Bard - Opening Rotation and basics video guide to keep your DPS high and consistent

Hey guys I just made a new guide for Bard and will be making a ton more in the next few days! My next ones will cover SMN, BLM, and MNK. Check it out and tell me what you think. It's my very first video so the quality is pretty low but it will get better as I get better at making videos! Hope you enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNnOgQmdYas

I prefer to put down Flaming Arrow when the tank pulls > Straight Shot > RS/HE/B4B/IR > Heavy Shot/Blood Letter/Barrage/Silence Arrow > Venemous Bite/Repelling shot/Windbite for opener.

The reason I put flaming arrow down close to last is so that all the buffs are applied to it, the way you're doing it, your first two skills aren't getting any types of buffs so you're losing out on at LEAST 30% dmg increase from the buffs.

Post some parse results on dummy or real fights and well compare =P

I do all buffs up, straight shot, Flaming Arrow, Windbite, Blunt Arrow, Venomous Bite, repelling shot, Heavy Shot.
My Bloodletter and Misery's End go off Automatically so I never miss one. Works out great.

I blacked out peoples names just in case but here is our Twintania parse from this week. http://i.imgur.com/PVw0rZu.png This is our groups bard who uses a very similar rotation with slight changes.

The great thing about Bard is that there are a bunch of different possibilities, your rotation is very nice and I like it . :)

Hmm, you guys kill twin in under 6 minutes? that's pretty amazing...

Twin has 514,546 HP, Scourges have about 20k, Conflags 10834 small snakes 16251, Asclepius 189,598, Dreadknights 11250, total around 900k dmg to be done to end fight - most groups with good DPS end around 11 Minutes, yet somehow you did it all in 5 minutes, I don't think this is a legit parse?

And also that the BRD out does both the MNK (You), SMN (Dimach), and whatever the 4th Job was that isn't in your FC, this parse seems all messed up =P

No it's 9:57 min parse but that's how long we were actually doing damage for since she goes up a lot :P

Edit: This is our bards opening rotation : http://www.twitch.tv/foldasaurus/c/3887015

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Originally Posted by Anias

No it's 9:57 min parse but that's how long we were actually doing damage for since she goes up a lot :P

Edit: This is our bards opening rotation : http://www.twitch.tv/foldasaurus/c/3887015

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Hmm ok, my ACT keeps recording duration during kill snakes and such, so end up with 11 min, not sure why ours count the fight different, ended up with exact same DMG as your BRD using my different rotation, with a bit less gear and messing about towards the end trying to get same duration ha =P, essentially a wash either way I suppose. I still don't see how he's hitting 331 over the entirety of T5 though =P.

Do you have the encounter culling set really low, and just combine the separate broken up encounters? (I would think this would result in inflating everyone's numbers compared to someone encompassing the fight in a single encounter)

Ill post capture in a moment, I just saw hes using a DEX potion =P, I'll redo adding that in, maybe I'll do more then him then =P

Ha, new to using twitch, didn't know you had to check the auto archive to have it save your broadcast, here's the parse at least, Ill make video later

http://i.imgur.com/Pzl8E55.png

I'll try his way tomorrow, but since it looks like we are equal with our slightly different rotations I would think I would pull slightly ahead if I had equal gear? Either way, both fairly similar overall I suppose, whatever's more comfortable for someone.

I tend to open in a different order, open with quelling for secuirty reasons, 3-in-1 macro (ME/BL/SS) which fires off bloodletter to put it on CD, then fires SS, use raging, wind,flaming + IR, ven bite, hawks, heavy, B4B, heavy/proc, barrage, heavy/proc, continue with BL/HS/procs until 5sec left on wind, SS reapply, put back up DOTs, resume usual spamming skills, and keep working CDs as they come up to keep DPS level through the fight. Tend to save my invig for a specificl point too, once you reach 500-540 TP so its back up once i reach a critical low again.

He's not BiS at all and gear isn't that big of a modifier in damage as other classes so you guys would be equal probably. The thing about his parse is he does that damage over the entire fight. I don't consolidate any of the instances as I have the encounter culling set to 18, which in theory would actually DECREASE the total DPS as there are instances where you aren't hitting anything but the DPS numbers are still decreasing. It took us 9:57 to kill twintania that's why yours is 11 min long and mines only 9:57, we killed it 1 minute faster. Fold is definitely the best bard on the server alongside another named Lauren Miller, and I would go as far as to say he's definitely a top 10 bard in the US, he's very good at his job. You still hold your own very well though and am impressed. :)

My guide and opening rotation are more for newer players and players who are a bit at a loss , it makes it easy to manage buffs, dots, and cooldowns until they can figure something out for themselves.

The only time you aren't dealing damage is during the first set of divebombs, and the few second gap between Asclepius dying and twin coming down for aethertic perfusion, so just don't see why your parse is only showing 5:49/9:57 uptime, when the amount of time you spend not attacking something is about 50 seconds, that leaves a strange 3 minutes missing.

We killed the boss insanely fast, it was the fastest kill I had been in, if that counts for anything. Otherwise I'm not sure what else I can tell you. Our dps is actually high enough to kill a 2 stack snake as well so maybe our DPS is just really high I don't know.

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Originally Posted by xEscaflownex

The only time you aren't dealing damage is during the first set of divebombs, and the few second gap between Asclepius dying and twin coming down for aethertic perfusion, so just don't see why your parse is only showing 5:49/9:57 uptime, when the amount of time you spend not attacking something is about 50 seconds, that leaves a strange 3 minutes missing.

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Chances are the parse was doctored or merged incorrectly. I've seen a TON of Twin parses that were merged because the fight was split, and the time always added up.

I'm not calling out the OP or anything - in fact I actually watch + enjoy your stream and know what you are capable of. Just the screenshot from your FC member doesn't seem to add up (the timestamps, certain ACT columns were left out/not included, etc.)

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Originally Posted by Timebomb

Chances are the parse was doctored or merged incorrectly. I've seen a TON of Twin parses that were merged because the fight was split, and the time always added up.

I'm not calling out the OP or anything - in fact I actually watch + enjoy your stream and know what you are capable of. Just the screenshot from your FC member doesn't seem to add up (the timestamps, certain ACT columns were left out/not included, etc.)

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Sweet I really appreciate you watching the stream <3 . But for the parse I dunno TBH :( it could have just been set incorrectly or something like Timebomb said. I just asked him and he said that everything is set to default and he just highlighted the All selection and used that.