How does Bard keep up with the massive damage in A2s?

I been doing some clearing attempt for A2s, got up to final widow but hit enrage and i been told my dps is a bit low. I can peak at 1300 ish but i heard some bard can maintain up top 1600 ish... how exactly do you do it? Applying both WB and VB on muiltipe mob take forever and baiting ROD is rng and spaming quick nokc and u are out of tp quick.

1600 is exceptional for a Bard

if u doin 1200-1300, I think the issue is somewhere else

Putting up WB + VB takes forever, but it's actually optimal in terms of potency and TP spent per GCD.
Take for example wave 7, 4 jagd dolls. Quick nock is 140 TP, for 110 potency * number of mobs, 440 potency per cast for 140 TP.

Windbite, on any single target, is 330 Potency for 80 TP on top of the RoD procs. Both WB, and quick nock, take 1 gcd (1.5 second cast + 1) to use.
It might feel like it takes forever to put up both of your dots on everything, but when it comes to sustained AoE like floor 2 it's extremely efficient.

I generally avoid quick nock on every wave besides the 3rd one with hardhelm + mind + snipers + soldiers, and wave 8 which has a ton of things you can AoE down. Otherwise rotate WB/VB on the beefiest targets and spam RoD.

Also, your DPS is fine from a standpoint of meeting the enrage.

1300 might be """bad""" now (in heavy quotes), but in the week 1 of A2 savage that's what bards were doing. If you're doing 1300 DPS, and having enrage troubles, you might want to look to the rest of your group too before letting them blame you specifically. Of course you can do more, and you should TRY to do more, but if you want a static to operate you have to look towards the group's mistakes when you're trying to work out a problem like beating an enrage. There's always more room for EVERYONE to improve.

ok so i should just apply dot and use rod and skip quick nock? How man mob dot seems optiomal? They REALLY need to remove casting time for vb and WB TBH...

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Originally Posted by aabe

Putting up WB + VB takes forever, but it's actually optimal in terms of potency and TP spent per GCD.
Take for example wave 7, 4 jagd dolls. Quick nock is 140 TP, for 110 potency * number of mobs, 440 potency per cast for 140 TP.

Windbite, on any single target, is 330 Potency for 80 TP on top of the RoD procs. Both WB, and quick nock, take 1 gcd (1.5 second cast + 1) to use.
It might feel like it takes forever to put up both of your dots on everything, but when it comes to sustained AoE like floor 2 it's extremely efficient.

I generally avoid quick nock on every wave besides the 3rd one with hardhelm + mind + snipers + soldiers, and wave 8 which has a ton of things you can AoE down. Otherwise rotate WB/VB on the beefiest targets and spam RoD.

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For wave 7, I actually just do my single target rotation for the first 2 doll that m,jst die first instead of aoeing.

For quicknock? I'd say use it anytime there are 5+ mobs AND you have cooldowns up.

A2 is a long fight, unless you want to burn TP song for yourself or unless your group needs it at some point. If the latter, I'd say to burn away some TP before the timing you need TP song at.
Multidotting as much as possible is a really safe way to go, if you want higher "burst" you would just WB everything possible in a large wave, if you want sustain (such as wave 5) you'd be looking to keep up both dots and just tab back and forth with iron jaws. Another thing about choosing between QN or dots is whether the wave is gonna burn down fast or not.
WB + VB on 4 targets is KINDA iffy because at that point you'll risk dots dropping if you stop casting your dots for a teeny bit of time, but that or less is probably best.

It depends on your party comp.

Bard is tuned to work well with a mage heavy composition. 2xmagic dps + healers.

Typically in that style you would maintain your dots on the high HP mobs.
Walker, Helms, Snipers while spamming ROD on CD.

In a melee heavy comp you would tend to need to AOE more than that so you are burning huge TP and maintaining your dots on 4+ mobs is a pain.

If you, the BRD, isn't inside the gobwalker - who else is on duty in your party comp?
tbh BRDs struggle when dpsing in A2S from what I've seen.

on another note, my dps spikes at 1.900 @ ilvl200 using Krietor's 600 SkS opener.
1.300 isn't bad depending on how long you can keep your numbers up there.

I think is fine for wha you are doing, the problem is somewhere else.
Blm/smn? Warrior at min. 1k.+