BARD resource?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rose-Wild

You clearly know nothing about the GCD que system. You can't que attacks that are inside a macro. So every heavy shot, you are attacking late and hurting your uptime/dps.

---

The 2 persons below you says otherwise too.

The thing is that they can say w/e they want, the GCD que system is a fact, not an opinion. And the argument they are giving me is that people are terribad and slow and can't use BL when it resets. So instead of learning they should just only use the macro.
The macro is ok for a new player, if you are in high end and you have been playing for a while you are just being lazy about it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rose-Wild

The thing is that they can say w/e they want, the GCD que system is a fact, not an opinion. And the argument they are giving me is that people are terribad and slow and can't use BL when it resets. So instead of learning they should just only use the macro.
The macro is ok for a new player, if you are in high end and you have been playing for a while you are just being lazy about it.

---

Well these players have achieved results and they personally tested and said no difference. Same goes to me. I believe in evidences.

ITT: playstyle vs subjectivity vs I do more dps than you bragging rights.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rose-Wild

The thing is that they can say w/e they want, the GCD que system is a fact, not an opinion. And the argument they are giving me is that people are terribad and slow and can't use BL when it resets. So instead of learning they should just only use the macro.
The macro is ok for a new player, if you are in high end and you have been playing for a while you are just being lazy about it.

---

Never said this. Said merely that doing something > doing nothing. A lot of (bad) BRDs do nothing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ooshima

The only macro'ed skill I have is BL on Heavy Shot which goes:

/ac "Heavy Shot" <t>
/ac "Bloodletter" <t>

So that I can just keep spamming that macro and BL will always just fire off when available. Of course I have the BL button by itself on hotbar to monitor if proc'ed and/or manually weave it in between refreshing the 2 DoTs if it's available.

---

I have {Misery's End} in there also. Many times, the 20% remaining on a boss still have enough HP for multiple Misery's End to trigger.

Imagine a boss at low HP and the Bloodletter procs are spammed. People show me not putting out a lot of damage even with Bloodletter, Misery's End, and Heavy Shot clip spams, but it's there to use.

I don't concern myself with how much damage I put out, but how often I'm attacking and staying alive.

Curiosity question for those who say macros kill dps; I have my four attacks like this:

BLOODLETTER MACRO ICON:
Heavy Shot
Bloodletter
Misery's End

WINDBITE MACRO ICON:
Windbite
Bloodletter
Misery's End

VENOMOUS BITE MACRO ICON:
Venomous Bite
Bloodletter
Misery's End

STRAIGHT SHOT MACRO ICON:
Straight Shot
Bloodletter
Misery's End

The reason I personally thought to do them this way is because, let's say I have 3 ticks of Windbite left and ready to refresh it. BLM knocked a chunk of HP; mob having under 20% health. Since that happened a split second before I hit the Windbite macro, Misery's End fired just as I hit the button, and if he's not dead, I hit the macro again for the Windbite (or Bloodletter if it's up).

I noticed that no matter what order I place Misery's End in, it always fired first. With this, is the why people say my BRD can't push past 185 dps (whatever that is) even though I'm putting dots on everything and getting the Bloodletter procs?

I have another bar with each ability in it so I can see cooldowns.

Take the 3-in-1 out of most of those.

Wide Volley micon
/ac "Wide Volley" <t>
/ac "Bloodletter" <t>
/ac "Misery's End" <t>

Bloodletter micon
/ac "Bloodletter" <t>
/ac "Misery's End" <t>

I have those on Q and E, right next to my movement keys. Can easily be spam-hit while moving. My 1 2 3 4 is HS VB WB SS.

Optimally you would only use the latter macro and no other 2 or 3 in ones. But if you've been doing 3-in-1 on everything your whole BRD career, consider limiting the amount of macros you use to wean off of it.

Previously I had Heavy Shot as my sole 3-in-1 button, and spammed that between GCDs. The others are unmacro'd. Whatever is most comfortable for you to spam. But keep it to a limited amount of keybinds.

I think I see the issues here;

Some of us are using controller only (me on PS4) while others are using keyboard (PC).

I never played in PC, but from screenshots and videos I see, it's faster to point and click, which is why many PC players use less macros. For me, it's:

- Use D-pad to manually highlight a target.
- Hold L2 or R2.
- Press face button.

I remember watching a BRD playing on PC. They speed at which he clicked his abilities made him look glitchy with clipping lol...

In any case, while my BRD is usually always at the bottom of the dps chart, you can still see the dos struggle if I WASN'T fighting. One day, I was kicked for low dps, although we never wiped and never hit critical moments. Heck, in one fight, I was last man alive for the win. That group kicked me was in Party Finder specifically looking for a BRD even after I did a few dungeons and two Garuda EXs.

Most posts about BRDs damage is mixed. Some posts say BRDs COULD be on the bottom of the dps charts. Others say BRD should be at leadt second due to mobility. It's just sad when a BRD with high iLv wouldn't since Paeon or Ballad when he's solo BRD, telling BLMs to focus crit food and for WHM to pop Shroud (yes, I witnessed BRD doing this). Another BRD in Thornmarch Ex told me to drop Foe (we had two BLM) to use Ballad because the healers were low in MP. I thought he wanted to use Foe but never did.

At the end, I then never feel bad for my BRD, because at least I'm supportive.

No good PC player is going to use point and click.

Most of the end game fights are movement fights so technically BRDs don't fall at the bottom of the list. Personally I hang around #2 or #3 depending on how many melee DDs are there in the group and how good they are. If the melees are bad you can be easily #1

Quote:

---

Ok have fun having mediocre dps. The science you speak about is some random post from last year with low gear and made by someone that din't really give any good info.
The diference is even bigger in the new coil because either you have huge up times like t8, or you have small up times like t9 and you have to do all the damage you can before the boss jumps.

---

I love coming back to threads after a few days and seeing responses like this, particularly when they get shot down by multiple posters.

Quote:

---

Besides you are trying to tell people with real high end experience that know what they are doing how to play their job when you haven't even finished t6.

---

I also love it when people stalk my lodestone profile in an attempt to make their argument look stronger. I guess you probably assume that I keep failing at T6 or something asinine like that? Regardless, the point I made has been established for a great deal longer than T6 has been out, and there's plenty of evidence in this thread alone to suggest that I'm correct, let alone the testing which was good enough for me and the majority of BG.

Quote:

---

- Hold L2 or R2.
- Press face button.

---

This is a setup issue, some tips. Lock your crossbar, use extended cross bar (L2 + R2/R2 + L2), and legacy movement. They'll make a huge difference to what you're describing.

Basically you won't have to hold down the trigger (locked crossbar), you won't need to press the face button (legacy movement), and with the extended cross bar you have access to 32 slots just using the triggers, saves swapping hotbars using bumpers during combat, which is a massive time waster.

I have a few questions and I'm not sure a resource to look them up.

1. Do songs still decrease damage output?

2. If I want to start doing speed runs for tomes on my bard, what is the best playstyle? For example, AOE everything to death and keep TP song up or use the magic debuffing song so the casters can hit harder?

3. How many mobs need to be around for our AoEs to be more efficient than single target damage? I assumed anything in groups ~4-5, but I wasn't sure if this has been calculated yet and I should be AoE'ing on groups of 3.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Khalette

I have a few questions and I'm not sure a resource to look them up.

1. Do songs still decrease damage output?

2. If I want to start doing speed runs for tomes on my bard, what is the best playstyle? For example, AOE everything to death and keep TP song up or use the magic debuffing song so the casters can hit harder?

3. How many mobs need to be around for our AoEs to be more efficient than single target damage? I assumed anything in groups ~4-5, but I wasn't sure if this has been calculated yet and I should be AoE'ing on groups of 3.

---

1. Swiftsong and foe requiem do not

2. Wide Volley with straight shot up. Rain of Death when proc. Did not play paeon unless the other dps is a dragoon. If the other dps is a summoner or black mage, play foe requiem.

3. I don't think it's worth aoeing as a bard unless the other dps is doing it and there's 4 or more mobs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LunarEmerald

1. Swiftsong and foe requiem do not

2. Wide Volley with straight shot up. Rain of Death when proc. Did not play paeon unless the other dps is a dragoon. If the other dps is a summoner or black mage, play foe requiem.

3. I don't think it's worth aoeing as a bard unless the other dps is doing it and there's 4 or more mobs.

---

Thank you for the help and how direct it was. Very much appreciated :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HaelseMikiro

Agree 100%. ME & BL are off the GCD skills, so should be used between GCD's to maximize dps. Placing HS lowest in priority would cause non-GCD skills to be used first, delaying your GCD usage => reducing dps

---

Except generally speaking you always want to use your Off-GCD abilities whenever they are up. Putting Heavy Shot first in the priority of a Macro will prioritize that over the Off-GCD abilities, meaning that even if both Bloodletter and Misery's End are available for use at the time, you will use Heavy Shot first.

The problem is that Heavy Shot is a Potency 150 Attack, with a specific recast timer. Whereas Bloodletter is a Potency 150 Attack who automatically has it's recast timer reset each time your two DOT's score a critical strike. And Misery's End is a Potency 190 Attack. So not using full advantage of Bloodletter and Misery's End is actually crippling your DPS, not improving it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Khalette

Thank you for the help and how direct it was. Very much appreciated :)

---

Wide volley and rain of death are outdated. Quick knock is 20mp less than wide volley with the same potency and has a much larger area once you get your positioning down and can visualize your range. Free rain of death procs are nice, but unreliable. RoD was nice back when it had the damage debuff, but it's definatly not worth the gamble now that it only affects accuracy.

Quote:

---

Wide volley and rain of death are outdated. Quick knock is 20mp less than wide volley with the same potency and has a much larger area once you get your positioning down and can visualize your range. Free rain of death procs are nice, but unreliable. RoD was nice back when it had the damage debuff, but it's definatly not worth the gamble now that it only affects accuracy.

---

Yep, and 2.2 saw a range increase for Quick Knock too, which was really it's only downside. Using Wide Volley for the free RoD is a good way to burn TP faster.

Kind of silly that BRD's two highest level AOE attacks are just about pointless, but it might change in the future:

Quote:

---

On a somewhat related note, however, Yoshida mentioned during Letter from the Producer LIVE XIV that we will be looking into making adjustments to actions that are not used very much by each job.

---

Macros....

PC player here, my only macros are my OCD buffs, all on one spammy macro. Just the way I play is all.

On our AoEs, I prefer I prefer WV because of distance and circularity. I will close to QN range and use it, but honestly I so rarely have to pop invigorate I see only range and positioning as the differences between the two.

This is the Macro I use for the heavy shot, bloodletter, misery's end three in one... this macro I think helps me.

/micon "Heavy Shot"
/ac "Heavy Shot"
/target <le>
/ac "Bloodletter"
/ac "Misery's End"

What does this do, you wonder? Well with foes that like to become unforgettable momentarily (think DPS check). The heavy shot action will attempt to use Heavy Shot on the selected target. But if there is no selected target, I follow up with /target <le> which will target the last enemy letting just mash this one action safely until that sly primal returns from his death-move, and it'll target it again.

That's the only Macro I use. The debate over macroing and it impacting dps is silly and impossible to substantiate. Do what works best for you. Not other's people idealism.

I do try to have Hawk's Eye up before I use Flaming Arrow since it does increase the damage it does slightly the entire time Flaming Arrow is DoTing. It's a slight increase (maybe an extra 100 - 200 dmg total) but if your going to use something that sticks around in one place or a half minute, I think you'd want it to do as much during that half minute, even if it's a meager 100 pts.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hybris-Maenad

Wide volley and rain of death are outdated. Quick knock is 20mp less than wide volley with the same potency and has a much larger area once you get your positioning down and can visualize your range. Free rain of death procs are nice, but unreliable. RoD was nice back when it had the damage debuff, but it's definatly not worth the gamble now that it only affects accuracy.

---

Well it takes 6 2/3s Wide Vollys to get a free Rain of Death TP which saves you the amount you'd save using nine Quick Knocks. Rain of death also lowers every target hit with a -10% evasion debuff.

I guess it's choose your poison...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Laraul

Well it takes 6 2/3s Wide Vollys to get a free Rain of Death TP which saves you the amount you'd save using nine Quick Knocks. Rain of death also lowers every target hit with a -10% evasion debuff.

I guess it's choose your poison...

---

Rain of Death's debuff may as well not exist; if you need it your gear or your party's gear is not up to snuff in the first place. Maintaining it is a huge TP sink. The only situation you can claim it's useful is against enemies who have Evasion boosts (Pugilists or Ixali), of which there are none outside of open world engagements. Which are pathetically easy.

QN vs WV is a matter of "which can I fit more enemies in" and nothing else.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Viridiana

I disagree. I did the math on it several months back, and it actually breaks down even more than that.

---

Thanks for the reply. I went to your math post (actually extended your math out all the way to Refresh/6 ticks, since yours only went as far as the 3/2 tick point).
And you're right, Using WB before VB almost always keeps you 10-20 potency ahead of using VB before WB. Using VB first only gives you a potency advantage from the instant you use VB until WB gets it's first tick. And depending on your skill speed and when during the system clock the ticks start applying, that's a maximum of a 5.5 second window. Which makes VB first more effective during only (MAX) 30.5% of your 18 second dot rotation

I dropped HS from my BL/ME spam macro since I found it easier to ride the GCD with skill queues instead of counting on correct macro button press timing. My current spam setup consists of GCD skills on 1234 and ME/BL+facetarget on a turbo button on my mouse - this lets me queue each GCD skill and also spam ME/BL ceaselessly while always facing the target (dem autoattacks). Queued GCD skill presses actually take priority over macros so the GCD skills always go off when they become available and shameless turbo button spam sneaks in ME/BL immediately when they become available.