Dear All Bards,

[Sessurea]

"I'm an archer"

True story.

[Accolade]

/popcorn thread

[Noshpan]

Bards not using their songs happens in all of the content, from early on to end game. I've come to expect it and am surprised, more often than not, to see Bards using their full portfolio instead of half-assing it just because the content is easy for them.

During my brief stint as a Bard, I was often overly generous with using Songs, to the point where I had the healers reassure me not to worry about their MP and to go ham with DPS.

[Skeith-Adeline]

It's not like it should hurt their own DPS. 3 seconds isn't going to hurt anything.

[Ronyx]

Foe Requiem

Reduces all enemy magic resistances of all enemies by 10%.
MP is drained while singing.
Effect is lost if targets move out of hearing distance, and ends upon reuse.
Cannot be used with other songs.

Well Let's be real here. The Song helps but is not as great as most people think it is. If you read the description it says: Reduces all enemy magic resistances.
What does this means? It means that the enemy is less likely to resist a magic spell being cast upon him, so its more likely that does max damage. So in other words Foe Requiem does NOT grants an extra 10% damage as most people think. This is just an increase chance to do max damage. You can do max damage without Foe Requiem but its a bit harder.

[tjw]

Brain cancer

...What? Seriously, go grab a BLM or two, let them hit a dummy for a few minutes. Then get a BRD, regardless of party to sing Foe. IT'S NOT A CHANCE. IT'S A DAMAGE INCREASE. If I lower your physical resistance, does that mean you can 'periodically' at the whim of RNGesus take more damage from my auto attacks? No, it means that you'll take more damage from auto attacks consistently. Enemies don't RESIST damage spells anyway. There's no mechanic in this fight that has enemies sometimes RESISTING damage against them. Periods of invulnerability, or increased defence? Yes, but those are consistent buffs, not a chance, or likelihood.

[Ronyx]

Those who had played a blm in FFXI would know what lowering a resistance means. Enemies does resist spells they have elementals resistances just like we have. Or have you never wonder why do we have those in our stats screen? Why there are materias with Lightning, Wind resistance etc? It is why the original description says all elemetal resistances but to prevent confusion with physical atks which are different than magic, they had to change the description.

[Elkya95]

Those who had played a blm in FFXI would know what lowering a resistance means. Enemies does resist spells they have elementals resistances just like we have. Or have you never wonder why do we have those in our stats screen? Why there are materias with Lightning, Wind resistance etc? It is why the original description says all elemetal resistances but to prevent confusion with physical atks which are different than magic, they had to change the description.

Uhm last I checked this is FFXIV, not IX. It lowers their magic defense.

[Noxifer]

I've looked at it quite a lot, foes only registers to your party on the boss, it's really weird, but that's just how it works. So pretty much for the entire raid to get it, each raid needs a bard casting foes. And if you don't believe me, go to a dummy and try it out yourself instead of waiting for people to just tell you what you want to hear. It's not a hard concept to test, at all.

Except someone just did that:

Okay, I was at a dummy a while ago doing blm stuff, a bard comes and uses foe randomly which affects the dummy. My fires do indeed deal more damage, and no he's not found his way into my party.

With tower bosses, they're likely to have a gazillion debuffs on them. Not all the debuff signs are going to show up just because of that, despite still affecting the boss.

Those who had played a blm in FFXI would know what lowering a resistance means. Enemies does resist spells they have elementals resistances just like we have. Or have you never wonder why do we have those in our stats screen? Why there are materias with Lightning, Wind resistance etc? It is why the original description says all elemetal resistances but to prevent confusion with physical atks which are different than magic, they had to change the description.

And those resistances indicate we take sliiightly less/more damage from certain elements. Though since we're only talking about one or two per cent, it's not going to play that important a role in our survival. Yes, it's annoying that they use blunt/piercing/slashing/physical/magic resist for damage while using things like "heavy resist" to indicate chances of being affected by heavy.

(Plus, like others have said, this is FFXIV, not FFXI. It's like comparing mechanics to FFII and expecting them to work exactly the same.)

[Darkstride]

Those who had played a blm in FFXI would know what lowering a resistance means. Enemies does resist spells they have elementals resistances just like we have. Or have you never wonder why do we have those in our stats screen? Why there are materias with Lightning, Wind resistance etc? It is why the original description says all elemetal resistances but to prevent confusion with physical atks which are different than magic, they had to change the description.

This isn't FFXIV though and you can't apply the terminology the same way.

Lowering Elemental resistance increases the damage the target takes from elemental attacks. It's pretty basic.

Dancing Edge decreases the mob's Slashing Resistance by 10%. You think that means it lowers the "chance" for them to resist the attack? No, it means they take increased damage from slashing attacks.