newbie paeon question

[nexxus]

ok, newbie bard here. i was in a group in the dunes last night and we were getting hit pretty hard. does it make sense to have the frontline sit and heal with paeon after a battle? i know that the frontline will lose tp the longer they sit but last night it seemed like the whm would heal everyone up and then have to sit and get his mps back up. so which is more important? loss of some tp or waiting less between battles.....i'm guessing waiting less between battles but i'm not sure having never been a frontline player.

[DCutter]

Normally the tanks are the only ones that heal, I don't think they should be in the skillchain anyway. The other melees should not be healing, paeon takes care of that. Also your healer can help them out a little bit by tossing a cure or 2

[SweetStupp]

melees healing reduces downtime. melees keeping TP = faster and better chance of winning the battle. just weigh the two, like when the whm has no mp and everyone is low hp, TP isn't that big a deal, you'll get in back in a battle.

[sudo]

in places like valkrum, I'd almost recommend that the tanks rest their HP and loose TP since it's probably much easier to go fight a few Toughs or Even matchs to charge up TP again for that one IT mob.

I got a quick question on Paeon myself actually.

I know that having the +2 Minuet insturment (cornette +1) upped my attack up boost from a measly +18 attack with no instrument to over +40 and I've been staring at the +requiem and + paeon instruments.

So, I am wondering if those would actually increase how much HP's were damage/healed per second or just make the song last longer?

Any suggestions for which instruments I should get the HQ version of?

I even got the picollo +1 but I don't know if I should keep it...

[Vilurum]

Song+1 instruments provide mostly an increase in duration, and maybe slightly an increase in effectiveness.

Song+2 instruments provide the duration increase (or maybe a bigger one?) and a notable increase in effectiveness.

Keep in mind also that any instrument, even not song-specific, is far better than singing with no instrument. I forget what the exact ratio is ... maybe twice the increase? (Been so long since I've sung for any reason other than to hear my 8-bit voice.)

I'm iffy about that +40 though, especially at level 12 ... unless it compounds with mithkabobs or something, maybe.

As for instruments, all of them will benefit you, but whether the benefit is worth the money (and difficulty finding HQ's) is another issue entirely. I'd say to make it your long term goal to get instruments for Minuet (level 4), Threnody (level 9), Madrigal (32), Etude (36), Elegy (40), Prelude (48), Paeon (60?), and if you use them, Minne (16?) and/or March (36). Those are the main songs you'll be playing (along with Ballad and Finale, which have no song+ instruments).

Lullaby too if you can, but Mary's Horn is very expensive (or rare, if you try to get it from Stray Mary yourself), and nobody seems to know whether or not it's possible yet to get a Dream Harp (level 27, string, Lullaby +2).

It seems like a lot, but BRD's main expenses are those very instruments, as well as CHR and MP gear. Songs are, by and large, quite cheap. And most of those instruments are under 30K, often under 20K and some under 10K (that's for HQ's too), and you'll be using them forever.

Instruments you don't really need to worry so much about: Requiem, Mambo, Carol (though get this one if you're gonna fight avatars), Virelai (it's level 75 anyway, so by that time you can probably afford it). The effectiveness of the threnody instrument is kinda hard to tell, so you could skip that one too if you really wanted to. All the rest are songs you should be playing at one time or another, with, as I mentioned, the possible exceptions of Minne and March.

If you're really really strapped for cash, get the Minuet, Madrigal, and Elegy instruments, and a cheap level 1 harp for paeon. But you'll really be better off having an instrument for every situation.

(Another thing: if you do get all those instruments, you'll very probably want to do some gobbie bag quests to have room to carry them. )

[sudo]

hehehe already did all the gobbie bag quests besides, that's not a lot compared to how much stuff I carry as a bst or nin.
a complete set and 1/2 for bst (lots of broths) and like 2-3 stacks of shihei, tabi, and 2 stacks of tsura and the one for hyoton, and lots of shirukens... (funny that although I spend all this much on nin, I never get good pt's or invites >_<. guess that's just the newbie levels....

anyways, Thanks for the info vilurum.

So what I'm hearing is that there is no need to get the HQ version for minne?

you know I checked bismarck AH, and crumhorn +1 = elegy +2 is like 180,000. more than the mary's horn

Is etude all that useful? Would it be better to slap on a minne on the mages to keep them alive if the tank loose agro? I don't know how well the etude works....

so which songs do you usually stick on the melees then? madrigal and minuet > madrigal and march? or is it all situational??

there's a lv 1 paeon harp? where?

[sudo]

woops my bad, crumhorn is for carol...

but whatever thing it is that buffs elegy is expensive as hell >_<

[Vilurum]

Considering the relative cheapness of a non-HQ Crumhorn, I can only guess that it's expensive for some combination of two usual reasons:

1. Demand - people want as much elemental defense as possible for avatars.
2. Supply - if it's a high-skill craft, it's hard to HQ it.

Regardless, don't worry about getting a Crumhorn unless you're playing carols anyway, and aside from Explosures I can't really see much need for that outside of avatar battles. Then again, I'm only level 40, so what do I know.

If you can get the Harp +1 for minne, as I said, you will benefit from it. The only question is whether you'll benefit enough to justify the price. There *are* times you want to play minne, and having an HQ instrument for it will improve it. If you plan to have minne on yourself during BCNM40, for example, you may want to get a Harp +1 with which to play it.

The Horn +1 for elegy+2 wasn't that expensive when I bought it. I can't remember whether it was one of those 10K ones or one of those 30-40K ones, but it certainly wasn't hideously overpriced. And elegy is quite useful, especially in conjunction with mage debuffs. (It stacks with slow, and it's more effective with an appropriate instrument.)

You'd have to ask a BLM how much of a difference Learned Etude makes for them. Spirited Etude is not much of a difference for WHMs - get their healing closer to the cap if it's not there already, and slightly better success rate on debuffs. I consider etude to be a luxury song ... something I play if I have time, and something I skip if I need to jump in and start helping heal. If your BLMs go nuts about its usefulness, by all means, take the time to give it to them. I get +4 with a normal instrument and +6 with Rose Harp +1, so ... 50% increase for the HQ instrument. Statistically, it's a better result than most HQ instruments.

Melees always always always get madrigal. The second song, I usually ask them what they prefer, or just try to observe. If they're bad at skillchaining or just doing most of their damage outside of chains, I give them minuet. If they're heavily reliant on skillchains, I often give them march so they get them sooner. Use a +2 instrument on all these songs, as soon as you can get them.

Rangers should always always always get prelude. You'll have to ask the individual RNG what other song (madrigal, minuet, or march) they'd like in addition to that. Some, for all I know, may even want minne or mambo to help survive whatever hate they get from their "nukes".

There's no level 1 paeon harp - the paeon harp is level 60 or so, and the HQ is quite pricy last I checked. But aside from song specific stuff, any harp is as good as another, so you might as well use a super-cheap, NPC-buyable, level 1 Maple Harp for paeon. (Unless you already have some other song-specific harp, in which case just have that double up as a paeon harp too.)

[Peltar]

He's saying get a lvl 1 harp to play paeon with, not that there's a lvl 1 harp that has paeon bonus.

You won't get elegy till lvl 39 anyway, and the elegy instrument (horn) is lvl 40. So you'll have time to get some gil together for that. If you can't afford the HQ versions at first it's still worth it to get the regular versions and then upgrade when you can afford it. I'd definitely try to get at least Elegy, Madrigal, and Minuet instruments when you can. (Traversiere+1, Cornette+1, Horn+1) I never even got a Minne instrument but then I was never a big Minne fan other than in BCNM

Before I had the second Ballad, I'd slap an INT etude on the mages if there was any nuker in the party. MND etude didn't seem to be too useful, so if there was only a healer I'd usually just be lazy and give them only one song. Of course you can sing Minne or Mambo on them if you like but ideally you shouldn't have to.

Normally I keep Madrigal and Minuet on the melees. When I got March I sang that for a while instead of Minuet, but after reading what some high level bards wrote at the time, I switched back to Minuet. Nowadays I sometimes sing two Madrigals if needed.