FFXIV: Tales from the Duty Finder – Bad Bards
I’ve pretty much made it known that I have a love/hate relationship with bard. I loved it at level 50, and hate it after Heavensward changed it. But I still leveled it to 60 on Zuri because I just needed to pick something to get it done, and bard was the highest level class I had on her at the time.
I’ve been reading on Reddit how difficult it is to find bards for end game content. Most of the answers there echo my own sentiments on the job. Make it fun to play and I’d play it.
Last night, we ran across a bard who apparently disliked the caster playstyle so much that he did everything to play like a 2.X bard… much to our dismay.
I usually don’t write smack about people, but this bard. Oh, this bard…
Place: Expert Roulette – The Antitower
Time: Almost Bedtime, Needed a Quick EX Run
So Zeb and Tai rolled into the Antitower hoping for a quick, painless EX run. It was late, almost bedtime for me, but Syn reassured me that we could bust it down quickly.
We got a tank with a mentor crown who enjoyed spinning the mobs to avoid AOEs. I was playing dragoon, so I wasn’t impressed, and seeing he wasn’t holding aggro well, neither was my white mage buddy.
But this bard.
THIS bard.
I don’t think I’ve ever run with such a… wait, no. Let me rein myself in a bit and not use names.
This bard’s technique with groups of trash mobs included three skills only:
- Flaming Arrow
- Rain of Death (not waiting for the dot to come close to wearing off before reapplying)
- Repeatedly spamming Quick Nock
Yes, I said Quick Nock. Over and over and over and over.
Never sang a song (despite the white mage DPSing). Didn’t use the normal dots, burst openers or buffs.
Just a constant stream of Quick Nock.
It’s like spraying a pea shooter over the enemies! I honestly think most his damage was done through Flaming Arrow and Rain of Death.
Thankfully, he did actually use skills for the bosses.
But then he did the one thing I couldn’t excuse.
In the room right before the Ziggy boss, he decided it was a good idea to waste our limit break on trash mobs. Right before a boss that proved to be pretty challenging for the party (mostly because the bard didn’t blow up the stardust when he was targeted).
Because we had no limit break, that fight droned on and on and on. And while we did make it through, we were both terrified that the bard would blow our limit break on other trash in the dungeon before the final boss. Luckily, he didn’t, and the first sign of LB2 on Calcabrena, I swiped it to land a near final blow.
Now.
I will not say that I am a great bard. But after experiencing what a really bad bard was like, I went and bought the Eso weapon for Zuri’s bard and upgraded it. Part of me wonders if upgrading to Eso gear will significantly increase my DPS so I don’t feel so slow and weak. The other part chides myself for wasting Tomes on the class, especially when I just got my Monk up to 36 yesterday.
The struggle is real.
