Foe Sirvente and useful situations

[Dexster]

Question is more for Gjallarhorn bards due to the +2 towards the song...

What situations have you found having this song useful? Is it useful in any situation or am I just wasting merits putting them into it. I was thinking about meriting c2 like this: Nightingale - 1, Troubadour - 2, Foe Sirvente - 3. Do you think I should throw 3 into Troubadour instead?

Gracias.

[Harutaru]

It's good when you have two BRDs in tank party, for kite fights, or for if you are for some reason blood tanking a bigger fight. Personally I went 1 Nightingale 1 Troubadour 2 Sirvente 2 Dirge and generally find Dirge more useful than Sirvente, but I can definitely see the appeal of 3 Troub as well.

[Ashira]

Three uses come to mind.

Kiting HNM while others do damage, and kiter has limited abilities to grab hate.

Double tanks on a Wyrm and one gets roared. Sirvente can help hate balance more quickly.

LS is wiping to some HNM; Sirvente on tanks should produce higher enmity so that your alliance is more likely to get the red name in the resulting claim spamfest when mob name goes yellow.

/shrug

It's not a typically used song, so use your discretion.

[Dexster]

Hmm...

Do you tend to use Dirge proactively or only after someone pulls hate off a tank?

[HARRRRR]

Don't bother with it Dex, Sirvente or Dirge.

When weighed against the more usefullness of having Troub & Nightingale capped 3/3, those two don't figure in to any of my plans & here's why:

Normally at Cerb/Khim or even Proto Omega small-man, you have options or requirements to have BRD/BLM for ES+Troub+Elegy. The duration Elegy sticks on something with ES+Troubador is 7min 30sec exactly. Unlocked Troubador has a recast of 20min, down to 15min with all 3 upgrades. That eliminates having to either run 3 Bards /BLM, or having 2 Bards with a jacked up Elegy cycle mid-way through where one of them doesn't have Troub up & just uses ES+Elegy. 2 Bards with full merits in Troub (and Nightingale since you should really use them together) can basically rotate ES+Elegy on something indefinitely.

Now I use Troub/Night just about every time I'm logged on/daily, so having those maxed is worth far more than some single bullshit Kirin kited fight where a mediocre tank needs Enmity help.

You've done 100's of Cerb/Khim/Faf/KB fights & you know yourself that PLD doesn't need Enmity help (save for the occasional 'tard over nuking/Barrage+WS). On the flip side, a BLM or WHM should have access to more than enough -Enmity or they should really learn how to not pull hate. Zerg rush doesn't matter, so ... meh.

I had 1 point into each of the Group 2 songs when I got horn, played with Sirvente a bunch in a few Xarc/Glacier runs & yea, it did help the PLD completely hold hate.... but wtf is the usefulness of a PLD with super-planted hate in Dynamis? None... be ready to wipe on a big pull or gtfo.

Dirge was even more useless to me. WHM can easily get -20 Enmity. BLM should be resting in some form of a hMP + -Enmity build.

After playing with horn for several months now, I've never once thought, "I wish I had dirge for that idiot over-nuking BLM." It's more like, "HAHA! Nice MB! Now die...."

[draxyl]

I merited it to lvl 3, and I'm planning on removing it for Troub. Just not as useful as I thought it would be. In most instances, tanks would rather have march/ballad. Kited fights are about the only time I use it, and perhaps on rdm/nin while they are building hate. Overall - not as usefull as I thought it would be.

[solsovly]

There are better songs for tanks, not even that useful in kited fights. The only time I felt that it was useful was sirvente'ing my blm friends and having them get mad at me. Otherwise, imo a waste of merits.

[riddaraan]

You know how you've always hated that one Black Mage that always is demanding for Ballad? Well, now's your opportunity to get back at him...

[Rena]

I haven't really found much use for either Sirvente or Dirge. Sirvente isn't too bad for kited fights, but it's still kinda limited in use... most of the time I just use the wrong one on the people in my party for fun in situations where it doesn't matter. <_<; I put two points in them each though still, and 1 in Nightingale/Trouadour, but mostly because I wanted to max out category 2, not because I found any real use for any of it. Category 2 merits for bard I found to be very lacking.

[Dexster]

Damn it Beer, you are the one that sparked this idea...

I already have all unlocked for now, I think I am going to hold off before finishing up the merits, I've been sitting on them for sometime because I dont want to turn around and switch them like i've done with so many other jobs.

Thanks for the feedback bud.

[kamalii]

I only use Sirvente/Dirge after shit happens - i.e. tank dies and/or dc, hate is unstable, etc. etc. Usually only happens in longer fights like khim/tia, or our melee have a flailing contest or blm's have a nuke off. A lot of whether or not this song is useful depends on your tanks and how you fight, how effective your tanks are, how much hate your mages take, etc.

You are much better off maxing at least Troub. Makes khim/cerb much easier to fight with eseal/trou elegy (never tried it on proto-omega, guess I'm lucky sticking elegy there).

I went max Troub, 1 dirge, 1 sirvente, 1 Nightengale. I keep dirge/sirvente around because it does help when things go really bad.

[Naramaska]

My argument has always been this:

When the hell is less hate loss going to give you more hate than 3MP/tick, or 9% haste?

[yrpaine]

My argument has always been this:

What tank is going to magically get hate with more +enmity when they can't keep hate with 3MP/tick refresh, and 9% haste?

fixed

[sb]

When the hell is less hate loss going to give you more hate than 3MP/tick, or 9% haste?

Kited mobs where single target songs>AoE songs.

[HARRRRR]

(never tried it on proto-omega, guess I'm lucky sticking elegy there).

I mention Omega only as it's something the group I run Limbus with uses BRD/BLMs. The purpose isn't to overcome high resist rates (never has been an issue with me either), but more simply to add stability to a fight that can go south quickly with a small group. At times we attempt it with ~10 people and still easily have time for pod farming.

The continuous Elegy eases the job of the tanks by keeping the attack rate & TP use down to an absolute minimum. Not having to spam elegy (which does see increasing resists over the course of the fight) relieve stress of having to recast multiple times while the tanks gets pummeled by an increased attack rate.

It's certainly not needed, but for our fights, it's essential to keeping a stable run where we can ensure Omega kills with few people as possible. People immediately call out, "You don't need ES to stick elegy!!", well, they're probably right but the extended duration Elegy & guaranteed landing of it take away several factors that are unknows if you don't use that method.

[Ferien]

My argument has always been this:

When the hell is less hate loss going to give you more hate than 3MP/tick, or 9% haste?

Kiting.

[ringthree]

My argument has always been this:

When the hell is less hate loss going to give you more hate than 3MP/tick, or 9% haste?

Kiting.

Ah yep.

[Seditedi]

My argument has always been this:

What tank is going to magically get hate with more +enmity when they can't keep hate with 3MP/tick refresh, and 9% haste?

fixed

Uh.. enmity+ gear reduces the enmity loss over time as well as increase enmity from spike hate actions (Flash, Cure IV/JAs for PLD/NIN, and your hate spells and JAs for NIN/DRK). Sirvente only decreases enmity loss from what I understand. IF this song caused a spike in enmity, not just decrease the rate of enmity decay, then this song would be worth meriting imo, but it doesn't work that way so kinda eh... not very useful. Would be nice after hate resets (roar/homing missile/brainjack etc.) if it worked that way. Outside of kited fights its not really worth the merits.

[LinktheDeme]

My argument has always been this:

What tank is going to magically get hate with more +enmity when they can't keep hate with 3MP/tick refresh, and 9% haste?

fixed

Uh.. enmity+ gear reduces the enmity loss over time as well as increase enmity from spike hate actions (Flash, Cure IV/JAs for PLD/NIN, and your hate spells and JAs for NIN/DRK). Sirvente only decreases enmity loss from what I understand. IF this song caused a spike in enmity, not just decrease the rate of enmity decay, then this song would be worth meriting imo, but it doesn't work that way so kinda eh... not very useful. Would be nice after hate resets (roar/homing missile/brainjack etc.) if it worked that way. Outside of kited fights its not really worth the merits.

emnity + only makes your actions generate more emnity. Sirvente makes it so it is harder for other people to grab hate off you. Two different functions sirvente is a really good if your rotating 2 bards (assuming none have relic horn) for ballad II, march x2, sirvente. Or if your pld/war instead of ballad x2 have only 2nd ballad and sirvente. one tick of mp wont set you back a lot.

[Seditedi]

I was pretty sure enmity+/- gear affects both enmity from generated actions as well as enmity decay..
but w/e.