NIN/BRD tanking

[friedfunk]

Anybody give this a serious effort? Seems like song spam will get you decent hate:

Foe Lullaby / Horde Lullaby: 240 CE, 2 second cast, 12 second recast at 50% haste

Rotating Threnody's: 100 CE / 240 VE, 2 second cast

Etude's: 160 CE / 160 VE, 4 second cast

NIN/BRD would play more like NIN/RDM than NIN/DRK...

The biggest pro's over /drk and /rdm is that you don't need mp, and songs are uninterruptible.

The biggest con's are that you don't have a VE spike ability, and you will be slower to get to the hate cap. You will be rocking CE, but possibly behind in VE.

You can also be good for crowd control: Etude the BLM/RDM/BRD that has AoE hate, tag any strays with Threnody, then Etude yourself to a couple thousand CE.

[Ultimagi]

Square-Enix reduced the enmity produced by songs in an update when this was abused.

[Valyana]

Only Mazurka hate was nerfed.

[Neosutra]

The cast speed of many of the songs versus the amount of CE is pretty low compared to the cast speed and CE from /rdm and /drk alternatives. The only real advantage is no mp drain.

[friedfunk]

Hmm, seems like CE wouldn't be the problem...

The cycle mentioned on Kaeko's LJ is Stun > Sleep > Bind > Kura:

So for a 23 second rotation this is 500 CE (2480 VE) and needs 6-7 mp per tick in refresh to sustain

NIN/BRD can easily get 500 CE in the same period. 2x Lullaby, 2x Threnody is 680 CE.

Looking at VE, that's a totally different story though.... /BRD is severely lacking compared to /DRK

[Valor]

Long song casting time would make this pretty useless unless you aren't getting hit at all and have no reason to worry about shadows.

[Burnsy]

BRD songs can be interrupted, it's just not as easy...

[Drunkenmonk]

not by mobs

[Burnsy]

Knock back = mob abil on alot of WS' >.>

unless it got interuppted by me moving after knockback of course....

[Ultimagi]

Songs can only be interrupted by moving.

[friedfunk]

Long song casting time would make this pretty useless unless you aren't getting hit at all and have no reason to worry about shadows.

Both Lullaby and Threnody's are 2 second cast, same as Bind and .5 second faster than Sleep.

[Wulfgang]

Songs can only be interrupted by moving.

Stunning AOE will also interrupt casting (e.g. Sweep). And for those saying songcast is too long, the songs mentioned are very short in casting time; only obvious issue would be if you were trying to tank something like F/N where Horde cannot be used.

[Syntex]

I don't see how, with shadows that casting these spells would be hard, on top of the fact that a simple refresh can keep a ninja going for a long time.

Also going nin/srk gives SE/LR threat as well and a little boost in damage for jin if they aren't fulltiming earth/terra staff.

And with haste ect getting these short cast time spells off is easy.


subbing bard to me sounds like /drk but worse in every way really.

[stewie]

I prefer NIN/RDM for most everything now that I've started using it, I always have ballad/refresh though. It can't spike hate, but it holds it very well once it gets it.

[Agana]

I like the idea, but obviously nobody will do it because the undeniable logic isn't enough validation to attempt it.

Here's to thinking outside of the box.

[Zilong]

I like the idea, but obviously nobody will do it because the undeniable logic isn't enough validation to attempt it.

Here's to thinking outside of the box.

If you think it's such a great idea, why don't you/your linkshell do it, then brag to us all over how awesome it is in practice.

Until then, we'll be waiting.

[Syntex]

I looked over your numbers and they are fine but the problem I see here is that since you have no utility with songs as /brd your going to get hit it happens. /drk is able to make this up with stun which is 1700(around there) VE on a short cooldown, /brd has NOTHING to generate VE faster then it wares off at 60VE a second, even your 2 second songs only generate 240, given animation time, lag, player error, macro lag, your going to be negative VE but your CE might be capped but we all know you need both to tank against anything thats doing good damage.

Overall /drk is superior in every way, unlike RDM it has a easier time hitting that cap without having to cast a lot of blinds/sleeps ect but lacks the buffer and overall utility RDM trades that snap agro for, and in the end when both CE and VE are capped /rdm is better.

All and all your better off with /rdm or /drk hands down, as /brd offers nothing to you and your group that the other 2 dont(ballad 1 is not a good enough reason)

[Agana]

You have some utility in being able to march yourself :D

Really I think /DRK or /PLD would be better for a NIN in their ultimate goal of staying alive, but /BRD can't be completely written off as something to do for a small person event.

[friedfunk]

Yea after considering it a bit more, seems like the only way to make up the VE shortfall is have DD/THF and Trick Attack WS's... the VE gained would be about 4x the WS damage. Slower overall kills though.

[Zilong]

With DD/THF TAing you for hate, you can honestly tank as a PUP/NIN and it wouldn't have mattered.

If you rely on other people to generate your hate for you, you basically takes out the only point of NIN/BRD (self sufficiency for not needing refresh and march to an extend...)

Though I supposed if AoE hate generation for things like tagging mobs in dynamis and einherjar is your goal, it'd work out well, but as far as single target hate generation, it falls short to the /RDM and /DRK counterpart