LA, ways to extend it and Ewer if things go downhill, as well as Lightspeed.

Would probably Mage's around 15% MP, if you are in a static then just use it when your healer's ask, another prime time to use Ballad's is during boss downtime when nothing is happening(ie. Oppressor Jumps, Living Liquid Tornado transition, Manipulator Mortal Revolution, etc etc.) If people are at pretty high resources during the downtime, may not need to play ballad and save your mana for Foe's when your spellcasters have their CDs coming up.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

The best bards keep an eye on on the party's status and respond without needing to be told what song to use at every moment, however. Yes, the healer can ask, but if resses are going out and they look low on MP? No shroud icon next to their name? Turn on Ballad. Like the guy below says.

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This. Besides being asked, keeping an eye on party resources(MP/TP) is part of our job.

At the same time need to play it smart - are we in the middle of a DPS check - if yes, is there a pressing need for resources? yes/no - if not a DPS check - I'll sing if I see low MP(~30% usually) unless the healers mention they don't need it at that time.
Did the boss just jump - I can sing ballad while doing nothing with no DPS loss.

I tend to tell people at the start of "normal" content that they don't have to care about my MP unless I ask for it. So no MP recovery (from BRD, MCH) nor waiting for MP to fill back up (Tanks) unless I specifically say so...which usually is never.

In hard content, I like it when BRDs play their song during phase changes and the like when the boss is untargetable.
Well, and in any content in general if I have to raise more than one person. Raise is the bane of any MP management ;)

There are very few times a healer needs it, as others have said only really if the fight has really gone south and a lot of rezzes have had to go out.
In normal circumstances we can manage it ourselves, if I feel my mp is getting a bit low I'll just stop dpsing and be a bit more conservative.

Literally any time you're not attacking something is also good.

Like the jumps in A1.

Ballad is almost never needed except for:

1) Bleeding edge content progression, i.e. Alexander normal with i160 gear, Alexander savage/Thordan EX with 180 gear.
2) Progression with new players where there are heavy MP costs due to not optimizing your group, for example: too many deaths (HUGE MP cost), panicky healers spamming AoE Heals/Succors.
3) Towards the end of a raid where healers start spamming expensive spells like Stone III/Broil/Holy.
4) If you have any of the above, plus a SMN or BLM, these may be compounded, because SMN may use Ruin III towards the end of a fight, knowing they have Ballad on because even though it's incredibly MP inefficient, it's their highest damaging GCD while DoTs are on, even outside of DWT

From a solo-heal perspective, I'm usually calm until I get down so low that I can't even use "Cure". Sometimes, my choice is "Regen" or "Divine Seal + Cure". If a DPS die, it's no biggie until I get MP back. Once two die, then it's a "hope" game, where I can stall healing the tank until enough MP is up for Medica II > Raise.

But, yeah... Back then, BRDs didn't like to use Ballad due to the reduction in their damage. I learned to be able to NOT rely on the Ballad, but by my own decision.

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Originally Posted by Jim_Berry

From a solo-heal perspective, I'm usually calm until I get down so low that I can't even use "Cure". Sometimes, my choice is "Regen" or "Divine Seal + Cure". If a DPS die, it's no biggie until I get MP back. Once two die, then it's a "hope" game, where I can stall healing the tank until enough MP is up for Medica II > Raise.

But, yeah... Back then, BRDs didn't like to use Ballad due to the reduction in their damage. I learned to be able to NOT rely on the Ballad, but by my own decision.

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We still have a reduction in damage 15% but that is not the point - it is part of our job to help with resources. But I appreciate healers that can manage their MP efficiently enough so I only need to sing during actual downtime or for short duration.

I main as WHM, but I have the other healers at 60 as well. I am currently leveling bard, and I do find that some healers freak out about it - but not many.
From a healer perspective I always find it a treat when I look and I am magically at full mp when I should be well below half, I would never complain about it. The only time I would be complaining is if they NEVER took it off...I have seen many bards in dungeons either constantly keep it going, or they refuse to use foe requiem instead because they are scared of that one time the healer might need it. Like someone said earlier, healers should NEVER need it unless the shit is seriously hitting the fan and they have to raise 5 people haha, we have our own mana CD's for a reason.

I only really want ballad in 3 scenarios as a SCH

1: boss goes into MC hammer can't touch this mode
2: some time after A4S straf doll werblwind, after raising/solo healing post pentacle saccing because we're huge cowards
3: If I derp hard and get raised with aetherflow still on cooldown

I know I would get out of mana if no Ballad is played at A2S. But thats mainly because I spam Blizzard II.

It depends. How many times have I had to res people failing mechanics this run?

When you see my MP drop below 10% is a good time.