Self-songs overwriting? Not anymore!Follow

Possible a new ja or 2 and for the magian thing hopefully not only for relics so that it possible to have 1~2 more +2 (hopeful for +3) song types on a single instrument for less inventory space.

Who the hell cares about what songs the BRD has on himself? He's usually not even attacking, and if he's /NIN his MP is irrelevant too.

This is only a problem for COR, not BRD.



I thought they already had these.

BRD doesn't even catch magic aggro, so it's basically as good as pulling with ranged attacks (with slightly less range).

BRD is a joke to pull with, sheesh. I really don't see how anyone could think they need more help in this department. I already take hits from mobs far better than most melees do, if I'm even getting hit in the first place...

If you ask me, the only thing that should really be changed is fixing Requiem to make it easier to pull with at lower levels when Elegy isn't available yet (give this 21' range instead of 17'; why is it shorter range to begin with? -- and eliminate the stupid animation delay you get when casting it that freezes you in place for another second or so)

Edited, Mar 4th 2010 9:32am by Fynlar

Perhaps Square feels like BRD should be DDing when /nin or performing magely duties more efficiently when /mage.

I wouldn't mind at all being able to keep songs on myself while doing my rotations.

Hell, most merit burns dont even need the lazy brd any more to be healing. BRD gets some hella good DD gear. Put the songs on you that you need, keep them and DD while going through your rotations. Kill faster.

Seems good to me.

Edited, Mar 4th 2010 12:59pm by ThiefKiller

Yes it is.

They dont JUST have access to kitty pants (although this is pretty significant). They can also wear Hecatomb Gear and Relic body is also a pretty good EV piece too.



This is really the point. Their lower skill or lack of enspells/composure/whatever don't really matter in this comparison. RDM's can't sing themselves BRD's specific soings to max their own gear sets.


You have your puller singing the double marches, you have double minuet on your DD, sing yourself a madrigal = hybrid brd/dd pwnage. This is really already possible with pianissimo. But having a new adjustment like this would make it easier/smoother.

But if you ask me what they really need to do is increase song duration.

Edited, Mar 5th 2010 11:25am by ThiefKiller

Congrats. I'm still laughing :)

I am not sure this is the case. He spoke of "long and tricky pulls" when he spoke of abilities to increase BRD puller survivability. While its been a long time since I was the puller in a merit party, I can still remember having such painful pulling situations. With competition in a camp longer and more difficult pulls can be common. (Yes, I know competition is not exactly common these days with server pops, but it does happen.) Some sort of ability to enhance Bard survivability as /nin would be nice here. Yes we have gear that we should be choosing to use, but it is possible to give us more.

But, really... If SE really feels like BRD should be contributing to the DD being done as /nin they would change our Weapon Rating at the very least. There is a lot of other things they could do to enhance our DD abilities, but raising our skill to B+ would be the biggest step in that direction. A BRD only skill that was actually useful would also be a good step. Even if it wasn't a DD ability per se but a Damage + Significant Debuff ability it would help usefulness as /nin.

All that being said, I have never been the bard puller in a group that wasn't pulling the second mob as soon as I finished putting my song cycle up for the first. Any DD gains would be for situational uses such as 2xBRD, low-manning and single party endgame events.

--
To the OP... the ability to protect your own songs is an interesting idea. Personally, I would rather see Pianissimo be able to protect the song you use it with. Either a new ability or a "Seal" type ability that protects those songs. If not an ability to do this, than an ability that would lengthen the song by 15-30 seconds so that it will not be the song pushed off by other buffing.

There's really never been a time where I've had time to DD outside of like coffer key parties and really lowbie stuff like that. If the rdm has an abundance of mp in a two bard party, its only a matter of time before full time hassos, souleaters, etc start getting thrown out which help way more than a bards DD. I've had /nins refuse to cast :ni because it took away from their attack rate.


I hope its something to do with:

A) The duration of songs. I can't take a sip of lemonade in a merit party/nyzul/limbus/etc unless I want songs to drop. I refuse to half ass it, but its such a busy job most of the time. Stuff like salvage bosses is actually a vacation since everyone stands still and there is no pulling.


B) The overwriting of ballad. So frustrating that the bard never gets the benefit of one ballad. SV--->troub---->DD songs----->ballads and you only get one ballad. If you reverse the order you get zero. If you wait you lose troub. Same thing in nyzul type situations. Unless you have relic horn your ballads are getting overridden unless you tailor your strat around not letting that happen. But if you do that other, and larger, parts of your game will suffer.

I'm guessing because not many bards play outside of that box that they have grown quite comfortable in.

Addressing the Hecatomb gear being bad (lol seriously wtf?) for evisceration...I don't really know how to argue with that. Many of its pieces are the best evisceration gear pieces in the entire game. Brd can also use some decent WS pieces in place of heca...Osode, Relic Body (have you SEEN the stats on this thing), Kitty pants are pretty good evisceration pieces too.

Anyone that says Hecatomb gear is not great gear for evisceration just doesn't know what they are talking about. Not only do they have some of the largest amounts of DEX on a single piece gear for their slot, but also great chunks of STR...which is great for multi hit WS like this.

Blau is an amazing dagger, great TP options, Great WS options, dagger merits, piercing weak mobs, self tailored songs...I honestly don't see how one could intelligently argue against this.

A well geared DD bard, singing himself Mad/Minuet and getting double marches while eating crab sushi/pizza is going to be a meaningful increase in kill speed. Mobs dying faster = less time for them to hurt the dd's = less MP strain on the mages = easier, increased xp/hr.

After a certain point there are so few ways to meaningfully increase XP/HR. Adding a good chunk of DD from the second Bard is a great way to get this done.

Just because YOU'VE never done it/tried it/thought about it/wanted to do it, does not mean it is a bad idea.

Playing melee on bard is some of the most fun I've had in this game. I wish I could do it more often. Bard is relatively easy to hit the 25% haste cap on compared to some jobs. You can do it without expensive pieces like dusk +1, speed belt, etc. It does take some end game gear that can be difficult to get (goliard body, haidate for example) but they're not as uncommon as they once were. Meleeing bard/nin with 25% haste, dual wield traits, suppa, and quick/multi hit weapons (blau/joy is a winning combo) is really something to see. Bard has some amazing weapon skill options too, better than what a lot of actual DD jobs get, but that's already been mentioned in this thread.

And I don't think of it as something just to screw around with, it has real potential in places such as merits. Remove one of the DDs in a standard single bard merit party, and replace them with a well equipped DD bard, dealing personal damage as well as increasing the damage of everyone else in the party through a second round of buffs. In many cases, I believe the melee bard would be more efficient.


Edited, Mar 16th 2010 6:12pm by Susanoh

One time in Campaign I had about 60% Haste, dual wielding Jambiya and Joyeuse.

I had, 25% Gear Haste (Wal Turban, Gol Saio, Dusk gloves, Byakko's hadit, Dusk feet, Swift belt, Angel lyre), casted double March on myself (aprox 20%) and I had a friendly Rdm cast Haste on me as well (15%).

25+20+15= 60% Haste

My dual wielded weapons had a combine delay of 425, minus 20% delay from Dual wield trait, meaning a total conbine delay of 340.

340 * 3/5 (0.60 for those who don't like fractions) = 204
340-204=134 total delay.

Well whatdayaknow, I can swing two weapons (one which double atks half the time) faster than the fastest dager in the game. Giving me a DoT of aprox, (33+35)/(136/60)

68 * (60/136) = 30 Damage per Second

Now if only I had Haste Samba to go along with it. /wishful thinking

Edit: If I did have Haste Samba (10%), it would raise my DoT to 40 dmg/sec.
And at 80% Haste, it would raise my DoT to aprox 60 damage per second.
Edit again: I wonder if 60 dmg/second is somehow the absolute cap on DPS reguardless of the weapon (all else constant, and average base damage with respects to the weapon catagory), because even Apoc with 80% haste can't break 60 damage per second. But raise the Haste cap to even 90%, and dmg potential jumps to over 100 DPS.

Edited, Mar 18th 2010 10:57am by Teiei

Except for the fact that Mazurka wears off on every pull, and if anything reapplication would just slow you down...

I agree on point one, not on point two for reasons already noted above.

It may not appear as an overly useful ability, but the more I think about it the more I think it'd be a very useful addition. Not having our songs overridden could be very helpful if we were using March, lowering our recast timers, or Balled, if not pulling in a party or at some event, to further improve our supporting role. Along with a number of other possible applications.

And, dare I even suggest, putting melee songs and breaking out a dagger?
Na, I'm sure we all know what would happen, as most primary melees tend to disreguard math that doesn't pertain to their own concept of what's effective. Course, even with our songs and gear, our dagger skill is a hold back unless for whatever reason SE decides to raise it. Unlikely but one can hope eh.

Edited, Apr 9th 2010 7:45pm by Teiei