Recently hit level 70 with Bard and it's my first DPS job at end game so I decided to practice my opener/rotation and ended up (barely) clearing the O2S dummy. However I was watching some videos of Bards with a similar item level who are able to output around 3800-4000 DPS. The most I could get after several tries was 3660 and more often than that it was around 3400 or 3500.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUHARv7hOKo
I've made a video showing the clear and I was wondering if anyone has any tips for me to squeeze out that extra few hundred DPS. Are these higher numbers just a result of a crazy good RNG set or am I doing something wrong? I really appreciate any advice anyone could give me. (Note that the video is not edited, it's just missing a few seconds near the 28-second mark because my Twitch stream decided to restart itself at that moment for no reason)
Thanks in advance. :)
Bard DPS Advice?
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10-08-2017, 01:22 PMEndelyonBard DPS Advice?
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10-08-2017, 01:36 PMGrimoire-M
The lack of a potion in your opener is one issue. Possibly a lack of melds as well. Keep in mind BRD innately has a lot of variance too. I did see some troughs that could explain the lower value. Try to get as much crit as possible on your gear.
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10-08-2017, 02:39 PMEndelyonI do have potions, they're just a bit expensive to use for the purpose of SSS practice. I do have all the crit melds I can in my gear but there are possibly some pieces I can replace for higher overall crit (I know Susano's Greatbow has a lot). Thanks for the tip!Quote:
Originally Posted by Grimoire-M
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10-08-2017, 03:06 PMHyoMinPark
Trying to get the video to load but alas, buffering. D:
What does your opener look like? What does your gear look like? And are you using food at all?
Ideally, you should be stacking as much Crit as you possible can, in terms of gear and melds. Next you should prioritize Direct Hit, followed by Determination, and then Skill Speed last (BRD BiS has Skill Speed at 786—I would suggest aim for 750). For food, Permission Leaf Sushi HQ is the best for bards. I would also suggest investing in Infusions of Dexerity for content—they last 30 seconds so you can actually pop them pre-pull and not have to worry about the issues items have with not queuing up during GCDs.
I use Miyuri Ai’s Opener (well, a slight moderation), which looks something like this: http://ffxivrotations.com/15c4
Foe’s start at 4 seconds pre-pull, then infusion, then open up immediately on “START”.
Where your Heavy Shot spam after Sidewinder is you fishing for a Refulgent Arrow proc. You will replace the next GCD with Barrage + RA if it procs—if no RA proc after the 4th Heavy Shot, you Barrage + EA and then IJ your DoTs before Raging Strikes falls off. Only use Pitch Perfect at 3 stacks, of course. You do not want to hold Barrage for a late RA proc (Barrage should always line up with your Minuet+Raging Strikes window for the added RS potency); nor do you want to Barrage EA too early in your opener (in the event RA procs and then you don’t get your Barrage nuke).
I would definitely suggest looking at this guide. It is an excellent resource for new and veteran bards, especially if you are wanting to get into raiding. -
10-08-2017, 04:53 PMlulunami
I agree with Hyomin. Check out Chae's and Cetonis' Bard guide. It is quite wordy, however, but it does go in depth on how to play in many situations. Also, Miyuri's opener is a good alternative opener that works just as well.
One thing I noticed in your opener is that you used Barrage with Empyreal Arrow very early. You should try to hold onto Barrage and fish for Reflugent Arrow procs to use with Barrage. You can get in about 4 to 5 Heavy Shots to fish for Reflugent Arrow before Raging Strikes runs out. You want to delay your strongest attacks a little bit to take advantage of raid buffs like Trick Attack.
Generally speaking, it is important that you snapshot buffs just before they run out. I noticed you did not use Iron Jaws a 2nd time in the opener. I believe you should try to Iron Jaws near the beginning of Raging Strikes and once again near the end of Raging Strikes. In raids, party buffs like Chain Strategem, Trick Attack, Battle Litany, etc. will be running out at about the same time as Raging Strikes. You want to snapshot these buffed dots. 45-50 seconds of buffed dots is quite important in the opener since that potentially gives you more Pitch Perfect and Bloodletter Procs.
There were some minor GCD clipping parts like triple oGCD at the end (Barrage -> Empyreal -> Pitch Perfect). Try to double-weave two oGCDs at the most. Also there were some parts where you let Bloodletter stay unused for about 3 seconds, which is a potential DPS loss. Try to always keep Bloodletter on cooldown (spam that button during Mage's Ballad). There were also some downtime with the 3 songs. Try to get about 30s Wanderer, 30s Mage's, 20's Army's.
There can be some variance with Bard since you can get low proc rates vs high proc rates. Just keep practicing and try to find possible GCD downtime or missed buffs you did not realize occurred. -
10-08-2017, 09:25 PMRLofOBFL
Your dps is actually not too bad, like without food or pots 3600 on a dummy is about right @ your ilvl. Doing all of the above comments stuff my absolute highest was about 3850 @ ilvl 220 on O3 dunmy. One thing I noticed is you didn't fish for a Refulgent proc in your opener. Not much else I can say really, just follow HyoMinPark's fantastic advice.
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10-09-2017, 10:13 AMEndelyonThank you so much to everyone for the advice! I didn't even realize there was an "art" to weaving oGCDs with GCDs. I will keep practicing. Hopefully between fine-tuning my rotation and gearing up I'll be able to hit the 4k mark soon enough. ^^ As far as not using Bloodletter right away and the downtime between songs that's just moments where my brain isn't telling me what to do next, I suppose it will become second nature in time. I really appreciate this, and I've been reading through the guide, though it's quite long!Quote:
Originally Posted by lulunami
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11-10-2017, 03:46 AMMature
So coming back to bard rotation I have a small question:
Why add a second IJ before RS finishes? messing about with the dots?
Example:
4s Pre-pull: Foe Requiem (Refresh + Infusion of Dexterity)
Pull: Stormbite (Bloodletter + Raging Strikes) > Caustic Bite (Wanderer’s Minuet + Empyreal Arrow) > Straight Shot (Battle Voice + Nature’s Minne) > Iron Jaws > Heavy Shot > Heavy Shot (Sidewinder) > Heavy Shot (Bloodletter) > Heavy shot (Barrage + Empyreal Arrow) > Iron Jaws > Heavy Shot
Wouldn't it be better to just do one IJ and keep straight shot at the same phase with storm and caust? -
11-10-2017, 04:02 AMHyoMinParkYou IJ your dots again before Raging Strikes falls off to snapshot them, and that gives you another 30 seconds of buffed dots. You do the same for any raid buffs as well, especially for Enhanced Spear, Battle Litany, and Chain Strategem. The buffed IJ has a way higher potency than a SS use. (IJ alone is 1100 potency—100 initial and then the other 1000 from Stormbite/Caustic).Quote:
Originally Posted by Mature
As for timers, your dots should be refreshed every time you enter Raging Strikes (so upon execution of every Minuet + Raging), and then refreshed again before Raging falls off 20 seconds later for another snapshot, and during periods with a lot of raid buffs (there are different tiers for this—the most important one is what I listed before: Enhanced Spear on you, Battle Litany, or Chain Strategem; others include Trick Attack, Embolden, Brotherhood, and Balance, but they are lower in tier than the first three). So SS timer is not always going to be the same as your dots, nor should you really strive for it to be—you just need to strive for near 100% uptime on both. -
11-10-2017, 04:55 AMMature
I see cause for example I do exactly the same rotation but I don't add 2nd IJ (I already got all dots aligned with Ss) cause it just flows better with Caus and storm dots before going into the next song:
4 seconds left on SS I do:
Straight shot -> MB -> IJ
Straight shot -> BS - IJ
and going for the big one :
RS -> BL -> SS -> WM -> EA -> IJ
that way I know that every time I got 4 seconds left on SS I'm ready to transition into the next song. (Giving me 26sc of SS and 30sc IJ)
That's why I think keeping all dots aligned it's more consistent. Unless I'm missing DPS by throwing IJ in the middle
Hope you get what I mean and that's why I can't work out why using 2 IJs -
11-10-2017, 05:24 AMRaldoYour method certainly makes the rotation more consistent, but refreshing DoTs right before RS ends (or any other helpful buffs from a party member) means that for the next 30 seconds your DoTs are still doing 20% more damage (or have a higher crit rate, etc. in the case of other party buffs). The way DoTs work is it takes a snapshot of your (and the target's) buffs/debuffs at the time the DoT is applied and continue ticking at that potency even after those buffs/debuffs fall off of you. This means that your method has your DoTs ticking with the RS buff for 30 seconds (the length of the DoT), whereas reapplying your DoTs right before RS falls off means that those DoTs are now going to have the RS buff tick for ~50 seconds (reapply at the start of RS, ticks for 20 seconds, reapply at the end of RS, ticks for another 30 seconds).Quote:
Originally Posted by Mature
An extra ~20 seconds of buffed DoTs means that you wind up doing an extra ~120potency worth of damage. It's not huge, but more damage is more damage.
Math:
Bard DoTs are 55 + 45 = 100potency per tick.
RS is +20% damage, so under RS you get an extra 20 potency per tick.
Assuming an extra 18 seconds of buffed DoTs because DoTs tick every 3 seconds, so 6 extra DoT ticks.
20potency * 6ticks = 120 extra potency.
With all that said, unless you're raiding, the difference is obviously minimal. If you do this, like you said, you will lose the synchronization of DoTs with your SS and song timers.
Unrelated question...
Is there a reason why the suggested opener seems to be DoTs > SS > then IJ? I've never really seen a BRD discussion anywhere, and I always do SS > DoTs.
Specifically (if you want to poke holes in my opener), SS > RS > BL > SB > Song > EA > CB, then refreshing DoTs before RS falls. -
11-10-2017, 06:19 AMMatureOmg I just re read this. But IJ descriptionQuote:
Originally Posted by HyoMinPark
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Delivers an attack with a potency of 100.
Additional Effect: If the target is suffering from a Caustic Bite or Stormbite effect inflicted by you, the effect timer is reset
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does not tell you that it carries the buffs just the dots?!! How did people know about this??
Time to tweak rotation -
11-10-2017, 06:29 AMRaldo
Because that's how all DoTs work. It's not mentioned anywhere in the game; people just figured out how the system works.
It's why SMNs tend to use Tri-Disaster at some point before they exit Dreadwyrm Trance (+10% damage) even if their DoTs are already up
It's why SAMs stack Hissatsu: Kaiten with Higanbana (+50% damage of next weaponskill, including the DoT damage)
It was a lot more common knowledge prior to Stomblood, back when nearly every job had a DoT skill. RIP Fracture, Lead Shot, Phlebotomize, etc. -
11-10-2017, 06:42 AMMature
That's really interesting. Thanks for the tips I'm shocked at IJ snapshot no wonder so many bards are touching 5.k in certain stances.
Cheers! -
11-10-2017, 08:08 AMHyoMinParkYou will always want to Double IJ in your opener and any time you are under Raging/any other critical hit enhancing raid buffs because the potency of the DoTs > refreshing SS for the sole sake of it aligning with your DoTs. I understand why you would like all the timers to be consistent, but it’s a massive DPS loss to opt not to use a second set of buffed DoTs—and the timers are all going to misalign at some point anyways due to constant refreshing—even your songs won’t always match up with SS, and that’s okay. All that matters is that they’re at near 100% uptime.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mature
So always double IJ to snapshot your DoTs. Especially if your DoTs are snapshotting any buffs that affect critical hit rate (Enhanced Spear, Litany, Chain Strategem are the Big Three), since our procs (Pitch Perfect, Bloodletter reset, and even Paeon haste procs) rely on our DoTs dealing critical damage.
The suggested opener of DoTs > SS > IJ is because it’s a double IJ opener, for one. When you do your first IJ, you’re snapshotting your DoTs under the SS buff AND the RS buff (SB > Bloodletter > RS > CB > Minuet > EA > SS > BV > Minne [if you want to double weave there] > IJ #1), and then again under any remaining rBuffs and RS before it falls off (IJ #2).Quote:
Originally Posted by Raldo
Secondly, you want to apply your DoTs first because those first few ticks, even if they aren’t under SS yet, are still more potent than opening up with SS. The basic idea is to have your DoTs ticking on a target for as long as possible because more ticks = more damage.
Straight Shot > 140 potency
Stormbite > Initial potency of 120 + 55 potency for each tick
Caustic Bite > Initial potency of 120 + 45 potency for each tick
By the time you apply SS, both DoTs have already ticked at least once, already outweighing SS’s 140 potency. Also, always start with Stormbite, because it’s the higher potency DoT. -
11-10-2017, 12:27 PMRaldo
That makes perfect sense, thanks!
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11-10-2017, 05:00 PMMature
Cheers all!