BRD questions (was forum=10)Follow

Oh and what are important stats for BRD? I know CHR but what else?

I'm moving this over to the Bard section.

/nin is for pulling.

For xp where you are pulling:
- for parties that kill fast, /nin; /whm in this party never gets any time to heal anyway, it takes longer to apply blink/stoneskin than to apply utsusemi, and you can run out of mp since you'll spend part of the time with melee songs on yourself
- for parties that kill slowly, I think /mage is slightly better, but it is more of a matter of preference; you have plenty of time to reapply blink/stoneskin in these parties and you can spend more time with ballad on although really most people are smart enough not to do these kinds of parties anymore

For everything else:
/whm or /sch depending on what specific abilities you need.

MP is a secondary stat for brd/mage. The main benefit is that when you are helping cover cures, you can spam cures a bit longer before you need ballad to recharge. Think of it as effecting your cure spike potential. I wouldn't sacrifice other stats in favor of MP though.

The primary stats for brd are song+ instruments, chr, wind skill, singing skill, magic accuracy, and song casting time/fast cast.

I meleed on brd with good results until about lvl 22 or so when accuracy starts to fall off. You won't be meleeing past that and most people don't even melee that far. A brd is usually keeping a song rotation:

elegy on mob
madrigal, minuet, or march for melees
another madrigal, minuet, or march for melees
ballad for mages
another ballad for mages

If you are /mage, you'll mix in some cures in there.

If you are pulling, you mix in some pulls in there and defensive buffs.

On end-game stuff, you might be using a carol against specific mobs.

BRD is probably one of the most race independent jobs in the game. Any race can play BRD fine. Taru make fine BRDs and we look the cutest doing it. ;)

I meant, in terms of using their MP. Of course a bard is much more than just a backup healer. What I meant was, I've never once been asked if I can somehow magically main heal a merit party as BRD.

If you're expecting the bards to be tossing Banish from their /WHM to get a magic burst off Light, then you're doing it wrong.

First, what's the best subjob for a BRD? - /whm /nin /sch /rdm. are all possible subs and probably some other ones now also for situational things. I would pick a 5$ sub and go from there.

Second, is mp an important stat for the BRD? - depends if you are /mage or not. i wouldnt full time mp+ or hp-mp because you need stats in this order for:
Buffing - Song+, singing wind/string+
Which ever of these gives the most skill singing or string/wind. String only helps when you use strings and wind only helps when you use wind. Also check teirs of songs to see if its worth it to add more skill or if you reached the cap for that song and can now use other gear like MP+ or haste/fastcast for recast or precast.

Debuffing - Song+, Skill/mAcc, chr
When making the choice of skill+ also consider the range of string and mAcc of wind when making this choice. normally one skill will be about one mAcc. Not sure if skill drops off like melee skills to where one skill becomes 0.9 mAcc. Theres no reason to assume it don't. But no testing that i have seen to say for sure. Char is better if you can get twice as much of it as you can for mAcc for that slot as a general rule where you dont need to calculate your targets stats vs your stats. Some say get 120 chr because its cheaper then mAcc and this is when chr normally will start having less of an effect. I say play chr etude if your having issues landing debuffs.

Do I play a BRD similar to WHM or will I be meleeing? - if you have a very respectable melee and brd setup you can get away with playing brd/nin depending who you are partied with. i mean repectable as in 26% haste on tp gain with a 80%+ hit rate and ~120 total dex without songs while macroing in enough equipment to maintain a 50% casting time. This will probably have you around 70/80 inventory space or so just to be able to do basicly what any AH bought melee job can do.

Do Tarutaru make good BRD's? - No. They make good meals if cooked right.

What the above poster said is also true but you may also want to consider macro sets pre 75 to increase the effect on your songs and swap back out w/ melee equipment if your meleeeing or MP if your backup healing. Dont break your bank with items that probably wont be the best or pretty good at 75 but a few items of skill+ is certainly nice. i know those 4 days from 1 - 55 did a little of both. more melee towards the lower levels when i had hardly no MP and more back up healing later.

Edited, Jul 14th 2010 1:06am by flowerpot

And that's the problem.