Some BRD Mechanics Testing

[Viridiana]

Hello all,

Having seen several posts across the forum talking about Foe's Requiem's being a DPS booster for BRD, I decided to test the actual abilities and see just how strong the effect was. The abilities from BRD under discussion are Foe's Requiem, Venomous Bite, Windbiter, and Flaming Arrow. For Flaming Arrow, I also had no information regarding how it interacts with buffs, so I decided to test that, as well.

To test, I would approach an enemy, use the relevant DOT on them, and quickly hit ESC to cancel auto-attacks. I would then visually observe the DOTs tick to see if the numbers varied significantly in the presence of the Requiem debuff. Enemies would be pulled with the Foe's Requiem debuff aggro for that section of testing in order to avoid any question as to whether it had applied before attacking.

I first tested Windbiter, as that seemed to strike the balance between useful and dubious. Without Requiem, my DOT ticks were doing around 60 to 65 damage. With Requiem, I expected to see them reach the upper 60s, occasionally touching the 70s. Instead, the range remained unmoving around 60. Well, as I said, Windbiter was dubious to start with.

My Windbiter dreams dashed, I decided to continue on to Venomous Bite, expecting a repeat performance from Windbiter. I was not disappointed. Before and after numbers were both in the ~48-52 range.

I then moved on to Flaming Arrow. First, the plain ticks of damage were doing ~75 damage. I initially assumed that it was just critting, as that's the damage I would expect of a critical Venomous Bite, which is also 35 potency. Then I noticed that *all* of the ticks were in this range. All of them. Even when I pulled three enemies at the same time, all 30 ticks were in the 75 range, completely unbuffed. In other words, there appears to be an error in the tooltip, and, simultaneously, Flaming Arrow never crits. Or, the tooltip is right, but it has 100% crit chance. . .Anyway, the numbers didn't change at all with Requiem up, even though Flaming Arrow seemed most likely to be affected. With that out of the way, I tested Raging Strikes (applied before using Flaming) and saw no results there, either.

In conclusion, I'd like to open the floor to critiques of my method or collaboration, whichever you prefer. I'd just like to get accurate information out, so if you could please keep things structured.

[Gunba]

I'm assuming it's an intended mechanic otherwise you'd just always cast Foe Req.

From a game design standpoint it's acceptable but also a little misleading.

[Starkbeaumont]

btw when to activate battle voice? before i cast the song? or does it still apply when a song is already on? ... problem is, engaging a training dummy and using either way army's paeon is always giving me 30tp per tic... when i was expecting 60 cause of battle voice

edit: i might have missed that the song doesn't apply to the brd itself..?

[Viridiana]

btw when to activate battle voice? before i cast the song? or does it still apply when a song is already on? ... problem is, engaging a training dummy and using either way army's paeon is always giving me 30tp per tic... when i was expecting 60 cause of battle voice

edit: i might have missed that the song doesn't apply to the brd itself..?

The song itself (at least, Paeon) will apply to the BRD himself. Battle Voice, for some reason, will not. As for when to use Battle Voice, it doesn't matter.

[Catapult]

Now I'm curious if the Requiem affects Ruin.
Because if it does, then we're talking about magic resistance rather than elemental resistance.

[pandabearcat]

I believe requiem does not affect any arcanist spells. It seems to be ONLY for BLMs, which is such an oddly specific case.

Furthermore, other ground effects like Shadowflare also do not benefit from Raging Strikes, so at least thats consistent.

[Taoquitok]

I've no idea if anyone else has already said this or not, but the issue might be that the mob(s) you tested on had no resistance to reduce. Might be worth while re-doing the test with a THM next to you to test if they get any damage increase on the same mobs that you're testing on

[KaiSunstrider]

What lvl and types of mobs are you doing these tests on? I ask because as you know Foe Req decreases elemental resistance by 10%, unlike people whom see that as 10% increase to elemental damage. Mobs that already have little to no elemental resistance will become virtually unaffected by FR. if they say have 100 fire resist then FR would reduce them to 90 resist which may be completely negligible. On the other hand coil bosses may have much higher resistances causing FR to have much more of an effect. For instance, these numbers again are arbitrary, a lvl 53 coil boss could have 1000 which would reduce him to 900 elemental resist resulting in a higher difference. Ill do some testing tonight in coil on high level bosses.

[Viridiana]

I initially tested Windbiter on the level 48 Garleans north of Vesper Bay. I then did a more comprehensive test (including Windbiter confirmation) on the Hippocerfs in eastern Mor Dhona. I also checked my damage on the Lightning Elementals, Lake Serpents, and Gigas in the area, noting no changes (only tested Requiem on the Elementals, but all damage numbers stayed the same regardless of enemy).

Edit:

I believe requiem does not affect any arcanist spells. It seems to be ONLY for BLMs, which is such an oddly specific case.

It does seem odd, which I suspect is why the idea that BRD gets a boost was so popular. I've heard claims that SMN does as well; needless to say, I doubt that's the case. I'll test to confirm when I get a chance.

[LunarEmerald]

I believe requiem does not affect any arcanist spells. It seems to be ONLY for BLMs, which is such an oddly specific case.

Furthermore, other ground effects like Shadowflare also do not benefit from Raging Strikes, so at least thats consistent.

Foe req does boost Holy damage.