BRD General Advice Request

I've seen a lot of guides on Youtube, read plenty from reddit and the like but I have yet to find something that offers a basic priority set. This is a proc-heavy class for me (I guess really they all are, I'm a healer main after all) and sometimes all the flashing buttons get me flustered.

I know songs are like the foundation of Bard-dom, should I prioritize keeping them up over refreshing dots? Or should I clip dots if that situation was going to arise?

I'm only level 60 right now but is holding barrage for sidewinder always better than using it with Empyreal arrow?

Also are refresh and tactician our only aggro dumps? Cause if so even using them on CD I'm pulling off my tanks. They're random DF tanks so the issue might lie with them, just curious here.

I know there aren't absolutes and different situations require adaptation but I'd like to have a good foundation to start with and the experience of all you lovely Bards seems like my best shot.



Tl;dr I'm looking for a priority list on BRD procs/systems, general BRD advice and cross role abilities.

I'm not a bard but I can answer you some basic questions :

you shouldn't let your dot fall as they will cost you 2gcd to refresh, while only one with iron jaws.

Sidewinder will not trigger barrage as it's an aptitude, and until you get Refulgent arrow, empyreal is your best choice for barrage.

Refresh and tactician dump no aggro, they only refresh MP/TP for yourself and teamates. For aggro you have nothing o/

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Originally Posted by MauvaisOeil

Refresh and tactician dump no aggro... For aggro you have nothing o/

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This is incorrect. Both Refresh and Tactician half your personal enmity, and they are the only forms of aggro dump that a BRD has. We no longer have Quelling Strikes.

If you have to dump your aggro, use Tactician first rather than Refresh, as it's most important that healers always have MP to keep the tank and the rest of the party alive. TP-using DPS all have other ways of managing TP if they bottom out, and all melee have access to Goad now. I usually only pop one of my aggro dumps if I actively rip hate from a tank and they cannot seem to take it back. Otherwise, I try my hardest to save my support refreshes for what their primary function is: refresh.

To answer some of your opening post's questions, Moro:

With regards to your DoTs: a lot of a BRD's overall damage comes from their DoTs, as well as Repertoire procs for each of their three songs are dependent upon critical damage ticks dealt by your DoTs. You should always strive to upkeep your DoTs as close to 100% of the time as possible. Prioritize refreshing your DoTs before prioritizing beginning a new song.

When applying DoTs, apply Windbite/Stormbite first, and then Venomous Bite/Caustic Bite.

General DoT refresh tips:
--Clip DoTs at about 1-2 seconds remaining on the DoT timer using only Iron Jaws. Do not reapply each individually.
--If important party buffs are up, such as Battle Litany or Balance, or if you are currently using Raging Strikes, you may clip your DoTs earlier before the buffs run out to snapshot a pair of buffed DoTs.
--Always refresh your DoTs while under the Straight Shot buff.

Do not pair Barrage with anything else except Empyreal Arrow (until level 70, that is). Sidewinder is an ability, not a weaponskill, so it is completely unaffected by Barrage.

Barrage tips:
--Sub-Level 54 content: Barrage + Heavy Shot**
--Level 54 to Level 69: Barrage + Empyreal Arrow
--Level 70: Barrage + Refulgent Arrow*

*It's important not to hold on to your Barrage for too long, as it will net an overall DPS loss if you overly fish for Refulgent Arrow procs. When you hit level 70, The Wanderer's Minuet, Raging Strikes, and Barrage will always line up nicely if you time their use properly. If you get a Refulgent Arrow proc inside of Raging Strikes, Barrage that for super-nuclear damage. If Raging Strikes is about to fall off, and you still have not successfully fished up an RA proc, pair Barrage with Empyreal Arrow, rather than holding out for an RA proc. You want as many uses out of Barrage as possible during a given fight, and you always want it to be buffed by Raging Strikes, so don't hold on to it excessively! It sucks to not have your super nuke of Barrage+RA, but it is a loss to be overly stingy with Barrage in the long run.

Speaking of Refulgent Arrow: you should always use it over Straighter Shot unless you have to refresh your DoTs within the next 2 GCDs and Straight Shot is about to wear off. Otherwise, it's a huge DPS loss to choose Straighter Shot over Refulgent.

**Also adding this here, though I addressed it in another comment: since Stormblood's change to Barrage allowing the three strikes of the Barraged weaponskill to crit, if you are lucky enough to get a Straighter Shot proc around the time Barrage is coming off cooldown, pair Barrage with the Straighter Shot proc, as it is more potent than Barrage + Heavy Shot. However, like with Refulgent, don't overly fish for Straighter Shot procs, nor excessively hold Barrage trying to pair it with only Straighter Shot.


Here are some other general bard tips. If you would like more in-depth tips, feel free to let me know, but I'm trying to be brief and to the point, rather than post a wall-o-text for you to sift through. I've mained BRD since I started this game, and I raid with it, so I feel like I have a very good understanding of the job and how it functions, and I am very confident in my own abilities as a BRD.

Always upkeep your Straight Shot buff. Do your best never to let it fall off, and never refresh your DoTs outside of it.

Always upkeep and rotate your songs for 100% of a given fight. If, however, you are approaching a phase change in a fight, you may hold off on refreshing a song until the phase actually shifts (e.g., the boss is about to go invulnerable a la Susano Ex's Sword Phase, but there are no targets to attack yet; you can hold off on starting a new song so that you don't waste the entire duration on empty space). Our songs use a proc mechanic called Repertoire, which is granted each time our DoTs deal critical damage, hence why it's so important that you maintain close to 100% upkeep of your DoTs. At Level 68, the Enhanced Empyreal Arrow trait will guarantee you a Repertoire proc each time you use Empyreal Arrow.

The Wanderer's Minuet: this is our burst damage song. It gives you access to Pitch Perfect, which you should always use at 3 stacks NO MATTER WHAT. A 3-stack Pitch Perfect is a 420 potency attack.
Mage's Ballad: Mage's now incorporates the old River of Blood trait from ARR/HW, so for each time our DoTs deal critical damage, Bloodletter/Rain of Death have a chance to reset.
Army's Paeon: this is our haste buff song; for each stack of Repertoire acquired, we gain a 4% haste buff, stackable up to four times for a total of 16%.

Song priority (Single Target): The Wanderer's Minuet > Mage's Ballad > Army's Paeon
--Always pair Raging Strikes with The Wanderer's Minuet.
--Likewise, always use Barrage during your Minuet+RS window
--Clip Army's Paeon at 10 seconds remaining, which is when The Wanderer's Minuet and Raging Strikes should be coming off cooldown.

Song priority (AOE): Mage's Ballad > Army's Paeon > The Wanderer's Minuet
--Always DoT at least 3-5 mobs, starting with Windbite/Stormbite first, and then rotating back around with Venomous Bite/Caustic Bite. This will get the Repertoire procs flowing extremely well during Mage's Ballad, which incorporates the old River of Blood trait. Lots of Repertoire procs = lots of Rain of Death procs. In between Rain of Death, Quick Nock.
--Rain of Death is a DPS gain at 2+ mobs, having 100 potency per mob. So with 2 mobs, you're already sitting at 200 potency, compared to Bloodletter's 130 potency.
--I personally do not clip Army's Paeon 10 seconds early when dealing with AOE situations, as I like having the 4-stack Haste buff it gives during my Quick Nock spam.

Bloodletter/Rain of Death, Empyreal Arrow, and Sidewinder should always be on-cooldown. Only use Sidewinder if the target has both of your DoTs applied, as it's a massive DPS loss to use it otherwise. Sidewinder won't always line up with Raging Strikes, so don't hold it for Raging.

Nature's Minne: a free Convalenscence to toss on the tank (or other party member taking a lot of damage--but generally it goes to the MT) every 45 seconds. Boosts healing by 20%. You learn this at Level 66, and it is incredibly useful. For major fights, it's usually always available for any sort of major tankbuster, and it costs nothing for you to use. Since priority usually goes to the MT, I would suggest making a <tt> macro for it, so that you don't have to worry about switching targets to the MT and back to the boss again.

The Warden's Paeon: our Esuna, and now no longer hogged by Berserk's Pacification! It no longer removes AND prevents a debuff, but rather does one (remove) or the other (prevent). I use it on myself, or toss it on a fellow party member to save a healer from an Esuna cast. Prevention lasts 30 seconds, and the cooldown timer for Paeon is still 45 seconds.

Useful Cross-Role Skills:
--Refresh & Tactician: absolutely mandatory
--Palisade: great to toss on a tank for any physical tankbuster (do note that this cooldown is only useful against physical damage, not magical)
--Invigorate: great for when you are AOEing your little BRD heart out
--Second Wind: can't go wrong with self heals

The other cross-role skills are purely situational. Refresh, Tactician, and Palisade are more or less mandatory. Like Nature's Minne, it's useful to set up a <tt> macro for Palisade to avoid having to switch targets, but not mandatory. I do it because I play with a controller and controller targeting is finicky even at the best of times. If you have need for any of the Graze skills, switch out Invigorate or Second Wind for them, never any of the first three.


Bard Stat priority: Crit > D.Hit/Det > Skill Speed
--The more Crit you stack = more likely your DoTs are to deal critical damage = more Repertoire procs.

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This is incorrect. Both Refresh and Tactician half your personal enmity.

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I completely missed this from the 4.0, thanks you !

HyoMin you are a veritable encyclopedia! Thank you so much!

If there are any other tips you have of course I'd love them but no pressure I don't want to drag you through typing out a book.

The timing of barrage and raging strikes thing I had but I didn't know to always pair it with Wanderer's which I will do from now on. All those boosted Perfect Pitches won't hurt one bit.

Really, thank you for all your insight! I will be putting it all to good use.

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Originally Posted by MoroMurasaki

HyoMin you are a veritable encyclopedia! Thank you so much!

If there are any other tips you have of course I'd love them but no pressure I don't want to drag you through typing out a book.

The timing of barrage and raging strikes thing I had but I didn't know to always pair it with Wanderer's which I will do from now on. All those boosted Perfect Pitches won't hurt one bit.

Really, thank you for all your insight! I will be putting it all to good use.

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Awh, thank you. :3 And you're very welcome! Anything I can do to help aspiring bards to be amazing! We need more awesome bards out there! :D I honestly don't mind because I get so tired of people assuming that all bards are lazy/weak, so I will do anything to help people learn how to play the class optimally and efficiently to prove all those bard-haters wrong. ;3c

When you hit 70, I don't mind at all giving you my opener I use, if you would like to practice it. :3 It was put together by one of the top Bards (Miyuri Ai from Sargatanas) out there, and it has amazing burst.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

Awh, thank you. :3 And you're very welcome! Anything I can do to help aspiring bards to be amazing! We need more awesome bards out there! :D I honestly don't mind because I get so tired of people assuming that all bards are lazy/weak, so I will do anything to help people learn how to play the class optimally and efficiently to prove all those bard-haters wrong. ;3c

When you hit 70, I don't mind at all giving you my opener I use, if you would like to practice it. :3 It was put together by one of the top Bards (Miyuri Ai from Sargatanas) out there, and it has amazing burst.

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That would be awesome! I've watched some of her videos in preparation for playing Bard and she does do very well. Also her numbers don't look padded in the videos. Like the party has good synergy but she isn't being fed enhanced Balance/Spears or anything.

My boyfriend doesn't know it yet but he's gonna help me dungeon spam so 70 isn't that far sway after all! :D

Before lvl54 you can use Barrage on Straighter shot as the 3 hits will be guaranteed crits, unless you're very lucking getting 3 crits on a barrage-heavy shot it will net you more damage, pretty useful when doing rouletes and other lvl 50 duties, but it's proc dependant so the rule Hyomin stated is true for this aswell !

Concerning the opener you can found the video here, it's detailled in description and Miyuri answers a lot of questions in comments, a very good gal !

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Originally Posted by MoroMurasaki

That would be awesome! I've watched some of her videos in preparation for playing Bard and she does do very well. Also her numbers don't look padded in the videos. Like the party has good synergy but she isn't being fed enhanced Balance/Spears or anything.

My boyfriend doesn't know it yet but he's gonna help me dungeon spam so 70 isn't that far sway after all! :D

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She's a great BRD, and I've learned plenty of little tips from her while trying to optimize BRD since Stormblood dropped and the job was completely 180'd again. XD

Here's the opener:

Pre-pull at 3 seconds: Foe Requiem + Infusion of Dexterity
At pull: Stormbite > Bloodletter > Raging Strikes > Caustic Bite > the Wanderer's Minuet > Empyreal Arrow > Straight Shot > Battle Voice > Iron Jaws > Sidewinder > ((Heavy Shot > Heavy Shot > Heavy Shot > Bloodletter > Heavy Shot > Heavy Shot)) >
[If at any time during your ((5x Heavy Shot)) spam Refulgent Arrow Procs, immediately Barrage + Refulgent Arrow your next GCD for a super 900 potency nuke--quite possibly the most satisfying thing you can have as a BRD]
[Any time Pitch Perfect procs at 3 stacks, weave it in between your Heavy Shot spam/Refulgent fishing]

After the 5th Heavy Shot, Empyreal Arrow should be coming off cooldown, and Raging Strikes is about to fall off. If you have not successfully fished a Refulgent proc > Barrage + Empyreal Arrow > Iron Jaws before Raging Strikes drops.

There was a picture floating around Reddit of Miyuri's opener with little icons that flowed much better than my text outline, but I can't find it at the moment. :c

After that, it's just song rotation, DoT upkeep, and Straight Shot buff upkeep. :3 You basically just repeat that opener every 80 seconds with each fresh Minuet + Raging Strikes. For Foe's, try to line it up not only with your group's major buffs, but also with Minuet to optimize your own damage output as well. I will usually start casting Foe's at about 12 seconds remaining for Army's, so I can segue immediately into my Minuet burst and get the most from Foe's, since it only lasts 20 seconds now without a Refresh or Mana Shift from a caster.

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Originally Posted by Fankine

Before lvl54 you can use Barrage on Straighter shot as the 3 hits will be guaranteed crits, unless you're very lucking getting 3 crits on a barrage-heavy shot it will net you more damage, pretty useful when doing rouletes and other lvl 50 duties, but it's proc dependant so the rule Hyomin stated is true for this aswell !

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Absolutely, if you are one with RNGesus and get a Straighter Shot proc to pair up with Barrage, absolutely do so! Since the SB change to Barrage allows the hits to crit (and direct hit crit), it's higher potency to Barrage > Straighter Shot compared to Barrage > Heavy Shot if RNG smiles on you.

The only thing I would contest about HyoMinPark's advice is only using Pitch Perfect on stacks of three. 2 uses of 2 stacks is more dps than losing a stack waiting for that third proc. We have 2 DoTs that tick at the same time, if you're at two stacks and wait for the third and they BOTH crit, you've lost a stack. Three stacks is 420, two stacks are 240, so 240x2 is a net gain. Unless of course the song is about to fall off, Pitch Perfect has a recast of ~3s so if you're already under that amount of time left, you're free to fish for that last stack since you won't have a chance to use it again anyway.

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Originally Posted by Kwoon

The only thing I would contest about HyoMinPark's advice is only using Pitch Perfect on stacks of three. 2 uses of 2 stacks is more dps than losing a stack waiting for that third proc. We have 2 DoTs that tick at the same time, if you're at two stacks and wait for the third and they BOTH crit, you've lost a stack. Three stacks is 420, two stacks are 240, so 240x2 is a net gain. Unless of course the song is about to fall off, Pitch Perfect has a recast of ~3s so if you're already under that amount of time left, you're free to fish for that last stack since you won't have a chance to use it again anyway.

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The thing about using Pitch Perfect at only 2 stacks when you're focusing on a single target is the potency loss that a 3-stack gives you. You want to use whatever stacks you have regardless at about 1-2 seconds remaining of the duration, but it's usually best to hold it for 3 stacks, especially while Raging Strikes is up.

While in an AOE situation, spending Pitch Perfect at 2 is acceptable, but with multi-dotting, you should have 3-stack procs coming very frequently anyways. Single-target, the general consensus among Bards is to save Pitch Perfect for 3 stacks during your RS.

There's no guarantee that you can get a 3-stack Pitch Perfect, but there's also no guarantee that your spent 2-stack will result in a subsequent second 2-stack PP. There's also no guarantee that both of your DoTs will crit at the same time, resulting in a lost stack. The entire skill revolves around RNG, but most bards will advise to hold Pitch Perfect until 3 stacks.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

--Sub-Level 54 content: Barrage + Heavy Shot

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If you have Straighter shot proc, barrage + proc-ed straight shot may be better? Because all 3 hits will crit then (you may check this, they removed that "no crits on barrage" in some patch)

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Originally Posted by vp_cmc

If you have Straighter shot proc, barrage + proc-ed straight shot may be better? Because all 3 hits will crit then (you may check this, they removed that "no crits on barrage" in some patch)

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If you're lucky enough to get a Straighter proc. Like with a Refulgent though; you don't want to excessively fish for one. So, if Barrage is about to come off cooldown, and you get a Straighter Shot proc, by all means pair Barrage with the Straighter proc. Just don't hold Barrage excessively trying to fish for one, since you want the most uses out of Barrage as possible.

Bumping this up for some quick questions.

- Should Straight Shot be refreshed as close to expiration as possible (and potentially missing out Refulgent if previous Heavy Shot proc'd), or a GCD prior?
- If I refresh dots with WM + Raging when it came off CD (usually when Peon has around 10 sec left, as recommended by most people) I might have some trouble aligning next 2nd Barrage within the new 2nd WM + Raging Strike window, especially so if I delayed it to fish for Refulgent during opener(within Raging window). In this case, should I delay WM + Raging later into Peon duration?
- (During Mage's Ballad) Empyreal is ready but Bloodletter is almost off-cd too (3-5 seconds left), should Empyreal be delayed after Bloodletter is used?

1. Straight shot should always be up. However, if you have refulgent arrow ready, use refulgent arrow before refreshing straight shot. There is only 1 case where you will not use refulgent arrow when you have straighter shot buff: when your straight shot and dots are coming off at the same time.

2. In the first place, during the first duration of raging strike, you should already use barrage + reful or barrage + empyreal. If, however, you delayed your barrage to the point that raging strike will fall off before barrage is up, then it is okay to delay raging strike so that it and barrage lineup. Wanderer Minuet, however, should not be delayed. It is important though to have raging strike duration be the same period Wanderer's Minuet is on.

3. If bloodletter is nearly off cooldown while empyreal is off cd, wait for bloodletter to be off cd first, use it, and then empyreal arrow. Every procs from empyreal arrow is incredibly important (except army's paeon cuz you need only 4).

1. Straight shot should always be up. However, if you have refulgent arrow ready, use refulgent arrow before refreshing straight shot. There is only 1 case where you will not use refulgent arrow when you have straighter shot buff: when your straight shot and dots are coming off at the same time.

2. In the first place, during the first duration of raging strike, you should already use barrage + reful or barrage + empyreal. If, however, you delayed your barrage to the point that raging strike will fall off before barrage is up, then it is okay to delay raging strike so that it and barrage lineup. Wanderer Minuet, however, should not be delayed. It is important though to have raging strike duration be the same period Wanderer's Minuet is on.

3. If bloodletter is nearly off cooldown while empyreal is off cd, wait for bloodletter to be off cd first, use it, and then empyreal arrow. Every procs from empyreal arrow is incredibly important (except army's paeon cuz you need only 4).