[vissione]

Originally posted by Callous
bards do attack homeslice!!! I just wanted to know because what will i do after singing my songs and do a little bit of healing?? just sit there no i have to fight they wouldnt assign you with a weapon if you did not have to fight sometime.....

Yes you are gonna sit there, well stand there. I don't want you to feel like I'm dissin' your job cause I respect Bards. It's just they're really weak... and attacking is useless. You're better off buffing and regening MP for the mages and staying clear of the monster, especially if it does wide area attacks. :sweat:

You won't be alone though, the mages will stand back as well and cast while you sing.

[Callous]

well i guess i was going to be different from other bards then....because after you finsh your singing and healing im not going to stand there and wait for a song effects to wear out!!im going do as much damabe as a i can plus as an elvann we already have high str so i have higher str than a hume or mithra at my level

[MalkaiyaOneZero]

Kind of a stupid question, I guess, but what are the beneifits of being a bard over being a mage of various types? I assume that a bard's song is pretty much the same thing as a spell.

Also, at what level does Summoner become available?

[tomfin10]

WHM:
Uses MP
Doesn't take as much time to cast a spell
Doesn't have a long interval

BRD:
Doesn't use MP
Takes longer to cast a spell
Has a longer interval

and Summoner is available at lvl 30

[Kosh]

1) Mages have a few spells that affect the whole party or a group of enemies but every Bard song affects either the entire party or the group of enemies you are fighting (if they are close to each other). Also Bards do not use MP so you don't have to worry about running out!

SUM (and every other advanced job) is available at lvl 30

[MalkaiyaOneZero]

thanks

[tomfin10]

Mages have a few spells that affect the whole party

Actually Mages have a lot of spells that affect the whole party. Ex. all the Ba spells, Curega, Protea, Shellra, etc.

[Kosh]

Well, I was exaggerating when I said "a few" but I meant it is a much smaller number compared to Bards :p

[DrMrLordX]

So what about bard/summoner?

You could combine bard songs with some of the nifty party-wide or area-effect powers of summons that become available at level 35 or lower(like Carbunkle's mass shell/protect, Garuda's mass Blink, Shiva's mass Ice Spike or whatever that is, etc)

Summoner also provides a wee bit more cha than white mage, and more MPs.

The only problem I could see with this is that both of these jobs require level 30, meaning you'd have to get to level 30 in some other job to even attempt it . . . probably white mage. Elvaan white mage? hmm

[falloutboy14]

I think the downside of this is that summoners are very mp intensive. There's a reason they have the highest mp total. Anyhow, as I'm sure you're aware, sub-jobs only give a small proportion of the stats of the main-job. This would mean you would be summoning on a rather limited amount of mp. It could be useful, but I'm looking at doing the brd/whm thing instead.

[DrMrLordX]

I am aware of this fact, though I have noticed that there is virtually no reason to even try subbing smn until your main is level 50 AT LEAST, and realistically, you have to have a job at level 60 to even get any extra summons anyway . . .

I was thinking the only way to make bard/smn work would be:

start as whm, get to level 30-35
switch to bard/whm, get to 60 bard, get in a group to wipe out summons, take out all the summons(or just Garuda, Shiva, and uh . . . Ramuh? Yeah, group EnThunder)

switch to smn/whm, get to level 35 smn

switch to bard/smn for the rest of your career, which only amounts to bard 61-70

Which means I'd wind up playing bard/whm most of the way, anyway. But, at level 60, an elvaan bard/smn would have 128 mps and a Taru Taru would have 190, not counting any bonus MPs from equipment(they would have 148 and 220 respectively at level 70). That's more than enough to use one of the desirable powers available to someone who's subbed smn(group shell/protect, group blink, group ice spike, and group EnThunder).

Whether or not said bard/smn would be able to use more than one of the above powers per battle is certainly questionable(the strategy would be to call a monster, use the desired ability, and then send it away to conserve MPs; it would do not good otherwise). I'm sure that'd have a lot to do with how quickly said bard/smn would be able to regen mana, how long the effects last, and I think you can only use one summon ability every minute? I'm not up on my summoner lore just now.

Furthermore, it's questionable whether or not using these group-wide effects would be better for a party than just slinging the occasional Curaga or what not.

As Nady has said, you can't plan this out, but I do intend to try this, if I can stomach all that levelling. It should be noted that bard/smn does offer the highest CHA of any possible bard combination. But it's only marginally higher than bard/whm.

note: I didn't mention Hume here because I'm not terribly interested in a Hume bard. I'd prefer Elvaan for the higher HPs and MND but Taru Taru is tempting for the higher MPs for both bard/whm and bard/smn. I guess it's all a matter of how often I plan on getting smacked, especially by magical attacks.

[Osaka]

I believe that BRDs, if you insist on attacking which isn't a bad idea on low level PTs, can use one handed sword, or two handed staff? I know I have seen a BRD use a onehanded sword to help do damage after he had sung his songs, then would disengage combat and sing his songs again. If the BRD generated enough hate for the monster to turn towards him, one of the three WAR would taunt him away, which worked great. We level 3 lvls each out on Valkurm Beach. The PT was::
WAR - hume
WAR - Galka
DRK - hume
BRD -elvan
WHM - Taru = Me <( ^_^)>
BLM - Taru
He was an Elvan BRD/RDM I think.

[Callous]

sorry that was my old very old very old thinking i probably going to be a brd/rdm or brd/whm......