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

[Zaiken]

Both healers have ways to get mp back. In many parties you won't have a bard. With proper mp management you will never need ballad. A lot of bards do not want to use ballad because it lowers their damage by 20%. Proper MP management should be used instead of asking for ballad.

[Gallus]

Haha, well, to be fair, BRDs should know when to use requiem, that's for sure, but about mage's ballad, I think a WHM should have a <se.1> ballad macro, it really helps a lot. I mean, it is very obvious a WHM is going to struggle with his mana after holy spam, but in the middle of a heated fight, you are not very aware of how much healing that WHM is doing or if he needs ballad, you are basically focused on your BRD rotation (*trollface* I know).

[Razzle]

You can't manage your MP with Holy spam without Ballad. If there is no Ballad you can Holy like 2-3 times on every group, and you will run out of MP quickly, if there is ballad you can pretty much spam Holy until they die.

With Foe my Holy can do over 1200 dmg *per mob*, just to give you the idea of how it can speed things up for the party. Of course the choice is on the Bard, but you can't say Holy doesn't speed things up by a lot. (or you can, but it's not true lol)... ( > . >

Also let's not forget the stun, which saves MP on heals. if you time Holy right, it will stun the enemies and instead of spending MP on heals you spend to dmg the mobs PLUS prevent the tank from taking dmg for a few seconds.

After all that said, my opinion is to let Bards play how they want. But I won't lie - it's nice to have a singing Bard that knows his sacrficed DPS multiplies when he supports the party.

[Sessurea]

The 1/1000000 who casts armies paeon ......

[reality_check]

The 1/1000000 who casts armies paeon ......

I didn't even know this spell existed until like 6 months into playing the game.

Another 6 months later I still trip every time I see that elusive little buff icon appear.

[Sessurea]

I didn't even know this spell existed until like 6 months into playing the game.

Another 6 months later I still trip every time I see that elusive little buff icon appear.

A drg and monk personally thanked me for using it one time....quite elusive indeed lmao.

[Delsus]

I can understand complaints if you aren't using Requiem, because that should be the first thing used if you have casters in the party because it doesn't affect the BRD's damage. But Ballad does affect damage, why loose 20% damage per BRD if a healer is ok for MP, BRD's also don't need to be staring at the party list to wait for MP to drop. The WHM should be the one concious about their MP so they should hit the Ballad please macro.

Now onto Holy spam, I don't see it much playing, it's not something I expect to see in a dungeon run, now if other BRDs weren't expecting it that's probably why you didn't get the songs, I don't use Requiem without casters in the party, and I would cast Ballad if needed, that's why you didn't get your songs, WHM is not what we see as a caster, they are a healer, if the BRDs expected you to heal you won't have got Requiem without asking because it would be a waste of MP.

[Evangela]

I play both WHM & BRD and I don't care.... If I do holy spam I'll take care of my own MP and when I play BRD I only mind my own DPS so no song for ya!!

healers can manage their own MP if they know how to do it.

[Sapphic]

Well, it's not just a matter of having BLMs in party and using Foes. What if without BLMs are close to stealing hate from the mobs? Because they don't have/or use Quelling strikes. Foes would push them past that, WHM on 50% mana? How much HP has the mobs/boss got left? 30% or less? No reason to use ballad.

Not a simple matter if A do B, have to take into consideration C also. ^_^

But if healers need a mana boost BRD can easily pop ballad+BV then drop ballad after BV expires to give them a helpful top up with out affecting their DPS too much. Also I've seen many WHM not pop SoS at all.

I play both WHM & BRD and I don't care.... If I do holy spam I'll take care of my own MP and when I play BRD I only mind my own DPS so no song for ya!!

healers can manage their own MP if they know how to do it.

Well tbh there's only difficulty in conserving mana when the tank and/or healer are low geared. Having to rez or excessive usage of high mana cost heals do cause mana issues, but that's down to player abilities.

Then there's the last turn of SCoB. Which has a LOT of really heavy spike damage, not just on the tank, but the rest of the party also. Which does take practice for the WHM to not burn through their mana too fast during even the first phase.

But SE pretty much designed it that BRDs support abilities, whilst useful at times, are not a definitive need to allow mixing jobs for content instead of having to have one specific job for everything.

[Blindheart]

So.... What do you do when there is not a bard in the party? I see so many people complain about not getting bardsong, but it makes me wonder how they survive without a bard.