Bard in the party... thoughts?

[Aeliott]

There are a lot of bad Bards out there, but real top end bards can still pump out amazing stuff. Don't let MCH FotM put you off. Foe Requiem is still amazing if you have magic DPS (and can last longer than Hypercharge as well as being stronger), not to mention the ability to reduce evasion which helps with healers dps too.

[AxelDH]

Bards are as good now as they were in the previous raid, but its quite apparent that Machinists are much stronger than them this time round, both in terms of personal DPS and team support.

Just look through fflogs, and you can see that Machinists are even competing for top DPS out of all classes in some encounters. Not bad for a 'support' class!

Personally, I think the main advantage Machinists have over Bards is that they can boost their own DPS with Hypercharge, at the same time as boosting the party DPS. Perhaps if a few Bard attacks dealt Magic damage and were therefore buffed by Foes Requiem, things would be a little closer...

[javid]

BRDs are useful like someone already mentioned, but I think the original question was (or should of been) is a brd worth picking OVER a MCH???

Well unless you have no melee on the team but the tanks, mch will add more dps to the party than brd.
WAR loves brd for sure
healer dpsing also love BRD for evasion down
...and thats all that brd offers over mch..... (IMO not enough to be worth it in a serious setup...but for fun/causal/med-core yea BRD is fine)


edit

foe averages 1% over hypercharge (without Battlevoice 5min recast). however again... most all parties will have more physical hitting members. Even if you include BV in a 10min fight that moves the avg to 2% over hypercharge.....still not closing the gap....

[Dubah]

Here is my 2 gil on the subject. I love Bards, but you gotta at least try. I don't mind being the sole DPS as a Ninja while the bard supports and adds in what he can. But for F sake, please be able to stop the prison and holds some bosses do. For instance, I ran the dungeon with Niddhogg at the end yesterday i forget the name. LUCKILY the boss didnt put me in that stupid prison until after the big waves of adds, but after the adds boss prisoned me, bard got to maybe 50% health and thats giving him some credit, and I was dead, cool not a problem. Healer rezzed me, i got back to work for 5 seconds, then prisoned again... This time BRD didn't even try to release me, just let me die.

I love BRD's but you can't be a horrible bard if you're gonna play one. Learn the role, I can carry DPS. It'll be a little slow, but i can do it. Luckily I haven't done an extreme with a bard yet, but if it's anything like the bard above, ill take the lockout timer.

[Tsilyi]

there was stuff in here that has basically nothing to do with bard as a class

You could insert any dps into this scenario and describe it the same way. Those nidhogg prisons can practically be autoattacked down. I did the same dungeon as a bard last week and the dragoon with me ignored me when I was in the second of two total prisons as well, despite the fact that I broke them out in the first one in very short order.

[Dubah]

You could insert any dps into this scenario and describe it the same way. Those nidhogg prisons can practically be autoattacked down. I did the same dungeon as a bard last week and the dragoon with me ignored me when I was in the second of two total prisons as well, despite the fact that I broke them out in the first one in very short order.

I'm sure you could insert any DPS, I was just using it as an example, im not saying every bard will do this, but sadly it feels like bards just give up, like they know they are going to be bottom of dps chain so why try kind of thing.

[randysquirrel]

I'm sure you could insert any DPS, I was just using it as an example, im not saying every bard will do this, but sadly it feels like bards just give up, like they know they are going to be bottom of dps chain so why try kind of thing.

Dunno, I'm on Marlboro too, we seem to have a lot of people wandering into content and doing like 200 dps. Anyone can be bottom of the chain lol.
The example you gave is just a scrub player, you can't generalize a class on one specific thing that happened once

[Dubah]

Dunno, I'm on Marlboro too, we seem to have a lot of people wandering into content and doing like 200 dps. Anyone can be bottom of the chain lol.
The example you gave is just a scrub player, you can't generalize a class on one specific thing that happened once

The reason I used BRDs is because that seems to be the most common one. I have played with 1 good bard so far. Out of the many I've grouped with. I can't say Bards are the only one, especially after tonight. I think I'm done with DF because it always puts me with another crappy dps, leaving me to do all the work, which im ok with. Until Niddhogg prisons me and I can't even fight it. Then the crappy dps really shines, or doesn't....

[Jilliebeans]

BRD or MCH, its pretty much obvious to everyone of us lol. There are reason why BRD still holding the MOST player base in this game. Most of the QUE groups are with 2, 3 or sometimes 4 DPS of bards, it should tell you that BRD is still "useful". so please dont say that everyone "quit" BRD to play MCH. I DO agreed that even tho BRD has the most player base but there are ALOT BAD BRD, most of BRD i ran with are pretty bad because they dont even know how to use their buffs properly.

[JoelStrife]

What would you say is the proper way to use the buffs? I've been trialing a number of different ways.

I like to keep internal release up as soon as it's ready.

I then combine it with either blood for blood, raging strikes, or hawks eye.

I like the idea of sustained dps compared to burst.

What's the most optimal way?