Mantra and Bard

[Hitokirinomad]

Bardo, those are legitimate places to use it.

But where in Turn 4 is it at all helpful for a Bard to have mantra? Only time you should be near the tanks are during spiders, and there is not really enough raid damage pre-enrage for it to be a factor at all. If your positioning is correct, only the tanks and melee ever take more than a random swipe or 2 over the entire fight. It in no way will be a significant factor in that fight.

I will say, losing that rez, super virus, E4E, contagion baned dots, and an extra body to soak fireballs will hurt that raid group a lot more than the OP going bard will help it. Make one of the mDPS do it.

[Bardo]

But where in Turn 4 is it at all helpful for a Bard to have mantra?

I guess you could run up and throw it on the main tank after the 1st Dreadnaught eats spiders?
And like you said, you could use it if you hit the enrage because it's possible to heal through it for a while.

Actually though, Turn4 is one of the very few fights where you could make the case that Featherfoot is actually better than Mantra.
You can pop Featherfoot and "tank" the Phase 5 Rook that drops.
So if he's telling you to get it specifically for Turn4, then I don't know what to say... that's just dumb.

That doesn't preclude it from being useful on other fights though, so my advice to the OP is still "you should probably pick it up eventually."

[Ooshima]

That doesn't preclude it from being useful on other fights though, so my advice to the OP is still "you should probably pick it up eventually."

I still don't have it and I have no intention to get it.. it's really not needed, it doesn't affect me in clearing any of the game's contents at all.

[Fiosha_Maureiba]

From a healer standpoint, I tend to run into overheal situations or too much damage at once, but haven't quite come across, "not enough healed" on the party after Titan HM tumults.

My Medica II (atm) affected by a 5% mantra does about 130 more HP over 30 seconds. And on a Cure III, about an extra 70 HP give or take depending on the cast. Between two healers, if we use two heal spells (e.g. precast a Medica II, then Cure III or Medica, position depending, then the other healer is doing similar), we're probably going to be overhealing by a big chunk.

Can Mantra help? Sure. But to me, it's not worth rushing up Monk for. If you're leveling Monk for fun and you happen to get Mantra along the way, cool.

[valho]

My group used to use mantra when we hit the enrage in Turn 4, since we all stack up to burn the last dreadnaught, mantra will hit everyone, our bards, one of which is me, and dragoon all have mantra. Now we don't actually even need it anymore, since we don't hit enrage, or even if we do it's just for like few seconds. Nice skills to have, but 5% is not even enough when you need emergency heal top up unlike Monk 20% version. Nowadays I used Monk for turn 4-5, so if mantra is really needed mine is more effective. I am curious you group has a dragoon, does your dragoon have mantra, because the most you need is like 2 mantra for turn 4 if your dps is a bit low, the monk and dragoon can use theirs.

If you have time just level it, but I would say that if your dragoon have mantra, couple with monk's is more than enough to go around, it's easier for melee mantra to hit tank than range, if that's what they going to use it for.

[Truefaith87]

Honestly, what other options are there, though? Let's list them out.. Invigorate and Blood For Blood are givens, as is Internal Release. That leaves us Featherfoot, Second Wind, Mantra, Feint, and Haymaker.. Least I think that's all of them. Haymaker has next to zero use, reactive and all. Feint is a bit depressing without the improved trait from DRG, giving it 10/5/3 before a 60 second slow resist lockout. Second wind is always a nice option to have, in that "OH GAWD THAT HURT!" moments. So that leaves the primary choices to be either Featherfoot or Mantra, Both of which are situational at best. Given this is all just my opinion on it though.

[Thorauku]

Honestly, what other options are there, though? Let's list them out.. Invigorate and Blood For Blood are givens, as is Internal Release. That leaves us Featherfoot, Second Wind, Mantra, Feint, and Haymaker.. Least I think that's all of them. Haymaker has next to zero use, reactive and all. Feint is a bit depressing without the improved trait from DRG, giving it 10/5/3 before a 60 second slow resist lockout. Second wind is always a nice option to have, in that "OH GAWD THAT HURT!" moments. So that leaves the primary choices to be either Featherfoot or Mantra, Both of which are situational at best. Given this is all just my opinion on it though.

I'd have Keen Flurry over Mantra / Featherfoot anytime. And it's not time consuming at all if you're not planning to level a Mnk.

[Truefaith87]

I'd have Keen Flurry over Mantra / Featherfoot anytime. And it's not time consuming at all if you're not planning to level a Mnk.

Good point, thought I was missing one in the list anyways, seems that was right too, thank you for the last one. Decent all around setup would be the 3 given (B4B, Invig, IR), Second Wind, and depending on what party needs, either KF (possible self preservation) or Mantra (little bit of help to healers if needed).

[Bardo]

I'd have Keen Flurry over Mantra / Featherfoot anytime. And it's not time consuming at all if you're not planning to level a Mnk.

Bard STR is really low though, so you only parry 20% of the damage.
40% chance to block 20% damage is only 8% damage reduction on average.
15% chance to dodge is a pure 15% damage reduction on average though.

Even if you take into consideration that Keen Flurry lasts 5 seconds longer (~33% longer, so 0.08*1.33=0.106, you're still comparing a 10% damage reduction vs 15%), Featherfoot still comes out ahead by a good margin.
Featherfoot is the better defensive cooldown for bards any time you know you're going to be taking a few hits.

Anytime you're not going to get hit (by anything that can be dodged/parried anyway), Mantra is by far the best option for that 5th spot.
If you REALLY don't want to pick up Mantra, then you could probably convince the group that working in a Feint every 30 seconds (don't want to use it more often than that or it will suffer from diminishing returns) will reduce the damage the main tank is taking by about 3% on average over the course of the whole fight, which is probably just as good as popping a couple Mantras.

[PetiteMalFleur]

OP, it just sounds like this guy threw a FC raid group together with no real clue of what he's doing. I've been clearing turn 4 for months and never needed mana song on my healer and neither did the scholar. A Bard is nice but not necessary for turn 4. I've cleared it with a really good SMN and feel the difference when there is none in the group. I would insist the BLM get E4E and use virus over you getting mantra. I would easily take a good SMN over a bard. He can make the dragoons go get that skill.