How much should I be weaving my BRD CDs?

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General rule is if you aren't using them you're losing them. If you have multiples off cool down you should use the one with the shortest cool down first. Hawkeye is fairly useless if you are not missing, quelling strikes also if you are no where near taking hate.
There are exceptions in fights that require burst dmg.

In most situations u'll use them as soon as they are up. 1 CD in between each GCD.

Starting a fight, it's best to use quelling strikes as you're running in so you can pop all your CDs without worrying about taking hate. You probably won't need it any time after that.

im no expert but i try to use my bards CDs like this:

Raging Strikes - Straight Shot - Hawks Eye - Blood Letter - Internal Release - Wind bite - Flame Arrow - Venom Bite - Blood For Blood - Heavy Shot - Barrage - Heavy Shot

all while weaving in blood letter when it procs and Straighter shot procs.

the reason i do this is:

i try to maximize the dmg from the dots/blood letter with boosted crit and dmg buffs early on then with what i call the "cool down phase" using heavy shot and blood letter procs to keep a good amount of damage up via blood for blood and barage as buffs fall off

later on i try to save internal release until i need to re apply dots since it ups crit chance for those dots which would allow more blood letter procs.

this depends on the situation since there are some phases in content where you are better off saving your longer cooldowns till needed. however i wont pop internal release unless im applying dots. same goes for flame arrow since it is an AOE though based on up time it does come out to be your strongest damage over time ability. thats when knowing the fight comes into play.

after a full "burn down/opener" rotation like that i tend to just weave in the other cooldowns when up. prioritizing their up times with the next action used. Barrage i really like to save when my dots were just applied and im going into heavy shot and blood letter procs. IMO it keeps the dmg dealt steady/strong since you are (maybe except for summoner in some situations) the only class that can keep up steady dmg on a target.
idk maybe im doing it wrong. again im no expert but this is the only way i see it to be properly done.

PS: i gather majority of my knowledge from doing Titan EX and coil up to T4 with my summoner and dragoon. Please correct me if i missed something or if im wrong.

It looks okay except u are using 3 OGCD skills in a row. That's just not good business.

Also, using Raging Strikes or any OGCD skill first is a no go. Especially a buff. You want to wait until you are already auto-attacking to start using buffs.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lollie

General rule is if you aren't using them you're losing them. If you have multiples off cool down you should use the one with the shortest cool down first. Hawkeye is fairly useless if you are not missing, quelling strikes also if you are no where near taking hate.
There are exceptions in fights that require burst dmg.

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Hawkeye is a 15% bonus to Dex while it's active; that is far from useless for bard.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Peptaru

Hawkeye is a 15% bonus to Dex while it's active; that is far from useless for bard.

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I was just about to post this. Since DEX effects ranged attack potency that's a huge boost.

Don't forget to weave in Blunt Arrow and Repelling Shot if the fight allows and, of course, Misery's End whenever it pops.

As you become more familiar with fights, you'll find when you should hold your CDs or gamble the CDs in hopes you won't be incapacitated or the enemy going invulnerable. E.g. If you think Titan is about to jump, if you don't know now if you'll be the conflag target, or if you're about to go through a door at Diabolos, those are times where a mistimed CD won't benefit you the way it could.

But generally, if you think you can get the full duration of a CD off, try to weave them in as they come back, while saving others for burst/push phases.

Most of your buffs are additive when you pop them together (which means you will get the same total effect regardless of if they're stacked or not). So weaving them in to ensure you don't delay your GCD makes sense.

However; nearly all your buffs interact in a multiplicative manner with Barrage.
So when you have Barrage up, it's better to stack as many of your buffs on top of Barrage as you can.

Since most of your buffs last 20 seconds and Barrage only lasts 10, you can normally weave those buffs and still have 10sec left by the time you hit Barrage.
So you don't want to just pop all your buffs together and delay your GCD significantly.
However sometimes it's pertinent to pop two buffs together (which will delay your GCD by about half a second) in order to ensure you have their full duration up while Barrage is up.

And as a couple people above mentioned of course, if there are jump/stun/burst phases in the fight, then your cooldown usage should change to accommodate those mechanics.