Bard DPS Advice?

[Raldo]

That's why I think keeping all dots aligned it's more consistent. Unless I'm missing DPS by throwing IJ in the middle

Your 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).

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.

[Mature]

You 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). .

Omg I just re read this. But IJ description
----
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
----

does not tell you that it carries the buffs just the dots?!! How did people know about this??

Time to tweak rotation

[Raldo]

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.

[Mature]

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!

[HyoMinPark]

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

You 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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

[Raldo]

That makes perfect sense, thanks!

[Mature]

Cheers all!