3 BLMs, 1 BRD and no Foe's = Sadness

[Reinha]

getting panties all in a bunch

Instead of overeacting, how about we look at the numbers. Foe: ~10% more magic damage, 3 sec cast. If all bard damage was magical it would take the bard himself 30 seconds after Foe to start seeing the damage increase. Unless you outdps a bard as a healer (which I find unlikely since you have less dps buffs and a lower potency rotation AND you also have to heal AND watch your MP), it will take you longer than 30 seconds to make up for the 3 second loss on the bard. It's proportional to your own dps. If you are doing half the bard's dps it will take you a minute to gain as much from the 10% buff than the bard lost by casting it. During AoE, the bard may need to sing the TP song more than a marginal dps increase if things are taking more than 30 sec to die. Or MP song, considering 30 seconds of WHM AoE will make you go oom even with Assize. On single target there might be a use for Foe without caster dps, assuming you can dps almost non-stop as a healer and the fight lasts long enough. A good example is the morbol boss in Arboretum. A trial with only 2 healers doing magic damage could also be a situation where Foe is useful, if the healers are both doing enough damage within the duration of Foe and don't have to heal much, and no one dies. Although in DF that's probably rarer than a singing bard.

So no, I'm not enabling bad habits. A bad habit would be not doing dps because you're too busy casting an unnecessary buff to a healer who won't make enough use of it. That's no better than a BLM spamming Physick when a healer is present. Realistically a single healer's contribution often isn't enough to warrant using Foe and I'm saying this as someone who also likes to dps the crap out of things. Using songs isn't as black and white as a few posters ITT would like to think. Depending on the situation it can be better to not sing, like it or not.

[Kurogaea]

Not sure why everyone is so reliant when it comes to dps. If I was a blm there I wouldn't even care if that bard did the sprint song the whole time, I'd just dps like there was a group of monks with me.

[Odett]

I don't play BRD much so excuse me if I'm wrong but, is casting Paeon for yourself really viable? I totally understand casting it for other party members but when you cast it for yourself in AoE situations so you can do more damage by AoEing more by...lowering your damage, isn't that a bit counterproductive?

and about asking DF people to do their job. Man, I really just don't care anymore. You either get ignored or get snapped at most of the time and start an argument you'd rather avoid altogether by a player who takes personal offense to a simple question, and I'd rather get on with my day than spark an argument with someone inside a dungeon.

[Odett]

Not sure why everyone is so reliant when it comes to dps. If I was a blm there I wouldn't even care if that bard did the sprint song the whole time, I'd just dps like there was a group of monks with me.

Because BRDs have the utility to help other party members?

"Hey SMN, can you please battle res?"
"Nah, pretend I'm a MNK."

[AskaRay]

I don't play BRD much so excuse me if I'm wrong but, is casting Paeon for yourself really viable? I totally understand casting it for other party members but when you cast it for yourself in AoE situations so you can do more damage by AoEing more by...lowering your damage, isn't that a bit counterproductive?

and about asking DF people to do their job. Man, I really just don't care anymore. You either get ignored or get snapped at most of the time and start an argument you'd rather avoid altogether by a player who takes personal offense to a simple question, and I'd rather get on with my day than spark an argument with someone inside a dungeon.

If you screw up it's better to play for just yourself, if not already singing, than sitting there waiting for TP regen...especially if there are still 5+ mobs.

[ServerCollaps]

most of the 500 dps caster dont deserve 3 seconds of my precious time in casual content

though I play it for friends

[Naliee]

Because BRDs have the utility to help other party members?

"Hey SMN, can you please battle res?"
"Nah, pretend I'm a MNK."

Omg, that's it!

BRDs don't wanna help casters to do even more DPS because they're jealous! Just like SMNs don't bother raising healers when they're dead. Or melee DPS can't be bothered to hit mobs that aren't in their range.

God we're so selfish people.

[Kaurie]

Instead of overeacting, how about we look at the numbers. Foe: ~10% more magic damage, 3 sec cast. If all bard damage was magical it would take the bard himself 30 seconds after Foe to start seeing the damage increase. Unless you outdps a bard as a healer (which I find unlikely since you have less dps buffs and a lower potency rotation AND you also have to heal AND watch your MP), it will take you longer than 30 seconds to make up for the 3 second loss on the bard. It's proportional to your own dps. If you are doing half the bard's dps it will take you a minute to gain as much from the 10% buff than the bard lost by casting it. During AoE, the bard may need to sing the TP song more than a marginal dps increase if things are taking more than 30 sec to die. Or MP song, considering 30 seconds of WHM AoE will make you go oom even with Assize. On single target there might be a use for Foe without caster dps, assuming you can dps almost non-stop as a healer and the fight lasts long enough. A good example is the morbol boss in Arboretum. A trial with only 2 healers doing magic damage could also be a situation where Foe is useful, if the healers are both doing enough damage within the duration of Foe and don't have to heal much, and no one dies. Although in DF that's probably rarer than a singing bard.

So no, I'm not enabling bad habits. A bad habit would be not doing dps because you're too busy casting an unnecessary buff to a healer who won't make enough use of it. That's no better than a BLM spamming Physick when a healer is present. Realistically a single healer's contribution often isn't enough to warrant using Foe and I'm saying this as someone who also likes to dps the crap out of things. Using songs isn't as black and white as a few posters ITT would like to think. Depending on the situation it can be better to not sing, like it or not.

1. This assumes your DPS is constant, and the missing attack is equal to what you average output - for example, say you have 1200 DPS, and you attack every 2.5 seconds, then you'd be missing a GCD that does 3000 damage. I imagine this isn't the case?

2. I've done minimal testing, but I wouldn't say that 10% resistance drop = 10% damage increase. I know people generally say this, and it's fairly close to accurate, but I think it is incorrect. Like say you have 10% resistance making you take 90% damage from everyone, a 10% resistance drop brings that to 9% resistance and take 91% damage. Though from recent testing, I found a WHM did 9% more damage per un-critted Stone II on some mob in CWH, and 13% more damage on a dummy. So it's possible that it's just a translation issue.

3. How about play your song as the tank is about to pull, this way you do not 'waste' time during the fight.

4. If AoE, a healer can easily out dps a bard. In fact, I am usually the top DPS in the first trash pack of Void Ark on my WHM - for example.

5. Healer DPS is often a lot less than DPS, because they have a lot of downtime of DPSing to heal etc. It's quite possible that heals pull much closer to your number when they are actually throwing out damage.

However, I concede that you are correct, a 10% increase to healer dps is not super significant and you'll likely not see a huge jump. Personally, when I played bard before the great job-destroyer that was Heavensward, I found that I'd just put up foe just as the tank was pulling, and let it drop on it's own. MP would be back for the next pack. I never lost DPS for singing and magic users got their foe on every pack.

[Deviant1]

oh look another thread where casters feel entitled... how original...


While most will acknowledge that paeon and ballad will reduce dps, they make false claims that foes does not lower dps... that is wrong.

1. if your pushing the button to put up the song, your not pushing the button to put out dps. (even SE is bound to the law of physics)
2. the act of casting the song means 2-3 gcds and 1 -2 ogcds lost. (first gcd for starting the song, second is lost as the cast time is more then a gcd, and then if you stop the song instead of running out of mp, the 3rd gcd lost. Also while the song is being cast, you cannot pop bloodletter, or weave in other buffs)
3. 3 gcds and a buffed bloodletter will put out more dps than most casters would benefit. (2 gcds @ 1k each + 1 gcd crit @ 1.5 + a critted bloodletter for 4k is 7500... a caster would need to put out 75000 points of damage for the duration of the bard's MP pool. not even 4 blms can put out enough damage to make foes worth it)
4. Most casters think that foes is 10% more damage, but then forget that half the time that foes would be up, they are not casting attack magic. Between maintenance, dodging mechanics and etc, they only get maybe 5% increase.

so based on that, the only time foes is worth it, is at the start of the fight or when they otherwise cant shoot. Granted, foe will not reduce the dps directly as the other songs do, but the act of casting and maintaining songs lowers dps... SE and their piss poor belief that bards wanted to be support lowers it even more /tears...

[Kurogaea]

Because BRDs have the utility to help other party members?

"Hey SMN, can you please battle res?"
"Nah, pretend I'm a MNK."

I believe that's a different case, and I'm not sure what SMN would say that but I guess I'll take your word for it.