Princess Bards

[Dirian]

Leveling pld to 75(post shield update/autorefresh, pre-sentinal update) I grew to HATE the "pld no thx" attitude from a few brds and rdms.


I won't lie, I had those 2k/hour parties(smn healer, no backup, no refresh), but I also had those 10k+/hour at level 66 parties. Give me a constant 4/tick(counting autorefresh) and there will never be downtime. Give me rdm+brd(with a brd that won't just give me minuets when the melee don't fucking listen) and I'll mainheal the party while tanking and never lose hate and the rdm can just sit there and haste/refresh/enfeeble/regen and never bother with cures at all and all the melee can go apeshit sub war and it won't matter.


So its not like theres anything about the pld job that leads to low exp/hour, at least pre merit parties(I'll agree, I don't merit with plds unless they're friends in need of buffer/merits and I know they'll be bringing DD gear).

That being said, and my own little indignation out of the way at being automatically turned down when I ask a lfp brd if they want to party because they assume the exp will suck out of the way, I DO have to admit that the majority of pickup plds suck ass through a straw.

But then so do a majority of the Nins. We've all seen the plds that never use mp and eat boiled crab from 1-75 sure, but I've seen nins offhanding that int/mp sword meleeing in cotehardie, and I would guess that about 99% of the Nin population is incapable of counting to 3. Can't hold hate, can't do damage, can't keep from bleeding mp worse than a blind counterstanced mnk, pickup nins suck too, though admittedly most nins will still give you more exp/hour then your typical never cures pld.

And in fact, most players in general suck ass through a straw, and some just hide behind the fact that they have servicable gear and can just auto attack and afk(hi2u 90% of people that play DD jobs).

What really gets me is that most of the really good brds and rdms I know will at least try out a party as long as the setup isn't insanely stupid(5 melee, all /war, none of them nin, invite a brd), and then if it sucks I don't blame em for leaving. Most of the time, the prissy "I'm too good for your exp parties" rdm and brds that I meet ALSO suck ass through a straw. Asking a pickup rdm to do anything more complicated than refresh 2 people is often asking too much. God forbid you ask them to sleep links with a darkstaff instead of melee with their AF weapon.

THAT being said, the moral of the story is that its not that 90% of PLDs suck and automatically restrict you to 3k/hour. Its that 90% of PLAYERS suck, and if you're time is really valuable and you want to make sure you get max exp/hour, you make a set with a rdm and a brd in it, level a few nights a week, and avoid any and all pickup parties at all cost.

If you flag up though, and its not immediately obvious that the person inviting you is an idiot, you should at least give it a chance barring the aforementioned idiotic setups(and even then, sometimes Im curios enough to come along just to see how bad it will fail. Might get a good laugh out of it at least). If you weren't prepared for the horrors of potentially bad pickup parties, you shouldn't have flagged up in the first place.

[S N K]

I won't lie, I had those 2k/hour parties(smn healer, no backup, no refresh),

Being a 75 SMN also and knowing a few friends as one as well I've been in those setups before. SMN leveling with a PLD sucked for me and I just wore a ton of MP gear and used Cure III more then anything. It was a pt that was running at about 4k an hour but, as a friend of mine told me a long time ago that it's sometimes best to take any exp you can get as long as you're moving up.

I actually merit on my THF and not on my RDM which amazing as this sounds, I do not seek hardly at all. I'd like to think my gear is ok and I've listened to the advice of some THF on my server in terms of how to gear myself properly *Ayn, Tensaiji, Mortallocke, ect ect* so I think I've done well.

The Paladin hate needs to stop.

Seriously.

My own PLD is 67 and I bust my ass to not only keep a soild amount of hate but do considerable damage as well *DD PLD ftw* so give a PLD a chance if you can't find a NIN but in terms of maybe not having to deal with idiots, try actually talking to the person who is seeking and see if they have a decent amount of social skills and can actually speak a little instead of just reply to a tell in only one or two words.

You'd be amazed at how better some pickup people will play if you actually treat them as a person and not a tool to help you get your level.

~S N K

[Fng]

We don't hate PLD's. I invite everybody in my LS regardless of job.


We just hate idiots, and when you are a BRD and you have an idiot PLD it just makes for a frustrating time of xping. Who wants to xp frustrated?

Do you like PLD's that voke right as you are firing SATA from behind him? No, and we don't like PLD's that are morons either. It's the same concept.

[Zilong]

I have to go anon b/c of the sheer amount of pt invites I get when not seeking.

Worse is the attitude i get.
"What do you mean? how can you not want xP!??!"
"5/6 members cumon we just need u"
"ur a bitch (or other epithet here".

What part of "I HAVE A STATIC THAT'S A MANABURN THAT WE MADE OVER 10K AN HOUR SO NO THANK YOU I DON'T WANT A PARTY" don't people understand?

And yeah, I'm a princess cat, I prefer PLDs. :D

DOES NOT COMPUTE

[Fng]

I am rarely anon, and almost never LFP.

I find more entertainment in listing to people go emo because I tell them I am not interested in there party.

It gets very entertaining when they start going off, nothing is more satisfying then replying, "Are you crying yet because I wont xp with you?"

I have pretty much most of the server trained or I am on thier blist either way.. it's funny for sure.

[Credos]

I won't lie, I had those 2k/hour parties(smn healer, no backup, no refresh),

Being a 75 SMN also and knowing a few friends as one as well I've been in those setups before. SMN leveling with a PLD sucked for me and I just wore a ton of MP gear and used Cure III more then anything. It was a pt that was running at about 4k an hour but, as a friend of mine told me a long time ago that it's sometimes best to take any exp you can get as long as you're moving up.

I actually merit on my THF and not on my RDM which amazing as this sounds, I do not seek hardly at all. I'd like to think my gear is ok and I've listened to the advice of some THF on my server in terms of how to gear myself properly *Ayn, Tensaiji, Mortallocke, ect ect* so I think I've done well.

The Paladin hate needs to stop.

Seriously.

My own PLD is 67 and I bust my ass to not only keep a soild amount of hate but do considerable damage as well *DD PLD ftw* so give a PLD a chance if you can't find a NIN but in terms of maybe not having to deal with idiots, try actually talking to the person who is seeking and see if they have a decent amount of social skills and can actually speak a little instead of just reply to a tell in only one or two words.

You'd be amazed at how better some pickup people will play if you actually treat them as a person and not a tool to help you get your level.

~S N K

I don't hate PLD; I hate shitty PLD who sit with their entire MP pool full while I'm healing everyone in the PT. I hate the shitty PLD who repeatedly moves away from ballad every fight, or the shitty PLD who don't use their JA properly. Shitty Paladins really bother me because PLD was my first job to 75, long before shield updates and autorefresh. Leveling PLD now is so much easier than it was 2+ years ago. I would have killed to have Autorefresh, Sentinel and Rampart the way they were back then. This is why I detest PLD who don’t use their MP, their JA or generally just fail at the job. I will level with Paladins from my Linkshell who know what they are doing, but not with pickup PLD that are eating boiled crab at level 60+.

Once again, I don’t hold anything against PLD in general, but I cannot stand to see the job played poorly, and definitely now with all the updates the job has.

[Fng]

do you get offers to pull for us when you're exping, and you won't leave the party you're in to go exp with them? >.>

FIXED! lol

Ever watch a WHM out pull you? LOL (I am as good a puller on WHM as I am on BRD LOL)

[othellojr]

That whole "stop hating on plds has to stop" is our right to not exp with whomever or whatever anytime. Personally, I know I always get better exp with a "burn" party (no plds, or smns either), as the wars or nins can tank and do alot of damage, helping our exp/hr. I always look at it as "work smarter, not harder" when it comes to exp, and clearly, the blink tank route (while dealing plenty of dmg mind ya...) is the smarter route, sorry plds, smns, pups and alot of drgs..you want exp? make a static.

[Stromgarde]

When leveling paladin, I didn't particularly like taking a bard over a red mage.

When leveling bard, I didn't particularly like taking a paladin over a ninja.

Of course, everyone's dream is RDM+BRD, but that doesn't happen all too often pre-merit range, but as a paladin, I took what I could get in the way of refresh and made damn sure I was positioned correctly, and on BRD I made damn sure that I didn't get into parties that required it in the first place. PLD exp tanks are all good and well, but even having it as my first job to 75 I would never party with it on Bard if there was a competing invite from a Ninja party unless the Ninja was a known dipshit. It's not prejudice, it's being smart.

[TsingTao]

/shrug The last 3 parties I had on my BRD (53-59) were all ToAU areas with PLD & RDM. 9-11k/hr parties not because we had a particular tank but because we had:

People that knew how to work with a BRD.
People with above average (a couple very good) gear.
People interested in getting exp, not fucking around or going afk every 5min.

I got lucky. It's all about luck when you're inviting strangers....not getting a NIN instead of a PLD. Formed two of the parties myself (got no duds), got an invite to the third. All were RDM + BRD backline, all of them I pulled continuously with no breaks to rest for anyone's MP.

PLD that cover the bulk of their own healing yet never have to rest despite constant pulls are a whole different animal than old school, "5k per hour rocks!" PLD parties. Random NIN have just as much chance of sucking as random PLD too...and it's easier to be dead weight as NIN than PLD.

[Kyreth]

Personally, I like PLD's...for more traditional style PT's. PLD's can keep a mob stuck to them like glue when you have Distortion going off and the BLM tosses in an AM for the big boom.

TP burns tend to spread hate around more, so that NIN can keep aggro fine. There's still nothing in a merit/exp PT that'll stick hate better than a Paladin though. It's just not -needed- in some cases, and since many of those cases involve a PT getting optimal exp...PLD's get less love.

And having teamed up with the occasional bard, I gotta agree. 70+ levels and some people STILL have no fucking idea what positioning is, or being bright and actually parking your Ballad-loving ass out of the way of the meleers. Gah.

[safer]

i learned along time ago to just not randomly seek if im looking for lvl 75 xp... if people in my LS or close friends are not interested in xp at the moment, then i dont bother and go do something productive with my time.. as someone pointed out.. there are too many idiots playing this game

its not as easy when leveling up low level jobs however.... sometimes you just gotta take whats available.. even if that means 2k/hr parties until you can get a reasonable level to beg your LS to let you in to get you to 75

personally im planning to beg my ls to let me join merit pt's once i hit lvl 60 rdm >_>

[Thistle]

I am rarely anon, and almost never LFP.

I find more entertainment in listing to people go emo because I tell them I am not interested in there party.

I love it when they say "Well why aren't you anon if you don't want to party?".

Mostly I just stay on DRK though. No problem with random invites while not seeking then!

[SephYuyX]

BRD takes no skill to level and it shows when they hit 75. All they want is the best and are spoiled by everyone else. You can level BRD to 75 naked with an instrument and no one would care. Now, im just not blaming BRDs, its all the melee/tanks/mages that REFUSE to PT without a BRD. Thats just being ignorance, lazy, dumb, idiotic, etc.

"Ohhh I want the best XP ohhhh" cry cry cry, Its funny how ToAU has pretty much bastardized any sort of leveling, its just throw things at EM mobs and hope it dies quick.

Leveling got boring when it took no skill/effort to kill a mob, it used to take a plan of attack and would change every battle. Now mobs dont even last long enough to do a /ja or spell.

In the end, all it does is turn people in to idiots and complain when they only get 6k an hour. gdamn, I would of killed for 3k an hour years ago. Everything has to be perfect now, if you arnt a WAR or something special, you wont be invited.

[Dark Vincent]

@ OP

As a PLD, I really didn't like partying with BRDs. Sure it can work with some effort on positioning (not only by the PLD, but the whole party) but that's more trouble than it's worth. So to me, I'm actually doing myself a favor by not partying a Bard, and I understand their "princess attitude" when everyone and their mothers have BRD75 and/or wants to suck on a Bard's flute, it's the playerbase's fault. I always make my own parties though, that might be why I dont care if they don't want to party paladins. I just went for the RDMs past level 50. RDM with Princess attitude is the worst though. "{Main Heal!} {No thanks.}" fuck off. Im not inviting a WHM leech just so you can go afk after casting the Refresh rotation nor will I accept you wearing SH and meleeing just because your Sword Skill is capped.
Leveling PLD is easier on mp nowadays though, specially if you do it in ToAU. I wish I had Parade Gorget/Auto-Refresh Sanction when I leveled mine. I only got my hands in ToAU when PLD was 71, but it was way after it came out, so I got auto-refresh and shield buffs when I was 60 after coming back from a break (and it was already a great improvement for me). I'm talking all this pre-merit though.

As for the whole "oh I will party if it's in LS". I will be the first to admit every LS has retards in it, and sometimes I will prefer pick-ups over LS parties because of these people. In fact, the worst party I've ever had was a full LS merit pt. On another hand though, the best two parties I've had were also LS (not full LS though, it had a few pick-ups). So it really can go both ways, just like pick-ups (a better ratio for good pt if it's LS though, I agree).

As someone who is now leveling COR, I foresee myself inviting "NIN tank only", once I get Evoker's Roll, unless I have a RDM in pt or they have the proper setup for a good auto-refresh rate. I can position myself for Rolls pretty well so far, but sometimes people will fuck up, get hate and then the tank will stay there in the mage line with the DDs, and I take like half hour trying to get in the right spot so I can give Healer's Roll to the right people. It will be much worse with Evoker's and a PLD on the front line expecting to get it fulltime.

[Fng]

personally im planning to beg my ls to let me join merit pt's once i hit lvl 60 rdm >_>

Talked a friend of mine at level 62 RDM to join for refresh / dia / haste job.. she was kicking back 6k an hour in a mediocre (chain 10 ish) party.. (I was on WHM)

[Toth]

I had a bard flat out say that she would not merit with my Puppetmaster because she thought the job sucked and that the party would make like 6k. She was one of those WAR-burn only airheads. So I got a LS bard to come and we made 12k an hour. I just can't stand Bards who won't exp because they may get that uber WAR burn party (honestly, how many pickup parties even make 10k an hour) while they have their flag up. Personally, from what I have seen what you do to keep up in those parties, I much rather take a more relaxed, less hectic party.

[Fingerspitz]

It's extremely rude to be a fantastic bitch just because your job is more in demand due to scarcity and being basically broken in exp, and crap like seeking afk is just pointless asshattery (seeking afk is the devil, people, so freaking annoying >.<). I really hate that attitude, and a lot of the time those brds kinda suck (as much as a brd can suck, I know, lolitssoeasyicoulddoitnaked) because of how much they assume their pt should bend over backwards to meet their inadequacies.

That having been said, lol(non-relic5)sam, lolpld, lolsmn, loldrk, et cetera. I like fast exp, it's the only way I can have fun while grinding, and I have yet to pt with a pld who in a tanking capacity can do what a blink tank does. It's not very fair, but I make my own parties, basically always, and I get the jobs I want. It's not like ninja are rare fruit (I've always worried someday everyone would have it at 75, but people keep pickin it up), and if I cant find one there's plenty of other stuff to do.

And if you can't find a nin, /sea all (x-2)-(x+2) war where x=your level. To quote Russta and Ryko respectively, with elegy on anything /nin can tank, and if you can tank it with voke you can tank it with rampage. I tanked ~half my pts from 37-75 on war, even on stuff like colibri you can recast ichi pretty easily if your brd sticks elegy and you can time your casting. I started colibri with 4 wars, but tbh it's overkill, I was fine on crawlers with just one other war, and I basically solo tanked dhamel (with elegy on you can actually sit and wait to see if they double attack to take that extra shadow and still have time to cast ichi ;x) Tanking is not some mystical task only undertaken by nins and plds wearing full enmity/def gear, anything can be damage tanked with utsusemi as long as you arent overhunting and you have someone to land some kind of slow on it.

So to summarize the OT part, princess bards are silly, but not quite as silly as expecting someone to invite a pld (or any job not as well suited for the party they're making) when they could get a nin (or any job that is ideal for the pt they are making). Make your own pts if you dont want to pt with certain jobs, level a job if you want to always have a pt with one, look both ways before you cross the street.

edit@sephirothyuy: I honestly dont see the difference between how exp is gained now as compared to before people realized melee burn is the best way to party, besides it being fast. Skillchains arent exactly grand engrossing strategies if that's what you mean, you still just auto attack a mob and cast the necessary spells and use the necessary skills/abilities. In fact, the high speeds melee burning gets you actually adds an element of strategy at places like jade sepulcher or the mamool level of the nyzul lsle camp; you have to space your pulls out correctly in order to keep your chain together, which has always helped keep me awake (*'-')b. As for spoiled/naked/ignorant, it's not like all jobs dont have their idiots, ours just have haughtier attitudes. I always had the best equip I could afford in every slot, got gaudy harness asap, swap vermy between pulls, opo crown, etc, and I know other bards who put an equal amount of work into their gear and play. To be frank, either suck it up and take the parties you can get, level bard/warrior/ninja/red mage yourself and get quick merits that way, or QQ moar, because people who actually work to get high exp are tired of listening to ppl on jobs that just aren't as good for melee burn parties calling us spoiled and ignorant.

Gawd this post got big ._. sorry. I could seriously go on forever, but I'll spare you. EDIT NUMBAR TEW, N UR THREAD, CLAIMIN UR PAGEZ.

[Khamsin]

I had a bard flat out say that she would not merit with my Puppetmaster because she thought the job sucked and that the party would make like 6k. She was one of those WAR-burn only airheads. So I got a LS bard to come and we made 12k an hour. I just can't stand Bards who won't exp because they may get that uber WAR burn party (honestly, how many pickup parties even make 10k an hour) while they have their flag up. Personally, from what I have seen what you do to keep up in those parties, I much rather take a more relaxed, less hectic party.

I just leeched merit burn PTs from LS and friends 70 to 75. lol

Though I have yet to actually merit on PUP, since I always end up being RDM or something. I have a few merits to get first (thinking 5 auto attack and 5 auto ranged, already have 4/4/4 H2H/Axe/Sword but debating changing Axe to H2H), then might parse PUP for real in merit.

[Intense]

It's extremely rude to be a fantastic bitch just because your job is more in demand

I dont understand why other jobs arent as vocal about insisting on a good party as bards are. When I was exping THF I seeked a lot, but I also turned down parties that didnt meet my standards on how a party should be. You gotta be super picky about jobs/certain people you party with. I liked playing THF, but only in certain set ups. I wanted to enjoy myself while exping; if Im not enjoying myself, then why the fuck am I logged on?

Fuck the "some exp is better than no exp" state of mind, I hate that bullshit. Id rather not exp at all if I'm not able to pull it in quickly, its just not fun that way.