BRD melee

[sntangl]

This is a post for all the spoony BRDs out there who think that a BRD melee is not out of the question in an XP pty. Let me explain my thought process. I am a 68 BRD/WHM tarutaru. I sing my first 2 melee songs as the puller is coming back. Then i sing Elegy, Requiem and Threnody. I sing etudes when my mages and melee need it for Skillchains. I heal, use bar spells and curaga when needed. Here comes the fun part now. I switch gear out and go with att and acc gear. I go with +21 att and +24 acc. I use a dagger and am consistently hitting for 20+ with 75% acc. I use cyclone weaponskill every other mob for 110+. I only do 2-4% of total damage in my static but it still seems worth it. What i am looking for in this thread is other BRD's out there who melee what gear they use. Discuss, complain, or tear me a new one

[Jei]

Re: BRD melee

as long as you don't lose track of your songs and not slowing the pt down i guess.
what songs do you prefer to keep on yourself tho? melee songs or ballad?

[Sanim]

Re: BRD melee

Just to know, not be sure if its right what ill ask but lets go

Is that little damage (3%) worth the tp that you give to the mob?

[sntangl]

Re: BRD melee

I keep the 2 melee songs on me (I.E. 2 X att, att + acc or att + haste depending on what melee need) during the fight. When the fight is about over I run back to the mages and sing ballad 1 + 2 to regen my mp. I roll with 300 mp btw as well (Gotta love tarutaru mp pool )

Double Post Edited:
What I have noticed in xp party at this lvl is that the faster you kill the mob, the more xp you get. Hence, the more dmg I do the faster the stuff dies.

[qaitakalnin]

Re: BRD melee

I started doing the same thing in my bard static (when i wasnt the puller, man i loved pullin and then lullaby), but i used a sword, managed to get a swan bilbo, and i was using spirits within. I have seen a bard on my server (catsith) that was decked out in god gear that said he was actually capable of blink tanking (he is lvl75), and i was asking him about stuff like keepin hate and he said with SATA he keeps hate pretty well, mind you all of his gear was all vit+ and hp+ with joyeuse and a mercuial kris/knife, all in all seemed pretty fun.

I do agree though as long as you are keepin up your songs and your pt doesnt mind attack i mean we have a relativly high attacks (mine was almost 300 last time i checked) and spirits within just plain rocks.

[Rodin]

Re: BRD melee

What I have noticed in xp party at this lvl is that the faster you kill the mob, the more xp you get. Hence, the more dmg I do the faster the stuff dies.

Well, that depends really. This seems to be the mentality of a lot of people there. What really gets you more XP/hr is balancing downtime with fighting time. Now, if you do 100 DMG, or 1 DMG, you're giving 2% TP to the mob, now there's usually 3 people fighting. Each swing, they give 6% TP to the mob, depending on what jobs, and subtle blow, etc. Also, the mob is gaining anywhere from 8 to 12% TP each time it swings. Now, the 20-30 DMG you do, will give it a shitload of TP over time. Now, you might not think about it like this, but for each swing you take, you're taking away from the party's MP pool. Each time a TP move goes off, the WHM RDM SMN or whatever has to heal the DMG, status effect, or even AOE DMG. Now you might not think that 120MP is so important, but that's time spent healing, and not fighting. That increases downtime, and that downtime affects your XP/hr.

Now, I usually don't care about BRDs meleeing as long as they keep songs up. But at your level, on gobs in Bibiki Bay, I'd kick you. I've seen gob bombs do 900-1000+ DMG to the tank WITH Bafira up, and my enhancing magic close to cap. The 200-300 DMG you do over time isn't nearly as beneficial as you not meleeing, especially on gobs.

[Armando]

Re: BRD melee

TP is not an argument. Mobs gain your TP gain +3 each time you hit them, which means even a THF will give the mob at least 8 TP per hit unless he/she has Subtle Blow (then it's reduced to 7.5 or 7.2 TP per hit depending on the Subtle Blow level.) However, mobs only use their TP moves ASAP if their HP is 20% or less, and will only use them randomly before that. No matter how you slice it, mobs gain TP way too fast (aside from that, they also get normal TP from hitting i.e. 6.4 TP per hit because most mobs have a Delay of 240, and 10 TP for each spell that lands on them for damage.) The thing is that BRD don't do much damage, and whatever little you do is just a drop in the bucket, due to not being able to stand there in front of the mob all of the time, no attack/accuracy food, and no attack/accuracy gear. If you can squeeze in some swings between songs, that's cool. Just remember that songs and support are still your main priority.

P.S. Don't melee when the mob's at 20%. You're just helping the mob kill the tank.

[Balfree]

Re: BRD melee

Technically, some mobs.. dont do it.. abraxas have terriblewellible tp moves for example.

But in sky for example... go all out heh

[Bahamut Kaiser]

Re: BRD melee

I perfer to swap out threnodies constantly for more powerful nukes, and focus on maintaining multiple buffs, and cover healing now and then.

Thing is, like said before, if your not doing a certain amount of damage per swing, your actually adding more damage received from the enemy. If your attacking long enough to do any damage with bard during the battle then your most likely causing at least 1 added attack skill to the enemy to use against you. This risks teammates lives, causes extra downtime, and your most likely failing to provide every threnody possible for your mages wile buffing effectively. Your also more succeptable to minor AoE attacks that would otherwise miss you.

In a static party you can get away with just about anything, even AFKing, so how effective and acceptable your actions are don't realy show. But for all the regular players out there who have to compete with the population, screwing around can mean several hrs waiting for another party. As a bard as well, competition is also alot less stagnent as almost anyone will take a bard as long as you sing your half dozen neccissary songs. I myself melee, but not because it does damage..... I just want to skill up my weapons a bit, and I don't have a monster signa, I have a corrosive knife.

In a sideway I am kind of support the team with a very seldom defense down, but if I manage to add my WS to a SC or make a SC where there wouldn't be one, it is enough to compensate for my pittering.

As a side note, alot of DD melee jobs can do as bad as bard in a non bard party as a bard would when hes got all his buffs on him. But if you have melee teammates worth a crap and your buffing them well, they honestly don't need your 100-200 added damage per battle, it's better if your on your ones and twos when some mob links and making sure you exploit every threnody, even to boost debuffs.

[Wanta]

Re: BRD melee

You sing melee songs at start of fight, and then elegy?? I highly disapprove of that. Elegy is the first thing a bard should cast.
Both melee songs from the previous fight should still be on at the start of the next fight, if not, you have a slow puller or you need to rethink your strategy.

As for meleeing, if you can keep your all necessary songs up at all times and still find the time to melee, I don't see anything wrong with it.

[Rones]

Re: BRD melee

You should be out pulling instead of wasting time melee. My usual activities include:
1. Pull with elegy (or finale depending on mob).
2. Hit it with foe req at camp.
3. Do 2 songs, either both melee buffs or mage ballads depending on what I did last fight.
4. Go back out and look for something to pull, return to step 1.

I usually arrive at camp with the next mob as soon as the previous one is dying. If not, one lullaby is sufficient time. The time saved by having you pull while others melee will result in much higher chains than having you help melee and forcing time wasted between fights while one of the DD goes and pulls. You could be spending your time much more productively than meleeing. Additionaly, you say you are using dagger weaponskills which means you are not using the appropriate elemental staves for your spells.

[sntangl]

Re: BRD melee

Thank you for all the comments. I am going to not melee and become more of a healer. Let's see how it works. I maxed out my Mp at 350 and bought dark staff for mp regen, light staff for songs and healing, and earth staff for elegy. Since I am not the puller in my static I'll sing my songs and stand back with the mages. Should I buy other staves for threnodies as well? Discuss

[Rones]

Re: BRD melee

Healing can be a big help to your party, but you might want to suggest to them having you pull. This saves a lot of time because you can have the next enemy arriving as the previous dies, saving the time spent for your DD to go pull after killing (which means higher chains).

As for the threnodies, don't worry about it. Usually you won't have a resist problem and they aren't too critical to land. If you've got the inventory space and money go for it, but there is probably something better you can spend it on. The important one to land is elegy, and then requim to an extent. Luckily the majority of your songs just depend on light and earth staves.

[Tsikuro]

Re: BRD melee

BRD is worthless at melee...
Being a lv75 BRD with capped sword skill, I can stack gear and etudes that will give me +75 STR. Now, even with this 65+75 STR, and the best sword I can use, the damage I will actually do to mobs is horrible... so leave it to to the DDs ><;

[Ahinjel]

Re: BRD melee

I tried to melee once in a PT, heh first and last time ever~ By the time I got my weapon changed out, took 5 oto 10 hits, songs were beginning to recycle. I'm only lvl43, but (an this is just my personal opinion), my job isn't melee. If I want to skill up, I do it by myself where I'm not being depended on to perform my job to the absolute best of my abilities. My contribution isnt whailing away doing laughable(at best)damage...an thats when I did hit it lol. It's kinda like being in Dunes...w/a SMN whose only Avatar is Carby, and him/her having it out all fight. GG on adding to the mobs TP build up^^.

All that being said, I'm happy just to drop the funky beats, let the melee do their thing, an I'll do mine~

Z