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

[Mugiawara]

I fully believe it's a healer's responsibility to let us know when they need ballad. It is then our responsibility to play ballad when they desperately need it.

Hmm well. Even though I said it doesn't hurt to ask for a song...only because they aren't paying attention...but this is different...
If you know they're struggling and you know you have something
at your disposal to help out, then help.
Even though I think Bards are in a really meh spot because I wanna better support than a DPS. You guys are really REALLY needed end-game, things get tough. And yea, you do have more a bit responsibilities now.
Your time to shine here. Us healers some times won't have time to ask, I realize that now. I only have time, if I am doing well, and the other healer is down, and when things get so out of hand, I burned my Aetherflow and stuff
I'm trying to heal everyone as much as I can sooo... But if you do see someone in a tight spot, you should really go ahead and sing. I just have a habit of asking for song just in-case they miss it.
For Ballad: You and WHM's are suppose to be real best friends.

[LunarEmerald]

Trial roulettes typically have parties with 1st-timers in them, so that's nothing to brag about. A good BRD will never out dps a MNK, BLM, or DRG of the same skill level in a full-party raid for the full duration of the fight, ever, so get over that real quick. Shouldn't it be appreciated that we are saying we need you to sing? You're playing an integral part of the party with those songs. Healers not getting songs=no more heals=dead, Melee DPS running out of TP (will happen on T8, guaranteed)=enrage from not killing in time=dead.

Most trial roulettes I come across have people fully geared in solidery/myth with atma or animus. It isn't their first time.

[Odett]

snip

(that was sarcasm) I was trying to get you to see how ridiculous it sounds to say what you said. Too many people in this thread are too rigid. "I'm DPS so I won't support." "You're a healer, so stop DPSing". Just stop for a second and realize that the game gives you skills for a reason. As a BRD, you have skills that can help your group, so you should use them when necessary. Saying (this is not directly stated at you) "I chose the bow class, not the harp class so I'm not going to sing" is just plain ignorant because the game gives you those skills. To make their importance even bigger, the BRD job quests are what reward such skills.

If you're a healer, you have DPS skills. If you're just standing there because you have smart DPS and a tank who can mitigate, it's good to DPS. If you're a tank, you have mitigation skills to help your healer, use them (something you say is required for tanks to do, and I very much agree, yet not many tanks can correctly cycle between them or even bother to pop one of their 8+ cooldowns, and god forbid you ask a tank to mitigate in a pug). You're a DPS, you also have mitigation skills and self-recovery skills. Use them. Manawall/ward, Bloodbath, Second Wind etc. are there for a reason.

You're a BRD, and have skills that can help the group recover should the situation arise. Imagine a healer is low on MP from raising people, one of them being the other healer. They're too busy trying to heal the tank, healing potential dumb dps, party-wide forced damage, and also trying to resurrect the other healer. Unless they're really fast typers, I doubt that they're going to have the time to request a Ballad, so you don't do so because nobody asked. Hell, it doesn't even have to be this extreme. Brayflox NM is a perfect example of this if one DPS is bad and tank takes forever to move the boss out of the poison. Is it your fault that the group wiped? Of course not. If people die to mechanics, it is 100% their fault. Could you have made the healer's job less stressful by being aware of the situation and using Ballad? Yes. You can do good DPS and be aware of your surroundings. I don't see why it has to be exclusively one or the other. Tunnel vision is bad.

If a MNK, arguably the hardest DPS class to play, can use Mantra effectively and at an opportune moment, you can play a Ballad.

[Dwill]

can't see TP.

Shroud of Saints/Aetherflow, i don't know when you've used it or not. i play healer, just because the MP bar is low doesn't mean they need or want Ballad.

can't keep Foe up all the time, i can use Battle Voice when you pop Raging Strikes if you tell me to.

why is communicating so hard for people? who is the lazy one?

another person that doesn't know what Shroud of Saints or Aetherflow is.

The only valid point that you have is for TP since you can't see other people's TP bar and minus T8, there shouldn't be a fight where people are TP starved.

For the rest though, there is no excuse. For example, a healer that died isn't isn't going to have much in terms of MP even with Aetherflow/Shroud of Saints, even less if it's on CD when they get raised. No one at this point should have to tell you to sing, it should be a given yet it seems to pass over the head of most bards.

And for Requiem, it's common knowledge that its best use is at the start of encounters when DPS uses their cooldown/pots and so on or at key points during encounters( Ifrit's nails, Titan's Heart, Chirada and Suparna).

Stop trying to justify laziness and learn to play the job appropriately.

i expect most good SMNs to have used Swiftcast to improve their DPS. Raises goes to whoever has Swiftcast up next or a healer that can get away with hardcasting it without letting someone else die.

Except for their initial Shadowflare, a lot of summoners in their respective statics are expected to keep Swiftcast up it for an emergency raise.

[Darki]

Keep track of your enmity, keep track of your surroundings, keep track of the boss attack order, keep track of what % the boss is at to know when a phase is about to change, keep track of your dots to make sure they don't fall off, keep track of your cds to make sure you're never wasting them, keep track of your straight shot and bloodletter procs, keep track of your HP to healing wind, keep track of your TP and invigorate uses so you don't become TP starved.

It's a lot to keep track of. I don't always have time to check the healers MP. In difficult fights, I'm too busy avoiding attacks and trying to stay alive to worry about how much MP the healers have. I fully believe it's a healer's responsibility to let us know when they need ballad. It is then our responsibility to play ballad when they desperately need it.

I'm sorry but no. Absolutely not. As a career healer in end game statics, I can't let this one slide. The experience you are describing is something all DPSs deal with. As a healer with my own list of jobs which include keeping you alive, I am NOT I say NOT going to stop dodging and healing *YOU* because I have to stop all movement and type "mp plz" which you may or may not see because of your "oh so long list of chores." I am busy keeping you alive so you might as well be busy helping me do that.

Which is worse? A slight lag in damage to the target for a few seconds, or you (and others) dead or near death? ...Exactly

[skho01]

As a Bard main since launch. I cringe when I see other Bards not playing songs when they can. In 24 man runs, I rarely see Foe up, if ever. The song has ZERO negative impact to DPS, yet its not up near 100% of the time is just bad.

Songs are literally our ONLY real value add to the group (maybe the whole attack on the move, but the dps upside is marginal). Healers have to watch for aggro, dodge stuff, and WATCH your HP so you don't die. The least we can do is make sure they have enough MP to keep us alive, NOT THAT HARD. Just glance at it once in a while, pop mana song when WHM has less than 1.5K MP. Bust out Foe whenever there's a BLM or SMN. Or for 4 man, pop mana when BLM and WHM are spamming AoE. Their combined AOE dmg is much greater than our crappy TP intensive AoE anyway.

If you're a bard, and you haven't played songs in the last few dungeons you've ran. You are absolute crap PERIOD

[GalaxyGirl]

If you're a paladin, for example, you're mitigating damage already:

Shield -> Block.
Weapon -> Parry.
Heavy armor -> More reduction.
Shield Oath -> More reduction.

If you're pugging, which I assume he means the roulettes and the kind, you really don't need to pop cds if you're well geared. It makes the healing a lot easier if I do, but I only want to spank monsters with my sword, to keep emnity, not to waste time clicking a buff. How dare they do give me buffs that benefits me and the healer! This is sarcasm, btw.

Anything you can do to speed up a run or you know... do some teamwork, is more than welcome.

My OP was towards paeon's and ballad, I will gladly play foe requiem, as for somethig that hinders my dps while I'm already doing more dps than the other 3 combined, is a big no.

Jobs are given roles, tanking in mmo's has and always be tanking everything and mitigation, you might think it is there just to help but it's apart of it's main role, healing as always been about healing and keeping everyone alive, maintaining that until the win. Dps has and always been to do damage and maintain it. I know it's sarcasm but I want to clarify..

[GalaxyGirl]

I'm sorry but no. Absolutely not. As a career healer in end game statics, I can't let this one slide. The experience you are describing is something all DPSs deal with. As a healer with my own list of jobs which include keeping you alive, I am NOT I say NOT going to stop dodging and healing *YOU* because I have to stop all movement and type "mp plz" which you may or may not see because of your "oh so long list of chores." I am busy keeping you alive so you might as well be busy helping me do that.

Which is worse? A slight lag in damage to the target for a few seconds, or you (and others) dead or near death? ...Exactly

My main is heals, I've healed and solo healed 90 percent of endgame, healing is a joke quit making a big deal out of it

[Alcobrum]

My OP was towards paeon's and ballad, I will gladly play foe requiem, as for somethig that hinders my dps while I'm already doing more dps than the other 3 combined, is a big no.

What is a "big no" is any truth to this statement.

[StouterTaru]

Runs only go faster with foe. And nobody is saying foe isn't useful.

80% of bards don't even play Foe, that's the point of this thread.

On top of that, a 15 second burst of ballad/paeon (you don't have to leave it on til you run out of mp) can speed up a run. Plus it doesn't always lower your damage. Boss uses reflect, goes invincible, temporarily vanishes from arena, between pulls, etc. When there aren't any of those, you can use it after your dots were just applied, and you have no cd's up.

That little extra that helps your tank hold hate, your dps do more damage, your healer sneak in more damage, that will speed up runs.