Cross class skills (For bard)

[Valkus]

So far I only have my PUG xcross skills, but what skills should I get from my lancer side, just curious?

[Kroktar]

Blood for Blood(You gotta be ready to unclick this buff if the boss is going full AOE)
Invigorate(this is a MUST for Bosses even mass AoE trashes so you dont run out of TP or wasting 20% of your damage on songs)
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Second Wind(Also a must, this WILL save you tons of times in bosses)
Internal Release(This is gonna be one of your most used CD for DPS, because of the low CD time.)

The 5th its up to you, I would suggest Featherfoot when you are going into dungeons with a lot of trash (Keen Flurry its not that bad..but sometimes you die so fast so there is nothing to parry so evading 100% of the damage its better) but if you are going to a primal or boss exhausting i would say Mantra.

For soloing You can consider Feint or Haymaker(Sadly Haymaker its just a normal skill it cant be used off the GCD)
I would say Haymaker...Cuz...Damage

[Verusius]

All good ones listed above!

Feint is good if no one has it in the group and you can also consider Mantra for a group wide healing buff. I like to have them all and just swap out the 5th one as needed. The other 4 are mainstays always.

[Eckoh]

mantra is worthless.. there is only 1 fight right now where ranged stacking is a good idea.. and a 7% healing buff is not worth the effort it takes to click the button. If you are taking pug up to play as a monk its not terrible, but its a waste of time to get it for a bard. You are better off with a defense cooldown from the goon tree

[Valkus]

Thanks for the info. Anyone know any useful macro's btw for max dps?

[Eckoh]

honestly its best to learn without using them. Macros become a crutch. With procs and the amount of cooldowns bards have macros can lower your damage. Bards havemuch to micro manage like cliping a dot at the end of cooldowns to get more out of it, or making sure bloodletter is shot before reapplying dos to not change missing a bloodletter proc.

There is a larger difference then you would expect between a top end bard and the run of the mill bard playing it because they think its easy mode top DPS.

[Valkus]

Yeah, I feel you. Someone in CM told me that all archers have an IQ of a sandwich...I feel great about my role and job class. -_-''

[Bardo]

Someone in CM told me that all archers have an IQ of a sandwich...

Did you politely tell them to wipe the jelly off their face?

[Valkus]

I just did this ..!..'-'

[pandabearcat]

There are plenty of macros that do nothing but increase your dps.

A Misery's end|Bloodletter macro will reliably let you mash when you see execute start to come up, without accidentally pushing bloodletter because of reaction times.

A well ordered CD macro (that you use at the right times to stack) saves you a lot of space on your bar.

Using or not using macros does not make/unmake you as a good player.

I will say though that all /wait macros are universally terrible.

Regardless, bards are the easiest class to play hands down. This isn't a bad thing, but this isn't a thing you can really debate lol. Theres no reason to make our rotation seem like its harder than it is. It really is not.

That being said a good bard will watch her raid frames to see what song is needed when, if ever. Further, knowing when to save your CD's is a valuable skill as well.

EDIT: Oh and to stay on topic, yes, the cross class skills suggested are the most common ones used.

Can't really go wrong with them. I don't have mantra yet (level 42, really? D= might as well play monk XD), so cannot comment on its effectiveness, but Featherfoot (esp when you know you need to facetank an add spawn) is a great defensive CD, paired with Second Wind makes you almost require no healing.

And the DPS cooldowns are must haves. Invigorate is a MUST have for dps...it keeps us neutral on single target, slow drain on multitarget and AoE. Without it, you will be useless within 2-3 minutes. Any bard that tells you they don't use invigorate is either lying, singing for a dps loss, or not filling every GCD for a dps loss =P