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

[Yoninxi]

You people are comparing Classes/Jobs that have Support/Tanking tools as 50%-90% of their Skills vs a Class/Job that has 95% DPS skills (2 support skills 1 Supportive offense skill. . .). . .Okay. . .


It's called BRD because SE are a bunch of specials, why would you introduce a DPS class, give it 3 support skills and call you a full on Support class. . .I mean Really? atleast make it 50% support skills.

It's not the "bad BRD's" fault, it's SE's Fault.

So because it doesn't have more support abilities , you won't sing unless forced to? Sounds like a "bad bard" to me

[Souljacker]

It's not the "bad BRD's" fault, it's SE's Fault.

I agree. It's NOT Bard, it's more akin to Ranger. Why they named it Bard is beyond me.

[Riepah]

Remove the pointless DPS decrease during Ballad or Paeon and more Bards will sing more often.
Also, a thread like this will hardly encourage Bards to sing more. The title itself makes that clear already.

[CSX]

So because it doesn't have more support abilities , you won't sing unless forced to? Sounds like a "bad bard" to me

Point is people forget they have those 3 skills when their entire hot bar slots are filled with DPS skills, in their minds they're playing a DPS class. Just remind them, not that hard. . .

[LunarEmerald]

Well, paeon and ballad are crutches in most situations. A good party only needs foe (T8 excluded). That's the problem with labeling bard as support. Aside from foe, it's only support when somebody screws up. Which means if nobody screws up then no support is needed. Bard is a back up support for when things get sticky. If a healer continually needs ballad then either they're bad or other people are bad. Playing ballad frequently is encouraging/enabling people to continue being bad.

And of course there are exceptions for extreme scenarios like single healing content meant for two. But I'm talking about general encounters.

[SendohJin]

About as hard as it is to ask for a provoke/overpower/flash, or a cure/esuna/leeches. Oh wait you don't have to ask for those often do you. You might, but I bet not nearly as often as your having to ask for songs.

BRDs can't see when a DPS is low on TP, tanks can see when they are losing hate, healers can see when someone is low on HP or has a debuff.

if a healer is low on MP, they can help themselves with their own abilities. healer casting leeches is not a detriment to their role, you want BLM/SMNs to be casting Physick on themselves?

those aren't the same things, try to understand party roles better.

sometimes good tanks do communicate to off tanks when they need a tank swap early. i definitely do it for Spiny in Garuda EX whether the other tank needs to be told or not.

[Cyrus-Wallace]

Most people, including myself, play Bard because it's the range dps they enjoy most. Too many pet peeves with Summoner and Black Mage. I didn't play Bard to sing but I will if need be. But singing isn't my top priority. I care more about dealing good dps than singing. And often times I may not agree with the use of a song when I feel dps is more important.

If DPS is important for you, you should use Foe Requiem if you have casters in your party. (Which I hope that's an "I'll use it if needed" situation for you) That doesn't decrease your DPS at all and even though the MP consumption of that skill is really high, it increases the overall damage done by all magic users, WHM using holy included. Using it on big pulls with the conditions I mentioned above or during a boss fight will actually help YOU as well.

But if there's a summoner in the group, priority for raises goes to them. Summoner is all honestly is just about as much support as Bard.

I, however, agree with this. We always want to take care of our healer's MP and wasting MP due of several raises is something we like to avoid by having a SMN with us.

[LunarEmerald]

Healers have shroud which regens MP and if they use it effectively, MP won't be an issue unless they have to keep raising people. But if there's a summoner in the group, priority for raises goes to them. Summoner is all honestly is just about as much support as Bard.

[LunarEmerald]

If DPS is important for you, you should use Foe Requiem if you have casters in your party. (Which I hope that's an "I'll use it if needed" situation for you) That doesn't decrease your DPS at all and even though the MP consumption of that skill is really high, it increases the overall damage done by all magic users, WHM using holy included. Using it on big pulls with the conditions I mentioned above or during a boss fight will actually help YOU as well.

Foe has nothing to do with this since it doesn't penalize you for playing it. "Use it if needed" refers to a healer being dangerously low on MP or was just raised.

[SendohJin]

But if there's a summoner in the group, priority for raises goes to them. Summoner is all honestly is just about as much support as Bard.

i expect most good SMNs to have used Swiftcast to improve their DPS. Raises goes to whoever has Swiftcast up next or a healer that can get away with hardcasting it without letting someone else die.