Bard AoE Breakpoints

Hey, I'm just wondering if anyone has figured out the breakpoints for bard aoe. What I've been doing so far is:

1 target: Standard ST Rotation

2 targets: DoT both and then ST one mob reapplying DoTs on the other as necessary

3 targets: Cycle through all three targets applying both DoTs. This leaves just enough time after applying DoTs on the third target to reapply my straight shot buff with one free gcd which I usually use for Rain of Death for the debuff

4+ targets: Either wide volley spam, using procs as they come up, or quick nock spam (I really haven't decided if the proc chance on wide volley makes up for the extra cost)

Of course I have both Bloodletter and Misery's End macro'd into all of my attacks other than Straight shot so they will cast as soon as they are available in any of the above situations.

My question would be, are those the most efficient breakpoints? Should I start the AoE rotation at 3 targets or keep multidotting at 4? Has anyone done the math or tried to test this out?

Windbite total potency (if you get all of the ticks, unlikely on one rotation): 330 potency + River of Blood potential
Quick Nock or Wide Volley total potency: 110 potency on one, 220 on two, 330 on three, 440 on four, etc
Venomous Bite total potency: 310 potency (if you get all ticks) + River of Blood potential

Windbite is both more TP efficient and ultimately more damaging (assuming all tick, but even with a tick missing the River of Blood probably makes up for it) against 3 or less opponents. Venomous Bite is also more TP efficient and potentially more damaging as well. However, anything more than 3 enemies and Quick Nock seems to drastically start pulling away in terms of DPS over applying DoTs. Also, if any of the 3 opponents won't live through all the ticks, it's probably more total DPS to Quick Nock.

Then again, it can depend on what content you're doing. It's probably not best to drain all your TP 30 seconds into a fight with quite a bit longer to go, after all.

AOE spam seems to drain TP way too fast, so I multidot even if there are +5 enemies. The dps is pretty much the same.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Isrea

... (I really haven't decided if the proc chance on wide volley makes up for the extra cost)

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Assuming you can actually hit everything with Quick Nock (Wide Volley hits a slightly larger area), then which is "better" really depends on just how much you want to roll the dice with RNG.

If we consider that Wide Volley has a 15% chance to proc a free Rain of Death:
7 Wide Volleys + 1 free Rain of Death = 870 potency for 1,120 TP = .78 potency/TP
8 Quick Nocks = 880 potency for 1120 TP = .79 potency/TP
So from this it appears that on average, Quick Nock provides a slightly higher potency/TP.

But then also consider that Rain of Death has a 15% chance to proc a free Quick Nock:
47 Wide Volleys + 7 free Rain of Deaths + 1 free Quick Nock = 5,980 potency for 7520 TP = .80 potency/TP
Looking at that math, it seems that Wide Volley is the way to go once you get a free Quick Nock.

However; how many AoE situations are you in where you can use over 7000 TP (which is the average amount you'll have to use before seeing a free Quick Nock)?
I don't know of any. Most AoE situations are over before you've had a chance to use ~1600.

Let's do a couple examples where you have about 1600TP to spend (a couple ticks of regen together with Invigorate before you're completely dry)and either get incredibly lucky/unlucky with procs:
Lucky:
10 Wide Volley + 5 Rain of Death procs + 2 Quick Nock procs = 1820 potency, 1600 TP = 1.3 potency/TP
UNLucky:
10 Wide Volley = 1100 potency, 1600 TP = .69 potency/TP
11 Quick Nock = 1210 potency, 1540 TP = .79 potency/TP

So what can we take away from all this?

1. ON AVERAGE, there is very little difference in potency/TP spent between using Wide Volley and utilizing procs and using Quick Nock exclusively.
2. The POTENTIAL potency/TP is SIGNIFICANTLY higher with the Wide Volley rotation IF you get lucky AND the AoE phase lasts long enough to run you out of TP.
3. If you get unlucky however, it could turn out to be lower than Quick Nock alone. (although not by nearly as much as the potential increase if you do get lucky with procs)
4. Because the potential increase is much higher than the potential decrease, I would say that Quick Nock is only the "best" option if your group's damage is at a point where consistency is more important than potential or if the AoE phases are short enough that you're not running out of TP.

Keep in mind too that your DoTs average 4 potency/TP, so you would need 5 or more targets to actually consider using AoE for efficiency, borderline 3 but most likely 4 to even start outdpsing your DoTs.

Since AoE typically results in an empty TP scenario, efficiency is more important than damage, and you should not AoE until 5 targets period, unless things need to die immediately, or they will not live 18 seconds.