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

[odintius]

All I like to see is tank/dps TP bars even if their smaller over top the mp bars to get me a clue were they are at....

[Fyce]

Your argument is that the BRD is the problem here? Not the dead DPS? They've cost the party the damage they've failed to contribute while on the floor, the MP and time the healer has had to raise them and protect/cure them back up, the damage lost while the Bard is unable to attack while he sings just for them and the damage penalty the Bard takes while propping them back up to a decent TP level.
[...]

If You are running out of MP as a healer in DF, You are a bad healer.

If You are not passing DPS checks in DF, Your teams DPS sucks.

If You are dying (thus needing TP or MP Song), you suck at dodging.

So, what you two are saying is that "if sh*t happens, it means that the others are bad. Therefore, I'm allowed to be bad as well and not support them"?
That's not how a group works.

Scarebearz, you just said that you had a WHM alt. You should now by now that the job of healers is to patch up the mistakes of others... constantly.
If anytime someone would get hit by an avoidable AoE (would it be because of a lack of attention, a lag or whatever), you would not heal that person "because he/she is bad and their mistake should not slow me down"?

That's the most selfish and counter-productive thing I can ever read about playing as a team in an MMO.

I'm done arguing with you if you can't see the whole fight as a team job and refuses to support your teammates if something goes wrong "just cuz ima DPS and other people are bad lulz".

[Aegis]

So, what you two are saying is that "if sh*t happens, it means that the others are bad. Therefore, I'm allowed to be bad as well and not support them"?
That's not how a group works.

Scarebearz, you just said that you had a WHM alt. You should now by now that the job of healers are to patch up the mistakes of others constantly.
If anytime someone would get hit by an avoidable AoE (would it be because of a lack of attention, a lag or whatever), you would not heal that person "because he/she is bad and their mistake should not slow me down"?

That's the most selfish and counter-productive thing I can ever read about playing as a team in an MMO.

I'm done arguing with you if you can't see the whole fight as a team job and refuses to support your teammates if something goes wrong.

I'm saying fix the crack in the foundation before you look at the crack in the skirting board.

[Moqi]

Then I'll do the same:

If You are running out of MP as a healer in DF, You are a bad healer.

If You are not passing DPS checks in DF, Your teams DPS sucks.

If You are dying (thus needing TP or MP Song), you suck at dodging.

It doesn't matter... i could say the same thing as a healer and not heal outside of tank and unavoidable damage because you should avoid everything else, but I don't, because it's a disservice to the party and isono help to anybody. Someone being bad doesn't make you good: if a whm needs a song and you don't sing it because he sucks at managing MP, you're just as bad.
You're playing in a party, act like it. Your high dps is useless if the rest of the party is incapacitated by your lack of singing. It's not that hard of a concept to understand.

[Sessurea]

A half-decent Bard will still out-dps all other classes in a DF party 90% of the time.

They don't need to make up for anything, bards can do more than enough DPS on any fight to more than pull their weight regardless of songs are used or not.

A bard not singing is like a healer not healing and dpsing.

What is this argument about skilled bards vs non skilled other dps got to do with it? That's kinda obvious that a bad player is worse than a good one oO.

[scarebearz]

snip

If for example, on HM primals, someone is screwing up an unreasonable amount, I see no reason to "support" these people. I'd rather leave them dead, save my Mana and kill the boss with the remaining players.

They get carried and we have a hassle free kill, as I have more than enough MP to solo heal HM's, providing I *don't* keep raising people who die over and over.

A bard not singing is like a healer not healing and dpsing.

What is this argument about skilled bards vs non skilled other dps got to do with it? That's kinda obvious that a bad player is worse than a good one oO.

I've already said pretty much the same thing in my first post.

For most content such as primals Bard is a very good DPS class (when played well) regardless of if they sing or not.

A Bard not singing is not really any different from a Healer who does not DPS when they have the time to do so, I see plenty of both in DF.

I'd much rather a Bard doing 300+ and not singing, than a Bard doing 100-200 and singing xD

[Aegis]

Your high dps is useless if the rest of the party is incapacitated by your lack of singing. It's not that hard of a concept to understand.

They haven't been incapacitated by the lack of singing though. They've been incapacitated by their own mistakes. Unless you're positing that there's an instance that requires singing? An instance that can't be completed without a Bard?

Should the Bard support the team where possible, yes? If the team didn't pass a DPS check because someone died and after being raised the Bard didn't sing the TP-song is it the Bard's fault? No. It's the DPS's fault primarily for dying.

When you are looking for ways to improve the party at that point, you should be advising the dead player not to die, not the Bard to sing a TP song that most likely won't be necessary when they rez anyway.

[RiceisNice]

- If you don't pop a Foe when there are mages in your group, you're not maximising the damage output your party can do, therefore, you are failing at your role as a DPS.

There needs to be context to this. Should I be singing foe rekt at every moment of the fight? It depends on the circumstances; where there are downtimes and you're better off singing ballad to give healers a bit of mana, and to save up mana for foe rekt for phases where having a higher dps could be more helpful (to minimize the time spent in that phase)

- If you are not supporting a healer in need of MP and thus, lead to the death of a party member (or even the tank/entire group), then you're again reducing the overall damage your party can do, if someone actually dies because of that.

If a healer is running out of mana doing something, then more often not then something has gone already wrong (requiring raises, overhealing, or just poor mana management). Not to say where there are moments when none of that happens and they do need the mana, but it's so far and few inbetween.

- Same thing goes for the TP/MP songs when someone just got revived. If you let, say, a MNK/DRG with no TP to use (and Invigorate being on cooldown) after a raise, then he won't do much and the overall DPS of the party will decrease.

I think someone mentioned this before, that is on the fault of the MNK/DRG dying if they needed a raise on the first place (and thus TP). Now you have to weigh this. What's going to be more dps, a bard having no damage penalty using their AoE, or a bard sarificing 20% of their damage to increase TP regeneration for someone who just got raised with a 15% stat penalty? The healer is probably low on mana after raising that MNK/DRG; should I use ballad over paeon? If it was an Aoe intense fight like T4 and such, then yes I would use Paeon, but that is not the example you provided.

If you only care about yourself and don't want to support your party when needed in order to maximime the damage of you and your group, then you are a bad bard.
Should I have to remind you what the role of DPS is all about? Yes, killing things. If you don't use the tools you have at your disposal to allow your party to do that in a more efficient way, then you are doing it wrong.

A lot of the bullets you made seem to fault more to the other party members which funnel it to the bard, such as the healers needing mana (with very few exceptions), or the MNK/DRG needing TP after a raise. I mean all of the songs are pretty circumstantial with the exception of foe rekt, but even that needs some context to when you should play it during a lengthy boss fight to manage your mana and increase dps when its really needed.

It doesn't matter... i could say the same thing as a healer and not heal outside of tank and unavoidable damage because you should avoid everything else, but I don't, because it's a disservice to the party and isono help to anybody. Someone being bad doesn't make you good: if a whm needs a song and you don't sing it because he sucks at managing MP, you're just as bad.
You're playing in a party, act like it. Your high dps is useless if the rest of the party is incapacitated by your lack of singing. It's not that hard of a concept to understand.

I have yet to have an instance where people in my party dies because I wasn't singing. It could have been a contributor (such as the healer running out of mana), but that also stems from other problems (like them having to spend mana on raise in the first place).

A bard not singing is like a healer not healing and dpsing.

What is this argument about skilled bards vs non skilled other dps got to do with it? That's kinda obvious that a bad player is worse than a good one oO.

This is about it really. If you're not going above and beyond your role, you're nothing special (good or bad). If you try to do that but fail at it (letting the tank die in the healer's case, or playing the wrong song at the run time), the party suffers from it and you're probably better off just sticking to the ground.

[Gucci_Charms]

The best is getting put into a Syrcus Tower party where all your or most of your DPS members are bards. Only one of them actually makes use of their songs. The rest are too busy pew pewing.

[Aegis]

The best is getting put into a Syrcus Tower party where all your or most of your DPS members are bards. Only one of them actually makes use of their songs. The rest are too busy pew pewing.

Exactly as it should be. If all your DPS members are BRD, the best thing for the party is to throw on the TP song, gather the mobs and AOE them down. Foe is pointless, ballad should be pointless because healers can sleepwalk their way through ST...