How to DPS as Bard - Tips & Tricks - Achieve 450 dps

[Finalvalkyrie]

Newer player here.

I am confused as to how to open. It seems like using all of the DPS cooldowns takes 2-3 seconds to pop all of them leaving 2-3 secodns of 1-2 of them not even being taken advantage of right off the bat. Is it so important to pop everything for the first round of DoTs?

[JohnMccain]

snip

You are taking advantage of all your buffs if you are weaving them in between globals. And there are 3 reasons why you want to pop them right at the start(not the stupid way where you are losing time on buffs).
1. You want all your buffs applied to your first Barrage and you want B4B(debatable), Hawk's eye, and Barrage to line up later down the road.
2. Some buffs work great with each other, such as having the greater crit chance on your DoT's from internal release for increased bloodletter procs while having your damage up buffs such as B4B, Raging Strikes, and Hawk's Eye. Also barrage and damage up abilities stated above.
3. You want to be able to use your buffs more times in a fight. Not popping them all at once in the beginning will restrict you from doing so.

[KrietoR]

I can confirm it doesn't matter if you pop pot or hawk's eye first. I tested a few weeks back and ended up with 754 dex in both scenarios(starting at 572 dex). It should be noted though that the +15% dex bonus from hawk's eye actually includes the +84 from the xpot. That is why it is crucial having your Hawk's eye cover the full duration of your pot. From OP's rotation as what user Ooshima stated earlier on, he is losing the full benefit of hawk's eye and xpot put together. It might not sound like a lot(roughly 12-13 dex if you take 15% of 84), but if we are talking optimal openers this should explain why it is not a good idea using hawk's eye pre-pull and using xpot towards the end of your rotation.

They do align perfectly