Hume: WHM/SMN vs. WHM/BLM

[Rones]

Some pty i feel like i'm struggling with mp management.. always left with < 100 after chain 5, sometimes even chain 4 and i'm <100 and i can't even have time to /heal myself during battle.. those times i wish if i'd subbed smn, the extra MP and refresh might made me through the chain.

Those are the parties where subbing /brd would prove most useful. Even if you only had time for ballad on your party, doing ballad for the rdm, blm, pld, and yourself would produce 4 mp every 3 seconds for the party net where as smn would only be 1 mp every 3 seconds. That's a differnce of creating 80 mp every minute with brd vs creating 20 mp every minute with smn. Subbing brd would produce 3-4 times as much mp as smn and ease your troubles with mp shortages.

Also, conserve mp kicks in so often that subbing smn in a party that really strains mp will end up with nearly the same amount of mp left after the fight.

[Miriamel]

Originally posted by Rones
Those are the parties where subbing /brd would prove most useful. Even if you only had time for ballad on your party, doing ballad for the rdm, blm, pld, and yourself would produce 4 mp every 3 seconds for the party net where as smn would only be 1 mp every 3 seconds. That's a differnce of creating 80 mp every minute with brd vs creating 20 mp every minute with smn. Subbing brd would produce 3-4 times as much mp as smn and ease your troubles with mp shortages.

Also, conserve mp kicks in so often that subbing smn in a party that really strains mp will end up with nearly the same amount of mp left after the fight.

Well, subbing brd in that situation would benefit the party, but not yourself.

Ballad I has an 8 second cast time, a fairly short range when sung without instrument, gives everyone in range 40MP before it runs out, and your BRD sub doesn't give you any MP.

So technically, by subbing BRD, you rid yourself of roughly 100MP for Hume/Mithra/Elf (at my level), and gain the ability to be stuck in casting a song for 8 seconds (that is most likely not to hit the PLD, unless you do proper spacing, which takes experience or a lot of looking from all angles), which will make you regain 40 MP over the course of 2 minutes. This would lower my MP pool from 812 to roughly 720MP, leave me without Conserve MP (which would give me back much more without making me get up to recast Ballad) and would keep me busy beyond the norm.

Hence, the only advantage you have is that you give other mages in the party +1MP/3 seconds. But honestly, I don't think this should be considered by non-tarus.

[Rones]

That's the thing about brd sub, its not specifically giving you any advantage over smn or blm's conserve mp trait. Best I can tell, it breaks just about even with the other two when only looking at yourself (minus the smaller mp tank which is about ~80 mp loss for me, but I never use the bottom ~200 of my mp tank anyway so never hurts). The advantage is its effect on the party as a whole. While its only 40 mp for you in 2 mins, that's also 40 for your blm, rdm, and pld which all eases the load on the whm. That's 120 free mp per fighgt that can be spent on cures you wouldn't otherwise have without subbing brd. That more than makes up for the ~80 mp lost from the smaller mp tank in a single fight. Over a 14 min chain 5 that would be 840 extra mp divided among your rdm, blm, and pld alone.

Ballad works just the same as when you have a rdm as main healer, he still refreshs (long casting time also) everyone because that's producing more mp net for the party and eases the load on his mp. Helping others results in helping yourself.

Side note-singing range without an instrument is much larger than most give it credit for and 8 seconds isn't a big deal, I never have any problems with long casting regens or hastes.

[LockeCole]

I've tried whm/brd at 52, never want to do it again. Madrigal had marginal effect on their accuracy (aka they still whiffed coz of equips), I was running around like crazy for 1 mp/sec, and obviously any debuffs would fail. I guess you'd need a parser to do this but by instincs things were still going slowly so... Songs didn't last long because I didn't have any instruments. Also I had to get up earlier and rush to sing songs while I could still be resting for mp (one tick towards the end = 40+++ mp with dark staff), or enfeebling (or rather trying enfeebles <_<. , or casting regen and haste. You think you can keep Ballad on your mages all the time? Think again. Ballad loves to wear off when you're half-way resting. Will you get up and recast, and waste mp ticks? Not worth it ever. Will you stay up and recast Ballad after battle when you could be resting? To me that's not worth it but it's more of an opinion than fact.

Now of course there will be times when bard is a better subjob. But the way I see it, if your party is good you won't have time to sing your songs properly, rest for mp and be a good main healer (especially fast chaining) all at the same time, and if your party is bad well your bard subjob isn't going to make it good anytime soon. The other times where you're so-so in the middle, bard might be better but hey will you always sub it in hopes of getting this so-so-in-the-middle kinda party? Your call.

So the conclusion is : I'm lazy. If I'm playing white mage I wanna do what I was innitially made to do (heal/enfeeble/regen/haste) and not additional stuff like running around singing. /blm and /smn will help me do both these more efficiently by giving me more mp to play with. /brd might help the party, at the cost of the main healer being less efficient. Some parties have other good support (especially summoners) that would make /brd a better choice arguably, but meh (yes this is a weak retort ). Go try it out for yourself~ some people like being extra-super busy ^^.

[Icemage]

<-- loves being extra super busy.

Sword Madrigal has a very significant effect on melees. It's hard for WHM to notice, but melees I party with definitely notice the difference when I replace a WHM/BLM that just left. They hit more often, their WS land more often, and they can do those WS faster because they gain TP faster.

Managing the casting time for Mage's Ballad is an acquired skill, and certainly not for the faint of heart or slow on trigger finger. The only time I think its a real hassle is when fighting Torama, which like to spam Silence and Paralyze effects. 8 seconds of not casting -na spells can be very painful against them if you don't know what you're doing.

I can't say enough good things about Magic Finale vs. Doom Warlocks and other spellcasting skeletons. Virtually 100% success rate at zapping Ice Spikes, which saves MP from casting Barblizzara and Paralyna.

Hunter's Prelude makes you into every Ranger's best friend.

WHM/BLM for the lazy. WHM/BRD for those who don't mind spending extra energy to bring something special to a party. ;P


Icemage

[Rones]

Songs didn't last long because I didn't have any instruments.

Ballad is still going to last about about 2 min whether you have an instrument or not. Lack of the +20 or +40 seconds from the +1 and +2 instruments isn't crippling when the songs are already lasting 120 seconds.

Also I had to get up earlier and rush to sing songs while I could still be resting for mp

No need to kill your mp over it. Melees get by without your madrial song all the time you are subbing blm instead of brd, so they can surely wait until you finish resting. As for ballad, just throw it whenever you would be standing anyway, won't be on constantly, but it doesn't need to be either.

[Icemage]

My usual routine is:

- Get up from resting
- Sing Sword Madrigal (or sometimes Sheepfoe Mambo, if main tank is a ninja) for melees
- Cast Flash (most PLDs open fights with flash, and the 8 second delay on Madrigal usually means their flash is long gone by the time I cast)
- Run to mage area
- If a RNG is present, sing Hunter's Prelude now
- Cast Regen III on tank
- Cast Dia II
- Sing Mage's Ballad
- Do regular stuff from here in (cycle Haste, Cure III, Cure V, Regen I/II/III on melees and tank as needed, Flash, whatever).

Very rarely do I ever have to sing a song twice during a battle.

At the end of a fight, if I can hit mages and PLD tank/DRK with Ballad on a single cast, I'll move into position and start singing right before a monster dies. Once fight ends, cast -na spells to zap poison, blind, whatever, then rest as usual.

I lose at most 6-8 seconds of resting time this way even when my timing isn't spot-on If you want to argue that I'd lose 40+ MP from my Dark Staff and Food this way, you're probably right, but that's 20-40 MP back from Ballad while I'm resting, plus 40MP for all the spellcasters in the party too.

Overall, I probably recover about 10% more MP using /BRD, and spend maybe 20% more due to not having Conserve MP, but the extra MP going to the PLD/BLM/RDM/DRK/SMN usually makes up for that and then some. It doesn't work as well if the other players are careless with their MP, but when you've got players who know what they are doing and know how to make good use of the extra MP, the difference in killing speed, safety, and downtime is really profound.


Icemage

[Manatra]

If a WHM has to SJ BRD, then there is something fundamentally wrong with the PT setup.

SMN and BLM are both good SJ. It also depends on what you are fighting against. At high level SMN SJ is very nice when fighting weapons in sky and Ro'Maeve since it blocks the AoE stun attack. It also provides you with 1200 MP an hour. Honestly... it depends on the PT setup, if there's a BLM or RDM/BLM in the PT (which there should be) then I'd say that you should go with a SMN SJ. However, if you're in a PT that lacks a RDM or BLM (Say a 3x RNG PT which are godly) the a BLM SJ would be justified. The conserver MP vs. Auto Refresh arguement has been played out, in the end though I find SMN to be a better SJ just because high level you're killing things so fast I find you barely heal enough for the effects of Conserve MP to really kick in. Not to mention SMN SJ is an absolute MUST for high level NM fights.

[Rones]

It also provides you with 1200 MP an hour.

And with a brd sub in a party with 5 mp users (pld,drk, whm,rdm,blm) that would be 6,000 mp an hour (~4,000-4,500 assuming ballad only on 2/3 of the time).

The conserver MP vs. Auto Refresh arguement has been played out, in the end though I find SMN to be a better SJ just because high level you're killing things so fast I find you barely heal enough for the effects of Conserve MP to really kick in.

Your logic appears flawed, conserve mp kicks in a percentage of the time and saves a percentage of the mp spent. It's all about the law of big numbers. Doesn't matter if its 1,000 spells that cost 10 mp or 100 spells that cost 100 mp, you would save (on average) the same amount of mp. If your casting, conserve mp is kicking in on occasion saving that mp.

It could be I'm reading your statement wrong and you're instead saying you just don't cast much which means you have a surplus of mp. Then it doesn't really matter what you sub for mp efficieny. In that case particular, brd sub would superior to smn if only for the weak accuracy boost to speed up your party since mp isn't an issue at all.

Either way, brd & blm sub outperform smn, be it high mp drain or mp surplus.

Not to mention SMN SJ is an absolute MUST for high level NM fights.

Could you elaborate on this? Unless you're specifically needing an avatar ability, I don't see this as being a 'must' (go find a full smn if you need avatar abilities so bad). Of course, if you nm hunting party already has a brd with all the mages, then that rules out brd sub, but leaves you with blm sub for conserve mp.

[Manatra]

SMN rarely use aerial armor in high level NM fights. The full SMN in high level HNM fight are either using Stoneskin, or spinning dive. The aerial armor is left to the WHM/SMN and BRD/SMN. In high level NM fight 2 PLDs sharing hate being aerial armor'd every 20-30 seconds is an extremely effective way to tank gods, Fafnir, and other things that do high damage as that basically makes them Ninjas, but unlike Ninjas I find PLD are far more effective at holding hate and taking damage meaning less deaths on the BLMs and RNGs part :p

[Laehn]

I've tested song power without instruments, not meaning without +1 instruments, meaning any generic no bonus instrument and it really sucks. My minuet was half the power of what it caps at, and even less than half of what its usually at with +2 minuet instrument. Brd sub is VERY situational and i highly recommend not using it in 99% of parties because its literally less than half the power of any other sub.

Bards draw power from instruments, that accounts for more than half a bards power. Granted, ballad isnt affected by instruments, neither is paeon, but madrigal, minuet, etude, threnody, lullaby are all instrument dependant. The slight boost in accuracy will be barely noticeable as you gain lvls and fight tougher monsters with higher evasion. Not to mention, unless youre fighting a mob weak to the song element, youre not going to land lullaby, threnody or requiem. Youd be lucky to even land it reliably on a weak mob id guess.

Without instruments, youre playing with the skills of a brd half the lvl of your sub. So say youre a 50/25 whm/brd, your sub would be about the power of a 12-13 brd.

[Icemage]

I respect your opinion, Laehn, but it just isn't so. Ballad I is the same regardless of whether a WHM50/BRD25 or a BRD75/WHM37 sings it. Yes, Sword Madrigal as a sub isn't AS powerful as Blade Madrigal from a main bard, but... it's still very noticeable. More to the point, it's something that I can't do with /BLM.

I never use Minuet in groups using my bard sub. For me, as a WHM, its about as useful as Scop's Operetta due to the above-noted lack of power (I think at level 69/34 it adds 14 ATK). There are much better things to be singing.

My sub is there to fill in the extra spaces in my time with something useful when I'm not doing regular WHM things (Regen, Cures, -na, Haste, whatever). That's all I ask from it, that's exactly what it gives me, and for me, /BRD does a better job of that than /BLM does.


Icemage

[Laehn]

Originally posted by Icemage
I respect your opinion, Laehn, but it just isn't so. Ballad I is the same regardless of whether a WHM50/BRD25 or a BRD75/WHM37 sings it.

Ill repeat myself. You must have missed what i had originally said.

Originally posted by Laehn
Granted, ballad isnt affected by instruments, neither is paeon, but madrigal, minuet, etude, threnody, lullaby are all instrument dependant.

As for sword madrigal making an noticeable difference. Im a MAIN bard and i have the song at more than 4 times the power that you do, and i can tell you, that its horrible. I dont notice a difference with it and neither do my parties. Its a lvl 11 song, the reason bards have 2 madrigals is because one looses effectiveness past a certain point because of monsters getting increasingly higher evasion. It would be like using paeon 1 on a party. Sure it makes a difference, but i think using those 8 seconds for something a whm is proficient at is better, like cast haste, or regen 3 or curing. It makes a difference, but the extra mp you get from blm and the mp you save with conserve mp far outweighs the benefits from subbing brd. Even smn would make a larger difference if you use aerial armor. Aerial armor can save thousands of HP with mobs with stong aoe's or -ga spells.

Bard is the weakest job to sub for the single fact you cant access more than half of the power that main bards are given. As a GENERAL rule, most advanced jobs dont sub very well in most situations. General, as in general, as in there are exceptions, bard not being one of these exceptions.

[Rones]

Sure it makes a difference, but i think using those 8 seconds for something a whm is proficient at is better, like cast haste, or regen 3 or curing.

The thing Icemage has been getting at this whole time, is he can do all of those tasks and still has time to spare (as can most whms), which can be put to use with brd songs. Sure its not making near the difference as if as main brd had done it, but that's the whole point, there is no main brd. :p
Main brd > sub brd > no brd.

Even smn would make a larger difference if you use aerial armor. Aerial armor can save thousands of HP with mobs with stong aoe's or -ga spells.

Last I checked, parties usually avoided mobs with strong aoes except for gobs which are solved by the cheap barfira. Weak aoes are solved easily by divine seal+curaga from the whm or blm. I have yet to exp on anything that would warrent the use of a high mp cost aerial armor.

Bard is the weakest job to sub for the single fact you cant access more than half of the power that main bards are given.

That's the same for all jobs you sub, they aren't meant to have the same power as putting that as your main job. Subbing blm doesn't give you the same nuking power of a main blm.

[Icemage]

It makes a difference, but the extra mp you get from blm and the mp you save with conserve mp far outweighs the benefits from subbing brd. Even smn would make a larger difference if you use aerial armor. Aerial armor can save thousands of HP with mobs with stong aoe's or -ga spells.

Ok. Point by point.

- Extra MP from /BLM is meaningless to me. I have roughly equal max MP as a Taru WHM/BRD as a Mithra WHM/BLM at my level, and usually have extra MP left over even at the end of Chain #5. MP pool is not an issue with sufficient MP recovery.

- Ballad I offsets the lack of Conserve MP. Yes, I lose some extra MP this way, but with other spellcasters in the group, this always results in more MP total for the party. Tried, tested, proven. I compensate by using MP recovery food (Hobgoblin Chocolate) and a Dark Staff (+15 hMP). I have zero MP problems doing this, and usually have more MP than an otherwise normal WHM/BLM at my level towards the end of an XP chain. So where am I losing out, here?

- Aerial Armor is not as sexy as it seems. It doesn't work against non-physical AoE, and doesn't do anything against -ga spells (all -ga spell effects immediately nullify blink-type effects and hit all players anyway). The only AoE effects Aerial Armor will absorb (sometimes) are things like Battle Dance from Orcs, Spinning Fin from Sahagin, and Whirl of Rage from Weapons. Tack on the fact that it costs well over 100MP and over 10 seconds to summon Garuda and activate the Blood Pact/Aerial Armor ability before dismissing Garuda. How is this better than spending 8 seconds singing a song which costs 0 MP? I don't see parties at 50+ lining up to kill these sorts of enemies for XP, except perhaps for Weapons in Ro'Maeve around level 72-74.

Main bards are rarer than gold on my server, and I'm sure pretty rare on the other servers as well. I've partied with a Bard main less than 10 times between level 50 and level 70.

You suggest that /BRD songs are weaker than BRD main. Of course they are. That is not the point - they still give me the ability to provide a party with things that would not otherwise be possible with /BLM.

I've been using /BRD virtually exclusively since level 60, except the handful of times when I actually had a main bard in the party, and not once have I had someone say "man, you should be subbing BLM, that Bard subjob isn't doing anything."

Instead I get comments like "Wow, WHM/BRD is better than I thought. We had a WHM/SMN before but our downtime is lower with WHM/BRD." Do you really think I would continue to use my "useless" bard subjob if I thought it wasn't worth the extra effort involved to play?


Icemage