question about "Army's Paeon"

[JackFross]

I only ever really use this if specifically asked or in downtime where it would be beneficial. I definitely don't suggest using it during combat.

I'm curious. If you start singing Paeon (or Ballad) before bird form in A5/A5S, does the effect persist and allow you to sing as a bird and keep the TP (or MP) flowing?

[Miss-Bathory]

As a main Bard, it's always situational for me, I can have many runs in a row where I only ever sing Foes and then have a party that only wants to AOE and end up only using Army's Paeon for the whole run, I can't remember the last time I needed to use Ballard.

[Aethon]

Best use of Paeon is big pulls of mobs when you have a WAR, DRG, MNK, NIN, or other BRD spamming the hell out of AoE. People will argue that it's less effective for the dps to do that but some times it makes the fight a bit easier overall. Hitting 5-10 mobs for smaller damage can be better than 1 big hit on a single target. It's all about overall damage to the group.
If you taking a hit to your dps lets the entire rest of the group pound out more damage it evens out (or increases) and makes things smoother.

[RiceisNice]

Best use of Paeon is big pulls of mobs when you have a WAR, DRG, MNK, NIN, or other BRD spamming the hell out of AoE. People will argue that it's less effective for the dps to do that but some times it makes the fight a bit easier overall. Hitting 5-10 mobs for smaller damage can be better than 1 big hit on a single target. It's all about overall damage to the group.
If you taking a hit to your dps lets the entire rest of the group pound out more damage it evens out (or increases) and makes things smoother.

If you're running out of TP aoeing the mobs before they die, then you have no business doing AoE pulls in the first place. You're also severely over estimating how much TP you gain from the song if you think itll help you continue to AoE (it doesn't).

[Jim_Berry]

I play my BRD with support in mind, which is a bad thing, which is also why I DON'T use her often unless I need a break from NIN and tanking. That said, though, I still wouldn't Paeon for just the tank. I need more than one person in the group to be low on TP, especially after they used Invigorate or died.