Bard's DPS in endgame.

[givemeraptors]

Anytime, bub. Saying no other song should be played leaves little room for exceptions though.

Yeah, I wasn't being super serious. I do think most content doesn't require Bard songs, it can just make things far easier, especially for progression. It's always tough when theorycrafting things like this to balance out:

1) Gear. Is the party overgeared or undergeared?
2) Experience. Is this a progression party or a farm party?

It's like the debate between using Selene and Eos. Eos is, imo, a fairy you use when your party sucks or is flying completely blind. Her healing boost is completely unnecessary for me personally. But the two questions above really change what you want your fellow party members to be doing or using during a fight.

[Akesis]

Anytime, bub. Saying no other song should be played leaves little room for exceptions though.


I don't think it's any of those, the majority of melee DPS I've talked to and many threads I've read all complain of TP issues during T8. My bard has 469 SS and combined with Selene being out, I am consistently sitting at 100 or less TP around the time the second dread spawns. Even just doing my rotation on a target dummy without Selene, I hit 0TP for a good 20-30 seconds before I can use invigorate a third time.

The 30 TP might not seem like a lot, but it's the difference between being able to keep your dots and straight shot up or just having to spam heavyshot till invigorate is back.

A rough Quote from my first post:
No other song should be sang, unless someone dies or people are playing poorly.

Running into TP issues is a problem for a lot of "average" players because they think they have to spam their buttons no matter what in order to maximize their dps. They don't see the larger picture. Prioritizing your shot choice before you get so low that you can no longer do anything is what sustaining is. You just stated that you don't or are unsure of how to do it (by the statement that you run out yourself). Just because you can put damage out every 2.5 seconds(or less) doesn't mean that you have to. 3 attacks is NOTHING, which is the part of all of my posts that you are missing. If you are at the point that 3 attacks are making a difference... you messed up a long time ago. The damage you loose by slowing down a little for a few seconds is nominal compared to the damage that you are loosing by debuffing yourself, your healers and your casters. The exact same thing is correct for MNK and DRG. Your statement leads me to believe that you are not adapting to your gear and the new play style that you have to use. 469 isn't crazy high, I have seen BRD's with 550 SS (before Selene). They never used TP song and were able to maintain their dps.

I have been saying it for the several days that I have been posting here. GO TEST. If your specific group with your specific gear and specific players just cant manage without TP song. Then play it. However, learning to manage TP and singing Foe will be a raid-wide dps increase every time. Putting in the time to learn how to play with the intent of maximizing themselves with changes in gear seems to be too much for some people though. (not directed at anyone in specific, just a blanket statement about the average player in most MMO's)

[Akesis]

Even just doing my rotation on a target dummy without Selene, I hit 0TP for a good 20-30 seconds before I can use invigorate a third time.

The 30 TP might not seem like a lot, but it's the difference between being able to keep your dots and straight shot up or just having to spam heavyshot till invigorate is back.

If you know this is an issue, why do you continue to do the same thing over and over? Why don't you work on sustaining? Run your first 400 tp with all your glory, pop invigorate. Slightly slow your rotation. maybe hold on to that Straighter Shot proc for a few seconds, or until the timer is about to expire instead of right as it comes up. Maybe let your dots fall off the boss for 1-2 maybe even 3 seconds a couple of times between your first and third invigorate. Maybe put up Foe a couple of times for 30 secs, missing 1gcd of damage while casting the song isn't much, but if you are trying to make up for the three shots that you gained from singing AP, you just gained 2 of them right there. Doing small things like this will only drop your dps a couple of points over the course of the fight. But, in doing so, you just sustained yourself and actually raised your dps because you don't have to sing TP or go 20-30 seconds only using HS. These are the kind of things that I am talking about when it comes to Maximizing your and your raids dps.

[OPneedNerfs]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation

Even if you sing tp song the whole fight whenever possible, people will still run put of tp as they will compensate by lowering their use of invigorate and use higher tp consuming skills. In a normal scenario for t8 now, tp song only needs to be up for approx 15s if everyone is managing their tp to tide them over before the next invigorate. Other times you should be singing foe's or a bit of ballad.

[Empty-handed]

going to thru the max priority rotation for bard. you can use to up to 2invegorates. by that time you will run out of tp eventually before the 3rd invegorate is up.

this is normal in t8. and yeah put up tp song till 3rd invegorate is up.

and exactly by around this time if you have a SMN in pt they run out of mp and would call for Ballad.

so while waiting for 3rd invegorate: 1) tp song. 2) invegorate is up, use it. 3) ballad for smn (if required). after that. Foe whenever possible.