A discussion thread for Bards and Archers related topics.


Info on Archer Class http://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Archer

Info on Bard http://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Bard




I'm a newbie in this game so I don't know a lot of stuffs
and I just recently became a bard and honestly I still don't know how to play my role as a bard in team/party game play
all I can see is that my new skill is only useful to replenish the healer's MP right? but I didn't see any need to do it because
in my experience the healer don't have any problem with low MP
maybe in very tough boss fight it'll become handy
what do you guys think?
anyone care to explain and share their experience?

I think the healer will need mp in later dungeons. But on some occasion my party will need the mp regen provided by bards. I was asked to use the mage's ballad two times out of three when fighting the boss that make poison pool. also once out of 5 times i went to haukken manor.

i think bards are doing lower dps compared to other classes that's what i noticed? might be due to the support/buff its providing to healers/dps

bard needs some cross-skills from other classes/jobs to be strong

Yea, especially if they are singing. -20% damage iinm. which is logical, how can you fight while singing

But honestly I like it because it means less enmity generated, considering that bards are kinda squishy.

Bard can be extremely powerfull with Lancer & Pugilist cross skills


What i usually choose for Bard cross skills are

Internal Release (PGL)
Blood for Blood (LNC)

aditional skills are
Invigorate (LNC)
Feather Foot/Mantra (PGL)
Second Wind(PGL)

less enmity = less dps = slower runs

i guess they are only good for raids

well, that's just my opinion, based on my very very very limited experience in the game and MMOs (only my second MMO).

I haven't even touched the end game dungeon yet (so my opinion doesn't matter much), but even with song, I don't think the dps drop is that noticeable. Still 2nd or 3rd on enmity meter (3rd if the healer is spamming heals ) And the songs are not even needed most of the time. There are times that I have to modify my skill rotation to make sure that the enmity is not too high.

If you think less DPS is bad, some people are not very happy that Bards are more DPS-ish. Some people say it should be more support-ish (less DPS, more utility). If you ask me, I like the current Bard. Just need more songs haha.

Yeah I think they are good for raids. The songs are practically useless when soloing (except for the one that increases movement speed), not that jobs are meant to be used solo.

Anyway, for anyone who is interested, I think this is a nice discussion on the job http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/1mf...eel_like_a_brd/

just by understanding what a Bard is you dont expect it to be a top dpser.. only if an archer is advanced to ranger/gunner then u call them the dpser

I'm not sure this is appropriate or not. Oh well...

Battle cry, improve party member fighting spirit.
Used since ancient time

LOL that looks so out of place

I think that Bard is kinda in the middle
not much damage and not much healing either
but I would prefer if there's more damage
and I haven't use the limit break yet, I wonder what an archer/bard limit break is?

in dungeons when my level is higher than the tank, I usually generate more enmity so I'm prone to be a target
sometimes I have to stop attacking or stick to simple attacks to reduce the enmity
and since my defense is not that great either I'll probably be dead when the mobs start ganging up on me

bard limit is heal. lol

what? heal? i was thinking maybe the limit break is like some awesome skill like thousands of arrows falling down from the sky or something similiar to that
so let's say that if everyone is almost dying and the healer is probably dead then it's the bard job to heal everyone using the limit break?
in last dungeon the tank shouted dps use limit but since I didn't notice the chat so I didn't use it but to think that the limit break is.. heal

yeah i was shocked when i first used the limit break. the tank wasn't too pleased .

i suppose it makes some sense that the limit break is heal considering that bards are considered to be 'support' job. but for archer it's a bit .

hopefully there will be some kind of true dps that uses bow in the future. and i wish that there will be more song maybe healing song for example i wonder how much enmity that will generate

I'm liking the job so far.

Some of the tips I've got so far:

If you're generating enmity too fast, use Quelling Strike. It lowers enmity as you attack for 15s, so you don't have to stop attacking. Very useful and less stressful for the tank to pull back agro.

Watch the healer's MP level. Once it hits 75 - 50%, Use Mage's Ballad to help it get back up again. Use Battle Voice to double the effect of the song. Cut it once the healer's MP reached 85 - 90%, so you can conserve MP in case the fight drags on and the healer needs another round of help.

Macro your skills. Less time (and keys) taken to activate them, more time to focus on the fight.

Use Flaming Arrow + Rain of Death on boss. It'll give a breathing room for tank and healer with the 10% lower damage from boss for 20s while attacking boss with DoT.

This post has been edited by ganstream1: Sep 19 2013, 05:19 AM

Bards are one of the highest DPS class after Summoner and always top 3 on Enmity if you know what you are doing. They are mobile and provide good burst damage potential as well as bringing important buffs with their songs. In Bahamut Coil they also play an important range interrupter role and kiting of adds taking minimal damage.

They are extremely good on fights that have tons of movement such as Titan Hard which keeps you on your toes. Bards are a White Mage best friend as WHM use mana like water and is important to pair them up to help regen their mana for intensive healing fights or long drag out fights. If your party is magic user heavy Foe Requiem enhances their damage boost too. In tight situations Rain of Death helps survivability, and your tanks and healers will appreciate it.

Bards also have some cool looking AoE skills which is also mobile however damage is minimal. Cross class skills from Pugilist and Lancer gives not only a boost to DPS burst such as Internal Release and Blood for Blood, but also a boost to survivability and the very important Invigorate which alot of bards don't know exist.

The drawbacks of bard is that they can no longer resurrect allies as the CNJ sub class has changed to pugilist, however the trade off is more dps potential and the elusive Mantra which might prove useful in end game min max raiding. Their limit break however is a pro and cons, cons as in it is not a DPS limit break so if all your dps slots are filled with bards, you basically have no dps LB. On the other hand, should all your tanks or healers failed or are busy running and healing and you are still alive with LB3, you can save the raid by giving a second chance for all. However such situations rarely come by, but if they do, your party will thank you like a hero.

My personal experience, we 2 DPS down Titan Hard last night, after the 2 PUG dps died after Heart phase, we took turns keeping healers mana up and breaking each other out of jails whilst DPSing Titan in a long drag out fight. Kill it with 2 Bards 2 Healers and 1 Tank, and our healers never run out of mana healing Tumult and Flip Table. It was epic.

Overall, bards are doing well and you would always want at least one bard in a raid group. Two bards would be OP for mana regen from Ballard, damage reduction from Rain, and burst damage on demand. Who says bards are doing less DPS? Haha

meh most of the times , for song only ballads and battle voice + paeon are useful other than that ur job is to dps till tp reach 0 .

I don't know why some people playing arc/brd still say they are lacking in dps..
I'm always the 2nd top enmity or 3rd if there's an off tank.

Don't be fooled by that singing song -20% damage. We hit quick, we have a few offensive skill not on the GCD, not to mention triggering DoT's crit for multiple bloodletter + heavy shot combo.

Bards are dps machine, that's a fact. Especially getting cross class skills from pgl and drg.
Only cons (in my opinion) is the useless healing limit break. we'll have sch or whm in party, if they're dead, it's done. our LB wont save anyone.

There's another point to note, brd will only have high burst of damage every 90s or so. our burst come from blood for blood, internal relase, raging strike, hawk eyes, barrage. brd can provide very consistent overall damage.

Anyway, that's my opinion. I absolutely love this job.

Yes, I also absolutely love this job, class, looks and our weapon, Artemis Bow! (So cool it folds and unfolds~)

You're a bad player if you don't use bvoice requiem when a MNK or BLM is in your party.

2 dragoon and 1 BLM , i will used paeon rather than requiem .

DGNs have Invigorate and unless the fight is drawn out you're wasting your own DPS and your own time.


But sure, you can run Paeon. Let me know how it goes when you do this on Titan HM lol.

I actually hate having an archer in group, it makes my tanking job tougher. You guys are very fast DPS machine!
I have to make sure i keep the mob banging on me head, while you guys pewpew the crap outta the mob.

No face rolling tanking with you guys in party....

This post has been edited by Madgeiser: Sep 17 2013, 04:20 PM

i done Titan HM so ?

fixed.


To other bards, don't listen to his bad advice. DGNs most definitely DO NOT need paeon up in anything before BCoC. If you're running paeon at the beginning of a fight instead of requiem, you're wasting your time and considering that you regen your MP back to full well before anyone needs paeon/ballad, why aren't you using requiem to buff your own FA and WB damage?

Requiem is a ridiculous DPS increase for the whole party if done right in a proper composition. A good bard uses all three songs anyway.

This post has been edited by ZeratoS: Sep 17 2013, 05:16 PM

im giving a bad advice ? lmao whatever dude im a newbie anyway .

The only time i use paeon is when there is another bard in party after i cap out :3 and then rotate to ballad if necessary.

hmm not sure if this is out of topic but which field of craft is useful for bard?

i know u need a carpenter to craft and meld ur relic weapon

ah, ok, tq, I'll try carpentering then

After learning more about Bard's skill rotation etc. I don't think I want to play as other jobs anymore. lol

This post has been edited by ganstream1: Sep 19 2013, 05:27 AM

what skill rotation do you guys usually use?
I usually start with venom bite but I read on other forums they would start with straight shot first

i start with straight shot bcos of 10% crit chance for all following attacks. sometimes i start with heavy shot then straighER shot. Idk if this is ok or not

ok i'll try to start with straight shot but venom bite and wind bite seems like a must
but when I play with a lower level tank I need to stick to using just quelling strike and straight shot
coz the other skills like heavy shot and bloodletter seems to increase my enmity
or is it just my imagination

Totally will play a bard for my 2nd job. Main class are Paladin, and its kinda boring to just sit there kiss the boss. After farming a full set of Dark Light , will switch to Bard! wait for me

So... Why aren't people using "Rain of death" against boss or mob? is because of tp cost?

yep, and very low damage. only use it when ansolutely necessary lol

is it bad if i use it whenever the status effect is down, especially on boss? i find that the debuff quite good.

anyway still good its good for farming lol. wide volley too.

yeah as long as u can manage ur tp its alright. since we have invigorate to rely on

I see.. Thanks for sharing...

More noob BRD question.

When should i play the army's paeon? since i couldn't see the party's tp. Ive only used it once and that is after i saw the chat box.

I havent obtained that one yet
but from the description it's like the mage ballad but it's to replenish tp instead

for mage's ballad we can see the mp bar of our party members so we know when we should use it

but I'm not sure if we can see our party member's TP bar so far I can't see it so I guess we just have to look at the chat to see someone requesting it?
or when our own TP seems like it's depleting we can assume it's the same for the other members so just use it then

i just play paeon mostly for myself but thats rare bcos i can use invigorate from LNC to get like 400tp back.
one time i was forced to play paeon was when i used sprint to run from ifrit charge. but thats about it. and no one ever asked so i guess its ok so far.

if your party is using alot of physical aoe skills, you can use paeon to ensure that they run out of tp slower (will be very important in end game).

else, you can activate it from time to time when there are any downtimes when you can't do any dps.

In dungeon where sometimes you have to pull the one specific mob away from the group of mobs, must it be the tank who have to do it or can a bard/archer do it as well since we have a longer range and should be able to pull the mob away better

I just did stone vigil and every time the tank tried to pull only one mob to the corner all the other mobs would follow too
so I wonder if it would be better to let the archer/bard do it instead

I think it's ok to pull. Having said that, I never did that in Stone Vigil, but I did pull Succubus and Dullahan in Amdapor Keep. Even so I did that only because we want to clear the dungeon fast.

Look for yellow line between the mobs (it fades in and out), if there is one or two or three, a pull to any one of them will pull the others as well no matter who does the pulling.

ohh I have never noticed that yellow line before, thank you for sharing

The level 45 Bard job quest armor set look pretty hideous.

You mean the choral sets? To be honest i like them more than the darklight. But it's a matter of opinion i guess

For myth tomes, what BRD items did you guys purchase first? Or do you guys go straight to +1 Artemis bow?

I personally wanted to upgrade the bow but it would be nice to hear from you guys too.

EDIT:
Disregard my question. http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads...ending-for-BRDs

This post has been edited by wanritsu: Oct 15 2013, 05:59 AM

On my giant Hellsguard I look like a clown with the red and blue.

And the myth gears are pink! Pink!

onoez! I hate pink!

Anyone here knows what determines the speed of mp drainage while using songs? Is the mp drainage constant regardless of situation?

I need to know this because I have trouble managing my mp. I'm planning to use a macro but have trouble to estimate when should i stop the song.

I usually try to use all three songs but this means sometimes I end up using all my mp.

IMO it's not a must to use songs unless it's necessary, Mage Ballad is only needed when healer are running out of mana and this doesn't really happen often except maybe Titan HM and in Coil.

Army's Paeon is not needed most of the time as melee dps have access to invigorate, they will only remotely run out of TP during AOE intensive fight.

Foe Requiem is useful when you have caster in your party such as BLM/SMN, apparently the skill is bug it does not decrease enemy elemental resistance by 10%, instead it increase caster damage by 15%, on caster heavy party it's extremely useful. It does not however affect Bard's own skill such as Windbite.

Remember that Bard is dps first and support 2nd, make your own call whether songs are needed based on the situation. If healer or caster request for them, then use it, otherwise just make the call yourself if it's needed.

Thank you.

But that still doesn't answer my question. Maybe no one knows exactly except yoshi P and co

I tried calculating the time while fighting normal mob but somehow the mp drain rate is different while fighting titan. Maybe it depends on the number of people in party?

Could be based on the mp the other uses, coz I can see that when were are not fighting and just recovering mp with mage ballad on, the mp drop quite slow, but during a fight it drop fast

what to get first for mythology item?
I almost have 900 for artemis bow +1 but not sure whether its a right choice for now

This if you want optimal myth spending for BRD, for me I just went for the bling (Artemis +1), since with full DL, DL and AK accessories, it's more than enough for Coil 1-3 I guess, and I can slowly get the rest of the gear later.

i see. was worried with current full DL equipments are not enough for the coil.
thanks

btw long time no see w

DL is enough, you only need better gear for Turn 4 onwards from what I heard from my FC members in Turn 4

Hahaa yeah long time no see

Ok That is what I was thinking too. So there is no way to really predict the time for mana to finish.

For "when" to ballad or TP regen. I can only tell you from my experience in Titan or Coil of Bahamut.

You will sing ballad most of the time when whm mp is down to 1000-1500. (Battle Voice should be paired with Ballad most of the time)

Paeon is only needed when the group is focusing on using AoE skills to down groups of mobs (eg: Coil Turn 4 on wave 1 and wave 4). Other than that, you'll never have to sing TP song. all melee dps and brds have Invigorate to replenish 400/500 TP instantly.

Foe Requim is only needed in specific situation and only when your party have blm ( smn = i do not think you need to waste ur mp singing requim for smn). However, only use this when there's a 2nd brd for emergency ballad.

The above is just my advice on when to use each songs base on Coil of Bahamut turn 1-5. For normal dungeons, cm/ak/wp, use watever your party needs lol

not sure about bards but my smn completed turn 4 with full DL without any single set of myth..

a noob question here, for battle voice...should i use it 1st before any song or after i sing a song? logically it should be before singing right?

This post has been edited by intothefantasy: Nov 7 2013, 11:29 AM

erm i think song of requim is needed for summoner as well...i believe it helps alot during turn 5 conflag phase where summoner is quite effective with the song to have high crits on fester...should be around 1.8k crit

i usually use the song i want first and then follow with battle voice. not sure whats optimal but it worked.

I am in a static group, if my others in my party went and geared up, I can't just go and said I don't want to gear up because others can do it with full DL. By next week I'll have enough myth for my first myth gear anyway, so might as well get it. Anything for more dps and faster clear is good.

Battle voice then song for me, Battle voice last for 30s anyway so more than enough time for you to sing after you use it.

Ud have wasted a few seconds from ur battle song buff by the time ur song's up if u do it that way tho. Quite a long cd once its used too.

incoming nerf for bard. but no detail have been release yet.

Seems like I misunderstood the skill description, noted

all because of noob that think bard are OP just cause they can move and dps
lets hope SE are smart in handling this.

yea, i think is ok as long we got 1 additional almost perma buff like -20% atk for bard damage but give 10% atk for all member in group, this is what support suppose to be @.@. if say they just blindly nerf bard then bard will have problem doing solo hunting ect.

think u got my part mistaken, did not say that u can stay on DL just because u can complete t4...more gear are better in terms of clearing the turns...the DL part is to said that is doable at least like the minimum requirements etc...not to say u should stay there...

The nerf might be in preparation for PVP being introduced in 2.1. As of right now, I doubt Bards have little problem killing the other classes.

Based on what you said I was not mistaken, more like the way you word it is not what you intended it to mean but no point in discussing about that.

Better gear is always better regardless whether it's possible to clear it with minimum gear.

Hi guys,
want to know around how much HP do i need to go for raid up to turn 3/4?
I have 3583 HP currently
If i want to craft accessories and gem 5 materials how should i gem them?

Vit + crit 6 + crit 6 + skill speed + skill speed
or
crit 6 + crit 6 + skill speed + skill speed + determination
or crit 6 + crit 6 + determination + determination + skill speed?

Any link for me to refer any pro bard's gemming?
Thanks

Hi i am a noob bard. but this is what i generally refer to:



Sos kicap

if anything need to be nerfed, i think BLM should deserve it first lol

Havent played bard(levelling one though.. ranged dps ftw xD) YET but IMO BLM shouldnt be nerfed as of now. Thundercloud/firestarter activates gcd which reduces potential dps. CMIIW but, bloodletter doesnt even use gcd right? Other than the 12seconds cd or windbite/venom bite procs? Might be biased but mehh

This post has been edited by teddbundy: Nov 12 2013, 04:04 PM

yeah but still they do a lot more dps than bards. about 15-20% more dps than bards and since casters do nothing else other than dpsing in coil, i really dont think bards deserve any nerfs tbh. its just that a lot of people suck at their classes

I dont want to be an ass but I agree with u. Sometimes I'm amazed that even I, a noob bard can do more dps than the blm even when i play ballad most of the time. I dont want to say that they suck. Its just maybe they have not optimized their rotation.

in PvP u probably need to keep away from BLM since they can swiftcast > deep sleep anytime. not to mention they have manawall and aetherial manipulation

Thanks! You are not noob. At least better than me hehe

Is it true they are taking away blood for blood from bards?

thats what the rumors are saying. which is, i dont know, it kinda sucks. its either that or internal release.

if they do remove b4b i hope they at least reduce the cooldown of raging strikes to 90secs or something to make up for that loss.

It's sad that SE listen to all the QQ about Bard damage without really properly looking into things. It's quite clear that all the QQ are from players that simply need to learn to play their class better.

Me and my friend been doing DF on all the Primal HM fight lately and we found that we are always the top DPS even against others with similar gear. The only time that we won't get top DPS is against someone who is vastly over-geared such as relic+1/allagan+myth geared DPS.

We queue as variety of classes such as Bard, Monk, Dragoon, Black Mage, etc and some are not even in full DL, but all have at least Relic.

SE need to remember Bard is a DPS class first, support second. The nerf is unnecessary considering Monk are getting grease lightning that last longer, Dragoon are getting buff jump, and even though BLM/SMN are not getting anything but a good BLM/SMN can out DPS all the other class easily.

yeah it sucks we're gonna lose 20% dps every other minute now that we're losing b4b

You have to admit though, having Internal Release, Raging Strikes, Blood for Blood, Hawk's Eye and Barrage seems a little much.

not really. have u looked at the numbers we put out? bards are 2nd last on the dps chart, we are only outdpsing dragoons at this point. once this patch hits, bards will effectively have the lowest dps among the lot.

Now other dps cannot make any excuse if they are still being out-dps-ed by BRDs