Bard Openning

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Originally Posted by Shunye

nope. There is absolutely no reason for bard's to ever take stun in any situation considering every tank has a built in stun and the ability to grab a role stun as well. not to mention we would have to run into melee range to use it.

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The built in stun that each tank has breaks combos and costs damage, their role stun is the same as ours. Take paladin, as an example: In a fight or flight rotation they need to do goring > royal > royal > goring into ogcd requiescat to maximise dps. If they need to use an on GCD stun, even if it didn't break combo, it would mean missing one goring and requiescat under fight or flight, for a potency loss of over 300 potency (that is if they have to stun at any time during the fight or flight, which is 25 seconds out of every 60). Similarly, if they need to stun during requiescat (12 seconds out of every 60), they lose 20% damage from a cast of holy spirit for ~90 potency lost. Neither of these even consider the impact of losing the GCD.

For them to take the ogcd ability means they lose another role ability, and tanks have many mandatory picks. Provoke is basically mandatory, Rampart is basically mandatory, then you have convalescence, anticipation, reprisal, and shirk. In a party they don't need shirk, in a raid they probably drop convalescence or anticipation. In all cases, dropping an ability for the stun means losing a damage avoidance ability and less safe aoe pulling or boss tanking.

Bard has zero downtime on mobility so running into melee range is almost never an issue. Second wind is a heal, but it isn't a particularly great one and is on a very long timer. If you need a stun then dropping second wind is very likely to be inconsequential.

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Originally Posted by Shunye

nope. There is absolutely no reason for bard's to ever take stun in any situation considering every tank has a built in stun and the ability to grab a role stun as well. not to mention we would have to run into melee range to use it.

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bard has way too many things to be managing already as it is. i picked up the head graze ability for silence, but I'm definitely not going to be bothering with stunning enemies when melee and tanks should be the ones doing it.

http://i.imgur.com/am2YDJI.png << Better

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Originally Posted by chrissun

Can you provide me with a link to the guides? I've been having difficulties myself finding a good one. That's why I tried to create my own opener and opened this post.

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Got it. Drakeos posted a decent flow chart. Outside of it, best damage comes from knowing when to snap shot (clipping early) and when to sit on your current dots. I snap shot almost every time I get a new balance and at end unless I already have a balance/raging buffed set. And I almost never trade crit snap shots (CS/Lit) for damage snaps. I'm sure there is a threshold though depending on song. Embowlden +balance + raging would probably be better than Lit in AP since at 4 stacks you gain nothing, but I really don't know that breaking point.

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Take paladin, as an example: In a fight or flight rotation they need to do goring > royal > royal > goring into ogcd requiescat to maximise dps.

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i'm not sure what game you are playing but paladin's job is to tank. And i can guarantee that a 360 potency attack from a paladin does significantly less than any attack from my bard. (ok just tested it for you, my 314 paladin vs my 316 bard, straight shot which is my filler did over 100 damage more than my paladin's royal authority despite only being a 100 potency attack. 2200 average straight shot, 2000-2100 average royal authority) that was also with fight or flight up from my paladin, and zero buffs up on my bard. Your arguement holds no water because despite having a higher potency the attack has significantly lower multipliers on the paladin.

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Originally Posted by Shunye

i'm not sure what game you are playing but paladin's job is to tank. And i can guarantee that a 360 potency attack from a paladin does significantly less than any attack from my bard. (ok just tested it for you, my 314 paladin vs my 316 bard, straight shot which is my filler did over 100 damage more than my paladin's royal authority despite only being a 100 potency attack. 2200 average straight shot, 2000-2100 average royal authority) that was also with fight or flight up from my paladin, and zero buffs up on my bard. Your arguement holds no water because despite having a higher potency the attack has significantly lower multipliers on the paladin.

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The paladin's stun is on-gcd, interrupts 3-ability combos, and causes abilities to fall outside of buffed states. Their off-gcd stun causes them to lose an important defensive ability that allows them to take less damage, whether doing big aoe pulls in dungeons or tanking bosses.

Your stun causes you to lose.. nothing. A 2 minute moderate self-heal. You don't lose potency by using an ogcd stun, or at the very most you MIGHT push back one ogcd ability by 1 second. You have no combo abilities to interrupt and even if you did, your stun is ogcd and wouldn't interrupt them. Besides niche cases using an ogcd stun will never cause you to lose damage (unless you aren't good at managing your ogcd cooldowns).

Your argument holds no water because it is stupid. I listed the potencies not to compare with you as a bard, but to outline how much damage they lose of their own. It would be stupid to think that I was trying to say that the pld potencies are equal to bard potencies, because the bard stun does not cause you to lose potency. To spell it out for you, imagine yourself losing 1.2 refulgent arrows worth of damage (as a percentage of your own total damage) every time you have to stun.

It's kind of a silly argument in general thus far, since there have been no mandatory stuns so far in stormblood anyway.