Bards, have you had interesting experiences explaining the new (Refresh) to healers?

4.0 has been out for months now, but I still have lots of healers ask me, as a bard, for "ballad now please!" or something like that. But of course, Ballad was re-purposed and we have Refresh now which works a bit differently.

So I guess there are different schools of thought on the best way to use refresh.

For the best dps boost, if you use Refresh when you use Foes, it increases Foe's length dramatically and Refresh's cooldown is back up when you have enough mana to do Foe's again so that lines up nice. In this case you'd just be using Refresh on cooldown and sustaining the healer's mana. This probably would give them the most mana bonus overall but if they suddenly die and get raised or other people die and they have to raise several, then they might be in a tight spot if you can't refresh them then. In the past it made more sense to just sit on "ballad" because it reduced dps but now it doesn't so it's more convenient to use whenever. So hence bard are using it more frequently.

Another choice is to just sit on Refresh and only use it when the healer appears to be in trouble. This is more like the 3.0 style Ballad. However, if you have a healer that is main healing and a second healer that is dpsing and healing, then they probably will notice they have significantly less mana if they are spamming attacks. So, though, it seems "safer" to sit on Refresh, but of course your Foe's uptime suffers and the healer that is dpsing will have less mana to work with...also if your main healer didn't die or have to raise a bunch, they will just have less mana in general than they could have since you just aren't using refresh on cooldown. This might lead the healer to be a bit more stingy with heals to reserve mana and they probably won't dps at all.

So I guess myself I do both ways depending on how much I trust the healers and the others not to die.

What are your thoughts? Have you had any amusing experiences as a bard with healers still asking for "ballad"? Of course most healers in statics doing savage probably already understand what refresh is (I'd hope, but I've seen some that don't), but, I just mean in general.

healers just need to learn, its not like ballad anymore, I cannot spam it anytime I have mp......

There is a cooldown... >.> I've run into alot of healers that just don't grasp this concept....

I usually just sit on it for a while depending how the healer dpses/uses MP in general.

180s cooldown with a 30s duration.

I usually use it when a healer dies and is raised.

I use it when I notice the healer MP dropping quite rapidly. I never really understood why some BRD/MCH use it right as the tank is starting the pull, when everyone is sitting at max MP and won't be low on MP for some time still.

I’ve actually not had any healers ask me for Ballad yet. Most ask for Refresh, which I use slightly differently compared to your usage, if I’m using it offensively.

I am waiting patiently for one to ask me to play Ballad for them, though. :3

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Originally Posted by Avatre

I use it when I notice the healer MP dropping quite rapidly. I never really understood why some BRD/MCH use it right as the tank is starting the pull, when everyone is sitting at max MP and won't be low on MP for some time still.

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BRDs that Refresh pre-pull are using it to extend Foe’s from ~23 seconds to ~30 seconds.

I find it's not really any different from being out of MP from using FOEs in 3.X. It's the same principle really. No MP, no Ballad. No Refresh, no MP. Both resources were used for FOEs so not much has changed.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

BRDs that Refresh pre-pull are using it to extend Foe’s from ~23 seconds to ~30 seconds.

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Ah, fair enough. I guess I just haven't played BRD/MCH enough, since I haven't touched my BRD since getting it to 70, and haven't even touched my MCH since Stormblood hit.

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Originally Posted by Avatre

Ah, fair enough. I guess I just haven't played BRD/MCH enough, since I haven't touched my BRD since getting it to 70, and haven't even touched my MCH since Stormblood hit.

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Yeah, there’s several ways you can use Refresh offensively, you can either line it up to extend Foe’s, or you can use it after your MP hits 0 to refresh your MP and play Foe’s more during a fight (also serves as an aggro dump after your opening burst).

Which method you use is dependent on comp, from what I understand. I do the latter because the NIN in my static wants Foe’s lining up with as many TAs as possible, since my comp only has TA and Chain Strategem as the major buffs (no AST, no DRG...I’m crying). Though, each time you play Foe’s, you sacrifice a Heavy Shot, so it’s usually better to extend as many Foe’s as you can, rather than go for usage, depending.

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Originally Posted by Avatre

I use it when I notice the healer MP dropping quite rapidly. I never really understood why some BRD/MCH use it right as the tank is starting the pull, when everyone is sitting at max MP and won't be low on MP for some time still.

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For MCH I don't have an answer but for a bard to use refresh at start they are doing it to double their Foe's uptime and letting healers do some damage at the start of the fight without worrying about mana. At the beginning of the fight, everyone's cooldowns are up so there should be all kinds of debuffs on the boss and so it's a great time for healers to dps if they feel like it.

Refresh would be up again in 3minutes so hopefully no one dies and needs refresh in the first 3 minutes of the fight... If they do then your shinryu ex or whatever group is probably gonna disaband anyway... ; ; As has happen to me anyway.

I open with refresh for healers to DPS, they love it.

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Originally Posted by Cherie

For MCH I don't have an answer

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For MCH i usually use it 2 ways:
- after Bard pre-pull song and his Refresh expired, so that 3% damage will last much longer. (i.e. a total of 60s Refresh at the start)
or
- When healers @ around 40-60% mana.

Well in general if someone has to start explaining something they are doing to another. Someone is probably doing something wrong (that could be the DPS taking to much dmg, the tank not mitigating enough, the healers spamming non-essential spells, etc).

I use it when I see the MP below or around half. I will also use it when someone dies and is raised. I have not had any complaints about it. Its that old thing, if you are doing something right no one notices.

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Originally Posted by Vivi_Bushido

I find it's not really any different from being out of MP from using FOEs in 3.X. It's the same principle really. No MP, no Ballad. No Refresh, no MP. Both resources were used for FOEs so not much has changed.

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But you can use Refresh at 0 MP, if the CD is refreshed, and cannot even at 100% MP if it is not. For healers used to tracking the Bard's MP bar to see whether they can still be given mana, it's a very different principle.

They were shared resources. Now they're a resource ability and a CD. Should I say my Cure III is also a CD, since Lucid Dreaming is and both act upon mana, or inversely that Lucid Dreaming is just a mana-restoring spell?

On topic:
If they ask, my response is standardized at this point: "You will get Refresh (the actual MP-restoring effect) as frequently as my toolkit allows at any time you would not overcap mana."