Question about Bards and buff cooldown usage/practice

When do you guys usually put all your stuff? Do you cast it as the Tank is running in? As they're coming off cooldown do you put them right away and just reapply DOTs to overwrite weaker/nonbuffed DOTs?

I personally pop it as the tank is running in, then maintain my regular rotation. As a cooldown comes off CD as long as there is no burn phase needed I use the CD right away and reapply any DOTs on the target with buffs up.

How about you guys?

I do not do anything until the tank has full aggro (2 gcds after pull)

Anyway I open with ( a | means inbetween the GCD)

Straight shot | Bloodletter
Venomous | Hawk's Eye
Windbite | Raging Strikes
Heavy Shot | Blood for Blood
Heavy Shot | That monk buff
Venomous | Barrage
Wind Bite | Flaming Arrow
Straight Shot | Quelling

I replace ANY buff with Bloodletter if it procs first.

I do not reapply any buffs until "monk buff" is up, it is more important than the damage buffs for your dots (but lasts one of the shortest durations, which is why it's used last).

I use cooldowns as soon as they come up, as long as they are "paired", like

"monk buff" + flaming arrow (in that order)
Blood for Blood + Hawk's eye + Barrage (you can start blood for blood as soon as you see hawk's eye start to come off cd...it's okay if barrage comes later, since it has half the duration)
Raging + "monk buff" + flaming arrow + quelling
Blood for blood + hawk's eye + barrage
Repeat

As soon as the boss fight begins and the tank has started hitting the enemy, I throw quelling strikes up along with every single buff and go all out. By the time, the abilities are off cooldown, the boss is down to 20% and ready to be finished off with them again.

I rarely use buffs for trash. It's a lot easier to pull aggro by accident with them.

To clarify

I open up with straight shot then put up my dots then do quelling strikes then apply all my buffs. From there, it's my normal rotation.

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Originally Posted by LunarEmerald

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Basically what I do as well, though in coil and such the bosses are really down to 20% at this point. I also feel its best to use the CDs when they come off CD and reapply dots as go. I try to reapply with as many cooldowns applied to those DOTs as possible. For instance, if I see blood for blood coming off cooldown ill go ahead and apply new dots with blood for blood on it. I pay attention to see if any other cooldowns will also be up as long with blood for blood still rolling. If I am able to apply Veno/Windbite with the already use B4B and the buffs that come off cooldown, I will, else I'll wait for the other ones to come off CD or close enough to where I can apply both. Luckly, B4B, RS, and monk buff are all similar recast

anyone have a good rotation macro?

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Originally Posted by Comicbookguy

anyone have a good rotation macro?

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Only macro really worth having is one for Bloodletter and Misery tied to your Heavy Shot. I used to use one for buffs, but it wasn't efficient and found using buffs during GCD saved a lot more time.

To OP, at most you'd ever want to use one buff before you start combat spam as to not waste any of their duration. Pick one, lead with it, weave the rest in with your combat actions.

As others have said, it's not optimal to pop them all together because they each have an "animation time", so you will waste several seconds of your first buff by the time you have the last one up. Instead, it's best to activate them in between GCD's any time you can.

I put all my buffs into a single macro which is bound to mouse4 so that I can easily weave them in during the GCD when Bloodletter or Misery's End aren't up; even on trash pulls.

You should be trying to pop them any time you have an empty 1/2 GCD (unless you know there is a burn phase coming up and they won't be back up in time), and a simple macro makes that a lot more manageable.

HOWEVER; If you macro your buffs together to make them easy to manage, you also need to put them individually on another hotbar so that you can not only see the cooldowns at a glance, but also activate a specific one if necessary instead of jamming the macro until the one you want activates.