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

[Drako]

I've definitely been wondering if there were any bards out there that cared to do there job. I rarely see any bard buffs when a bard is in the group, in the situations you would expect to. And just like what others have experienced, in CT2, you get a huge sample size of this. I'm not sure if everyone(the BRDS) are waiting for someone else to do it/use songs or what. Maybe its some kind of Mexican stand off, IDK. It's like having a bad tank that doesn't hold hate, or a bad dps that doesn't know their rotation. But with brds for some reason there is a LOT more of them that don't sing. I can see there's a lot of good bards in here taking offense possibly to this situation. It's not the failing of players to understand the situations bard should sing. It's simply that there is a huge amount of bards that just don't, whatever the reason may be. There certainly will be other players that don't know/understand when a bard should sing, but that's a small number, and if you have ever done another class besides BRD in DF, you should know that this situation is real. If you haven't played any other job outside BRD, then you don't know what is going on I'm afraid.

[ExKage]

My favorite ST run was having 12 Casters, 2 BRD, 1 DRG.

Not. One. Foe Requiem.

Not one. :c

[LalaRu]

I don't mean don't revive them after their first death, but after the 3rd time there's no longer a point to it, you KNOW they're going to die again.

Have overlook that. You are right. Just count out the poor people that are being put out of Gaol just over plumes or worse

[Kayo]

My favorite is when people try to justify that Bard isn't a support job. Bards are archers with access to unique support abilities you learn through the job quests. This makes them a support job. Saying it isn't a support job is the same as saying Scholar isn't a healer. I mean, the same logic applies right? SCH only gets its healing abilities through the job quests...so logically it's still a DPS role since the majority of the class skills are DPS-oriented.

And the fact that they are labeled as a DPS in-game only exists to appease the need for the trinity set-up, and they are closer to that than either a Healer or a Tank. I know people are looking for a PURE DPS job, but you'll have to wait until Ranger is released (whenever SE decides to implement it, which I believe will be sometime after 2.6)

As a Bard, who has no problems "singing" ... we're DPS. The songs are VERY situational, rarely used, or even needed most of the time. A support class usually has more than a handful of buffs which actually make a decent impact on the battle, not just to buy a few more seconds after too many screw-ups during a fight results in 'oom'. People wouldnt be arguing over 2/3's the songs usefulness being worth the 20% debuff if Bards were a support class, it'd be a pretty clear win.

The only reason Bards even continue to be "Bards" (ie. continue to have buff songs) is because Yoshida and his team were too effing lazy to make it a proper Archery class like Marksman, or Ranger. So all they did was buff the DPS and called it a day ... thats it, they couldnt even be bothered to remove that stupid-ass, piontless, out-of-place LB which no Bard ever uses. So no, Bards WERE a support class in 1.0... theyre DD now.

[Ichimaru]

A good brd checks his party often and sees if foe/ballad/paeon are needed. Even in Frontlines a lot of brds forget to foe in there, sometimes its why my team ends up winning 1v1 fights...on sec thought, forget about singing in Frontlines >.>

[Cylla]

A good brd checks his party often and sees if foe/ballad/paeon are needed. Even in Frontlines a lot of brds forget to foe in there, sometimes its why my team ends up winning 1v1 fights...on sec thought, forget about singing in Frontlines >.>

lol, thanks for the tip! mwhahahaha. Actually, yeah I don't do brd very much in FL but I do admit that when I do, I forget to use foe or just don't think of it because I'm busy trying to kill off the healers and keep them silenced. I do have to remember to at least use it in FL.

[Bushido_Brown]

My favorite ST run was having 12 Casters, 2 BRD, 1 DRG.

Not. One. Foe Requiem.

Not one. :c

Let's leave ST and CT out of any job comparison, since you are almost guaranteed that at least 1/3 of the alliance members are going to be horrible at their job

[LunarEmerald]

Most people, including myself, play Bard because it's the range dps they enjoy most. Too many pet peeves with Summoner and Black Mage. I didn't play Bard to sing but I will if need be. But singing isn't my top priority. I care more about dealing good dps than singing. And often times I may not agree with the use of a song when I feel dps is more important.

[Taban]

You guys must be getting the exact opposite CT groups than I've dealt with, I've had multiple runs on my bard where i had to stop req early because another bard used it at the same time as I did.

That said songs a lot of times can be a judgement call, and it never hurts to ask for a song if you're going to need it. Everyone has mana cd's they should be using, and the bard can't tell if yours is up. Having 1500 mana and shroud coming off cd in 10 seconds is a totally different situation than having 1500 mana no shroud and knowing you're about to have to cast medica 2.

Also keep in mind what's going on in the arena before you start yelling. I had a white mage start cursing me out for not getting him ballad seconds after he died and got rezzed, but I was also kiting a renaud at the time and didn't really have 3 seconds to stand still. Fight awareness is key, and most bards are going to try to avoid using ballad at point when burst damage is key, especially if it looks like you have enough to make it to the next phase when it would be safer for them to cast.

As for req I usually open fights up with req (especially in ct/st, coil it depends on the fight and where we need the extra dps), mid fight foe's it's going to depend a lot on group makeup and how good our group seems to be. If we have more than one bard I usually will feel safe using it a second time, but if I'm the only bard I'm probably not going to want to drain my mp in case healers need it for ballad, especially if there are people getting hit by things they shouldn't, or rezzes going out.

[SummonerSenah]

I blame it on the fact that I don't main bard. When I do stuff as bard, I'm pretty good about Mage's Ballad, but I forget about Foe's Requiem sometimes. If you ever party with me on bard, just remind me to put up Foe's Requiem.