Pretty significant buffs for Bard

I looked at the patch notes and seeing the beauty that is a giant block of Bard buffs made my day (or night). They almost halved the time limit on Battle Voice, which means Foe Requiem is gonna be insane, and they reduced the damage penalty to 10%. The rest of the buffs are minor damage buffs to damage over time and both Empyreal Arrow and Sidewinder.

Much needed changes, though be prepared for the complaints from others that the buffs were not what was needed ..

I felt them right away.

But of course I need to relearn when to precast Foe's now. I've already accidentally pulled like twice or so

When you want to precast foes just stand far enough that your attack abilities go red, then move in just close enough for them to go back to white/grey. then you will know you are close enough to attack but not close enough to pull with foes :3

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Originally Posted by Tsilyi

When you want to precast foes just stand far enough that your attack abilities go red, then move in just close enough for them to go back to white/grey. then you will know you are close enough to attack but not close enough to pull with foes :3

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Oh I do
But I like to time it with the tank's first hit.. I used to be sooo goood at that but guess I gotta practice that again ..... woe is me

It's very noticeable & actually makes BRDs do higher sustained damage than MCH...like unfairly so. Now you have to work yer arse off to do as much as a BRD just like in 3.0.


The only significant problem I have now is a MCH WF relies HEAVILY on critical hits where as BRDs empryeal is always consistent. So on my BRD & MCH when I dummy tested them a few times they do about the same damage IF i get lucky crits(10k+ wfs) in my opener on MCH. If I get little to no crits(8500 WFs) & rare procs throughout the damage difference is HUGE. 100+ points. And even when I did get lucky on MCH, BRD won by a tiny tiny margin. MCH has little room to screw up as is just to keep up to(& surpass if you get crits) BRD dps but now the criticals or lack of make the difference huge. The tests had the same 220 gear & 210 eso weapons with both MCH & BRD at about 1000 crit. I don't mind BRDs amazing buffs but it feels like MCH got nerfed in the process & I'm saaaaaad.

Don't forget dummy test is not the same as an actual fight with mechanics. Not to down play BRDs much need buffs but once you start throwing in mechanics MCH ammo is really good with the whole hit and run. Overall, good to see BRD might be back to getting some respect and maybe more groups will stop saying MCH only now.

The biggest boost to BRD in general would definitely be the shorter CD on Battle Voice. While significant on its own in 4 and 8-man content, the effect of Battle Voice's greater uptime is amplified by a ton in 24-man content, where it amplifies magic damage from ALL of the casters in the raid by nature of being a debuff (while something like Battle Litany only works for one of the three parties). And now that it turns out Weeping City is something to be taken seriously, multiple Bards rotating Battle Voice can make a huge difference. Having 3 Bards in a single alliance for instance means Battle Voice is up 2/3rds of the time.

Our personal damage did get a boost, but the buff to Battle Voice I think is going to matter far more in the long term.

BUT Y CANT THEY REMOVE WANDERERERER'S MINOUET D8

working as intended