Wide Volley and Rain of Death are completely useless (BRD)

[Hammerfist]

With the 2.1 nerf the Rain of Death debuff has been switched from a reduced damage to a decreased evasion, but being that in this game there have NEVER been any issues with accuracy (apart from Second Coil maybe, but reaching the accuracy cap is always the safest choice anyway), Rain of Death is now mainly used for saving TP with the Wide Volley proc and for giving the free TP proc for Quick Nock.

However, there is one problem: as it is now, spamming Quick Nock will actually save you way more TP than using Wide Volley and waiting for the proc.

I know that it sounds strange, but I'll now demonstrate which AoE damage method is the best (I won't take Invigorate or Paeon into consideration, but even by using them things wouldn't change):

-With Quick Nock (QN) spamming, you use 140 TP for QN and regen 60 TP at about every GCD, therefore consuming 80 TP for each QN.
Before having to wait for TP regen in order to do another QN, you'll be able to use QN 11 times and you'll be left with 120 TP.
Also, as QN costs 140 TP, during TP starvation you'll have to wait on average 2 GCDs before being able to use another QN.

-With Wide Volley (WV) spamming, you use 160 TP for WV and regen 60 TP at about every GCD, therefore consuming 100 TP for each WV; on average you'll proc 1 free Rain of Death (RoD) every 7 Wide Volleys (15% proc chance) and a free Quick Nock will almost never proc.
Before having to wait for TP regen in order to do another WV, there can be 3 cases:
if you never proc it (which happens more often than you might think) you''ll be able to use WV 9 times and you'll be left with 120 TP;
if you proc it one time (the average), you'll use WV 10 times and RoD 1 time, for a total of 11 attacks and 0 TP left;
if you proc it 2 times (very low chance), you'll use WV 10 times and RoD 2 times, for a total of 12 attacks and 60 TP left.
Also, as WV costs 20 TP more than QN, during TP starvation you'll have to wait on average 3 GCDs before being able to use another WV, one more GCD than QN.

Since the average Wide Volley spam is inferior to the Quick Nock spam (0TP left vs 120TP left and RoD has also 10 less potency than both QN and WV), the ONLY case in which using WV is more convenient than spamming QN is if you can get at least 2 procs out of 9 WV (which is very unlikely and even then the bonus would be minimal), therefore making the Quick Nock spam much more TP convienient and, as a consequence, making Wide Volley and Rain of Death completely useless (their only current use would be for doing AoE damage from far away or while moving, but there are very few situations that require this).

One way to make them useful again would be to simply increase the proc chance of both Wide Volley and Rain of Death from 15% to 25%, as it'd make the Wide Volley > Rain of Death > Quick Nock proc combo more TP efficient (and less boring) than a simple Quick Nock spam, so please take this into consideration ^^

[BazFamrit]

I've only dabbled with brd but not having to be in melee range and line up perfectly for a quick knock seems worth the extra 20 tp for Wide volley. And the chance of free aoe attacks is always a nice addition.

From limited archer experience, quick knock doesn't seem to have a very large range and limits your mobility.

[Hammerfist]

I've only dabbled with brd but not having to be in melee range and line up perfectly for a quick knock seems worth the extra 20 tp for Wide volley. And the chance of free aoe attacks is always a nice addition.

From limited archer experience, quick knock doesn't seem to have a very large range and limits your mobility.

At level 36 you get the Enhanced Quick Nock trait that extends its range to 12 yalms, so by using Quick Nock you'll be able to hit pretty much everything that stands in front of you in a 150° cone.

[NintenPyjak64]

This is coming from one of my group's Bards when we brought up the question the other day:

Taking brayflox HM speed runs into account, let's look at the very first pull. For as much survivability as possible, a tank will want to constantly be running around (to stall out auto attacks and avoil Coeurl and Raptor AoEs). If the tank is constantly running around Quick Nock won't be hitting everything every time, so Wide Volley is much more useful here. The second pull with the glider goblins, the tank has more freedom to sit there and face tank so the mobs are in a static position. Quick Nock is definitely the better option here to save on TP usage, plus you can easily position yourself to hit everything everytime

Basically: It will depend on the scenario. If mobs are being more mobile then Wide Volley is better Damage/TP spent whereas if mobs are static then Quick Nock is better damage/TP spent

[Maero]

Yes but are you using quick knock @ level 50 instead of wide volley?
I look at quick knock as a pre-level 50 ability as rarely do i ever need/use it for coil ex primals, hm dungeons and such, wide volley is my go to since our group does mass pulls.
And if Bards know how to manage tp, really it is of no issue, invigorate is a must have for Bards as well.
Only times i do use quick knock is when it procs.

[BazFamrit]

At level 36 you get the Enhanced Quick Nock trait that extends its range to 12 yalms, so by using Quick Nock you'll be able to hit pretty much everything that stands in front of you in a 150° cone.

Ahh. That would give it some use. Still, the 15% chance at saving 200 tp on an aoe attack that requires no special positioning sounds quite nice. 15% might not sound like a lot but if you get just 1 rain proc On 10 wide volleys(15%should net you about 1.5 procs on 10 shots) you're pretty much break even in tp usage. If you get 2 procs in the same span you're up 200tp. And if you happen to proc quick knock on the rain you're up 340tp. A slight gamble but worth it if you're lucky.

Like ninten said, it depends on the situation but wide volley and rain of death are far from useless.

[Riepah]

Agree with OP. I've been using Quick Nock exclusively for months, most Bards however stick to Wide Volley, even after I tell them Quick Nock is the better choice since the RoD nerf, insisting on wasting their TP. Quick Nock's cone is huge enough, all you have to do is position yourself correctly and you'll very easily hit everything in front of you.

If you are a lucky person and get procs all the time, Wide Volley is better, but if you want reliable damage at a moderate TP cost, Quick Nock it is.

[Elurra]

I would like to see a change to create an AOE combo for bards. Give us a reason to do Wide Volley > Rain of Death > Quick Nock. Or maybe the other way would be better, since that's the order you learn them in. Quick Nock > Rain of Death > Wide Volley.

Something like:
Quick Nock (potency: 110) >> Rain of Death (combo action: QN potency: 120) >> Wide Volley (combo action: RoD potency: 130)

[YanderePrincess]

I have no opinion on the TP issue, but regarding the evasion reduction from Rain of Death...

There's a number of places where this is actually useful. Generally, the acc cap for dps is lower than for tanks because we're hitting from the flank or rear. However, for certain adds, we're forced to hit from the front and generally we don't gear for -that- acc cap because it's only a portion of the fight. Example, the snakes in Twintania. What I do on bard is use Rain of Death when the snakes appear so that their evasion is lowered and the fact that we don't all meet the acc requirement for them (while we do meet the acc requirement for twintania herself) becomes irrelevant. Similar idea can be done for the bees in T6.

[Maxu]

BRD AoE is hot trash? More at 11! Only reason to ever use Wide Volley atm is if your AoE partner is garbage and you hope to god you get a RoD proc to save TP. Does there need to be changes? Eh nah not really. If everyone does their job you cover other classes also not so great AoE and everything works out fine(or you can just run with a BLM :>)