3 BLMs, 1 BRD and no Foe's = Sadness

[MoonPhaseAlpha]

Sad, true story here:

Went into a Duty Roulette Trial and got Ramuh. Party consisted of 3 black mages and 1 bard. Now, I main bard so when I see three black mages in my group, my first thought goes to putting up Foe's. So, this was my expectation with this bard.

Much to my disappointment, no Foe's was to be had. Instead, the bard decided to put up Army's Paeon when the adds popped.. Really?!?! /sigh...

My soul was destroyed a little...

[AskaRay]

Story of my life honestly

[Sora-san]

Bard is probably trolling or doesn't know which song does which ?

But anyway, you could have posted this in Tales from Duty Finder thread

[Nicobo]

....Instead, the bard decided to put up Army's Paeon when the adds popped.. Really?!?! /sigh...

I had same experience so I asked the BRD we had PLD WHM BLM so who needs Paeon?
"For myself", he replied. ^^;

[Azper]

I'm one of those healers that likes to dps the hell out of instances to save us all some time on these repetitive runs. Every time I get a Bard that doesn't use Foe's (which is pretty often), I die a little inside. And we shouldn't have to ask for it either. It's your job. You see a caster in your party, you use Foe's... which is clearly beyond most of their comprehension and ability.

[Reinha]

I'm one of those healers that likes to dps the hell out of instances to save us all some time on these repetitive runs. Every time I get a Bard that doesn't use Foe's (which is pretty often), I die a little inside. And we shouldn't have to ask for it either. It's your job. You see a caster in your party, you use Foe's... which is clearly beyond most of their comprehension and ability.

A healer isn't the same as a caster dps though. The bard can likely do more damage during the 3 second cast than what you alone gain from Foe.

[Azper]

A healer isn't the same as a caster dps though. The bard can likely do more damage during the 3 second cast than what you alone gain from Foe.

Stop enabling bad playing habits. How about if I just don't DPS at all without Foe's then? You tell me if the Bard makes up for all that in 3 seconds.

[Reinha]

getting panties all in a bunch

Instead of overeacting, how about we look at the numbers. Foe: ~10% more magic damage, 3 sec cast. If all bard damage was magical it would take the bard himself 30 seconds after Foe to start seeing the damage increase. Unless you outdps a bard as a healer (which I find unlikely since you have less dps buffs and a lower potency rotation AND you also have to heal AND watch your MP), it will take you longer than 30 seconds to make up for the 3 second loss on the bard. It's proportional to your own dps. If you are doing half the bard's dps it will take you a minute to gain as much from the 10% buff than the bard lost by casting it. During AoE, the bard may need to sing the TP song more than a marginal dps increase if things are taking more than 30 sec to die. Or MP song, considering 30 seconds of WHM AoE will make you go oom even with Assize. On single target there might be a use for Foe without caster dps, assuming you can dps almost non-stop as a healer and the fight lasts long enough. A good example is the morbol boss in Arboretum. A trial with only 2 healers doing magic damage could also be a situation where Foe is useful, if the healers are both doing enough damage within the duration of Foe and don't have to heal much, and no one dies. Although in DF that's probably rarer than a singing bard.

So no, I'm not enabling bad habits. A bad habit would be not doing dps because you're too busy casting an unnecessary buff to a healer who won't make enough use of it. That's no better than a BLM spamming Physick when a healer is present. Realistically a single healer's contribution often isn't enough to warrant using Foe and I'm saying this as someone who also likes to dps the crap out of things. Using songs isn't as black and white as a few posters ITT would like to think. Depending on the situation it can be better to not sing, like it or not.

[Kaurie]

Instead of overeacting, how about we look at the numbers. Foe: ~10% more magic damage, 3 sec cast. If all bard damage was magical it would take the bard himself 30 seconds after Foe to start seeing the damage increase. Unless you outdps a bard as a healer (which I find unlikely since you have less dps buffs and a lower potency rotation AND you also have to heal AND watch your MP), it will take you longer than 30 seconds to make up for the 3 second loss on the bard. It's proportional to your own dps. If you are doing half the bard's dps it will take you a minute to gain as much from the 10% buff than the bard lost by casting it. During AoE, the bard may need to sing the TP song more than a marginal dps increase if things are taking more than 30 sec to die. Or MP song, considering 30 seconds of WHM AoE will make you go oom even with Assize. On single target there might be a use for Foe without caster dps, assuming you can dps almost non-stop as a healer and the fight lasts long enough. A good example is the morbol boss in Arboretum. A trial with only 2 healers doing magic damage could also be a situation where Foe is useful, if the healers are both doing enough damage within the duration of Foe and don't have to heal much, and no one dies. Although in DF that's probably rarer than a singing bard.

So no, I'm not enabling bad habits. A bad habit would be not doing dps because you're too busy casting an unnecessary buff to a healer who won't make enough use of it. That's no better than a BLM spamming Physick when a healer is present. Realistically a single healer's contribution often isn't enough to warrant using Foe and I'm saying this as someone who also likes to dps the crap out of things. Using songs isn't as black and white as a few posters ITT would like to think. Depending on the situation it can be better to not sing, like it or not.

1. This assumes your DPS is constant, and the missing attack is equal to what you average output - for example, say you have 1200 DPS, and you attack every 2.5 seconds, then you'd be missing a GCD that does 3000 damage. I imagine this isn't the case?

2. I've done minimal testing, but I wouldn't say that 10% resistance drop = 10% damage increase. I know people generally say this, and it's fairly close to accurate, but I think it is incorrect. Like say you have 10% resistance making you take 90% damage from everyone, a 10% resistance drop brings that to 9% resistance and take 91% damage. Though from recent testing, I found a WHM did 9% more damage per un-critted Stone II on some mob in CWH, and 13% more damage on a dummy. So it's possible that it's just a translation issue.

3. How about play your song as the tank is about to pull, this way you do not 'waste' time during the fight.

4. If AoE, a healer can easily out dps a bard. In fact, I am usually the top DPS in the first trash pack of Void Ark on my WHM - for example.

5. Healer DPS is often a lot less than DPS, because they have a lot of downtime of DPSing to heal etc. It's quite possible that heals pull much closer to your number when they are actually throwing out damage.

However, I concede that you are correct, a 10% increase to healer dps is not super significant and you'll likely not see a huge jump. Personally, when I played bard before the great job-destroyer that was Heavensward, I found that I'd just put up foe just as the tank was pulling, and let it drop on it's own. MP would be back for the next pack. I never lost DPS for singing and magic users got their foe on every pack.

[DarkDedede]

It's your job. You see a caster in your party, you use Foe's... which is clearly beyond most of their comprehension and ability.

No you shouldn't. However, a friendly reminder never hurt anyone one either (I'd go so far to say even a not so friendly reminder will do). Would be a much better use of energy than "dying a little," or however you put it.

Not everyone comes with the same level of omnipotence as you would prefer. I've even had healers that needed to be reminded to refresh protect (oh the scandal, right?). There was no inner torment or silent contempt, even though maintaining protect "is their job." Protect was refreshed and we moved on. Sometimes people need someone to play gadfly to get them to pay attention.

Just ask. It's really that simple. The rest is up to the bard. If they refuse, ignore, get offended at the request, or something else to spite you, then you may rush to the forum to complain.