LF BRD : a solid opener + rotation

[Mature]

So i decided to take a break from SMN for a while and I've been testing my Brd rotations with the a12s dummy. I can break the dummy with 12-16 seconds left on the clock (ilvl 269) i feel way behind everyone else (with my SMN I can break it with 46 secs left) . I must be missing something somewhere. When watching a video to compare is o difficult to follow a brd rotation cause RNG (blood letter procs etc)

Could someone be kind enough to help with a good opener and first phase rotation?

Thanks x

(My stats : Acc 672 no food Critical 1182 det 440 SS 800+) around this numbers

[Yeol]

Hope this helps

[Mature]

Thank you deer I'll have a look! Thanks for replying!

[drgnmstr44]

followed that link to the openers. I mained bard for a good while till my company need a tank. that opener is garbage. Foe's requiem ONLY helps spell casters. It does not help monks, dragoons, ninja's or tanks to DPS much. People seem to miss the tooltip "Reduces all enemy magic resistance by 10%." If you wan't doing magic damage, than you're wasting MP and your own damage by putting this up. Poison from venomous bite isn't magic and the only magic damage bards do is the little bit from windbite. not worth throwing your MP around for 10% increase for just you. Bards are meant to be ranged support, you have to weight which songs to use and when. if you waste your MP for minimal boost to only your damage and your healer needs mana for some reason, you have no MP to help. Things to think about

[Kitfox]

snip

Windbite isn't magical. To be exact, BRDs do no magic damage what-so-ever. Throwing your MP for increased magic damage is more useful than not using it at all. All casters, including healers, in your party benefit from it. Foe's Requiem doesn't reduce your DPS except for the short cast time, so why not do it? You only sing MP/TP when needed later in the fight, most of the time it isn't even needed (read: all casual content).

Did you really main BRD?

[Tsilyi]

Things to think about

seriously hoping this is a troll post. to answer the only potentially valid point in your post, if your healers need mana before you can refill your ENTIRE mana bar after singing foes for the duration at the beginning of the fight, something probably went terribly wrong. even if this isn't the case and you do need mana early on for your healers, you can at least sing foesfor the duration of BV and then recharge your mana early.

[HyoMinPark]

followed that link to the openers. I mained bard for a good while till my company need a tank. that opener is garbage. Foe's requiem ONLY helps spell casters. It does not help monks, dragoons, ninja's or tanks to DPS much. People seem to miss the tooltip "Reduces all enemy magic resistance by 10%." If you wan't doing magic damage, than you're wasting MP and your own damage by putting this up. Poison from venomous bite isn't magic and the only magic damage bards do is the little bit from windbite. not worth throwing your MP around for 10% increase for just you. Bards are meant to be ranged support, you have to weight which songs to use and when. if you waste your MP for minimal boost to only your damage and your healer needs mana for some reason, you have no MP to help. Things to think about

If a group has decent players, there will always be a member that Foe's can benefit: healers. Healer DPS is no joke, and it is a thing. And why not give them Foe's? Foe's does not lower your DPS in any shape or form. Only Mage's Ballad and Army's Paeon lower your damage dealt by 10%. And a decent bard will play Foe's for a DPSing healer. If, by some reason, they need to switch to another song in the middle of Foe's, it's entirely possible. That's part of being a good BRD: using your songs, and knowing how to handle situations were you may need to interrupt one song for another. MP regen is decent enough to give you MP later on if, for some reason, you have to play Mage's or Army's. Chances are that you will not have to play either during the first minute of the fight (Foe's lasts roughly 70-75 seconds), so you're free to play Foe's. A bard who does not sing is not worth anything.

Foe's also does affect some of a NIN's ninjutsus, as well as a few attacks that DRK has (Dark Passenger, Unleash, Abysmal Drain, to name a few). BRDs don't benefit from Foe's at all. We may have cast times now, but we aren't "casters." None of our skills deal magic damage.

I need to understand where I'm going wrong and i think is on the second raging strikes and hawks eye.

Bards have a pretty decent buff alignment. Make sure you have Internal Release cross-classed, in addition to Blood for Blood.

In your opener, you are basically going to blow everything: pop every buff to get that lovely burst that Bards have. After that, the alignments for buffs and skills are very easy.

-- Every 60 seconds: Internal Release, Flaming Arrow, and Sidewinder should all be coming off cooldown. Always pop IR before you Sidewinder in hopes for a lovely crit (and make sure both your DoTs are up! :3).
-- Every 80-90 seconds: Blood for Blood will be off cooldown. HOWEVER, you want to hold on to it until Hawk's Eye is also off cooldown. You then pair them together, along with Barrage (90 second cooldown), and Barrage + Empyreal Arrow. Always, always, always use Barrage with EA. For sub-54 content, Barrage your Heavy Shot, but for 60 content, always EA. If your Barrage is coming off cooldown in less than 15 seconds, just hold EA until you can Barrage, rather than have to wait.
-- Every 120 seconds: Raging Strikes is coming off cooldown. And so is Internal Release, Flaming Arrow, and Sidewinder. Pop RS + IR, and then Sidewinder and hope to get an even better buffed crit.

You should always repeat those buff/skill alignments. There may be a time where all your buffs are off cooldown, and in that case, I usually do my opener again, and then go back to following the buff clock. Your buff should always be on cooldown, as well as Sidewinder, Empyreal Arrow, and Bloodletter. Also, during each sets of buffs, they should last long enough for you to refresh your DoTs with Iron Jaws, and get a set of buffed DoTs. Some bards will clip early, and try to get double buffed DoTs during buffs, which you can also do. But all your buffs last long enough that IJ will fall somewhere in them while they're active.

Couple more tips: Don't pop buffs if you have weakness, or if you are having to sing Mage's Ballad/Army's Paeon. Wait until weakness wears off/you aren't singing anymore to begin popping buffs.

Without seeing your rotation, I can't really tell you what you may be doing wrong, since I don't have a timeline of the skills/buffs you used to follow. But hopefully those tips can help you out a bit. :3
I'm no 95 percentile Savage raider, but I am a fairly decent Bard. So I feel confident in giving you these tips, even though I've never set foot in A12S.

[Dzian]

followed that link to the openers. I mained bard for a good while till my company need a tank. that opener is garbage. Foe's requiem ONLY helps spell casters. It does not help monks, dragoons, ninja's or tanks to DPS much. People seem to miss the tooltip "Reduces all enemy magic resistance by 10%." If you wan't doing magic damage, than you're wasting MP and your own damage by putting this up. Poison from venomous bite isn't magic and the only magic damage bards do is the little bit from windbite. not worth throwing your MP around for 10% increase for just you. Bards are meant to be ranged support, you have to weight which songs to use and when. if you waste your MP for minimal boost to only your damage and your healer needs mana for some reason, you have no MP to help. Things to think about

Foe req doesn't lower your dps. Dunno why so many bards think it does.

[Cetonis]

If you're in progression and worried about healers going OOM, the answer is to have some ethers handy so that you can sing even if you burn your MP out. You realistically shouldn't need Pots for prog unless they do another Gordias, and by the time you're clear-ready and pushing final enrage the healers shouldn't have surprise mana issues.

[Mature]

So coming back to this thread i made few weeks back. I'm comfortable with my opening now but for some reason i cannot pass 2100k dps

I'm ilvl270
Accuracy 703
Skill speed 818
Critical 1120
Determination 565

I decided to go into videos and have a look at what am missing or what I'm doing wrong.its impossible to follow a rotation due RNG procs.

I can break the a12s dummy conformably with 7secs left. my top one was 17 seconds left no idea how.

I've done this without food or pots. Could someone be honest enough to tell me what's the time left on the a12s dummy with your rotation? With no food or pots.

I need to understand where I'm going wrong and i think is on the second raging strikes and hawks eye.

Thanks in advance

(Only started using bard since the day i posted this thread)