Could Lowman Bard/Sch Be Viable?

Playing bard for delves and seeing the fact that my INT is near the 200 mark. Looking at the Rala Skirmish staff that has the Magic Damage + as well as the Mag Acc and a bit of MAB. Since we're on that staff it made me wonder.

What would happen if we did Bard/Sch? Especially on low man content where BLM can nuke Tier 1 spells for 1-2k damage. With our ability to Ballad, /sch dark arts, and the low MP cost of those spells as well as Sublimation... it could be an interesting combination.

After all the MAB really works well on high tier spells, while the INT and Mag Dmg + works real well on low tier spells. So it sounds viable at least theoretically right?

Brd can't wear Atinian staff so it does loose a decent bit right out of the gate.

INT : 10 vs 12
MAB : 19 vs 25
MDmg: 151 vs 195
MAcc: 135 vs 180

I'm uncertain of what delve mob's meva and int stat are but I feel like they have some significant disadvantages here, particularly in the macc area. I'd have to see what kinda sets are possible compared to the mobs stats* but I wouldn't get your hopes up.

When you aren't busy casting -na's, singing for two parties, hasting (Hmmm /sch doesn't get this), or helping heal, you might be able to drop a low damage nuke.

You'd probably do better damage and be adding more overall to the group as a dd meleeing with /dnc. I do this on (very rare) occasion when I'm certain the lack of my support isn't going to make a big deal. Haste samba for your party, steps for all the dds.

That being said, I never liked /sch as a sj. No haste, no stona.

Lack of a native mab trait really hurts the chances of this working for anything as well.

I've only done this in reives so far and it wasn't so impressive, but I didn't use such a great set. Fire2 did around 400 or so with my crap set(Soothsayer, random mab and int).

By lowman do you mean yorcia skirmish? It could probably work there since there is so much time for Sch or Whm to keep all DD hasted and nothing uses petrification.
Could just go buy a 1/1/1 pop and try it out, I'd be interested in seeing how well it works.

Not sure I'm seeing your point.
Yes, BRD can't equip Atinian Staff, but it can equip Soothsayer.
With a R15 Soothsayer you're looking at:

INT+20
MAB+32
MACC+135
MDAM+151


Vs Atinian at:
INT+12
MAB+25
MACC+180
MDAM+195


There clearly *is* a difference of course, doesn't seem like that insanely huge though?
I mean I'd see your point if there were no alternatives, but Soothsayer looks good to me.
Considering BRD can equip Bokwus (and its respective augments) and other cool items as well, I'd be really curious to see the results of this setups, looks cool!

But in all honesty, where would you find the time to make use of it?
Most of the times I'm so busy casting my 3 songs, swapping pt, going back, ballading mage, hasting DDs and -naing when necessary, casting debuffs on mobs, sleeping adds... would you really find the time to target a mob, start casting and FINISH casting before the mob is already dead? Not to count you'd have to ballad yourself (or tenuto ballad close to the mages hoping the DDs won't move and get in range...)

I mean, I love the idea just like I love BRD/DNC or BRD/NIN with a DD setup (plethora of new interesting options came with SoA!) but it seems a bit unpractical to use in Delve, or am I missing something?

not to mention you have to dispel/debuff mobs and be on the toes to sleep adds if it ever happens... in hennetiel you also have to spam paralyna when appropriate... kurma has low magic defence but you'd be too busy rebuffing unless you get very lucky and he doesn't spam tortoise songs..

and the lack of cure IV bugs me.

I'm no black mage so my knowledge is limited, but wouldn't the low elemental skills also hurt your nuke damage/resists?

Probably a fun toy when you're fooling around with your competent linkshell. But if you're going for performance, much better off with /whm (but i'm sure we all knew that and probably not what this topic is about. ^_^;)

Ah yes, forgot about that :P

Noob mage here as well, but /SCH with Dark Arts give you an interesting amount of skill to start with.
With the amount of macc you get from Bokwus/Soothsayer and all the other gear, I seriously doubt the lack of skill (which tipically converts into "magic accuracy", i.e. chance of the spell you cast being resisted, I think?) would pose a serious trouble against trash monsters.
I mean, we're talking about using these spells on "normal" mobs, certainly not on bosses.


This could be a good option for stuff like Skirmish or other lowmen/fun event, old content even.
After all this was probably what the op was asking about and I misunderstood about using it in Delve.

Unpractical how? I'm not sure I'd do it on shark, but I have on tojil and don't think it'd be a problem with bee. We have access to a top tier dagger, with some decent offhands (Skirmish dagger, although I just used a kclub and stacked a ton of acc gear). It's not like you'll be pulling agro and getting wailed on, and any aoe damage that's going out your whm should be countering with curaga which would hit you anyways. Worst case, you have curing waltz, and I always carry Vile Elixirs (and remedies etc) in case I'm about to die or in desperate need of MP. A good majority of our tp/ws gear (Bokwus, Gendewitha) has Eva/Meva/Mdb on it. Not gonna lie and say I did oodles of damage or anything (my first run through with kclub kinda sucked as my acc was awful and had to regear/sing a little for it), but I was at least able to keep up Lv5 steps on Tojil and stuff. It's a nice change once in a blue moon when you're brdforlife doing nothing but bouncing around casting 6-7/10-11/13+ songs, and you start to go a little buggy.

Well, on bosses maybe, where it's not like you have to do a plethora of stuff once you Troub/Night your SV songs.
But for the rest of the run? Do you really find time? And won't your alliance miss the fact you won't be able to Haste/Cure/-na people?

Last time I managed to go DD BRD in a LS event was in Einherjar like... 5 years ago lol? xD
Used DD BRD in lowmen/solo a lot though. Not really more efficient maybe, I just like strange setups.

Can you post your gear? or maybe open a new thread, I'm curious what other people put in their TP and WS sets and which WSs they use.
Last time I checked with Iziikoh I think Evisceration was better than Exenterator and Mordant Rhime.

My N/T songs last a little more than 9 minutes, so once they're up I have a decent amount of time to screw around with. In Morimar you don't get a lot of extra time to dd, between eft geist wall and how lame kurma wants to be.

Like I said, I'll only do it if I'm positive my lack of support isn't going to make a big impact. That partly comes from knowing the strength/weaknesses of the people you run with.

I've heard that evis>exen but I haven't been able to get evis to come ahead in my spreadsheets.

These sets are nowhere near perfect, but what I used. A lot of it is just left-over whm dd and thf gear that I threw together. I tossed my Ziel charm months ago because I thought I wouldn't ever need it again :< (I seem to remember having some issues with the brd spreadsheet when I made these, so again I doubt they're far from ideal):

KC TP(Bokwus path C gives 15 acc/10att/10dex):ItemSet 313252

Dagger/Dagger tp (assuming acc isn't a huge issue):ItemSet 313253

Exenterator:
ItemSet 313254

For anyone that mentioned dropping from one alliance to another and then rebuffing and rehasting the topic title was "LOW MAN" so we're talking reives, skirmishes, etc. Content where stuff dies so fast that by the time you pull out your staff and get a couple hits in it's practically dead anyway. I'm talking about doing a 5-5-5 Cirdas or Rala Run and doing more than just spamming haste and 2 songs especially if you can nightingale and troubadour with song duration equipment and get a good 6-7 minutes, or 8 or 9 minutes depending on macro'd gear.

All of the talk about "Won't your alliance" this or "Your alliance that" is NOT lowman. If you pay attention to SE they're doing solo content, low man content and ALLIANCE content.

The reason why I'm asking is because I don't have the good staves. Just a standard Voay staff. So I can't really test it out.

I'm not focused on trying to do melee. When you have an Oatixur monk in the group meleeing on something isn't even an option. I've been in parties as a Ninzas Monk where 2 blm basically just tear everything up with tier 1-2 nukes. So I'm thinking rather than sacrifice a BLM spot for support and melee on like a mid tier Yorcia run... what kind of numbers could we pull BRD/SCH.

That's the idea. I wouldn't have posted this if I was asking about melee sets. This is purely about whether or not Bard has access to the gear neccessary to do 1-3k damage with tier 1-2 spells the way BLMs do.

Skirmish staff is really easy to get and you could probably test some things out and see how well it works.

I don't actually know of a magic damage calculator that accounts for the recent changes and new stats like magic damage or honestly even what the formula is now or what stats skirmish mobs have to be able to give decent guess but I'd imagine blm and sch would make brd cry.

If I could get a bit of information about it, I'd be willing to play around if I get time and see.

If that's your definition of lowman then yes, BRD/SCH will work for fodder content. So will WAR/PUP and melee RDM. You don't really need the forum's permission to do silly ***on fodder.

He was kinda asking for something that, while strange and "silly", would also have been effective.

You don't lose much by going /SCH instead of /WHM from a BRD point of view, but you can also do something else (supposing you're doing something where stuff lives long enough...).
When I did Skirmish T1-3 on BRD I was getting uberly bored, up to the point I asked to change job after a few runs.

Having something to nuke on a T4 or 5 Skirmish Run would make being BRD more entertaining, maybe?

I've already forgotten which tier I'm doing(3+ I guess) but this isn't so bad on some of the mobs.
When staff actually switched in(error going from shield to that occasionally) Tier II's were doing around 1.2k. Tier I around 300-400.

Sort of difficult to actually get a spell off with melee destroying everything in seconds, but what else is there to do on Brd?
I'd say this is worth a shot if you have the space for some Int/Mab stuff.
All I'm switching in at the moment is low rank soothsayer and low rank bokwus robe. Doing this is making the job just a little less boring in yorcia.

Has anyone tried this yet in Skirmish? Brd/sch with SoothSayer spamming T1 nukes?

Guess I didn't quite say it in my last post, but yeah, those numbers were from yorcia skirmish.
The sad fact is though, there's no time to "spam" anything with decent DD, even during the final rush.
It does work though and every bit of damage counts I guess. Not so sure if I'll end up doing it again. Removed some of the boredom, but yorcia was still putting me to sleep.

I don't know what you're talking about Diabolique. In my experience 2 BLM basically tear everything a new one. When I am set to guard the tent as a last defense I never see any action because the BLM are nuking everything into the ground doing 1k tier 1-3 with Rala staff.

I've done dozens of Rala Runs but never got the staff. Got about 8 of the dang guns and more Crobaci than our LS wants but our LS has only seen the staff drop like 3 or 4 times out of at least probably 100 runs. We're getting bad luck sure... but I can't solo that and lately we haven't been doing as much rala.

Is there something that would lead a BLM to be doing 1-2k with tier 1s while a Brd/Sch is only doing 300-500? are you using the right spells for the right mobs? Example NOT using wind on ladybugs?

Well that got weird.

Blm has access to the ridiculous augments on Hagondes, along with MaB VI, naturally higher Int, Ga spells for large clusters, and though it doesn't matter so much now, a hell of a lot more MP.
There's really no point in comparing these two for nuke damage. By default Brd/Sch is going to be worse than any nuking job you could possibly bring in to yorcia(besides Blu though I'm not sure why one would try and nuke on that job in this situation).

I wasn't using any sort of optimal set. Those numbers were with low rank Soothsayer/Bokwus robe/Gendewitha spats only.
My main job was still to sing, and I couldn't sacrifice items for my main purpose just to try something out.
I was not using Aero on a heavily wind based monster or anything like that.

No one takes nuking jobs to yorcia on cerberus so I really have nothing to compare it to. Melee x4 or 5, Brd, Whm or Sch, the only setup really used here(for pickups at least).

I really don't get how you didn't understand anything I had said.

I took one in last weekend (blm), it's very effective if the person is well geared. Can easily out do an oat mnk (a generic, average oat mnk). With fast cast they can easily kill off the mob before the DD even get there.

brd/sch will never be able to compare, but you're not replacing a DD to have it so it's irrelevant.

After testing with /sch without having a fully MAB leveled Bokwus set it doesn't appear to be worth your time trying to nuke even fodder Adoulin Mobs. Better off hitting them with a big stick.

I was just hoping that maybe the boosts SCH and other mage jobs had gotten would benefit BRDs and open up options. However the Skirmish +1 staff and Yorcia gear made Turul an easy solo as /whm when I accidentally aggro'd it while trying to Apoc Dark Ring farm.

So there's that!

With the new baqil staff made it cake to pretty much solo reive no must no fuss...