HW bard- channeling?

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Originally Posted by Warlyx

is a stance , confirmed by a MOD on this forum

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Not what I meant by always-on. By always-on I mean that you turn on the Minuet song "stance" at the beginning of the fight and it's such a dps increase that you can literally never justify turning it off. If it's that level of powerful I would understand why people would be afraid of just becoming another turret dps (ala black mage), but I think it's pretty speculative to view it that way without actually having people out in the world testing it out.

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Originally Posted by Elandir

Bards become black mages. I realize bards currently do less damage than most other classes, but is the best way for us to do higher damage to turn us into one of the other classes? If I want to play like another dps class, why wouldn't I just play as that dps class?

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A bards ceiling is lower. That doesn't mean they can't be right on the other classes asses in terms of overall DPS. I know my bard for one tears it up hard and I am pretty sure I come in 1st quite often. The only class that usually way outclasses me is monk at this point and sometimes DRG.

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Originally Posted by Instrumentality

Not what I meant by always-on. By always-on I mean that you turn on the Minuet song "stance" at the beginning of the fight and it's such a dps increase that you can literally never justify turning it off. If it's that level of powerful I would understand why people would be afraid of just becoming another turret dps (ala black mage), but I think it's pretty speculative to view it that way without actually having people out in the world testing it out.

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Some fights it would make no sense to keep it on. Think add phase in T11, you're moving constantly, would be better dps to keep it off. This all hinges on if barage gets a new affect while in minuet as well. Barage is such a huge dps boost, it would be hard to justify skipping it in a rotation.

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Originally Posted by Warlyx

is a stance , will be always ON

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...RIP-Bard/page8

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I can't tell what post you were aiming for (seriously, why do people leave it at the default 10 replies per page?). I assume you were aiming for the community rep post, which does not say that it will always be on.

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Originally Posted by tjw

In regards to barrage, I have a sneaking suspicion that the attack right after Barrage was linked to it. Kinda like how you can only perform Energy Drain/Bane under Aetherflow, maybe the new skill is only usable while under the effect of Barrage, and consumes the buff after using.

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Want to add onto this post that Barrage is indeed used for the weaponskill straight after. The BRD loses a buff just before the weaponskill is used; one can deduce that it was the Barrage debuff used right before. That or Barrage will affect the next ability by increasing its potency.

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Originally Posted by Instrumentality

Not what I meant by always-on. By always-on I mean that you turn on the Minuet song "stance" at the beginning of the fight and it's such a dps increase that you can literally never justify turning it off. If it's that level of powerful I would understand why people would be afraid of just becoming another turret dps (ala black mage), but I think it's pretty speculative to view it that way without actually having people out in the world testing it out.

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If it was powerful enough to always keep on, then the whole DPS balancing would be changed...

It would have to be so strong that during some fights you would out-DPS jobs that you shouldn't be able to. After all, BRDs have the lowest DPS right now, because they have superior utility, and they're really strong in fights where you move a lot... Would make no sense that they suddenly would bring so much DPS.

Take T13 for example. If you keep WM on even when you get Earthshakers on you, or when he casts Megaflare(unless you get nothing on you), I highly doubt it would be worth keeping it on... It might not even be worth turning it on between the Megaflares and the Earthshakers for all we know. During the adds in P3-4 however, you could use a lot.

If you want to get the most out of BRD, I'm guessing you will have to manage that song by turning it off and on every time you have to move or are able to stand still for some time. I doubt it will be a DPS increase to do nothing while moving, and then start "channeling" an attack when you stop.

Think of the Odin fight, for example, too.

The whole fight is an AoE mess, moving about is highly important, so BRD is about the one with the most uptime DPS in fights like that, of course, with Minuet off.

And when a Shin-Zantetsuken-like skill comes up, turning Minuet on would make you DPS much higher.

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Originally Posted by Craiger

If it was powerful enough to always keep on, then the whole DPS balancing would be changed...

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The entire dps balance for this game is changing in 3.0 so I don't know why this would be considered a criticism.

Also I didn't say anything about Bard dps in relation to other DPS jobs. Just in relation to their own dps and what they would need to do to maximize it based on how powerful Minuet is.

Translated info from latest event.

Bard
Limit Break changed from Healing to DPS.

Minuet
Gives Bard Casting times in exchange for more damage.
Disables Autoattacks
Does not consume MP
Increases potency values by 25%

Side Winder
Increases the potency of DoTs

You know whats funny though, iirc my damage breakdown had autoattacks be 20%+ for damage contribution for bards...

So...

Minuet does...nothing?

While I don't argue that if you just lose AAs it'd make the bonus relatively small by today's rotation's standard, you should consider the weapon skill vs AA ratio is gonna be higher for weapon skills at level 60, IE if say 25% of BRD DPS is AAs vs the rest of their rotation, it might be 15% at level 60. Gonna have Sidewinder, and that new jumping attack, and who knows what else for their last skill, while auto-attacking will be unchanged.

Probably only gonna be a 5-10% increase or something in that vicinity after calculating AAs, but even that's pretty strong. Also, it will make BRD AoE absolutely ridiculous, I'd fear a fully buffed BRD AoE spamming would be almost unmatched by any other DoW and even come close to DoM.

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

You know whats funny though, iirc my damage breakdown had autoattacks be 20%+ for damage contribution for bards...

So...

Minuet does...nothing?

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Eh, I wouldn't say it does nothing. Figure that the 20%+ figure you have includes Barrage. WM will either have something to account for Barrage, or you'll probably be dropping WM for Barrage anyway, which means you either won't lose the full 20% of AA damage or WM will wind up accounting for more than the stated 25%.

Also that +25% potency would be multiplied by the traited +20% damage.

Somewhat true, but remember every sidewinder is a missed heavy shot, etc, so for example even if your relative skill dps increases by 10%, and AA not changed at all (it should be buffed, esp if skill speed affects it now too), you would end up actually only losing 1.5% contribution of AA, putting it at 18.5% of your dps.

Combine that with minuet will give you .815*1.25 = 1.01875 dps...a whopping 1.875% dps increase at the cost of all your mobility.

To put it another way, if you even have to interrupt ONE attack cast, it will take you nearly a full minute of nonstop casted dps to get back that lost dps.

Its going to take them a lot of balancing burst dps vs dot snapshotting vs autoattacks to make minuet both a worthwhile risk and not a huge scary burst type of ability.

Few more things.

Emperyal Arrow - Weaponskill enabled by Wanderer’s Minuet.
Iron Jaw - Weaponskill enabled by Wanderer’s Minuet, refreshes your DoT timers on target.

Yup. The moment the PCgamerN dude said it's a 25% damage increase, I instantly laughed. There's no way that's enough to warrant a complete loss in Auto-Attack damage and mobility, ESPECIALLY if the casts are 3s long for each charge. There's got to be more then that.

EDIT:

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Originally Posted by Tilgung

Few more things.

Emperyal Arrow - Weaponskill enabled by Wanderer’s Minuet.
Iron Jaw - Weaponskill enabled by Wanderer’s Minuet, refreshes your DoT timers on target.

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Okay, now that makes a bit of sense. So we just become Heavy Shot turrets then?

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Originally Posted by Tilgung

Few more things.

Emperyal Arrow - Weaponskill enabled by Wanderer’s Minuet.
Iron Jaw - Weaponskill enabled by Wanderer’s Minuet, refreshes your DoT timers on target.

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Source for those? Not doubting, but I never heard anything about this yet.

Depends on Emperyal Arrow and whether losing potential auto-crits on Straight Shot are worth it, I'd assume.

Probably will depend on the fight as well. Some current fights are less BLM friendly than others, I doubt we'll see much of a departure from stuff like that.

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Originally Posted by Viridiana

Source for those? Not doubting, but I never heard anything about this yet.

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http://dengekionline.com/elem/000/001/056/1056760/

Not covered all of it yet, but it's there.

Dervy linked this in the Rotation Reborn Thread. I was looking through the Google Docs.

Missed this gem:
DoT Damage is increased based on Skill/Spell Speed

I saw somewhere else pet damage was included as well? Not sourced though.

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Originally Posted by Dervy

http://dengekionline.com/elem/000/001/056/1056760/

Not covered all of it yet, but it's there.

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Blarg Japanese. Well, as long as there's a primary source, I'll take it. :)

Alright, lets see here:
Auto Attack with Barrage on CD accounts for around 25%-30% of total damage. Adding 25% damage with WM up, for the most part puts BRD right at the same spot. Nothing changes, no increase (more likely a loss of damage) for loss of mobility. Dropping WM each time for Barrage is not really much of a gain either as you then spend 3 seconds recasting it. So you get 9 auto attacks during barrage then a loss of everything for 3 seconds while you recast WM? That doesn't seem like much of any gain to sit here and stance dance every minute.
Cast times added to shots removes the bottom of the CD (off GCD) abilities. No more Bloodletter? No more Blunt Arrow or repelling for damage increases.
Single shot to refresh DoT timers. It has to at least have 80 potency to account for the upfront damage that Venomous Bite and Windbite do else its worthless.

Our songs are realistically worthless as it is already, lets be honest here. They are good when you are learning an encounter or when something goes wrong, but once you know it, how much do you use them? Some of the time, its actually bad to use songs since it can cause messed up phase pushes. We should have never been taken down to the point we were in the first place. There has not been single encounter in 2.x that being able to do damage while moving has been an advantage over melee or caster. I just hope there is a back up plan if this Bard Caster thing doesn't pan out.

Foe's Requiem has been and always will be useful.

You don't know how powerful Emperyal Arrow is, which is a Minuet only skill.

It's 80 potency across two skills. Even assuming Emperyal Arrow is crap, Iron Jaw (if 0 potency) + Heavy Shot is still 70 Potency higher.

Black Mages and Scholars still use oGCDs between casts. As long as they don't tack cast bars onto oGCD's it wont kill you to use the relevant ones. Particularly Misery's End (237 Pot) and Bloodletter (at 187 Pot). Flaming Arrow (437 Pot) as well.

dps is multiplicative, so in order to make up for losing 20% autoattack contribution, you need 25% increased damage.

To make up for 25% loss, you need to have 33% more damage.
To make up for 30% loss, you need to have 43% more damage.

But if you think about, say, minuet + its associated skills resulting in 43% more damage, then its kind of scary, because that means you can load up SO MUCH DAMAGE and there is no way in hell any tank is going to be able to keep up with this.

Also also: one further complication for minuet, if you use minuet, you run into the same problem BLMs have with firestarter procs - you won't see the straight shot proc until the next heavy. Not quite as much of a problem (since it has a much lower proc chance) but certainly an issue as well.

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

But if you think about, say, minuet + its associated skills resulting in 43% more damage, then its kind of scary, because that means you can load up SO MUCH DAMAGE and there is no way in hell any tank is going to be able to keep up with this.

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I don't see this being an issue in any situation. On the pull you have Quelling, and on adds you generally do not have all your CDs available, nor AAs, so all they'd have to do is hold from Straight Shot + initial DoT ticks and they're set.

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

But if you think about, say, minuet + its associated skills resulting in 43% more damage, then its kind of scary, because that means you can load up SO MUCH DAMAGE and there is no way in hell any tank is going to be able to keep up with this.

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BRD has quelling, and if there's a NIN in the party, they can transfer hate. Which, people keep saying that ability will be useless even though I can see so, so many uses for it.

Maybe one of the Minuet skill is instant cast so we can weave with it.
Would solve many issue with oGDC skills. Do we have any info on those skills?

Can't wait for these changes. And also a bit nervous.

Trying to imagine bard opener now....would we ever open in minuet? Fitting 2 oGCDS between gcds @ +0sksp was beautiful....so what now, buff, cast, buff, cast? Lose the stacked buffs on barrage + glorious dot clip?

Then it's also a concern, what was their working example when they changed this? was it a 490 dummy parse? ( the standard when I quit anyways... ) or was it something lower, say 450 with bis? I'm having a hard time seeing this work out to beat previous system, but logically it must ofc.

The skills will have to be stronk, simple as that.

Depending on how long it takes to disable it... I can see something like this

Pre-Cast Minuet + RS + HS
Straight Shot
IR + BFB
VB + WB
Sidewinder
Empyrean Shot
Disable Minuet + Barrage.
Keep shotting until Barrage Ends
Cast Minuet
Iron Jaw to refresh DoTs
Straight Shot
Heavy Shot spam

That depends on the potencies of 60 skills however, and if Barrage doesn't change/traited. And yeah they will have to be really strong to completely out weight Barrage

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Originally Posted by Dervy

Depending on how long it takes to disable it... I can see something like this

Pre-Cast Minuet + RS + HS
Straight Shot
IR + BFB
VB + WB
Sidewinder
Empyrean Shot
Disable Minuet + Barrage.
Keep shotting until Barrage Ends
Cast Minuet
Iron Jaw to refresh DoTs
Straight Shot
Heavy Shot spam

That depends on the potencies of 60 skills however, and if Barrage doesn't change/traited. And yeah they will have to be really strong to completely out weight Barrage

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All that oGCDS eating into GCD time. Unavoidable, but weird concept for me as a bard to accept xd

really doubt this will beat standard opener. I really don't think bards will open with minuet. Theres such a truck of damage with current bard opener....and that opener depends upon very quickly executed buffs between gcds, a dot clip with all buffs still up, barrage with all buffs up. We'd drastically reduce the amount of hits/sec making use of these buffs if we were to use minuet. I can see us turning minuet on after this has ended.

then again, still not enough infos =/

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Originally Posted by Sessurea

All that oGCDS eating into GCD time. Unavoidable, but weird concept for me as a bard to accept xd

really doubt this will beat standard opener. I really don't think bards will open with minuet. Theres such a truck of damage with current bard opener....and that opener depends upon very quickly executed buffs between gcds, a dot clip with all buffs still up, barrage with all buffs up. We'd drastically reduce the amount of hits/sec making use of these buffs if we were to use minuet. I can see us turning minuet on after this has ended.

then again, still not enough infos =/

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Kind of depends whether Barrage has a new effect when used with Wanderer's Minuet or not. Either way I'm looking forward to BRD becoming a lot more interesting.

Never worth it to use oGCD on GCD, you lose half a gcd roughly every time you do that.

Minuet really needs to be a toggle.

I don't understand why they couldn't just make it like WoW's sniper training, in which you gain a buff (automatically) that buffs your damage by 10% when you stand still for 3 seconds. You lose it again 2 seconds after moving, so if you stutter, you can keep nigh 100% uptime. This seems like a good playstyle for bards rather than turn them into a caster.

Alternatively, again borrowing from WoW, you can have your fillers be a casted ability, which does more damage than an instacast, but you can seamlessly change between them as you go...this seems like a much better approach than the long song cast time and setup required, along with inability to use RoB procs or autoattack...just throws everything out of whack.

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

Never worth it to use oGCD on GCD, you lose half a gcd roughly every time you do that.

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pretty sure it will always be worth using bloodletter even between these channelled GCDS, but what worries me is popping 2 oGCDS seems less of an option with minuet on. Really looking forward to testing this stuff out ^^

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

Never worth it to use oGCD on GCD

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I wouldn't say never. So you wait for a Fire 3 proc before using Raging Strikes every time even if it means using RS during your Umbral Ice phase? :confused:

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Originally Posted by Sessurea

pretty sure it will always be worth using bloodletter even between these channelled GCDS, but what worries me is popping 2 oGCDS seems less of an option with minuet on. Really looking forward to testing this stuff out ^^

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I'm not sure what you mean by that, but you can always delay Bloodletter to an oGCD slot without ever losing any procs, even if one procs as you go to do something else. It can wait.

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Originally Posted by RinchanNau

I wouldn't say never. So you wait for a Fire 3 proc before using Raging Strikes every time even if it means using RS during your Umbral Ice phase? :confused:

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We are in a bard thread are we not? This is a class with instants and not everything hardcasted, so really my statement doesn't apply. If you have the option of fitting an oGCD in, you should always take it. I guess this is pretty obvious.

I assume you are making the parallel between that and minuet channelling. In which case, I would say, this is one of the reasons I am wary of minuet channelling, mostly the cost of taking the time to cast the song cutting into whatever buffs you do.

EDIT: I hit my post cap =(

To respond below:

Nope.

Losing 1/2 a GCD due to a delay to line up buffs requires your lined up buff to make up over 350 potency (roughly) of damage in one gcd attack, baseline, even if all you delay is a filler, to make up for it.

EDIT 2:

Also, even if we go all in and say Minuet is a definite 25% increase to all damage (even disregarding losing AA), it will take you 12 seconds of standstill fighting, just to break even on damage. This is a HUGE RISK and zero reward.

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

We are in a bard thread are we not? This is a class with instants and not everything hardcasted, so really my statement doesn't apply. If you have the option of fitting an oGCD in, you should always take it. I guess this is pretty obvious.

I assume you are making the parallel between that and minuet channelling. In which case, I would say, this is one of the reasons I am wary of minuet channelling, mostly the cost of taking the time to cast the song cutting into whatever buffs you do.

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You said it was never worth it to use a oGCD on GCD. This has nothing to do with fitting an oGCD in off GCD. Currently you can fit two off GCDs between every GCD on BRD, of course. This means popping two buffs between every GCD for your opener as well as spamming Bloodletter between every GCD outside of your opener even if you're popping a buff, Blunt Arrow, Repelling Shot, Invigorate, etc. at the same time.

And I will say that even on BRD it can be worth delaying GCDs for your x-pot + Barrage in opener as well as for Misery's End if that's how things line up.

Perhaps this will void the dps loss of using ballad/TP song during certain fights, since it doesnt use mp if I recall correctly

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Originally Posted by RinchanNau

I wouldn't say never. So you wait for a Fire 3 proc before using Raging Strikes every time even if it means using RS during your Umbral Ice phase? :confused:

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I've had more-than-enough times where my bloodletter either resets itself twice within a GCD, or resets itself after I use a bloodletter within a GCD. River procs work outside of your GCD with the two DoTs in mind from what I've seen (having two resets within 1 GCD on single target). If I can't use bloodletter while channeling another shot, it's a wasted proc right there.

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Originally Posted by repoe

Perhaps this will void the dps loss of using ballad/TP song during certain fights, since it doesnt use mp if I recall correctly

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You're also losing auto attack, which makes for a good chunk of your damage. Unless the actions exclusive to Minuet make up for that loss, the 25% would struggle to break even after all things considered.

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

I've had more-than-enough times where my bloodletter either resets itself twice within a GCD, or resets itself after I use a bloodletter within a GCD. River procs work outside of your GCD with the two DoTs in mind from what I've seen (having two resets within 1 GCD on single target). If I can't use bloodletter while channeling another shot, it's a wasted proc right there.

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There simply isn't enough information to talk about Bloodletter procs while using Wanderer's Minuet. Perhaps Bloodletter functions differently or isn't used at all. Perhaps there is one GCD in Wanderer's Minuet that does not have a charge time. Perhaps you can build Bloodletter stacks with each proc and expend them all at the same time with some new ability. Probably not, but the point is we do not know. Just need to wait for more information. :)

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Originally Posted by pandabearcat

Also, even if we go all in and say Minuet is a definite 25% increase to all damage (even disregarding losing AA), it will take you 12 seconds of standstill fighting, just to break even on damage. This is a HUGE RISK and zero reward.

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This is what worried me the most about this skill "how much is the damage increase" and "how long will it take for it to catch up".
12 seconds just to catch up means its better to just use it at the beginning of the fight before the battle starts or right before the boss comes out of its immunity status. Otherwise, using it on the fly in AoE heavy battles will imply quite the major loss of DPS... so once you need to move and decast it, recasting it for the sake of DPSing might prove negative.