bards and their ...

[ks3v3n]

... roll at raids.

just a few informations about me: i'm playin mmos for about 15 years now. i'm able to play any trinity class, i got a fast learning curve at new things, i was a progress gamer in different games and (the most important thing) i was the bard of the mainraid from our guild at rift. so much for now.

i am, was and will be a tank for life tho. still i love to dps with any caster class. about 6 days ago i started to push another 2nd class: bard. during lvling you come across different situations, learn new skills and stuff. now i'm 50, got my ilvl to 83 (i know, not that much) and played some raids with him. since i am an information nerd, reading a lot, takin advantage of a lot ressources, i always try to perform best.

now here's the thing y i made this post:
y in the world soo many bards just bold themself on dpsing? the bard brings soo much to the table, pushing the raid by a real big margin. i mean, if you start to play as a bard, you def shoulda start to learn the opener rotations from every dps. you shoulda know when the caster burst, when the melees need tp, etc.
every raid ive been at right now with my bard, every1 at raid went nuts and said they've never been with such a good bard.

just a few facts:
- foe buffed = 20% more dmg for your caster/s
- army's is another 30 tp every tick on top of the usual 60 (your melees gonna love dat)
- mage ballad tops off your healers, opening room for oshit ress or maybe dps

firing on and off your songs on the fly when your raid deserves it, pushes raid dps by a lot more than the tiny lose of your dps as a bard. and if youre good at what you do, you dont even lose that much of your own dps.

so pls all the bards out there, stop being another boring dps and start to shine! (stupid 1k rule)

[ks3v3n]

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[ks3v3n]

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[Menriq]

(stupid 1k rule)

You can edit a post and make it any length.

[ks3v3n]

You can edit a post and make it any length.

gonna check that, you were right. aproved ^-^

[LunarEmerald]

Often times dps is a higher priority. The most difficult fights are hard dps checks.

There's a time and place for singing (foe excluded) but foe is a different beast altogether. You have to carefully choose and plan when to use it to make the most out of it. It takes several minutes for your MP to recover.

Even sometimes when the healer is under 30% MP, mage's ballad is not always the best idea. Sometimes you really need to push the dps.

Bard is a dps first and support second. And no, bard's dps is not tiny. They may do low numbers but they do a lot of them and have so many freaking cooldowns. Barrage + blood for blood + raging strikes + hawk's eye + internal release + straight shot deals crazy dps.

[Ooshima]

- army's is another 30 tp every tick on top of the usual 60 (your melees gonna love dat)
- mage ballad tops off your healers, opening room for oshit ress or maybe dps

1) Something's wrong if your raid's melees ask you to play Peon during a raid. Something's VERY wrong. They need better TP management.

2) In a raid/specific fight, there will be a planned time for Mage's Ballad. From T1 to T7 my healers almost never called for it. Times when they need it is when WHM dies and was raised, or during progressions there were mistakes and deaths and WHM expanded MP a little faster, then they'll call for it. A bard doesn't simply play Ballad for fun and keep healer's MP over the top. Good healers knows good MP management.

[Argyle_Darkheart]

1) Something's wrong if your raid's melees ask you to play Peon during a raid. Something's VERY wrong. They need better TP management.

Turn 8. Although, other than that, Paeon is pretty much uncalled for (was pretty useful in early Turn 4).

[Ooshima]

Turn 8. Although, other than that, Paeon is pretty much uncalled for (was pretty useful in early Turn 4).

Yeah, the few exceptions - which I trust experienced players already know it.

T8 on later stage might not need to call for Paeon though (just something I feel). Probably like T4 when people just started, Paeon was used more frequently until people were more geared and were able to deal more dmg per TP spent and thus, reduced the need for Paeon.

But again even for progression, Paeon is hardly being called for. The MP have priority on Mage Ballad to sustain heals and Foe for hard DPS checks.

[Madoka]

A good bard can do pretty well on DPS, especially with good procs. However if the party composition allows it, dropping their dps a bit is usually better. I mean if a DPS check is coming and you know your SMN is about to pop raging and a mega-int to re-apply dots and hit with two hard festers Foes and battle voice will boost those dots even further. And then once their 20 seconds of RS is up you can turn off foes since they're back at ruining. Or even then you can leave foes up since it still boosts their ruin and Garuda, up to you. If you have two casters it's even better, and if you have a DRG it's almost like you weren't using Foes at all.sure maybe you had 280 instead of 310 dps, but you may have also pushed the smn from 320 to 360+ dps to offset it. It's definitely a matter of learning when and to use what songs and the timing though. Like snakes phase is great for mage ballad in twin, since dps isnt a big deal then and you can top off the healers and foes during conflags is just a great help.

I've seen bards put out some amazing dps, but they never touched a song. And I've seen bards who maybe didn't have the best dps but were spot on using their songs for the entire encounter. And then there's the special platform for the bard that does good dps, pops songs with extremely good timing, never misses a silence and doesn't die. Those are the greatest.