BRD AOE

[Maduro]

Is there a limit on how many enemies the BRD AOE can hit? I've noticed the last few times on Sastasha Hard when the tank rounds up a bunch of enemies, that some of them don't take any damage from my AOE. It looks like the tank has them all grouped pretty well and I normally try to target one in the middle so it will hit all of them, but on almost all occasions it won't hit all of them. Because of this I've been leaning towards multi-DOTing the groups because I inevitably have no TP left after the first group dies when I use the AOE. Is this the right thing to do, or should I just burn all of my tp, turn on Paeon and then just slowly kill the last stragglers?

[whiskeybravo]

I've noticed sometimes Wide Volley does not always hit targets next to it, but looking closer at it the range is 5y instead of Rain of Death's 8y, so that may be why.

3 enemies or less is probably best to multi-dot. Anything more though you might was well start AoE, Invigorate, Aoe some more, then play Paeon if needed.

** I'm not a bard expert, or really an expert at all :P

[Maero]

Typically i reserve songs for healers and yes if not careful (aoe spamming) you will run out of tp.
As for missing, yes they will not always hit, i just think it is the nature of it
It is more about when to pop in invigorate to replenish your tp. I usually use invigorate at slighly bellow half of my tp bar.
1-3 enemies possibly even 4> multi dot, anymore then that then you can aoe.
Just an opinion of course but to aoe when there is only about 3 enemies is a huge waste of tp and should be avoided

[RiceisNice]

It really boils down to circumstances and experience. If it's 3 or even 4 targets, I typically stick with multidotting while using all bloodletters down on a single target. You'll eventually get the hang of identifying when it's good to use your AoE abilities so that the enemies die just as you near your TP limit, or switch to single target with misery's end. It's a bit of picking off enemies too. I never have found myself using paeon in dungeons.

A thing to note with ballad is that you can typically keep yourself above the mana threshold to maintain it when you use battle voice with it, provided you have at least 250 or so mp. I personally use that as a reserve for when the healers need ballad during the encounter, and sing foe req otherwise.

You should also try to position yourself so that it's preferable to use quick notch rather than RoD/Wide Volley, due to the lower TP cost. The proc isn't high enough to justify WV's higher TP cost for free RoDs.