Brd rotation guide?

[Crushnight]

Trying to get a grips with brd is their a 4.5 written rotation guide around as i find it easier to learn via text rather than videos?

[Seraphyel]

This website is very helpful:

https://thebalanceffxiv.com/jobguides/

I think their Bard guide is still up to date, helped me a lot to understand the basics.

[HyoMinPark]

There is a massive BRD guide out there for optimization — it’s a bit outdated, but still a fairly decent source. BRD hasn’t changed much throughout SB.

BRD Guide


In terms of rotation, BRD is all about priority.

Your basic priority system is: DoTs (this includes upkeep with Iron Jaws) > Straight Shot Buff > Songs > oGCDs/procs > Refulgent Arrow > Heavy Shot for filler.

—Most of BRD’s damage comes from upkeeping their DoTs. You always want them up on a target, and you always want to refresh them at ~3 seconds or less remaining. Optimizing your DoTs involves snapshoting personal and party buffs, but, generally speaking, you just want to refresh them every 30 seconds (at level 64+; below level 64, it’s every 18 seconds).

—Straight Shot gives you +10% critical hit chance. Since BRD’s entire Repertoire mechanic revolves around critical hit procs off of your DoTs, you want to make sure your SS buff is always up (not only for oGCDs and HS filler, but for DoT refresh as well). More crit = more proc chances = more damage.

—BRD has a very strict song rotation (though it can deviate from it in some content depending on the fight mechanics). For single target, this is always the Wanderer’s Minuet > Mage’s Ballad > Army’s Paeon in a 30-30-20 rotation (i.e., full duration Minuet, full duration Mage’s, and 20 seconds of Army’s Paeon). For AOE, it is generally Mage’s Ballad > Army’s Paeon > the Wanderer’s Minuet.

—BRD has a lot of oGCDs. You want to make sure they stay consistently on cooldown. For procs, you want to make sure you use Pitch Perfect (at 3 stacks) as soon as you get it, and always use Empyreal Arrow, Sidewinder, and Bloodletter on cooldown (technically, when you’re in Army’s Paeon, you only use EA once, but that’s an optimization thing). Use Misery’s End when it procs (which is when boss/mob HP is below 20%).
Repelling Shot doesn’t deal damage anymore, so don’t use it for that. I honestly don’t use it at all, because I don’t need a backstep when I have 100% free movement now.

—At level 70, your Heavy Shots have a chance to proc a Refulgent Arrow off of Straighter Shot. You want to use this immediately on the next GCD with one exception: Barrage is coming off cooldown in 8 seconds or less.


You also have personal buffs that you use (Raging Strikes, Barrage) that are always lined up with your the Wanderer’s Minuet window, because it is your strongest song. Barrage is always used on Empyreal Arrow UNLESS you get a Refulgent Arrow proc DURING Raging Strikes. Always use Barrage during your Raging Strikes window; do not hold Barrage for a Refulgent proc.

For party buffs, Foe Requiem is generally used whenever you have full MP. Optimization has a bit more nuance to Foe’s usage, but in general, you want your MP pool to be empty. Just be a bit careful with timing it before pulls—sometimes you can hit the server tick with it and pull aggro since arenas now rarely let you back up enough to get the boss out of range. ;w; Battle Voice requires you to be in a song to use (which you should always be in a song!), and is used essentially on cooldown, generally.


Refresh, at an optimized level, is used for Foe Requiem. Generally, though, you want to use it for your healers. I always use mine on cooldown out of force of habit, but you can do what some BRDs do and save it for when you see your healers sitting at about 50% MP. It provides 6,000 MP worth of refresh every 3-minutes.

Tactician I use as an aggro dump (BRD aggro is strong), but it’s very useful in dungeons for AOE. I rotate Invigorate first, and then Tactician. You should usually have one or the other up for just about every pull, and generally not have TP issues unless no one else in your party is AOEing and things are dying way too slow.

Palisade is a free cooldown for physical damage. Toss it on a tank on cooldown in dungeons for trash packs. It doesn’t work for magic damage, so if a boss/mobs are dealing magical damage, well, at least the thought was there lol.

Nature’s Minne is a free Convalesence on a party member of your choosing. I usually have it <tt> macro’d for the MT for the healing boost (it does work for regen ticks).

Troubadour is a bit tricky. It’s usage takes a little bit more nuance, as its mitigation changes depending on which song you’re in. Generally, though, you should be safe using it in Minuet, because raidwide damage is always magical. It is useful to use in Army’s Paeon in dungeons for tanks because it mitigates physical auto attacks from trash packs.

The Warden’s Paeon has few niche usages. Use it as a free Esuna on yourself or a party member for any debuffs that are cleansable (like the Doom in Exdeath normal mode, for example).


I tried not to go too in-depth and get too min-max-y/optimization-y on you, but if you want more information, my Discord is in my signature if you have any more questions. I’m not the best BRD in existence, but I feel like I have a fairly decent grasp on how to play it.

[Crushnight]

Thank you both for helping ^^ going to start with getting the rotation down as priority then work i on fights before i then start working on min maxing stuff. 1 step at a time and i want to try and be as good as a brd as i can. I'll also have to get out the habit of constantly being on the boss's butt/side unless fight needs it to get used to healer range and bait far mechanics

[Aurelius2625]

The one thing that I may amend, Hyomin... is that I generally think that it's safer to use Pitch Perfect at 2 stacks, since you could gain more simultaneously and waste a stack.

[HyoMinPark]

The one thing that I may amend, Hyomin... is that I generally think that it's safer to use Pitch Perfect at 2 stacks, since you could gain more simultaneously and waste a stack.

This is only if you are under the effect of multiple critical hit enhancing buffs (e.g., Battle Litany, Chain Strategem, Spear). Only if you've snapshotted 2 or more of these buffs onto your DoTs do you use PP at 2-stacks. Otherwise, it's 3 stacks (and especially if you have low Crit to begin with - low Crit = low chances to proc).

A 2-stack PP is 240 potency. 3-stack is 420 potency. Unless you've enhanced your Crit rate enough that your DoTs have a high chance of simultaneously procing, you lose potency by using it at 2 stacks. With no Crit buffs aside from SS snapshotted onto your DoTs, you can't bank on using it at 2 stacks because it may double proc and you may lose a stack.

2 2-stack PP = 480
1 3-stack PP = 420

It's a loss of 60 potency if you overcap, but if you do 2-stack + 1-stack because you never got that second proc -

1 2-stack PP = 240
1 1-stack PP = 100

It's a loss of 80 potency from not waiting until that 2-stack was a 3-stack.


General PP usage—

No Crit buff on DoTs: 3 stacks
Battle Litany OR Chain Strategem on DoTs: 3 stacks
Battle Litany AND Chain Strategem on DoTs: 2 stacks
Battle Litany AND Chain Strategem AND Spear (AOE or ST) on DoTs: 2 stacks

I know there was discussion about Battle Litany/Chain AND Spear, but I think the BRDs still said 3 stacks for that one since +5% crit for an AOE is kind of eh (it’s not as great as Litany or Chain’s boost). However, I think if the Spear was a single-target card (10% or 15% with an enhanced) on you, AND if you have Battle Litany, Chain, OR BOTH, on your DoTs, you use PP at 2 stacks.



This is all min-maxing territory. I tried to stay away from too much min-maxing because that's not what the OP is currently after. Generally, it's used at 3-stacks; 2-stacks if you're in an AOE situation with multiple mobs DoT'd OR if you have snapshotted multiple critical hit enhancing buffs onto your DoTs.

[LyraMaru]

Hi!

Do I refresh my dots if I pop raging strikes at the beginning and before it expires? I'm a little bit confused of snapshotting. For example, if battle litany pops and it doesn't line up with my raging strikes and my dots are ticking, do I refresh them anyway?

[Zerathor]

its a joke picture, but worked for me well enough when i played brd

[Crushnight]

Just wanted to thank you all for responses i managed to get good enough to do o12s with it and come out with 7.7k Dps with 10% echo so around 7k without it I still have plenty more to learn and it is on the min maxing fights but i am happy to have gotten to the state i have so onto learning more to ptentially have to relearn in ShB XD