Dear All Bards,

[Maero]

Have been in ST runs with say 3 or 4 other Bards, none would sing except me. Thing is i guess they are trying to stroke their epeen like some would say but i still do more damage then those so called Bards even with having Ballad up, lol.
Usually if i am the only Bard and have casters, or dps such as Nin + sch i play FR for say half mana and then turn it off just in case need Mage's ballad for healers. Which fyi for some of you who do not know, Ninja's benefit from Foe as well. And yes healers benefit greatly, Holy, Aero, dots from sch, etc.
Same goes if the party is comprimised mostly of non magical dps, although most groups do not need Army's P, if ever one of them dies and are rezed they be out of tp so i help out there.
Bards who never play a single song are just bad at the class

[AlexionSkylark]

As a WHM, my biggest peeve is with the BRDs who refuse to use Ballad even when they see the entire party with less than 50% HP, my MP almost gone, and me shouting on chat "SHROUD NOT UP FOR ANOTHER 30 SECS, BALLAD PLZ", all of that falling on deaf ears.

[TheWaywardWind]

Bump.
[/10char]

[Imoen]

You're leaving because nothing you has said thus far makes any sense.

Actually it makes sense. They are saying... (yes I know it was back on page 9)

1. It doesn't make or break the fights in this specific content.
2. It is casual content, so let people be "casual"
3. you are obsessed with your own view of what bard should be doing.
4. you are obsessed with your own rotations and use of skills and are projecting it on to others with discontent.
5. If it was make or break, then people would do it.

At least that is what I understood from it.

Additionally, no offense Thewaywardwind, I believe this is kinda full of crap, you are making it a bigger deal than it is, I'm inclined to agree that you are totally projecting your expectations of a certain caliber of player which....

1. is just not ever going to work.
2. not everyone is the same caliber of player
3. It is casual content.

You can guide people, you can show them the way, you can even make suggestions, but you can't "make" people do things. You are going to always be miserable if you think you can "change" everyone you meet. You may find some comfort in others of a like mind on the forums/ingame, but that is all you are getting. Sorry.

There is no "by that logic" it is different people, different players of different levels of experience playing in casual content.

I can totally understand why bards that are not myself, would not play songs. By design it's a trade off, if there wasn't the damage penalty for the bard effect with it (exception of foe) and the chance to agro mobs , I'm almost certain this discussion would not even be happening, and by extension makes your judgement of "there is no reason not to" flawed because it is equally arguable that there is no reason to do it in this content either, thus the spiral of never ending debate and arguments.

With all that said, as a bard from 1.0 I do miss the larger support roll with songs, and when I am on bard I sing, cuz ... well it just seems "bardy" to me, but that is my opinion.

Assuming you read this far without a knee jerk retort, absorbed and comprehended what I said despite my crap writing skills, you would know that I totally agree that bards should be playing songs. However; I can also understand why they would not want to, and it is not my place, beyond a simple suggestion to use them. If they don't and I really think it matters or really pisses me off? Well then I just avoid that player in the future and wish them luck.

Long story in a nutshell here... -You can not control the world, so deal with it and move on.

[TheWaywardWind]

snip

Obviously I cannot "force" bards to do anything, but that doesn't mean that simply being lazy for the sake of being lazy should be encouraged. As others have stated prior, too often people don't even actively contribute to the raid and then pass it off as "it's just casual content" or "it's not a big deal." Quite honestly, I don't care if it's casual content. WoD isn't hard by any means, but boy, people sure do make it harder for themselves. And by doing so, they make it harder for me, as well.
I've stated it before; this isn't solo content. Your actions directly impact how the other 23 players play through the raid. If you don't "want" to play well, then do some solo content if you're not in the mood to actively participate. But don't then come into a RAID and get upset when people want you to contribute to a team effort. That's so silly.

The rest of your post is garbled nonsense so yeah.

[Droughboi]

Idk, I thought it was obvious to use FR when a mage is in the party. I'm not even 50 yet and I still do it on fates n stuff. Hell, I use FR when i'm grinding in DD and the WHM is spamming' holy.

Question: Bards use macros? wha? why? I feel like the only reason I would need a macro is if I ran out of buttons, or if I play SCH.

[Imoen]

Idk, I thought it was obvious to use FR when a mage is in the party. I'm not even 50 yet and I still do it on fates n stuff. Hell, I use FR when i'm grinding in DD and the WHM is spamming' holy.

Question: Bards use macros? wha? why? I feel like the only reason I would need a macro is if I ran out of buttons, or if I play SCH.

lol, drives me nuts when bards don't play songs but w/e

Lol ya, I dunno, I don't use macros, seems weird for bard unless u want to bundle ur buffs? I guess? Its been a while since I played bard but I guess you could bundle ....

line 1 -Misery's end
line 2 -blood letter
line 3 - heavy shot

Into a button if you were so inclined i guess? Maybe pop ur 2 dots into a button too? ya idk lol im just making stuff up here.

[OMEGA_HACK]

So glad this thread is here...I was in a party doing WoD last night as SCH, there was a majority of Bards in the alliance out of the DPS roles (8 iirc) and all of them were auto-attack AFKing...

WHAT. THE. $%#@ING. HELL.

I know that bards are kind of notorious for this as its easy to forget a bard lost in the back corners of the battlefield...hiding from everyone's view...but seriously don't want to play? Fine...don't play! Let another one of the much better than your auto-attack playing DPS characters queue up as they actually want to clear the content and get loot!

Oh, I should note that I know for a fact they were AFKing as throughout the whole fight I cast Raise (mainly on them) 48+ times, as I didn't start counting right away. Needless to say we RAN OUT OF TIME on WoD...because there was no DPS...Thanks you $%#@ing #$%@s...

If you haven't done this than my Public Service Announcement doesn't affect you, but if you have done this...SHAME ON YOU!

[vp_cmc]

SHAME ON YOU!

Almost became one of these, and I actually started to understand these people, but no excuse to them of course. Why I was doing WoD as bard? Not because I like those fights (first 10 runs were ok, but after that it became just boring). The reason is simple - I needed that BiS bard body. And I couldn't get it doing WoD since it was introduced in game. How much time passed? 3 months? So after I recently finally got it, you most likely never see me on bard in WoD.

Of course this can't be an excuse for afk bards (any job actually) there, it's just one possible reasoning why they do this.

[Jim_Berry]

I'm a BRD who take the job serious. A while ago, I wanted to quit because people still ignore that 2/3 of our songs lowers our damage out. This reduction in damage then makes those running dps track programs jab us for not being op if we need to almost keep using those songs.

So, many BRDs refuse to use any song for that matter due to the high demand for damage output regardless of content. I have recently jumped back on BRD. A lot of times, in solo tank content, I'm usually the second person to die now due to being number 2 on hate list when tank die. To keep that rank, I feel like I must press buttons harder and faster as a mental thing to keep damage high while Ballad or Paeon is up.

What I'm saying is, BRD is flagged as an easy-to-play job. This comes with the burden of keeping damage up non-stop even though our weapons are 5 points lower in physical damage than other DPS', so why make us stress it?