DPS check for turn 8?

[Eriatarka12]

As someone who clears t9 on main (SCH, but did 6-9 progression and first 2 clears of t9 on WHM) and alt (BRD) I feel like I have to throw my two cents into this ballad discussion.

When playing WHM, I only used Shroud on Dreads because I was afraid of pulling hate. I needed ballad while learning but never on an actual kill (the one exception being when 3 people died at once and I had to rez). Even if I do need it, I feel bad asking for it because I know I'm killing my BRD's damage. I felt like it was my responsibility to learn to manage my mp/ether timing better to make it so my job is done but I never need to ask the BRD for ballad. As someone who plays BRD on all these fights I know how TP starved a BRD who only does towers can get, and if anything you should be letting them use that MP so they can paeon themselves and your melee to push numbers a bit more.

You might say to yourself, "Meh, we're making the DPS check in time, so who cares if I'm wasting a bit of MP. Obviously he can't be doing that little if we aren't failing the check..." Which is fine, I suppose. Either way the fight is still won and loot is still obtained. But I always look at situations like White Mages solo healing Turn 9 phase 1 and 2 and go, "They can do it, why not me?"Then I play with my timings, skills and other factors until I get it down. I did this in Turn 8 too, I more or less worked into solo healing it while my SCH stood full DPS in cleric's stance. This is all while saving Shroud only for dreads as well.

I feel like that attitude of "Oh we made the check anyway who cares" is putting yourself in a rut because you end up not wanting to improve or get better, or hell just seeing if you can do something without needing to rely on something like ballad. I think it's a great skill and independence building exercise.

I also disagree with the fact that SMN needs ballad in t8. I've played SMN multiple times on that fight when helping out other groups in my FC who needed a SMN sub, and I've done it completely fine without ballad. As long as you are refreshing dots individually and not clipping everything all at once (which takes a lot more attention but saves a ton of MP) and not using Miasma 2 irresponsibly (meaning only using it when you have contagion) your MP is just fine. However, I throw an energy drain into my starting rotation along with the first 2 buffed festers because I like to get the aetherflow cooldown going ASAP, rather than waiting for a higher potency fester with no buffs. If I crit the energy drain it's not a DPS loss at all because of my buffs when the fight starts and I get MP back.