Bard Song Transition

[JackBlaine]

Hey guys,

Firstly apologies if this has been answered before but after hours of browsing I've found no answers.

The issue, simply, is this - when transitioning from Paeon back to Wanderers phase, how do people deal with refreshing dots, raging strikes use and straight shot?
I've been using the opener again every minuet phase and I feel it's losing me dps.

Could anyone give some advice for a savage raid scenario? I don't want to hold my group back with poor dps.

Thanks all in advance!

[Cetonis]

Personally, I typically transition with HS - WM - SS - RS+EA (variants of this are fine too), and then fish for RA. If no RA, then when EA comes back it's Bar+EA - IJ, unless I had to Jaws earlier.

Doing a "double snap" - using Jaws at the start and end of a buff - for Raging Strikes isn't typically worth it, unless your DoTs are ticking low (say, sub-10s) when you first use Raging. But even then, other buffs (on the existing DoTs, expected in the future, or running around the same time as Raging) can impact the math on that.

So "repeating your opener", in that sense, isn't a good idea because in many cases it will be best to only use Jaws once. Going out of your way double snap Jaws under some buff is usually only good for crit buffs (Battle Litany, Chain Strategem, or solo Spear), and the reason it's done in the opener is because you expect such things to be present there. That won't be the case for every WM though.

p.s. if you find you're getting low numbers, the first thing to check is always your GCD count. For Bard, (Autoattack count * 3.04 / GCD count) should ideally come out around 2.45 or whatever your current GCD recast time is, give or take a few hundredths for margin of error and the odd intentional GCD delay due to EA things.

If it's like 2.6 though, or worse, then you simply aren't staying on top of your GCD well enough. It's a super common problem, and usually the number one suspect behind any damage-is-low-pls-help case.

[Vespar]

There's really no need to redo your opener over and over after the initial go.
Once dots are on I just refresh them with iron jaws when it gets to less than 10seconds remaining.

As for straight shot, I actually have mine macro'd to use either Refulgent Arrow if its available or Straight Shot if its not so that I dont miss Refulgent procs if its up. From there I just keep an eye on my Straight shot recast timer/bar.

In regards to Raging Strikes, after the opener is complete its kind of up to you really. Some may argue that with me but after my opener I usually reserve it for Raging Strikes > Barrage > Empyreal Arrow combo rather than dots since its more unpredictable when I'll need to refresh dots and whether R.S is available at that time. You could hold Raging Strikes until you need to refresh dots though and just use it before you use iron jaws. Up to you really.

Good luck~

[JackBlaine]

Thanks for the advice guys! Been getting much better results with those pointers.

Yet to clear V2S but I'll find a good group soon!