Advice for returning to Bard after 12 months

[Arielyanna]

As the title of the thread suggests... It's been over a year since I played as BRD (got it to 50) and as it's the next class I'm going to work on, I need some advice/tips for hotbar setup, rotations and the like.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Neela]

just be aware of the major concept change with lvl 52. if you aren't godlike in stance dance you have to get used to a very different playstyle you may remember. MW will boost your overall dmg but definitly decreases your mobility cause of the castbar – and all your upcoming dmg skills are related to this stance like Emperial Arrow or Sidewinder.

on the other hand there is a damn good skill to refresh your dots at once - my smn heart is crying for something like that. :3

[MPNZ]

Well, once you get Empyrial Arrow and Ironjaws: you will just have to relearn the how to play as a bard, and basically become a black mage, which has been just a real murder to the talent-pool of acceptable bards. We have a lot more to deal with in terms of keeping up optimal DPS while not totally forgetting that you need to play songs. We also get warden's Paeon which is useless if you can barely keep up with everything as is.

On a positive note: PLD and WAR are way easier to master than BRD now, IMO.

[LilLemay]

Well, once you get Empyrial Arrow and Ironjaws: you will just have to relearn the how to play as a bard, and basically become a black mage, which has been just a real murder to the talent-pool of acceptable bards. We have a lot more to deal with in terms of keeping up optimal DPS while not totally forgetting that you need to play songs. We also get warden's Paeon which is useless if you can barely keep up with everything as is.

On a positive note: PLD and WAR are way easier to master than BRD now, IMO.

PLD yes, WAR? eeeh, BRD isn't functionally too hard to master, it's just no one wants to because they get so attached to pre-WM bard that once WM hits they just get lazy.

Post WM plays basically the same as before you get it, keep straight shot going, keep your dots up, use heavy shot if you've got nothing else, shoot your straight shot procs, shoot your bloodletter procs, the only difference here is now you've got a cast bar, three more abilities to use (two of which fit into your rotation pretty damn naturally), and have to think alittle harder about your songs and buff weaving

[vp_cmc]

Are there any guides how to do stance dancing on Brd? For Mch this is a thing because mch doesn't have any rng-based ogcd procs. But if you turn off WM, the moment you have a random BL proc, you are at dps loss, aren't you?

[Neela]

honestly i think stance dance is kinda old fashion... because like you said there are procs you can't calculate with and going with sks as 2nd substat your casttime will decrease at all - although having EA and SW on dc while refreshing your dots will give you a pretty small timeslot to stance dance at all. although i was told that mastering the dancing is still dps increase... i don't know if its really worth the stress and afford.... hmm saying that i haven't played Brd in endgame for a long time now.

[Chevronone]

There is no stance dancing. It's not worth the headache. WM 100%, put Feint on your bar to allow you to at least keep dps up if you must move. You can move and shoot with Feint with WM up. The end.

[Slevin_Impudicus]

...snip...and all your upcoming dmg skills are related to this stance like Emperial Arrow or Sidewinder.

just wanted to point out that Sidewinder is not tied to WM.

I suggest going to SSS when you get WM. Run through it without WM. You can use the SSS calculator to estimate your DPS. Go back in with WM and practice until you surpass the non-WM numbers by enough that it's worth the hassle to sacrifice some mobility. Repeat at each level increase. It may actually take several levels before WM becomes a net gain. If you tend to accidentally cancel your skills 1 out of every 10 casts, it's a good bet that you would do more dps out of WM.

[Greedalox]

There is no stance dancing. It's not worth the headache. WM 100%, put Feint on your bar to allow you to at least keep dps up if you must move. You can move and shoot with Feint with WM up. The end.

I don't know if Bard follows different rules for Stance Dancing than MCH, but it's not an exceptionally difficult concept to try to bring into your kit. You should attempt to implement it WHILE you're learning the changes to gameplay when you get WM/GB instead of learning your cast bars and then relearning your cast bars + toggling when your damage starts to plateau from your class comprehension and you're looking for where to improve.

I just don't think that whole heartily discouraging optimal play for 'good enough' is a great concept to teach our less learned players. They'll find their balance :3

[HyoMinPark]

Post-50 BRD will take some getting used to. As many others have said, the addition of Wanderer's Minuet gives BRD cast bars, but once you get used to them (and since I see your main class is listed as THM/BLM, so you are probably already used to cast bars anyways), and master the art of "ghost-casting" while DPSing and dodging AOEs, I think you will do just fine. I was never one to flail around and endlessly kite things pre-50 anyways, so the concept of not moving wasn't that hard for me to get used to.

Two of your skills--Empyreal Arrow and Iron Jaws--will become your best friends. After Sidewinder, Empyreal Arrow is your most potent attack, and whenever Barrage is off-cooldown, you should always use it with Empyreal Arrow. Sidewinder is not dependent on WM, but Empyreal Arrow and Iron Jaws are. When you use Sidewinder, make sure to always use it with both of your DoTs active, as it has a potency of 260 only when Windbite and Venomous Bite have been applied to a target. Also, Warden's Paeon is pretty useful for cleansing debuffs off of yourself--it works like an Esuna, and gives you protection against another debuff for 30 seconds after it is used. For only having a 45-second cooldown, I think it's pretty nice. I cannot tell you how many times I have used it to free myself of a bleed or paralyze debuff when a healer is either: too busy keeping up a tank, DPSing and ignoring cleansing debuffs, or generally not giving a crap. So saying it's useless is incorrect.

I would not recommend stance dancing. While you will get your auto-attacks back (WM removes auto-attacks), your overall DPS will still be lower than it would be with WM on, since it augments your damage by 30%, and auto-attacks only make up 15-20%. You will also not have access to Empyreal Arrow, or Iron Jaws, and since the ideal stats for WM BRD (Crit/Skill Speed) and non-WM BRD (Crit/Det) are different, your DPS will also suffer because of that. It also has a 15 second cooldown--so you can't just toggle it on and toggle it off as easily as you can Cleric Stance. I have never stance-danced on bard, and I don't think my DPS suffers because I know how to still dodge AOEs while upkeeping my damage output. I very rarely come in contact with BRDs that do stance-dance.