As the title of the thread suggests... It's been over a year since I played as BRD (got it to 50) and as it's the next class I'm going to work on, I need some advice/tips for hotbar setup, rotations and the like.
Any help would be appreciated.
Advice for returning to Bard after 12 months
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11-02-2016, 02:06 PMArielyannaAdvice for returning to Bard after 12 months
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11-02-2016, 07:55 PMNeela
just be aware of the major concept change with lvl 52. if you aren't godlike in stance dance you have to get used to a very different playstyle you may remember. MW will boost your overall dmg but definitly decreases your mobility cause of the castbar – and all your upcoming dmg skills are related to this stance like Emperial Arrow or Sidewinder.
on the other hand there is a damn good skill to refresh your dots at once - my smn heart is crying for something like that. :3 -
11-02-2016, 09:30 PMMPNZ
Well, once you get Empyrial Arrow and Ironjaws: you will just have to relearn the how to play as a bard, and basically become a black mage, which has been just a real murder to the talent-pool of acceptable bards. We have a lot more to deal with in terms of keeping up optimal DPS while not totally forgetting that you need to play songs. We also get warden's Paeon which is useless if you can barely keep up with everything as is.
On a positive note: PLD and WAR are way easier to master than BRD now, IMO. -
11-02-2016, 10:08 PMLilLemayPLD yes, WAR? eeeh, BRD isn't functionally too hard to master, it's just no one wants to because they get so attached to pre-WM bard that once WM hits they just get lazy.Quote:
Originally Posted by MPNZ
Post WM plays basically the same as before you get it, keep straight shot going, keep your dots up, use heavy shot if you've got nothing else, shoot your straight shot procs, shoot your bloodletter procs, the only difference here is now you've got a cast bar, three more abilities to use (two of which fit into your rotation pretty damn naturally), and have to think alittle harder about your songs and buff weaving -
11-03-2016, 03:43 AMvp_cmc
Are there any guides how to do stance dancing on Brd? For Mch this is a thing because mch doesn't have any rng-based ogcd procs. But if you turn off WM, the moment you have a random BL proc, you are at dps loss, aren't you?
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11-05-2016, 02:01 AMNeela
honestly i think stance dance is kinda old fashion... because like you said there are procs you can't calculate with and going with sks as 2nd substat your casttime will decrease at all - although having EA and SW on dc while refreshing your dots will give you a pretty small timeslot to stance dance at all. although i was told that mastering the dancing is still dps increase... i don't know if its really worth the stress and afford.... hmm saying that i haven't played Brd in endgame for a long time now.
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11-05-2016, 03:58 AMChevronone
There is no stance dancing. It's not worth the headache. WM 100%, put Feint on your bar to allow you to at least keep dps up if you must move. You can move and shoot with Feint with WM up. The end.
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11-05-2016, 05:18 AMSlevin_Impudicusjust wanted to point out that Sidewinder is not tied to WM.Quote:
Originally Posted by Neela
I suggest going to SSS when you get WM. Run through it without WM. You can use the SSS calculator to estimate your DPS. Go back in with WM and practice until you surpass the non-WM numbers by enough that it's worth the hassle to sacrifice some mobility. Repeat at each level increase. It may actually take several levels before WM becomes a net gain. If you tend to accidentally cancel your skills 1 out of every 10 casts, it's a good bet that you would do more dps out of WM. -
11-05-2016, 05:28 AMGreedaloxI don't know if Bard follows different rules for Stance Dancing than MCH, but it's not an exceptionally difficult concept to try to bring into your kit. You should attempt to implement it WHILE you're learning the changes to gameplay when you get WM/GB instead of learning your cast bars and then relearning your cast bars + toggling when your damage starts to plateau from your class comprehension and you're looking for where to improve.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chevronone
I just don't think that whole heartily discouraging optimal play for 'good enough' is a great concept to teach our less learned players. They'll find their balance :3 -
11-05-2016, 06:56 AMHyoMinPark
Post-50 BRD will take some getting used to. As many others have said, the addition of Wanderer's Minuet gives BRD cast bars, but once you get used to them (and since I see your main class is listed as THM/BLM, so you are probably already used to cast bars anyways), and master the art of "ghost-casting" while DPSing and dodging AOEs, I think you will do just fine. I was never one to flail around and endlessly kite things pre-50 anyways, so the concept of not moving wasn't that hard for me to get used to.
Two of your skills--Empyreal Arrow and Iron Jaws--will become your best friends. After Sidewinder, Empyreal Arrow is your most potent attack, and whenever Barrage is off-cooldown, you should always use it with Empyreal Arrow. Sidewinder is not dependent on WM, but Empyreal Arrow and Iron Jaws are. When you use Sidewinder, make sure to always use it with both of your DoTs active, as it has a potency of 260 only when Windbite and Venomous Bite have been applied to a target. Also, Warden's Paeon is pretty useful for cleansing debuffs off of yourself--it works like an Esuna, and gives you protection against another debuff for 30 seconds after it is used. For only having a 45-second cooldown, I think it's pretty nice. I cannot tell you how many times I have used it to free myself of a bleed or paralyze debuff when a healer is either: too busy keeping up a tank, DPSing and ignoring cleansing debuffs, or generally not giving a crap. So saying it's useless is incorrect.
I would not recommend stance dancing. While you will get your auto-attacks back (WM removes auto-attacks), your overall DPS will still be lower than it would be with WM on, since it augments your damage by 30%, and auto-attacks only make up 15-20%. You will also not have access to Empyreal Arrow, or Iron Jaws, and since the ideal stats for WM BRD (Crit/Skill Speed) and non-WM BRD (Crit/Det) are different, your DPS will also suffer because of that. It also has a 15 second cooldown--so you can't just toggle it on and toggle it off as easily as you can Cleric Stance. I have never stance-danced on bard, and I don't think my DPS suffers because I know how to still dodge AOEs while upkeeping my damage output. I very rarely come in contact with BRDs that do stance-dance. -
11-05-2016, 07:00 AMChevronone
We are not talking about blm cast times here. My cast times are at present 1.32s. You do not need to stance dance to handle cast timers less than 2s.
Without WM, you drop 30% dps. I main bard and I've yet to come across a fight in any EX primal or savage where stance dancing was needed where simply using Feint didn't suffice.
Toggling off WM puts it on CD, so you cannot immediately go back into WM. You will loose Iron Jaws to reset your burst buffs and your Empyreal arrow. Stance dancing on bard is absolutely never a net gain for any serious bard. -
11-05-2016, 07:07 AMHyoMinParkI think you meant toggling WM on puts it on cooldown for 15 seconds. When you toggle it off, it toggles off just like any other oGCD stance. :3 Still, I agree with you that stance-dancing on BRD is not worth it at all. Especially if you can make use of your skills that don't have casts (Bloodletter, Straighter Shot procs, Sidewinder) and use them while moving. I frequently weave in BL and SW during parts of fights where I have to move around (Sophia Ex, looking at you), and still manage to keep up my DPS and DoTs.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chevronone
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11-05-2016, 07:09 PMShaneDawn
People are making "stance-dancing" sound like more trouble than it is. Truth is, as you're doing content, you will start to see windows in which you could toggle out off WM for a single gcd, move and toggle WM back on. Ideally you you'd rather cut the cast short, but sometimes you have to move more than a few steps between your casts.
As someone else already mentioned, another option is having Feint in your skill bar to allow movement without ever toggling off WM. As for spamming your ogcds instead, that's not something I would argue as optimal, as you may be finding yourself casting nothing between your gcds for a while after you settle down in WM again. There is no guarantee you'll even have those ogcds available for use to begin with.
There is no real "stance dancing", you should be in Minuet for roughly the whole run, and only turn it off during single gcds while having to move a lot in a short period of time or cover it up with a Feint instead.
*If* you can avoid it though, never step out of Minuet. A lot of things can be avoided completely by cutting casts short or with proper positioning and knowledge of the fight. As long as you don't waste gcds by aimlessly running around, you're golden. -
11-07-2016, 04:31 PMSlevin_ImpudicusSome pointless math... IF (and this is not actually the case) WM made your dps 1.3x your non-WM dps, then when you turned off WM, you would lose (1.3-1)/(1.3) or approximately 23% of your dps, not 30%.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chevronone
BUT, when you go into WM, you are sacrificing a bit more than mobility and auto-attacks. When it was a "20% boost", it ended up being a dps loss, so they raised it to 30%. If we give it the benefit of the doubt and say that the 20% boost came out as even dps, then the difference between non-WM and the "+30% boost" is only a net 8.3% increase in dps. Unfortunately, to add insult to injury, Sqenix then nerfed some skills a bit to force us into using this IMHO crap stance, but it's not a flat 30% increase in dps compared to non-WM despite oversimplification of interpreting the tool tip.
That said, anyone wanting to absolutely maximize their dps on BRD must learn to perform well under WM. Performing not-so-well will quickly kill any dps boost from the stance. Of course, if you want to absolutely maximize your dps, you can also pick a higher dps class. Many players opted for that approach.