Thread: 3.2 Patch Notes

Originally Posted by Kaoru_Nagisa

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.

Originally Posted by Kaurie

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.

I get what you're saying, but the example I provided was something I had happen at least 5 separate times with a WHM and AST (it was never a SCH, if they were low on MP I'd be worried). I tend to watch the healer as far as what they're doing, because you're right, if their own MP regen skill is about to come off CD, popping on Mage's isn't always needed and thus I got in the habit of watching the healer's skill usage whenever I looked up to their MP (I do this a lot, I guess 2 years of having to watch MP made me do it unconsciously).All the times I had a situation like that, with the healer's MP dangerously low, they never had their regens up because they'd already used them once they got down to half MP pool. Thus why I ticked on Mage's for them, because yeah at that point they had no way of their own to regen and if I didn't, the tank had a high potential of dying because they had almost no MP to heal with.


Even then, I still find it baffling when someone is telling me to turn off a song while in non-hardcore content, even if the song is desperately needed by someone in the group. Like, I'm not telling people to turn off CS even when the tank is nearly dying due to them tunnel-visioning into dpsing, I'd appreciate someone not trying to dictate when I should be using my song. I've played Bard for nearly 2 years. I have my timing down to a habit.

Originally Posted by Kaoru_Nagisa

I get what you're saying, but the example I provided was something I had happen at least 5 separate times with a WHM and AST (it was never a SCH, if they were low on MP I'd be worried). I tend to watch the healer as far as what they're doing, because you're right, if their own MP regen skill is about to come off CD, popping on Mage's isn't always needed and thus I got in the habit of watching the healer's skill usage whenever I looked up to their MP (I do this a lot, I guess 2 years of having to watch MP made me do it unconsciously).All the times I had a situation like that, with the healer's MP dangerously low, they never had their regens up because they'd already used them once they got down to half MP pool. Thus why I ticked on Mage's for them, because yeah at that point they had no way of their own to regen and if I didn't, the tank had a high potential of dying because they had almost no MP to heal with.


Even then, I still find it baffling when someone is telling me to turn off a song while in non-hardcore content, even if the song is desperately needed by someone in the group. Like, I'm not telling people to turn off CS even when the tank is nearly dying due to them tunnel-visioning into dpsing, I'd appreciate someone not trying to dictate when I should be using my song. I've played Bard for nearly 2 years. I have my timing down to a habit.

I see. I don't wish to tell you how to play, but from my perspective, I cringe when I see Army's Paean and/or Mage's Ballad show up in non-hardcore content. It could be useful for some however, I guess. For me, I know how to manage my own MP and do not require the aid of those songs. As I said, I could be wrong, but I am fairly certain Paean is generally a DPS loss for a team of 4. The biggest exception to this is when I do 14 raises on tentacle boss in Void Ark (true story, and for reference 14 raises = 37k MP and max 13K MP)

I do, sometimes, mention to the bard, "Hey thanks for Ballad, you can turn it off now ". I'll throw this out if they are playing Ballad and I am 50%+ on MP (often more).

Originally Posted by Kaurie

I see. I don't wish to tell you how to play, but from my perspective, I cringe when I see Army's Paean and/or Mage's Ballad show up in non-hardcore content. It could be useful for some however, I guess. For me, I know how to manage my own MP and do not require the aid of those songs. As I said, I could be wrong, but I am fairly certain Paean is generally a DPS loss for a team of 4. The biggest exception to this is when I do 14 raises on tentacle boss in Void Ark (true story, and for reference 14 raises = 37k MP and max 13K MP)

I do, sometimes, mention to the bard, "Hey thanks for Ballad, you can turn it off now ". I'll throw this out if they are playing Ballad and I am 50%+ on MP (often more).

I understand, and frankly I admit I don't watch Scholar's MP as much as the other healers, because frankly you guys have insane MP management (I know from experience of playing one myself, it's my favorite healer!). Most of the time I try to play Mage's if the healer is way below half on their pool, and a little less than half during more erratic content like Void Ark (ESPECIALLY on Chulainn, that boss can be a nightmare for healers). I rarely use Army's unless multiple melee dps in the group are super low on TP, or the tank is super low on it - most of the time it's rarely needed, seeing as ninjas can goad people, dragoons have Invig, etc. Honestly my primary song usage tends to be Foe's or Mage's.

And well, I usually try to pop a few of my damage cooldowns for when I have to drop into a song that cuts my damage. It won't entirely make up for it even while paired with WP, but it helps. Always feels kind of fun when I see a near 2k crit on Emp Arrow while I'm dropped in Mage's with just WP and some cooldowns going to make up for the hit I take.