Bard - they broke my job

[Empty-handed]

meh, you need a kill of 7.3 mins ish on a2s to get similar numbers. an astro solo healing maybe (and obviously buffing pt). and 2 smn or smn+blm+monk combo.

[Krindor]

What are the group kill times for these 2200 dps bards in A2S?

Currently the only one on fflogs with 2200 DPS killed it in 7 min 51 sec.

[aabe]

A2S doesn't need that much catering, AST helps a ton and I wouldn't be #1 without cards honestly, but your group's overall DPS can influence your own DPS because the major AoE waves could get melted down real quick with an amazing group. I made a lot of mistakes that could've been fixed up but as long as you're aoeing/multidotting during cooldown spikes you're already on your way.
It's really a lot of group strategy and CD timing/TP upkeep. I think I gain a lot from goad in A2, but I've had 2k runs where I did jack during the 4 jagd dolls just letting my TP trickle up while I kept up my dots and spammed RoD.

I have the video of the 2200 clear here but my upload speed is quite bad for FFXIV recording.

[TeddyXIV]

I am making a post about all the things I am unhappy with about this game and I hope you don't mind if I use this thread.

[SaitoHikari]

Hi guys, I'm rather new-ish to Bard, and like many others here, I loved the class until I got WM. Once I capped, WM left me so disgusted that I pretty much dropped Bard and tried out other classes. Two months later, I had a strong urge to return to Bard, and I found that WM really wasn't that bad. I actually loved the class again. Maybe I was just playing Bard incorrectly as a whole before.

Anyway, I came in here for advice since I can't find a recent guide thread to post in, like what all the other classes have.

In dungeons when facing packs of mobs, what should be my priority? Would it be more effective to focus down a single mob while throwing out the occasional Rain of Death, or should I be going around tagging 2-3 mobs with Windbite/Venomous Bite and spam the hell out of Quick Nock/Rain of Death resets, while using single target non-global CDs whenever possible? I've been using the second method, and while I think it seems effective (although REALLY messy), I've gotten strange reactions from party members about it. That and I may end up ripping aggro off the tank, especially if I have all my buffs up. (Thankfully Quelling Strikes is there to save me.)

Also, how do you guys manage using your buffs? I think my starting rotation is like...
Straight Shot -> Bloodletter/Rain of Death -> Windbite -> Empryeal Arrow -> Venomous Bite -> Heavy Shot/Quick Nock/Iron Jaws/Straight Shot/off globals as needed.

But how should I weave in Raging Strikes/Hawk's Eye/Internal Release/Blood for Blood? Do I Straight Shot -> DoTs, then cast all four at once before unloading everything else, or do I try weaving them in one at a time between each global skill CD? Also, which buff order would be the most effective?

Then there's Quick Nock VS Wide Volley. What are the advantages/disadvantages of both? Right now I favor Quick Nock purely because of its lower TP cost, but does Wide Volley's extra range really make that much of a difference to justify the extra 20 TP per use?

Oh, and one last thing. Does Barrage work on Sidewinder, or should I always use it for Empryeal?

[AskaRay]

snip

Quick Nock > Wide Volley literally all the time unless you are:
Too lazy to position yourself
Running towards a mob and not in position yet
Literally no other reasons to use Wide Volley over QN

That second method of AOEing (spreading DOTs, then reapplying with IJ when necessary and spamming RoD) is what I do for <4 mobs, usually. Any greater and I just stick to QN spam (you could honestly probably do this with up to five mobs and not have any dots drop but I'm lazy) and Flaming Arrow. Don't forget that.

As for cooldown usage... I usually just pop them all at once, then do my rotation. If you decide to weave them in, make sure you refresh your dots, as they take a "snapshot" of all your buff damage when you apply them (so if I have all my buffs up and get up my dots, they'll all be overpowered for their duration, or until I reapply them). So if you do SS -> dots, make sure you use IJ or reapply them after you get your buffs up.
Order would probably be Longest CD -> Shortest CD (can't remember where I have my buffs right now, I always press them in a particular order but I can't remember which buff is keybound to which button..it's all muscle memory for me at this point).

edit:

Oh, and one last thing. Does Barrage work on Sidewinder, or should I always use it for Empryeal?

Only works on weaponskills (non crit) so it would not work on Sidewinder. Always use it with EA as soon as you get it.

[aabe]

.

Your opener should be pre-buffing, I won't detail the entire thing but the general rule is that you want to get up a lot of buffs for your first set of dots, and clip midway through their duration (9s) to reapply a second set of fully buffed dots. off-GCD damage priority should be:
Bloodletter >>> Misery's End > EA > Flaming Arrow > Sidewinder > Repel > Blunt.

No reason to use WV over QN if the range isn't relevant, and for big packs of mobs it depends on the speed of your DPS and such. DoTs are king for sustainability which is usually what you need, and depending on how much you need to sustain TP is what decides how many mobs you wanna dot up. For using CDs on AoE you generally wanna hold your buffs until you've already gotten all your dots up with the exception of IR.

[RinchanNau]

There are times where you may want to favor Flaming Arrow and Sidewinder over other oGCD. And that would be if your buffs will otherwise fall off before you use Flaming Arrow and Sidewinder.

But for the most part the order listed above is pretty accurate.

[kalasnikov]

still salty, Se make my salt go away.

[SaitoHikari]

I'm actually sort of sitting here wondering if Minuet's damage boost actually makes your weaponskills do more damage than if you had Minuet turned off and thus had the ability to auto-attack, especially in a single target scenario. Because to me, it kind of feels like Minuet's damage boost only barely covers the loss of auto-attack damage. Although I don't know if Minuet actually boosts the damage of off-GCD skills like Misery's End, Sidewinder, and Flaming Arrow either.

If Minuet's damage boost only really covers the loss of auto-attack, then are Bards supposed to 'minuet dance' in single target situations, turning it on just to use Emperyal and Iron Jaws (and to apply DoTs) and then turning it back off after? If they are, then isn't that kinda bad design, because it'd basically imply that Minuet doesn't really add anything beneficial and only exists to restrict gameplay.

(Minuet is assumed to be left on for multi-target situations because auto-attacking doesn't attack multiple enemies at once.)