Letter to all bards about Mages Ballad

[BlueMage]

OH NO! SOMEONE IS SUGGESTING THAT *SOMETIMES* BARDS PRESS A BUTTON OTHER THAN WIDE VOLLEY! BRING OUT THE TORCHES AND PITCHFORKS!

[Viridiana]

OH NO! SOMEONE IS SUGGESTING THAT *SOMETIMES* BARDS PRESS A BUTTON OTHER THAN WIDE VOLLEY! BRING OUT THE TORCHES AND PITCHFORKS!

It's not so much that he's suggesting BRD use an ability, it's that he seems incapable of suggesting it without making people want to punch his face. >_>

[Zellata]

Over 2 BLM rotations:

With Ballad up: Fire3>Flare>Bliz3>Fire3>Flare>Bliz3 will produce 1400 potency of damage in 22 seconds. In that time 9 Wide Volleys will produce 792 potency of damage. That's 2192 potency over 9 GCD's (243 potency per GCD). 2192 potency in 22 seconds is roughly 100 potency per second. The BLM needed to cast 6 times.

With Requiem up: Fire3>Flare>Tpose>Bliz2>Bliz2>Fire3>Fire2>Flare>Tpose>Bliz2>Bliz2 will produce 1679 potency of damage in 28 seconds. In that time you could get about 10 Wide Volleys and 1 Rain of Death off for 1200 potency of damage. That's 2879 potency over 11 GCD's (261 potency per GCD). 2889 potency in 28 seconds is roughly 102 potency per second. The BLM needed to cast 11 times.

You are not accounting for off-gcd skills. While your conclusion could still be correct, the BRD rotation you use as an example is not a normal one (not sure about BLM rotation).

[Machazareel]

You are not accounting for off-gcd skills. While your conclusion could still be correct, the BRD rotation you use as an example is not a normal one (not sure about BLM rotation).

He's mostly right about BLM. My rotation may be inferior idk, but I tend to do Fire3>Flare>Tpose>Bliz2>Bliz2>Fire3>Flare>Tpose>Bliz2>Bliz2. I do this because the increased cast speed from UI3 will also affect the cast time of Flare if done immediately after Fire3, rather than using the halved cast time on a Fire2 followed by a full cast Flare.

His way may be better, though. I haven't really mathed this stuff out, I've just been eyeballing what seems to kill stuff faster.

[XNihili]

Bards only purpose is to regen MP for WHM and BLM and PLD .

If they don't do that then might as well take DRG since they have better AOE dps than BRD .

I would gladly party with you, playing Ballad while in autofollow.

[AlternativeOne]

5 mins longer than an average speed run adds up to a lot of wasted time .

Over 100 runs you are spending 25 hrs running WP vs my runs 16.7 hrs

Time is money .

But... Its fun and that what Im all about. Its different and sure beats building relic groups LF tank for an hour.

[AvonRekaes]

Honestly brah, why are you in this thread? You havent even stepped foot into the instance, you have no idea what actually goes on in there. I have a feeling you just get your shits and gigs from coming to the forums and argueing with people. Spend less time on the forums and more time leveling up your character so you can have an educated opinion on the matter.

I'm sorry, when did becoming level 50 be a requirement for knowing how to communicate with people? He admitted to standing around and just leaving without even saying what the issue was. Wouldn't he have saved MUCH more time by just educating the bards in the party he was already in to use Mage Ballad? I do not need to set foot in WP to know that the answer is "YES OF COURSE".

[MartaDemireux]

You are not accounting for off-gcd skills. While your conclusion could still be correct, the BRD rotation you use as an example is not a normal one (not sure about BLM rotation).

Yeah, I left off-GCD's out because overall I don't think they would change the end result and I'd rather work with smaller numbers. For RoD and QN I primarily left them out because you can't reliably proc them (15% chance) but did include 1 RoD in requiem because statistically in 10 WV you should see 1 RoD and you'd be able to fit in 11 GCD's in 1 BLM rotation.

He's mostly right about BLM. My rotation may be inferior idk, but I tend to do Fire3>Flare>Tpose>Bliz2>Bliz2>Fire3>Flare>Tpose>Bliz2>Bliz2. I do this because the increased cast speed from UI3 will also affect the cast time of Flare if done immediately after Fire3, rather than using the halved cast time on a Fire2 followed by a full cast Flare.

His way may be better, though. I haven't really mathed this stuff out, I've just been eyeballing what seems to kill stuff faster.

I didn't include AF/UI in my numbers (still haven't gone through to math that out yet). The BLM rotation I put for Requiem is based on their natural cast times which should require a Fire II to use up some time before Transpose is ready again. With AF/UI you won't need the Fire II but if you get any spell speed gear or buffs you might find yourself waiting on Transpose's timer and need to fill that time in again.

Not at either of you:
Basically if the fight is going on for a long time due to BRD+BLM being undergeared you'd gain more use from Requiem rotation (possibility in duty finder). But, in a full relic+1 party with everyone in some i90's and lowest ilvl being i70 (normal shouted for speed runs) fights would go exponentially quicker using Ballad rotation due to more Flare uses. Ballad rotation will see higher DPS with the more spell speed you have as well due to having to rely on Transpose's flat 10 seconds.

Edit: I'm now curious if it would be worth it for BLM's to run 2 gearsets: 1 for single target (the crit rate pieces) and 1 for AoE speed runs (the spell speed pieces).

[Zellata]

Yeah, I left off-GCD's out because overall I don't think they would change the end result and I'd rather work with smaller numbers.

I think IR and BfB might change the end result, as those can be used on every pull.

[Machazareel]

I didn't include AF/UI in my numbers (still haven't gone through to math that out yet). The BLM rotation I put for Requiem is based on their natural cast times which should require a Fire II to use up some time before Transpose is ready again. With AF/UI you won't need the Fire II but if you get any spell speed gear or buffs you might find yourself waiting on Transpose's timer and need to fill that time in again.

That may well be true. In my current gear (Relic+1/Full DL) Transpose comes off cooldown shortly before Flare finishes.