Bard. Lots of Bards.

[Rekiem]

To make it short, they speed up level'ing by alot. They speed up fights by increasing damage, accuracy,and speed up downtime by recovering MP/HP after fights. So with a bard in the PT, you end up gaining more exp over time.

[Bushidosan]

personally i didnt see the big deal...i partied some with another character at the 28-30 range and they do some songs that gradually restore mana/health the same way apple juice/orange juice works..

i would much rather have another white mage then a bard if i was forming a party....and most bards i see they cast a few songs and then start meleeing for about 1-2 damage lol....and then sing their songs.

dont get me wrong they are decent...but i cant see why someone would pick one over a white mage other then being an extremely impatient person.

if you had two white mages you could have one heal and one rest and rotate and it be a much better party then a white mage/bard imo.

two white mages with cure 2 capabilites and raise capabilities? cmon...that is gold right there...id take that anyday over some gradual mana or health increase.

[Junun]

Yes cause thats all bards are.....mana and healt regen. They have no other songs! Some ofyou need to do some research or at least TRY grouping with a bard before you act like you know what they can do.

A bard increases the rate a group can gain exp. Two WHM will not benefit as much as a WHM and BRD combo. In addition to mana and health bards also can give atk, accuracy, defense, evasion, resist songs, and resist debuff songs. A group with a bard will not only regen health/mp faster but it will also gain TP faster. Faster TP leads to faster kills.

[Bushidosan]

Yes cause thats all bards are.....mana and healt regen. They have no other songs! Some ofyou need to do some research or at least TRY grouping with a bard before you act like you know what they can do.

if you read i just said i partied with some bards in the 28-30 level range....so i guess i have some idea what they do.

i still like two white mages over a white mage/bard...the little attack bonus or whatever else is not important in my eyes as being completely safe with two white mages..and as i said i dont mind wating a bit..i am a patient person..so the whole "get experience faster" is not a big sell to me..you can get experience fast with two white mages also..i doubt it is some extreme amount of time with a bard over a white mage.

id feel much safer with two white mages...i could do without the attack bonus and mana/hp regeneration.

[Tenkei]

I've read in places that Bards can reduce battletime to almost half of what it would be without a bard. Also, you have to understand that a lot of the new bards out there don't know what in the world they're doing. Especially the ones who are still trying to melee anything past level 20.

I've actually parties with/watched other bards before, and I'd just laugh because they'd pick songs that didn't speed things up much at all. For instance, I see a lot of bards doing things like Evasion Up and HP Regen at the beginning of the fight.
Anyways - with the proper songs on, I've deffinitely noticed all of the parties I'm in (as a bard) moving along much quicker than when I was a BLM.

Also: I can't tell you how many times Horde Lullaby has saved me and my parties.
Every party I've been in, I leave and they seem to have a great impression of bards. Everyone I party with notices the difference. So it might be that you just partied with an inexperienced bard. Try grouping with more, until you find the ones who know what to do ^^

[Bushidosan]

well maybe as you say it is just the bards ive seen rather then the job itself...i did find it weird that a bard would melee but everytime i party with a bard they use the same technique.

sing two songs and then melee a bit...then cast a few more and melee...in which they did absolutely nothing in the melee side of things...i guess it was to kill the boredom....and like i said in previous post...the bards didn't suck or was no help...they were decent/good..but i also party with two white mages in one party before and it was awesome..

the melee/tanks didnt have to worry at all...as they knew they were safe...and the few times i was in a party with thise type of lineup it was safe and succesful.

the parties with bards were also successful....but i didn't see any drastic upgrade with a bard there....some people are making them sound like gods.

i did see an increase somewhat....but not really...the mana/health regen wasnt all that drastic...one cure 2 from a white mage would of handled the job just fine lol.

[Junun]

Thing is you're missing the point. A bard adds offense and defense to the group, both in their songs and their subpar melee(it adds up). A second WHM only adds defense to the group.

I guess you can enjoy your "safe" slow exp To each their own.

From the look of your post it seems as though you got lucky and had a good group with 2 WHM and a bad group setup with the bard, making it look as though the bard was to blame. As you level you will see the power of a bard.

[Nedylene]

Thing is Bushidosan is that you haven't gotten to the lvl where the songs make a difference it seems. Once you hit crawlers nest at 33+ or so you'll see the difference an experienced bard makes. There you'll see the need for songs such as magical finale (or dispel with rdm but quite expensive) and the threnodies for black mages. For the most part once those Crawlers use their defense boost, you'll see a drastic change in damage. Case in point is our 46 drk/war a few days ago doing 150 dmg a hit then dropping to 50 once that shield was up until I nullified it. You also see threnodies as a major damage dealer in a way if you have a blm. Instead of doing from 250-100 with blizzard II, our blm was hitting 250 constant and a constant stream of 110 rather than 110-40 with Blizzard on Hornflies. As for Mandrigal and Minuet, I've counted the aditional dmg to be around 8-15 dmg more a hit with one handed weapons and maybe 20 or so with 2hd using Minuet III. Thus if you have 3 front line warriors, as is the optimal setup, that's an increase of say around 30-60 dmg depending on makeup. Not to mention a higher amount of hits with mandrigal. I guess I should also mention thieves as well since I just partied with 2 war/thfs and 2 thf/nin with a whm healer recently. With Minuet and War Cry both our thieves were trick/sneak/VB for 380+ to 420 and our 2hd axe user has hit for 500+ with sneak/sturm (well the 500+ was with worker crawlers at 40, I think it was 350+ on soldiers). On the offset we took out at least a half of the soldier crawlers hp after the 15 seconds or so it took to get all the attacks done. Perhaps one of the funnest groups I got the chance to cordinate.

2whms may work out in the lower levels but later you'll want to balance out damage, tanking, and healing. Definitly with damage on the top of the list imo. If you cannot take things out fast enough, then all the healer's mp will be wasted and cause massive downtime. I say healer because a rdm can definitly take care of healing once they get refresh/convert as my pt chained exorays with only a rdm/sum, a pld, and I being the healers. Grats to Chizzle and Bebe for getting the Molds btw.

As for the overpopulation of bards on our server... I think I'm perhaps one of the few 45+ english bards on Seraph that I know of. But I do know that I've probably done something about instilling interest with people I've grouped with. About 4 people that I know have gone bard regardless of their class. One of them was a war going pld and now is lvl'ing both whm and brd instead.

In any case, the way I see it is that the BRD's job is to maximize the group's damage potential, control any adds, and decrease downtime with ballad, paeon, and divine seal/curaga to prepare for the next kill for chain. The key to this is also saying something during the PT formation pertaining to who to invite. Sorry for the long rant, just had to say something before the next person asks me "cool a bard... what do you do" in game.

Happy Holidays Everyone

[Bushidosan]

well you make good points in all that you say...and i don't claim to have experience past level 28-30 range and am only speaking from personal experience... the parties i have been in two white mages had the most success based on no deaths in the party...the amount of experience gained over the course of the parties life span,etc.

i have yet to even see crawler's nest...i am just talking sub 30.

and i should keep reminded that i am in no way saying a bard is not useful if you read back i said the parties with bard were also good and a bard is effective amd helpful...i just had more success with two white mage parties.

i would be happy with either.

[Moo]

It's like this:

White Mages are THE support class up until around level 30. Bards and Red Mages are good and all, but a White Mage is more helpful to a group mostly because you don't fight monsters that you need accuracy or any of the bard goodies to fight.

At around level 35, Bards take over. A group with a bard is an awesome group. Without one, it's just an average group. At this point, Bards are king and White Mages and Red Mages are just about even with each other. You can replace a White Mage with a Red Mage and a vice versa.

At 41, Bard is still king of support, but Red Mage has now overtaken White Mage. Refresh has now made the Red Mage the ideal Cure Tank. They'll get Convert and Raise and they almost make the White Mage job obsolete. (This is why I've decided to make my WHM a sub and start leveling RDM).

No other job can do what a Bard does.

[Nameless]

BRD would seem like the most active mage. Running over to the mages and playing ballad, then running over the the fighters and playing valor's minuet.

[Lokan666]

As a ranger.. I would take a bard over a 2nd whm any day

Not sure what the big thing is about having 2 WHM and why everyone thinks it's so great. Yeah more healing power but you can get that from subs.

I love the hell out of BRD/WHM and can honnestly say out of my last 5 or 6 parties.. the most sucessfull had a good bard in it.

[Mylek]

and i should keep reminded that i am in no way saying a bard is not useful if you read back i said the parties with bard were also good and a bard is effective amd helpful...i just had more success with two white mage parties.

I would always pick a good bard over a 3rd mage even in low level pt's.

A bard wields their power through the other members of the group. If a bard is doing his job well and things are not going smoothly then you should look to the overall makeup of your pt or the performance of everyone else.

[Radamvice]

I like playing bard because i love playing mages/support, but i dislike having to sit on my tush to do so! BRD works perfect for that!

I still havent had this "Swamped by pt invites" problem yet though...i usually get my pts through friends. Jp players seem to be afraid to invite me because im english....as if it really has an incredible effect on what i do in pt's anyways. The jp pt's that do invite me, love me by the time that i leave, and i see invites from those players in the future...that makes me smile b/c when i see i have a good pt, i can be running around for 8 hours on end to see the pt going smoothly, im glad to be appreciated at that point

[Edgerrin]

man i wish i got all these invites being a bard and all. i sit in Qufim all the time sitting for 10-20 minutes before i get an invite . Most of the time i am the only Bard in the area