Is a Bard a "real" party member?Follow

My static has 2 black mages. ./shrug.

And just as an example ill take my current lvl 56

Black mage has
Water III
Stone III
Burst
Tornado
Freeze
Quake

When a rdm has those, then sure i'll replace my BLM with a rdm.

I've been the primary healer in a number of PT's as a Red mage. Sure it can work nicely. But I still prefer a White mage in my PT's when I'm on my Paladin. If it were a Taru RDM I'd consider it. But since 90% of the RDM on my server are ****** Elvaans, I just stay away from them entirely.

Very true..at 41 i have taken up role of main healer..with the proper gear on, and with spells I effectively have 600 mp to play with..and I am elvaan =) I can not cure poison and the like because I sub smn, but our blm/whm can or the brd/whm can.I have yet to meet a bard that isn't sub whm. As rdm i keep 3 subs up a bit. War for if i need to tank ( can do better than a war but not as good as a pld ), thf for drops , and smn to excel as a rdm in the mage department. ( and with smn subbed..when you are farming non-exp mobs that lil summons comes in handy for an extra 15-20 dmg every hit and with refresh on will stay out for a very long time )

WoW! Last weekend i went to kazham for the first time and had the pleasure of playing with a bard for the first time. Downtime seemed way below normal, mobs were getting killed faster, exp was piling up fast. I would love to always have a bard in the party.

My equipment exactly. :) Plus some +MP earings. Sorry I can't afford astral rings or monster signa. :)

I don't know if I agree with replacing any party member or class. :) I'm just like being an addition to a party, the person who enhances and makes them all better and the person who helps bring in the xp!

I leveled monk to 30, I was so bored with melee, I wanted to quit. I was planning to go dragoon.. but decided that more melee wasn't for me. I also leveled war to 10, for my sub. So I knew the feeling of the 2H wpn.. eek.. too slow!

Anyways, I decided to go Bard when I hit 30, I actually did the beastmaster quest too.. just because. :)

I leveled brd/bst to 7, solo.. then switched to brd/whm and have not looked back. Even as a galka, I'm having an absolute blast as bard! I solo'ed to 12, with an occasional party, then headed to the dunes where I jumped to 17 in a pretty short time frame. Every party I've been in since, I've gained new friends. :)

At the present time, with items, I actually have more MP as sub /whm then as primary whm/ :) Thanks items!!

I don't know what troubles you guys had solo'ing as brd? I haven't had any trouble at the present. I've fought evens in the dunes without trouble but maybe that's my galka HP working for me.

I'm trying to make the bard forums active. :) I spend most the day at work, reading up when I can't be playing.

Also wanted to add that I'm really feeling the love for bards, thanks all!

I agree that it's a "busy" job.. but I enjoy being mr. useful support guy! And I get my fair share of cracks in on the mobs too.. well.. not all of them but a some. :)

Even if I just use my cures to heal the whitemage when he gets hit, it's extra MP he doesn't have to use. I whip out the paralyze, dia, and banish sometimes too.

Anyways.. sing on!

Hmm... our bard never macros his songs kinda pointless, you can see the yellow text when he starts a song =D and hear his music. Bards that let the songs run out though should be shot =D

Xarddrax, I have partied with many red mages 41+ and I can say from experience that VERY VERY few on my server do their job well. Just last night we partied with another crappy RDM. He was getting cranked by a Robber Crab and what does he do? He chain Cure IIIs himself, grabbing MORE and MORE aggro so that I have to empty myself out on healing HIM. Then the next fight he converts standing right next to the mob and comes TWO seconds close to dying to Bubble Shower. Later, he Divine Seal Curagas on us when the mob is at 85%. He died and I really wasn't surprised.

My ideal group consists of 3 melee and 3 casters or bard.

As for red mages replacing whites, if you have a ninja tank it's all good. I'm so useless when they're around. ^^

i was looking at this too and thought that would be awesome.. but then i thought, is it only reraise 1?

at that lvl the whms have raise 3, which restores all of the lost xp, where reraise 1 only restores 25% of the xp lost

if it does only use reraise 1, then this is one song i wouldn't want casted on me.. as that 75% xp i'm sure is alot at that level

and according to the description on this site(which is usually accurate), thats what it sounds like :(

Sux *** RDM on your server? You will find those people that won't listen to any body on all servers. Any way, I have same problem, too many RDM give me bad name. :( :( :(

I get this kind for message sometime.

"
Party Leader:Hi there.
Me:Hi
P:Do you want to join our party?
M:Sure, let me go back to Jeuno first.
.....on the way back to Jeuno.....
P:I'm sorry my teamate doesn't like Red Mage.
M:OK, I'll go back farming then.
M:Thanks for the invitation.
"

SOOOOOOOO SAAAAAAAAD

Well Sotonin it sounds like you need to learn more about how to make partys.

In the partys I am often in we get 200+ xp non stop and very fast.

2 of my favorite party formats:

Pld/whm/rdm/bard and 2 other high damage melees often times a thief I cant believe your also not giving thieves the credit their due.

Pld/Summoner/rdm/bard and 2 other high damage melees. Assuming the summoner has all his summons.

Pld/whm/rdm/bard + 2 high damage melees is probably my favorite though with the bard buffs building up 3 melees instead of only 2 in your group configuration plus the combined mana regen of bard and redmage makes this group very powerful.

You never have to rest for anything everyone will always have haste the mob will always be debuffed etc.

In the group config you give you'll often have to rest to get mana back the melees rarely have haste and the mob is rarely debuffed theres only so much that a single white mage can do.

He cant haste everyone, debuff the mobs, heal everyone etc. alone and if your fighting the best mobs your group can he'll often have trouble landing his debuffs anyways because he doesnt have the highe enfeeble skill a redmage does.

The melee songs of the bard are only buffing 2 melees also. Plus how do you keep your tanks mana full in this group configuration you give? I would assume your tanks spend alot of time with empty mana bars or resting for mana.

By having a redmage he can refresh the tanks giving them mana and the bard can go ahead and give them the melee buffs. A bard can only have 2 buffs on a person at a time. If you want to non stop kill you need a redmage to keep their mana up and the bard to keep the melee songs on them. You dont want the bard one moment giving them melee buffs than one moment giving them the mana songs or resting etc.

I could go on and on but flat out I'd have to say the best partys always have both a redmage and a bard.

Eryx Kujata Server level 56 Redmage / 25 Blackmage.

Edited, Fri Jan 23 03:09:32 2004 by EryxKujata

Ya you're right, I'm wrong. So sorry. I've been in a static with that configuration since lvl 30 (roughly 2 weeks ago) and I'm now lvl 58. But ya... I can see how It's a bad configuration.

We get 200+ xp on every kill without chains. I can see. You've shown me the light great sensei.



Well its lvl 58 now and it hasnt been one bit flawed. Only 1 provoke has worked fine for us. Maybe the paladins you've grouped with just really suck, I can hold aggro great. Haven't had a PT member die in a night of Xping since like lvl 45, (58 now). I like you're opinion though, go you! This pt sucks. when I'm 60 in a day or 2 I'll wave at you buddy!

We can go back to praising Bards at any time now guys. :)

I was in a party last night for awhile that just didn't understand how things worked.. I could not make them better.. I was pulling my hair out.. while watching our poor WHM die from using benediction because of poor pulls and bad mob selection.

I left that party was going to go on my mary way to jeuno to cook for money.. and got a couple other invites. I knew one of the people so I decided to xp a bit more. This party didn't have a whm.. it was a RDM and me as healers.. and it had some well experienced and some newer people in it. It had 2 cooks.. so we were popping juices to keep the xp flowing with no downtime. I didn't think I was going to get the level I wanted because of the time wasted waiting for people to get their "needed" raises.. bah! I have died, spawned and gotten back into battles before the mob was dead! *note that was in qufim though. :)

Anywho.. It's true that bards can make a good party great, but they can't make a crappy one become good. I was pulling my hair out trying to explain things to these guys. I don't ever remember being so green at level 17! I actually had a conversation about whether or not the AH's from country to country were "the same" as in.. connected, same supplies, availability, etc. It took me about five minutes to convince them that each countries AH is a separate economy and that you can actually make good money by knowing where to sell things once you can chocobo or airship around the world.