Newbie bard questionsFollow

Oh boy.

/barfira

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/jobs.html?fjob=9;mid=11054108285884794;num=65;page=1

When the flames die down take a lookie at the stickies.

J/k but most of the answers are in there. Most parties will look for acc/atk. Nin with da mambos, mages likey the ballads.

etc etc etc

In general Charisma helps with debuffing a monster. The more charismatic you are, the less they can resist you :)! You can also get +singing skill, +wind skill and +string skill pieces of gear which will also help (depending on the type of instrument you are using). A good rule of tumb is to have enough +CHR gear to give you a total CHR equal to half your singing skill. Once you get that, look for +mp gear or +skill gear.



At any time you can have Requiem, Elegy and Threnody on the monster. You can't stack these songs, i.e. if you cast Battlefield Elegy on the monster and then cast Carnage Elegy on it, Carnage overwrites Battlefield. You can also Finale a monster at anytime and that doesn't could as a status effect debuff.



Threnodies are AWESOME for skill chains and magic bursts. Find out from your party what the element of the skill chain is and what the BLM is going to burst. Tossing the correct Threnody on before the skill chain will help the skill chain damage and lower the monster's resist to the burst.

You can also use them to lower the monster's resistace to the element of a particularly important spell. I was in a mission fight where we HAD to silence one of the monsters, and the RDM was having resist problems => Wind Threnody => (~.^)b. I have also used Earth Threnody when I was having troubles landing Elegy.

You can only have one Threnody on the Monster at one time.

Play with them, they are versaitile spells and an excellent way to skill up :D.



99.99% of the time no. You will want to use the +1 instruments that give bonuses to the songs you are singing (check out the stickies at the top of the forum for more info about instruments). I have unequipped my instrument to make my songs AoE smaller, and I have run around /BRD, but those are the only times I've gone instrumentless.



For the most part I only use Minne and Mambo for "special" fights.

Mambo has a place in parties with a NIN tank against monk type mobs (think mandragora). If they are loosing shadows faster than they can cast them and subsequently the WHM (or RDM or SMN) is pumping out the mp, slap a mambo and march on them.

Minne is less useful in party situations, but you could sing it if you have a PLD tank who is taking a beating. Though in general they are going to want ballad over Minne.

Once you start getting into faster parties you have to think about what will help your party get the most xp fastest. In general that boils down to killing monsters as fast as possible => Minuet x 2, Minuet + March, and good old Minuet + Madrigal. Check with your melee before using Madrigal. If they are all using sushi, try stacked Minuets or Minuet and March.



Here is an awesome thread on March speed (go Vilurum, go!): http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/jobs.html?fjob=9;mid=11509283609791970;num=41;page=1

As I said above check with your melee. If they aren't having issues hitting, change things up a little. If they are all dual weilding, March is a good time. If you have a lot of 2 handed weapon users check with them. March is fun, but double Minuet can have awesome results with those big damage weapons. Also, March is best once you get the second tier. In general play with it :).

Edited: for typo.

Edited, Aug 22nd 2006 at 12:39pm EDT by Pixistix

There is a lot of good information in the stickies. I agree that everyone should read it, but sometimes people miss something, or need clarification. I would much rather retype some information, or point somone to the right thread, then have misinformed new bards out there. This job is complicated enough, and it takes some getting used to to know how to play it :). I'm sure all of us "old salts" have asked stupid questions at some point. I know I have. The sitckies are there to cut down on the number of repeat threads, but it's not the end of the world if someone posts with these kind of questions. It took me 5 minutes out of my day to reply, and hopefully the little information I share will help this person enjoy my favorite job a little more.

Why have forums if people are berated for asking questions? The whole point of an online comunity is to share information.