OMG! a BRD puller?!?!?!Follow

ok for the last 3 days ive steadily been leveling my bard from 65 to 67.

and for the past 3 days i've been puller.

day 1. pt was smn, whm, rdm, brd, pld, mnk. with no "real" puller they said "you mind pulling" i of course said i would and my pulling career was started.
xp was approx 5.5k/hr off IT mobs in Bibiki Bay. 90% of the time i had the next mob back at camp right before the first mob was dead.

day 2. pt was whm, brd, rng, mnk, drk, nin. they ask the rng to pull. after 3.5k/hr i beg for a chance to pull. our xp skyrockets to close to 6k/hr. i've never leveled so fast.

day 3. pt was nin, thf, war, smn, rdm, brd. thf puller. one mob gets a little too close to camp so i sleep it. nin asks "please don't do that" then i'm like "can i pull one chain please" BOOM! chain 6 off ITs.
by the end of the pt nin was full swing into liking brd pullers. we had 2 deaths and were still able to get 5k/hr.

just giving everyone a heads up over there... if your brd is bored let them pull. you wont regret it.

Bard puller is extremely common 65+

Looks fun to,

Very common in KRT for both Monk parties and Manaburn

Bard pulls, buffs, mnks bash, bard pulls next, mnks finish off, start on next mob - repeat :D

Have fun

Laters

kaze

Bard pullers are great, for a couple of reasons:

-Can use lullaby to claim the mob, then hit it with a dot to wake it up.

-Typically at the end of the fight (At least from what I know), I don't see them singing too many songs, typically just curing the PT. This is great because while the puller and other DD can stay behind and kill the mob (While gaining more TP for SC), the BRD can run out and pull a mob.

-Played properly, I think a BRD puller can be as good or even better than a Ranger or Thief puller.

Edited, Thu Sep 15 09:28:36 2005 by Credos

The standard and semi ideal Bone Party setup is WHM/BLM<BLM for Escape>, RDM/WHM, BRD/WHM, and 3 MNK/WAR. <although some like to ditch the RDM and have 4 MNK/NIN>.

Now past chain5, you have to kill the next mob maybe 1 minute after the last mob died, now the thing about that is, if the next mob starts casting a long spell, then unless the mob gets there quickly, you lose chain. I've partyed without a BRD before in KRT, only like 6k an hour....ichy.

Yeah, not sure what I was thinking. Its early, and BRD is the only job I have never unlocked. Elegy is BRD version of slow, I think requiem was the song I was thinking of.

As long as they do it right, they're excellent.

But don't just ask a BRD to pull if they have no idea how to do it. I have had BRD pullers that wait til the fight's over, then go pull, and having songs wear off on melee and mages while he's out there. If a BRD offers to pull or wants to learn, I'm all for it, but I'm not going to make someone pull who doesn't know how regardless of his job.

Doesn't have to be 65+ I pulled virtually every party from 25-73 (where I am currently) except for a couple of parties in Valley of Sorrows and Kuftal (both Raptors where we had rng/nin pull)

You had a ranger in one of your parties.

Now, RNG is a better puller than just about anything else, maybe THF or WAR/NIN in the right situations.

Yes, BRD CAN pull, doesn't mean they should. If the party is killing fast enough, I barely have the time to put on two melee songs, two ballads, and have enough time to make sure my stoneskin is up, no one needs erase, etc (whm subjob duties).

Only time BRD would be the best puller would be in KRT, or a manaburn.

I'd guess your experiences were the result of having a bad puller, and you being good at it, not BRD being superior at pulling.

I think we have some RNG trolls rating down everyone for suggesting that a Bard can do their job better.

In a party as long as we're getting good exp and the party can handle it I don't care who pulls. Unless i'm tank and leader asks me to pull. I say no because i've been a healer in those kinda parties and DAMN talk about a mana drain.

Rate ups for all.

I think if there's a rng or thf in the party, they should be the ones pulling. After a bard casts their songs there's a second or two delay where they can't move. This two seconds is enough for the mob to catch up to the bard. At 65 I'm getting hit by xp mobs for 130-200 points per hit. So if I get hit 4 times, I'm as good as dead. I've also found that my lulaby is starting to become unreliable these past few levels. The resist is around 20%, which means that ever 5th pull a mob will be trying to eat me :(

Last time I leveled, there was a DRG and a MNK. The mnk pulled with pebbles and chi blast and the SC was wheeling thrust > dragon kick for a light SC. I ended up doing this in each party:

mnk pulls mob
elergy, requriem, light etude
minuette IV
start casting minuette III
Mob dies
finish casting minuette III
Balad 1
Start casting balad 2
Mnk shows up with another mob
Finish balad 2
repeat

We had some down time when we ran out of mobs to kill. With as fast as we were going, I would have had no time to pull and keep buffs up.

Bard is the best puller, hands-down, because they can do their job even when they aren't present at the camp. Sing you 4 songs and voila, you have a minute or two before you have to "do your job" again. Bard = Efficency.
Only song that has a 1-2 second delay is Threnody, Elegy has no penalty and Finale only a split second.

BRD puller = super party.

At my level I can sub RDM for Fast Cast II, use a harp for extra distance between myself and mob, and pull with Elegy.

Bard songs do not count as magic, and will not draw magic-aggro mobs. This will become key in {SKY} where you fight Weapons, Pots and golems at the end-game levels.

Foe Lullaby, Bard's sleep song, is light-based and is effective against the undead.
This will be key when you pull in places such as King Ranperre's Tomb, where RDM and BLM will not be able to land Sleep on the undead.

To cover my butt I use Stoneskin and Phalanx which absorbs about 3-4 hits from EXP level mobs. Blink if I'm really desperate, but I usually forgo Blink because it takes so long to cast. I am currently leveling NIN for Utsusemi: Ni at LVL74.

Bard is very fun because you are constantly on the move, and by being the puller it adds a whole new dimension to the job. Being a puller requires a lot of skill but I think once you get the hang of it you will really enjoy it. It's a shame there are so few Bards, it's such a cool job.

Check out the bard forums, there are lots of threads discussing this.

At higher levels, when bards can sleep pretty much anything reliably, the sing 2 songs -> pull with elegy -> sleep mob at camp -> repeat method works very very well, and is basically required if you hope to break chain 6 (chain 26 in sky (main entrance), 13 in the water camp, 11 at ulli camp, etc (limited by the number of mobs avalable), basically unlimited chains in KRT or sea)

At earlier levels, bards are still the A#1 puller (as already mentioned) because once songs are up, we can leave the party to look for another mob while still contributing fully to damage output and recovery. If sleep isn't an option the bard simily waits until they see the xp from the previous mob before elegying the next mob and running back to camp (still saving 50% of the time that another puller would take).

Especially in a group that's able to kill mobs in less than a minute (and therefore can access chains past 5) a bard puller becomes very handy.

------------------------

As a bard my typical xp/time from about level 55 onward was something like 6-8k/hour. Peak was over 12k/hour, at 75 it's still very possible to pull in 10-11k/hour. No these were not in -burn parties, I only participated in one arrowburn and one manaburn party while leveling and found the xp/time was sub-par relative to a good ballanced party.

Edited, Thu Sep 15 18:33:38 2005 by tordall