Kai Sunstride's Guide to Song Singing and Arrow Slinging

For those of you that are beginners or even experts at BRD. Here's my first ever written guide. I would love constructive feedback.

http://forum.xivnation.com/index.php...slinging.2253/

Bump for the brds asking for rotation and stat priorities.

Can you re-post it on this xiv forums?

Great guide, thanks for the information! Bookmarked for later use

Usually I keep this for my own, but as I enjoy crafting these days and still be able to hold threat against a 2/3 to full ilvl70 retard Bard in random queue, I have to give you some more tip.

You should also write that buff are also a off gcd skill. They should be used between each skill. The prefered rotation for buff should be the longest cd start off first and end with the shortest cd buff.

For eg a simple rotation: SS -> BL -> WB -> Raging Strikes -> VB -> Hawk Eye -> HS -> Barrage -> HS -> etc.

Also, make use of your movement as a Bard. Alway try to get close to boss (If possible) to use the skill that knock you back (Yes that one is off gcd too, so does the silence shot). The tricky thing with this and Flameshot, is while they're off gcd skill, you actually have to wait for the animation to end to use them.

For song, I use Foe all the time, especially when I have a BLM on my party/raid. But that really depend on your current party and raid, so im not gonna comment on this

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Originally Posted by Moesugi

For song, I use Foe all the time, especially when I have a BLM on my party/raid. But that really depend on your current party and raid, so im not gonna comment on this

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Foe Requiem does nothing for our damage, so you should only bother if you have a BLM/SMN or the WHM/SCH is dps'ing.

foe req is only worth playing if there's a black mage in the party. Otherwise the MP is better saved in case a white mage needs ballad

honestly the only correct info in tht was he work done by Eein... everything else is pretty much wrong...


i have always wondered why people who have little to no raid progression feel they are good enough to tell other how to play.. on top of that they feel its good to spread bad info around.

BTW those macros will lower your DPS

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Originally Posted by LunarEmerald

foe req is only worth playing if there's a black mage in the party. Otherwise the MP is better saved in case a white mage needs ballad

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its never worth using as the risk of being OOM when a healer needs mana will always be a greater loss then any minor DS upgrade you give a mage.

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Originally Posted by Eckoh

its never worth using as the risk of being OOM when a healer needs mana will always be a greater loss then any minor DS upgrade you give a mage.

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15% damage to any magic user isn't minor. Increasing damage is often a better way to save your healer's MP in the first place, rather than just replacing it later. It's all horses for courses.

its not 15% damage... ts a 10% reduction in a mobs resistance. Its a very small increase unless something is highly resistant to a certain element which nothing in 2.0 is. They removed most of that garbage in 1.0 this is simply a left over from that. You are talking at most adding 3-4% to a black mage and only a black mage as nothing else gets effected. Its not worth the mana it costs. You never know when something mght happen like a healer gets randomy killed and you need to get him mana..

Sorry a marginal DPS increase for 1 player will not trump the ablity to feed mana to a healer... not to mention that mana song more often then not will give a greater DPS increase to a black mage as they can stay as fire longer.

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Originally Posted by KaiSunstrider

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The macros you have hurt your dps. Delaying a GCD because a bloodletter proced is the wrong way to go. You want to use your GCD every single time its up. Bloodletter will be there after your GCD animation is done, but your GCD will be delayed by bloodletter's animation. You can even get in the bloodletter before the next chance it has to reset. The only time you lose out is if you have to squeeze in multiple off GCD skills and then you only delay miseries end or some other skill until your next GCD. This rotation also completely ignores two off GCD skills that can be used for extra damage, repeling shot and blunt arrow. Also I'd recommend people manually activate their buffs rather than use macros for them as it can put the wrong things on cooldown, or waste time using the wrong skill.

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Originally Posted by Eckoh

its not 15% damage... ts a 10% reduction in a mobs resistance. Its a very small increase unless something is highly resistant to a certain element which nothing in 2.0 is. They removed most of that garbage in 1.0 this is simply a left over from that. You are talking at most adding 3-4% to a black mage and only a black mage as nothing else gets effected. Its not worth the mana it costs. You never know when something mght happen like a healer gets randomy killed and you need to get him mana.

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A thread I started a while ago had people reporting that FR affects BLM, SMN, and WHM spells. Link here.

Obviously, both statements can't be right. Guess I'll have to test it myself. . .

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Originally Posted by Eckoh

its not 15% damage... ts a 10% reduction in a mobs resistance.

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Go and test this for yourself. Maybe take a summoner friend, and then tell us what you find.

One additional item, you can use the /macroicon "ability name" at the beginning of your macros to see when procs are available (i.e. for straighter shot). Also, as pointed out above, the GCD ability should be first in the macro priority followed by the off GCD abilities.

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Originally Posted by Eckoh

honestly the only correct info in tht was he work done by Eein... everything else is pretty much wrong...


i have always wondered why people who have little to no raid progression feel they are good enough to tell other how to play.. on top of that they feel its good to spread bad info around.

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Token troll post.

Bard guide: Press buttons. Any buttons.

You shouldn't put any off gcd ability mashes on your gcd buttons, even after them, because any lag or mashing will cause the second or third or whatever abilties in a macro to fire.

This is extremely easy to test, for example, if you put HS and SS on the same button, mashing it will sometimes do HS and sometimes do SS.

I don't see why people feel the need to cut down on buttons. You cut down on buttons because of efficiency, not at the cost of lowered dps.

To that effect, if you just put bloodletter on a separate button you would have the same rotation except you would mash bloodletter instead.

It is not "harder" by any means and ensures 100% dps.

Foe req is a 10% increase, 20% with battle voice. It's a huge boost for Black Mages. They can do several hundred more damage per hit. I've done tests with Black Mages. They literally do hundreds more damage with their fire spells.

You absolutely should be playing foe req at the start of a battle with a black mage. Playing it at the start gives your MP time to recover, in case a white mage needs ballad.

My macros go like so:
/macroicon "Windbite"
/ac "Windbite"
/ac "Misery's End"
/ac "Bloodletter"
/ac "Internal Release" <me>
/ac "Raging Strikes" <me>
/ac "Hawk's Eye" <me>
/ac "Barrage" <me>

I put all the buffs in all of my macros, then I hit it once for the attack and halfway thru gcd I hit it again. Kind kind of like how we double tapped our songs back in the early days of eq1 before there was /stopsong. I may need to sort out which buffs come first in the order, but really that only matters at the very beginning of the fight.

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Originally Posted by Viridiana

A thread I started a while ago had people reporting that FR affects BLM, SMN, and WHM spells. Link here.

Obviously, both statements can't be right. Guess I'll have to test it myself. . .

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add sch and acn to the group. FR tooltip is not accurate.

Don't mind Eckoh, he pretty much bashes every single person that tries to offer advice, good or bad.

I still do not know why people keep saying that, "you should never macro ANYTHING, EVER! It will hurt your dps!"

You should always use macros, especially when you are learning fights, progression, etc. By taking some of the thinking out of the equation on your end, you are free to pay attention, which really is all any fight (Titan HM+) is about.

In time you can find what works best and is manageable for YOU and wean yourself off of using certain abilities in macros. Don't worry about "HERMAGERD, you are going to lose out on 10 dps if you macro in BL or ME."

The original macro setup i was running, I found to be incorrect. So i agree with you there. Macros have been updated to still use off gcd abilites when gcd is activated but the macros now correctly display gcd and procs using /macroicon "Ability name" and the GCD ability at the top priority of the macro. I'm not quite sure what you mean by person with no raid experience considering we are on turn 4 in coil, so thats not exactly precise. The macros work fine for me, if they dont work correctly for you then I guess to each his own. I originally made that guide a month ago when most of us were fresh 50s. It was just a source of information, and hopeful collaboration.

I never claimed all info was 100% correct. It was something to work off of and pull thoughts from other bards. Like i said, its a work in progress that can be updated as I please. If det ends up being greater than crit for scaling then its 20secs worth of work.

I apologize for taking the time to try to give a resource to people whom may be completely clueless about the class. I've never seen a guide written that was perfect first time out. It's always critiqued by the community and updated. Quality criticisms help. This guide is 100% wrong does not, especially when you are only arguing against the use of a macro.

Thank you though for the helpful comments. I have updated the guide as the quality info has come in.

Just checked the link, hoping to see the BiS section soon.

Eckoh stop flooding the forums with your trash and go level a lancer (i can tell that you have not) you will want to start that. blood for blood is a must

Took a look at your guide and I gotta tell ya, Good job. Nothing wrong with putting together some insightful information for new and old player's of the Bard class. New players will get a idea of what to "shoot" for while attaining level cap. Old players may possibly find an alternative means to an already established stratem that they use. I saw only one issue that I would raise and it's regarding your macro set up. In your single target DPS rotation macro you listed windbite and venomous bite. I see the idea behind it however, to prevent clipping them when not required it might be more feasible to put the two on a separate macro all together. For example:
/ac "Venomous Bite" <t>
/ac "Bloodletter" <t>
/ac "Misery's End" <t>
/wait 2.4
/ac "Windbite" <t>
/ac "Bloodletter" <t>
/ac "Misery's End" <t>
Irregardless, congrats on a good guide. In the end I think like all things it comes down to user preference. Keep up the good work.