Am I playing BARD correctly?

[pizzaisgood]

So I'm somewhat new to MMO's, I've only played FF14 since release so a couple of months, and I want to make sure that I am playing correctly. Today while running Garuda HM some guy absolutely freaked out on me, because my Windbite hit for 129. I have full DL w/ one lvl 49 Spinel Ring and relic weapon, so is that bad? What am I doing wrong that it's hitting so low.

Other than that if anyone could give me some advice to my normal rotation that would be great. It is as follows:

Straight Shot-Bloodletter-Windbite-Silence(depending on fight)-Venomous Bite-spam HeavyShot, then bloodletter/straighter shot when available and dots when there's 1-2 seconds left. Oh and Flaming Arrow at begging of fight, and whenever it's available.

For buffs I use them all at the beginning of fight and again once they are available. I kinda feel like that's not the right way to maximize effectiveness so some advice would be great. Thank you in advance to anyone who responds!

[Lecreuset]

That's what I do except buffs, I use them in between GCD with a 1 button macro that casts them one by one when I spam it then I refresh DoTs.. I usually let windbite fall off before I recast it followed by Venomous bite. Those last ticks on both DoTs often resets blood letter for me

[SlyRoyale]

It doesn't look like there's a problem with your rotation or your gear. If anything, I bet that the player who freaked out on your low Windbite damage probably isn't aware of its low Attack Potency. Windbite has an Attack Potency of 60 and 45 for each tick. Compare that to Venomous Bite, which has a higher Attack Potency of 100 but a lower tick potency of 35. In fact, I'm not surprised by amount of damage your Windbite did. If anything, that player probably expected it to be a critical rather than a normal hit. Also, if you had either Mage's Ballad or Army's Paeon active that would decrease your damage by 20% (although I'm unsure about this since you didn't mention using songs in your opening post). Those are the only things that come to mind.

[pizzaisgood]

No songs were up atm, and I just use songs when needed but I appreciate the info! I guess I'll never know why he got upset lol.

[Stalkster]

Who knows looks right outside of using buffs between gcd's. Maybe he had a game breaking notice that bard is not as op as he/she/some of the community thinks? lol.
I think it's funny mostly, a gun ho brd can pull hate by using all it's buffs for 30sec's at the start of the fight so it means it's "op".
I also think this is why SE is doing this, not because of brd but because to many post "brd is op" "brd needs a nerf"

Then if you ask people that play brd with people in the same gear lv that can play there job correctly, and we get brd is a lower tier dps. But I think where past that considering brd will be nerfed soon. I think when we get another non-caster ranged dps, you will see very few brd's out there. The true support role people will still play them but ya.

[Ronin]

The best way to play bard is to play support, or not play at all.
Bard are not supposed to be DPS, and if they suddenly are supposed to, then they should lose their songs, which i'd rather not see.

[Farrell]

The best way to play bard is to play support, or not play at all.
Bard are not supposed to be DPS, and if they suddenly are supposed to, then they should lose their songs, which i'd rather not see.

Bssically, you just want someone there to buff your character? Am I hearing you right?

[Lecreuset]

I still can't queue in as a support.. only DPS

[Zeronic]

Not that I am an expert but your rotation seems fine. Songs are need to be used situationally. I don't use all my buffs at once, but I created 3 macro's that use 2 buffs at a time (For instance, Raging strikes+ Barrage). That way, I can use multiple buffs trough the battle.

[Thorauku]

The best way to play bard is to play support, or not play at all.
Bard are not supposed to be DPS, and if they suddenly are supposed to, then they should lose their songs, which i'd rather not see.

Tell me more about it, the MP consumption of Songs sucks, without Songs to use, which skill of BRD can actually support considering their skill set, which I don't know what SE smoked when they conceptualized BRD.