Quote Originally Posted by Kaoru_Nagisa View Post
What boggles me is when the healer themselves, with only 500 mp left, are telling me to turn off Ballad because it's cutting my dps. Friend, I know that - I don't care, I'd rather my dps go to crap for a few seconds than have the tank die because you can't even get off a heal due to no MP.

Like I'm sorry, but my job is a hybrid support. I'm gonna support when it's needed, and I've played the class for 2 years so I feel like I can fairly well judge when I need to drop into a song and deal with a little bit of dps cut.
While it is great to provide support, I feel that we're missing a lot of info here. If a healer is telling you to turn off ballad when they have 500 MP left, it's likely because they don't need the MP. A few things to consider:

1. Each healer has it's own MP refresh (Shroud, LA, Aetherflow)
2. If the mob is almost dead, your 20% damage loss may be enough for the tank to take an extra hit. It's better for the mob to die faster than it is for to healer to heal more

Generally speaking, you should never need to play Ballad during a dungeon. Further (I believe), in most scenarios Army's Paean is also a net reduction in damage output. For your songs, you're generally best to Foe as the tank is pulling, let it run out - regen MP. Repeat. Paean can also be great to use between pulls to top up TP for the tank and melee. In a raid encounter, this changes, but you're best to plan your song usage with your team. For example, I often have our MCH/BRD play MP refresh during jumps. This not only helps with healers, but a SMN could then spam Ruin III prior to the jump for added DPS and not worry about draining MP.