Your opinions on the Etude/Prelude/etc changesFollow

Yesterday they announced that certain Bard buff songs, namely the Etude line, the Prelude line, and both Foe Sirvente and Adventurer's Dirge, will now behave like normal songs in that they're Area of Effect normally and Pianissimo will make them single target. How do you guys feel about the change? I rarely go Bard to things anymore and I'm not a Daurdabla Bard so I'm limited to only casting two songs, but I think nowadays, given how most Bards that do "end game" sorts of events have at least the level 90 Daurdabla and that, at least for right now with Embrava still on the table for Scholars, that since Marches aren't near as necessary as they were before, being able to cast Etudes on a party of Melee would be quite good.

The Prelude line would also be good if it was common for there to be a large number of Rangers in a party nowadays, but, at least for what I do event wise, having more than one Ranger in a party is pretty rare, so at least for right now that's not really all that useful.

As for Adventurer's Dirge and Foe Sirvente...all I can say is why would a Bard even have these merited? Even though Nightingale and Troubadour's recast timers are now a static value rather than based on merits, the effects they have now with merits are just too beneficial to not want. Not to mention that, given how the Enmity system works, a traditional "tank" is pretty much a thing of the past and the party(ies) you'd be in would benefit far more from some of your other songs.

Pretty sure nothing is going to really change; this is just something they're doing for "neatness" and consistency's sake.

In the rare event that people actually used any of these songs, they probably only wanted it single-target to begin with, so I expect to see some bitching about how these people have to use Pianissimo on these songs where they didn't have to before. In my case though, no @#%^s are given.

The only time I ever used Dirge was on a WHM in a long ugly battle where she was riding the hate line because of having to cure dump on the tank. Because of Minikin, my Balllad 3 +4 was enough to keep her in MP by itself, and Dirge on her was enough to help keep hate on the tank better.

That was one time.

I think a party full of BLMs might like the INT boost as a Dharp third spell. And a melee party won't object to AOE STR+....

BLMs don't often recast the same spells in quick succession any more, with the exception of Stun. Instead, they're running down a proc list.

If we had a Fast Cast song, it'd be more beneficial than the INT, however.

Have you ever met a BLM that says no to more damage INT?

All right, all right yeah, if they're proccing they need less damage, not more.

Edited, Oct 20th 2012 8:52am by catwho