Bard' DPS

[cgbspender]

Hi !

Disclaimer, Bard isn't my main job. I main a white mage. My FC mates have lately reached i170 and we've been guiding them through Alexander (Normal), so they range anywhere within 170 > 190.

I don't think I'm a spectacular bard at all. I use my GcD's everytime they're up, I play songs for my fellow mages and above everything I refresh DoTs and use priority skills as soon as available.
I've been "stuck" as a bard to run with my FC fellows are there are too many healers and too few bards. So Im trying to get better in the process.

We ran the first 3 floors of Alex today, to help my friends get their clears, and one of the tanks parsed us. in A3.

The results being :
Bard (me) : 693 dps
SMN : 565 dps
MNK : 503 dps
Drk : 398 dps
BLM : 392 dps
War : 387 dps

Obviously they were not yet comfortable with the fight. Even though we were guiding them on Teamspeak, they were hesitating about when to move and such. Their own dps will likely increase as they run it multiple times. Seriously no doubt about it.
As for me, I'm used to the fight. I know where to stand and when. However, I suspect my DPS is way too low. We will eventually get into Alex Savage and I'm willing to push much more by then. I don't expect to deal 1000 or 1300 DPS like the ones we see on fflogs, but at least 900 would be fine, right ?

I have no idea of what DPS I should have been doing in A3, 600? 700 ? 900 ? 1000 ? (nor do I have a clue about what I should be doing in A1S). I need some input.
I had requiem up most of the time, and had to cast manasong for a couple of minutes, if that matters.

For the record, I'm ilvl 199, my weapon is eso 200, and most of my gear is an SS / Crit build. Maybe this is what I'm doing wrong ?

Thanks for your help.

[Warlyx]

im going to sound blunt , but almost the whole party was doing 1/3 of what the real dmg they should be doing... or u copy pasted it wrong

for BRD guide there is plenty by i like how krietor explains it the most.

http://angered.guildwork.com/forum/t...ide-by-krietor

[cgbspender]

I suspected so for my fellows. As as whm, I can push up to about 400 against this boss, and there's no good reason blm and mnk do the same. They should be much higher. Those 2 players were the new guys. They were a bit "lost" as I mentionned. (not even mentionning their law-gears)

Thanks for the bard guide, I'll take a look ^^

How is Foe affecting my DPS in a parse btw ? Is my damage reduction (and blm's increased damages) taken into account ?

[KidSerge]

How is Foe affecting my DPS in a parse btw ? Is my damage reduction (and blm's increased damages) taken into account ?

Foes doesn't lower your damage, nor would a parse take the blms numbers into account for you.
The songs that do lower your damage would show a decrease in your own numbers

[ExiaQuanta]

A1 to A3 has alot of downtime in the fight, so expecting a "high" parse is kinda meh. I think you want to end the fight though atleast in the 900s at i199. But i think for progress, in terms of A1 Savage i think ending the fight with 800 should be okay. I think it will be kinda hard for us to tell you what your doing wrong without watching how you play. I mean, it could be that you clip your dots to early or you let your dots drop off completely b4 reapply? Maybe playing to conservative with CDs? Move to much that you can't cast? lot of factors.

[Maero]

The above posters are correct and no Foe does not affect your dps at all. While Alex normal less dps is needed then that of Savage but the numbers of your group are rather low, not only the monk but the blm is super low. It is to be expected however if they are not familiar, i think my first run as blm i may of been around 700ish mark, this was with law weapon if i recall.
I know your just doing alex normal but just so you and your group are aware Faust (did i spell right? lol) alone for A1 savage a minimum of 1000 dps is needed by each member ideally. A1 i have heard is sort of hard to parse, i don't know as i be on PS4.
Overall i do think you are on track and can probably guide them, yourself you are getting there. Enjoy it and have fun

[Mikedizzy]

Remember that they (the rest of your party) is not geared to do some of the numbers that are considered "top" or near top for progression. If you are Bard at iLv199 you should be doing more, but like you said you are newer to the job as you main WHM I think. On Faust alone though you can be hitting like 1300 or more as a good gauge if you have your rotation down. I do that and I am not an expert by any means that never makes any mistakes. The pro's out there on bard probably do even more.
When the others get their gear though to like iLv 200 and in that range should be pulling much...much...higher than the numbers you have in here. Someone I believe said you need like 6700 Raid dps which means everyone has to be pulling pretty damn good numbers. So the true test is Faust first of all to see if everyone has the basic knowledge of their rotations. If you are not beating Faust (savage version) everyone needs to tighten up their rotations or change them.

[ruskie]

For bard you generally want ~600sks(for single target, for multi target(a2s just boost crit and det), everything else crit > det as preference after hitting accuracy cap for the content.

And you'll get better, just practice more, use all ogcds, figure out what opener works best for you, pull timers, pre buffing, food etc...

[MrCookTM]

First of all, I wouldn't advise you to jump into savage too soon. Alex normal is pretty much story mode content, while savage is the hardest of the hard and is a major challenge even for experienced players. The numbers you posted aside, it seems like the guys you're doing content with are not only undergeared, but also pretty new to their classes and the game in general. My suggestion would be going the progress route HW gives you in terms of difficulty, which means beating Bismarck and Ravana ex first before attempting savage, while saving up eso for weapons (first purchase!!!) and left side pieces after, doing alex normal to farm i190 gear and doing weekly void ark for i200 and upgrade materials. Direct them to some guides for their jobs so can learn and improve their openers/rotations and get comfortable with them. Once you can farm Rav ex comfortably without too much hassle, that's the point to attempt A1 savage. To give you a rough number: in order to beat A1s, you want to aim for at least 4500-4700 raid dps to beat enrage, which is a number you're still far away from with your group.

Don't try to force it in order to not get ppl frustrated early, let ppl gear up amd get comfortable with job-/game mechanics and execution, do content in the order of relative difficulty, and I'm sure you will get there eventually.

[cgbspender]

I've been working hard on this guide. After a few days of training (dummies), I went to try what I learnt on all floors of Alex (NM) and could maintain an average DPS of 950-1050 on all of them. Thank you all for the support and for that significant improvement in DPS you helped me reach !