New Instruments Next Update? Or, Upgrades?

"Subpar." I'm sure your opinion is unbiased.

Not sure what you are going at. Opinions are always biased. :)

And often wrong. "insincere passive-aggressive smiley-face"

There is no right and wrong to opinions.

opinion
əˈpɪnjən/
noun
noun: opinion; plural noun: opinions
1.
a view or judgement formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.
"that, in my opinion, is right"
synonyms: belief, judgement, thought(s), school of thought, thinking, way of thinking, mind, point of view, view, viewpoint, outlook, angle, slant, side, attitude, stance, perspective, position, standpoint;


What I write, is of course, my point of view given the experiences I had and understanding of the job. People are entitled to their own opinions. I am merely expressing my point of view. Trolling, again in my opinion, makes you look silly.

Just how is this done, exactly?

You have to remember, daurb 90 isn't like empyrean 119. You don't have to go through 1500 HMP/60 cinders to get it. It's a lot less money/effort to what people are saying. It's a lot more like making a kannagi/vere/almace 90, which a lot of people had pre SoA.

There's 2 points I'm making here.

1 - if they don't have daurb 90 by now they're not really serious bards. Of course there is the possibility of someone thinking "oh now we can get a +3 instrument easy now and decide to pick up bard"(though SE is saying it's not going to be easy due to OP-ness), but there's A LOT more effort into gearing up bard properly than that daurb 90. If daurb 90 was stopping you from being a good bard then you probably wouldn't want to pay effort in getting the rest done.
2 - The new instrument isn't really going to be enough unless it has all songs + 3 (or something) on it.


If you never let the songs wear off (i.e. recast the buff before them wearing), that extra song slot will stay up forever. It's like singing all 4 songs on ghorn, you never have to go back to daub unless the last 1-2 songs wore off for whatever reason. Same deal with Clarion call. It's easily doable as long as there aren't any dispel moves going off (so not too good for delves, but AA fights can eb done), or people dying.

I hope the new shield is similar to aegis so I can just only make a Ochain.

There's the things a bard is asked to realize during an endgame event. Let's see what an abyssea bard 99 getting a third song with the new instrument can do.

1) Sing the right songs on everybody.

With a little bit of practice this one is easy. But without little knowledge of song mecanics, it really can be hell. Recasts, rewritte orders, priority, dealing with dispels, ppl dying, oh and this DD who /tells HASTE! now.
On 6 man content, a midcast set (mainly empyrean+2) can be enough. a PDT set is a plus indeed, but for a new bard without good macros and no song casting -, they're going to full time empy+2 when singing anyway.
In 12 or 18 ppl content, if you're new to bard and have no clue about the job, don't even bother.
If you're a very good bard though and have only 2 songs and no Ghorn but all +3 instruments, people will hardly notice.


2) Debuff

If you're often in high level content, (well if you're not, why would you want to get a 3rd song and a relic anayway?) A debuff set is mandatory if you want to land elegy / requiem / nocture / finale reliably. Ghorn is a really big improvement. Try to land Elegy on VD AA without Ghorn or troubadour. Hell, even on D you will have a bad time landing it.
Plus, if you're playing along a Ghorn bard, you'll get the "no effect" when trying to land debuffs. This made me feel sad and underpowered :)

3) Rotation

Ok ! So now you have 3 songs with your new instrument. even 4 with Clarion ! You're no longer in the mage PT ! Oh but wait ! Rotation you said ?
Now a song casting- set becomes mandatory.
You're not going to sing 4-6 songs twice with a PT swap in between without a song casting- set before N/T wear off.
Ok now songs are ready ! gogo DD ! OMG, the first songs are wearing off already !
Now you need to add song duration to your midcast set. 4 minutes is just not enough. Again, Ghorn99 is a very big boost to that set.

4) Ballad

Without Ghorn, Ballad3 + ballad2 will give 9mp/tick at best to your mages.
With 99Ghorn, Ballad3 + 2 will give 15mp/tick

My point is, a 3rd song or Ghorn will not change a bad bard into a good one. If they were good with 2 songs, they will be good with 3, with more power.

So i'm fine with this update. Give them more songs !
Having Ghorn is absolutely not necessary but try to avoid rotation activities. And if you want to get into serious business, you should think of making your relic. It makes the job so easier.

Ghorn run is crazy to get. At least dhorn cost like 45 million buying colorless souls. Ghorn is like 120 million. Then have to get people to help me with clearing those Dynamis bosses multiple times. I rather farm 150 million slowly to 99 my dhorn if that's even possible on me playing 2 hours a night.

Sure, I agree getting bard up with 0 other jobs levelled/geared is hard, but that kind of applies to everything? unless we take eminent geared jobs to 119+ content now, which last time I check we don't (apart from really fail PUGs). For a person that starts from scratch, I think a daub 90 is easier to obtain than, say, an oat, unless you have friends to leech you a tojil win (or a few). Because you can easily gear up a ninja in sparks gear, skill up the required weapons for red proc, and solo majority of those content. This isn't going to take hundreds of hours of playtime. Esp now the zones are pretty dead so you have little to no competition.

Nope. I got my daub last year. My char is just under 2 years old, since I gave away my account the last time i quit

3 hours a night is plenty. Due to long commutes I only play about 3-4
a night too. If your mentality is this then it's fair enough, everyone aim for different things in game and they enjoy it in different levels. But people who play like this shouldn't be moaning about not being able to clear high end content, because you never aimed for it. (not saying you are moaning. I'm saying this really isn't an excuse if you want to participate in high end content, where your gear matters)

That's really great for you and if you had the same urge to play bard I'm sure you would pay the effort in making the harp. Which is really what my point is about :)

I'm not saying this is what bard should have as default. I'm saying this is what bard should think about if they want to play/get invites to high end content and the harp is far from being the hardest piece of gear to obtain. you don't need a 3+ song bard for skirmish1-2/18 man tojil etc. There's different levels of requirements for different content. That new instrument may bridge the gap, but the gap isn't close enough (infact, it's bridging the easier to obtain side (dharp) than the other (ghorn)) and you're not automatically good to go for the content.

But... whm and scholar(whm esp) are the easiest to gear up for end game. They are a lot more skilled dependant than anything else. Even a melee takes longer and more effort to gear up (without REM) than those jobs.

So basically you're saying that Bard is so mind-rottingly brainless nowadays that the only way to distinguish yourself is by having an exceedingly tedious-to-acquire pair of items.

Or you're trying to preserve your entitled sense of exclusivity the same way every other RME owner has done every time SE closes the gaps.

Or both. Probably both, really. Bard stopped being interesting years ago when it stopping pulling. There's a reason why people use secondary accounts to provide Bard and Corsair support instead of worrying that the average mouth-breather can handle one of the easiest jobs in the game.

No I'm saying that without the right gear, your performance on bard is very limited. Just like many other jobs.


This, is obviously a troll comment. I thought my words have conveyed my thought about this. But clearly not in your trolling mind. Let me make it clear, i'm not against the new instrument, I don't think it's giving enough to bridge the gap. Allow me to quote myself:

1 - if they don't have daurb 90 by now they're not really serious bards. Of course there is the possibility of someone thinking "oh now we can get a +3 instrument easy now and decide to pick up bard"(though SE is saying it's not going to be easy due to OP-ness), but there's A LOT more effort into gearing up bard properly than that daurb 90. If daurb 90 was stopping you from being a good bard then you probably wouldn't want to pay effort in getting the rest done.
2 - The new instrument isn't really going to be enough unless it has all songs + 3 (or something) on it.

This exact mentality is why there are a lot of gimp bards out there. Assuming you're not one of those people who are too scared to express their opinions in their active chars, you haven't even played since 2011. So what do you know about the mechanics of FFXI now?

Spira, you saying in your server there's enough empry/relic geared bards to chose from? I might have to go to your server then.

We have enough :o

When did I say this. lol And why does everyone imply I'm against this change? I know people don't read in forums but at least pretend you do! XD

I did read it lol. In lakshimi I hadn't seem my 3 song only no Ghorn bard get turn down for Marjami delve win lol

Well, speaking for myself, when I see someone say "You need Gjallarhorn or GTFO" (paraphrasing, but that is what "subpar" implies), I assume you are a.) trumpeting your own accomplishment and b.) stamping on the fingers of people who are trying to climb up there with you.

When you follow up with talking about how Bard requires effort or GTFO (paraphrasing again) while continuously talking about Gjallarhorn and Daurdabla, the implication is that you'd rather not see a "shortcut" by way of a new +1 Song instrument. This is strengthened by the continuous sour grapes assessment of "If it doesn't have +3 on it..."

The problem is that people are reading. Or, rather, the problem is that you're unaware of how you're portraying your opinion.

Incidentally, the sour grapes "Well, it won't be good enough" assessment seems to be ignoring that adjustments are going to be made in regards to song duration and overwriting.

After reading the posts, this is what I'll say:

• R/E/M is not required to play a job in this game.

• R/E/M is recommended (given that the R/E/M item is actually good).

It doesn't make a player lazy or unmotivated if the only thing they have is an item level 115, 117 or 119 weapon or gear. My RNG isn't subpar because I don't have Annihilator or Yoichi. My BRD isn't subpar because I don't have G'horn. or Daurb. My WHM isn't subpar because I don't have Yagrush.

No player should be making unreasonable demands from another player for not having R/E/M. Like I said in another post in another thread: it is their game, their own time, and their own monthly payment, not yours. If someone would rather spend the 2 to 4 hours in game upgrading their gear-- AF and Relic-- to 109 or 119 than spend it on an R/E/M weapon, that's their choice and their choice alone. At that rate of 2 to 4 hours a day, it'd be a miracle any one player would be able to complete an R/E/M item before one year and get it to 119 or level 99.

Or, how about someone that only has 2 to 3 hours a day for two to three days to play this game? Does it make them a lazy player for not trying to spend those 2 to 3 hours available to them to not spend it on getting an R/E/M?

Absolutely not.

A lot of players have been playing this game since FFXI has been launched and should by now know how to play this game. Why they haven't upgraded a Relic by now can be from a multitude of reasons. Many players, like myself, never got help from Linkshells or Linkshells made unusual demands before they could help you. Nowadays, it's easier to get a Relic than it was back in 2006, when I actually considered getting a G'horn. (Yes, I've been working on G'horn on and off since then. Only now that I've reactivated after a two year hiatus that I decided to put more time into it.) In my previous reply, I can pretty much get 2 to 3 stacks of currency a night farming Dynamis, but I don't farm 7 days a week. My real life health matters more than a digital trinket that would be used in maybe a handful of events in this game.

And, this is the problem with the game lately. People are setting unnecessary standards that many will be unable to meet just because a few dozen players out of 600 to 800 players demand it. It is this same reason why so many of my friends have quit over the years-- unnecessary demands. This is supposed to be a game, not a second or third job. My friends weren't gimp players either, but telling them they should get an R/E/M item when a few of them can only be on a few hours a day is rather ridiculous. I empathize and sympathize with those who can't spend every waking minute in this game to get a few digital trinkets to satisfy the unnecessary demands of other players.

If I or someone else only has two to three hours to spend in the game, they should be spending it on trying to enjoy the game at the very least and not spend it on one item day in, day out. Do you know how monotonous that can get?

At the rate of farming currency and buying them, I'll be surprised if I can finish G'horn before May or June, and have it at level 90 or 95 before July, 99 before or after January 2015. Considering the drop rate of Colorless souls and how crowded it can be to farm them, it'd be a miracle to get it past that current trial before June. The best time to farm them for me on my server is either late at night past 12 midnight or early in the morning at around 6 AM or 7 AM PST. I'd rather be asleep after 12 midnight, and be eating breakfast or doing something else at 6 AM or 7 AM in the morning.

Does that make me a bad player? No. Should I force myself to play this game 4 to 6 hours a day for seven days a week to finish both Horn and Harp just to satisfy the few dozen players who believe they have any control over other players? Absolutely not.

Look, I have been playing Bard for several years. My first time using it was at level 65 in Sky because my Linkshell at that time did not have a BRD. That was around 2005. I have a Magic Accuracy, Wind skill, String skill (which I thought was pointless years ago before Daurb came out), Song casting, and Cure/Healing sets on me (largely borrowed from WHM and RDM). Just because I don't have a Relic Horn or Empyrean Harp by now doesn't make me a bad player or a bad Bard. It doesn't make me totally gimp or totally useless. I can follow instructions very well. If playing for 8 years and fighting HNMs on RDM and BRD and learning how to pay attention and do my job didn't teach me anything, then I should probably reconsider playing this game in the first place. Even I read the guides here and posts on BlueGartr Forums on how to improve my level 99 jobs little by little.

I don't have all jobs to 99, just the jobs I enjoy playing. I don't have Maat's cap or R/E/M, but I have the gear that I can possibly obtain within my capability and time available to me to be sure it is as good as it can get.

I know how useful a G'horn or Harp is in various situations, but not having it isn't going to make or break the time I enjoy playing this game. I play RNG because I enjoy that job tremendously, but it doesn't make me a terrible player because I can't squeeze in the time to upgrade and obtain an Annihilator or Yoichi alongside my G'horn. Heck, I was considering on getting Gandiva and Armageddon instead because they're less time-consuming to get. My DRG is another job I enjoy playing, but I'm not a bad player for not having Ryunohige to item level 119 either. DNC is another job I enjoy playing, too, but should I get Terpsichore and Vajra just because other players think I'm gimp for not having it? No. I even have PLD to 99, but it's not poorly geared because I don't have Ochain or Aegis on it. Even SE said themselves that Beatific+1 blocks nearly as good as Ochain, which is something I'd get because considering how long it'll take to get Ochain and the limited time I have, there's no way I can work on both Harp and Ochain at the same time especially when Colorless Souls is as rare as a 4-leaf clover. Or, should I finish getting Armageddon or Death Penalty for my COR because now it's considered gimped by a few players on the server? Hell no.

The only reasons I'm getting G'horn, Daurb., and even Carnwenhan is because I find them useful to my job as a Bard. The +4 to all songs is great, the 3 or 4 songs I can cast is useful, and the increased song duration will help a lot in various situations, but most importantly-- I gain a crap ton of inventory space back. My time is limited, however, and because I'm working on three R/E/M items for my BRD and not getting them sooner doesn't make me a bad or useless player. At the very least I'm trying to use my time as best as possible to get them done, but at the same time trying to do something else game so I don't die of boredom in this game. But, it's not going to be finished anytime soon. No other player should be forced or required to get these. So, it's a good thing for SE to release an item such as Legato Dagger as an alternative to Carn. and soon a possibly 3-song instrument. These are items meant for players who would rather spend the time they have available to them to play the game and enjoy it than spend it on getting one or two items and not enjoying the game. I don't think farming Dynamis 2 hours a day or Colorless Souls in Abyssea-Graub/Uleg/Altepa for less than seven days a week for a year is going to be enjoyable to any one person unless you are really into S&M and find fun in monotony.

I surely don't.

Well said aselin. Only reason I was able to get a dhorn was I gained Gil from doing fun stuff. (Walk of echoes) so I just buy pops and I was going crazy during that period.

Are you serious? Some people will work for it some people won't.

At this stage we need people to NOT quit so we can fill shouts sooner. Adding these new equips to bridge the gap is good.

Definitely low-balling it on the Dynamis currency haul, perhaps you intentionally gave a low figure but realistically with a 119 weapon, should pull 300+, I was doing that when I had 117 + 115 daggers (aka before I got delve 119 dagger).

There's nothing glorious about owning R/E/M. It's not 2005 where you have to pay 1M to enter and get a handful of currencies out with the help of 12-64 people. It's not pre-salvage II where you don't get a lot of alex out of it and need 5 other people to enter with you to clear it.

I don't even see how r/e/m people are looking down on other people. What I see is someone make a post in the forum talking about something debating with another reasonable logical person, then some trolls who are bored goes look at the profile of this person and see "omg he/she has R/E/M" and decide to go "f**k you I'm sick of you hypocrites".

It's a fact that ghorn/dharp are a better combo and it seems like SE has the intention to keep it that way. It doesn't mean you need it, last time I check no one on the strategy threads go "you NEED a 4 song REM bard and a yagrush whm and 4 REM DDs to clear this. Not having this is why you fail". But if there is a single sense of going "this still isn't as good as a REM" people flips. All I'm saying is that an additional song isn't really good enough to bridge the R/E gap and they really should add some +song on it. I feel like this is completely derailed because I wrote "subpar" or some people are hurt because I believe 2 song bards are gimp (which i still do, but hey, my opinion).

Bard requires effort, just like gearing up any other jobs. What you are saying implies that getting this new instrument = free ticket to clearing new zones. It's not.

This use to be wrong for most jobs... However now brd and pld are the only major jobs where it is still required... And by required I mean by the NMs you fight and SE in that you will most likely use without it... now your DDs and whms can make up for what a brd lacks, but thats not really fair so only time to have a non-r/e/m brd is if they are building something and can win w/o it.