OK so in the past my theory on bard builds was as follows; more the question is how current is this path? Any and all suggestions well.. the goal is to get better. All I request is to hold the bard this or that sucks or a waste of time and I understand most of role is indirect. OK so as far as gear models I like the bst suggested stuff for my bard path. Solid HP/Mana.. Hstr Hdex numbers were there as well as spell damage. AC is nice but honestly the difference I couldnt see a difference if i focused on it or passively used what was gained. Note this from Raid pov as I assume group numbers and playstyle maybe differ. From memory.. weap augs were damage with DD proc.. spamming Kick.. use the other clicks.. and running melody to support group dps Aria haste and run 2 DD songs. Now mana would be an issue after a bit.. if needed I would drop to 1 DD song. Rarely would I attempt to charm just for an attempt at dps bonus.. feeling this was more of a CC hydrid with added dps more than anything. To maintain the charm pet often the ADPS loss to others was a net loss. What is currect state of bard dots.. beside a agro tool.. like useful in molo or solo? My play xp was pre TBM so i didnt have the Dicho. Honestly dont understand its full role. Assuming if it helps others I should using it. Have read others claiming its a net loss if Aria drops. Thank you in advance. Goal is to improve and be active not just a melody jester. Yes pulling and CC is not really covered as im assuming nothing has changed that much. Wait.. how has the AA that pulls mobs on top of the bard been changed.. aka group of 6 mobs are mezzed but with this AA master bard can relocate them. Either to remove social agro or just stack mobs for a AE burn setup.
Forgot.. suggestions requested on how and what Adps as a bard am i Looking to stack? In the past shaman and bard Eclicks were planned to click similar times.. should i be leading this effort in group click with say IoG or rangers Aus.. or perhaps a bst click or AA im overlooking.. Both in Raid called Full burn.. or a longer term or mid term dps attempt to maxx. Not just personal but both my group and overall dps matter or is this overstating what a bards role is as ADPS? Understanding each toon control there dps, How do help maxx mod them? Is there support for Gina trigger setups for ideal stacking? theory based? How about other click stuff both new or mega old? tx again
no real changes to bard in last 3-4 ..14 expansions. Dicho- used to be great, nerf bat, now meh Dots- don't think anyone has used dots since the great bard nerf of '03 rallying call- nerf bat Insult- LOL AA sink so raid bard : 1. /melody for your group ( melee, dd, or dots) 2. epic and fierce eye early and often ( unless chanter in group, then coordinate with them) 3. figure out when your "burn" does the most good. 4. want to feel useful in a raid? buy rez tokens and use em during raid. follow this, and you'll be good for the next 15 expansions since they don't know what to do with us .
I like to gear for: HDEX > AC > HAGI > spell damage (I don't go out of my way to get extra spell damage, but I avoid items that have really low spell damage). I don't think HSTR matters that much. The last time I parsed it, 8 dmg + DD procs edged out the 11 damage aug by a small margin. At some point we should see damage augs outdps them again, since the proc + dmg combo haven't been upgraded in a while. My favorite clicks in case you're missing any: Phosphorescent Rapier of Dazzling Light - Amplification (goes to passive AA now) Darkened Breath of Harmony - Doben's Spry Sonata Staff of Viral Flux - pulling tool You can /autoskill kick now which is nice. These days I only use 1 DD song when burning. The 2nd DD song isn't good enough DPS to warrant dropping an additional DPS song for your group. This is my melody these days for a melee DPS group on raids: 1. Aria of Maetanrus 2. War March of Jocelyn 3. Fjilnauk's Song of Suffering 4. Arcane Melody 5. Storm Blade 6. Chorus of Sionachie 7. Amplification 8. Misc slot 1 : Mez, Cure, Slow, Aura 9. Fjilnauk's Insult 10. Dichotomic Psalm 11. Silisia's Lively Crescendo 12. Misc slot 2: Mez, Cure Normal /melody: /melody 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 7 1 2 3 4 5 11 1 2 3 10 Burn /melody: /melody 9 1 2 9 3 4 9 7 1 9 2 3 9 4 11 9 1 2 9 3 10 I think bard charm sucks and isn't worth bothering with, unless you need it for something specific. They are ~6k DPS each (24k if you run all 4). I don't play my bard solo / molo but they might be useful for that, otherwise I don't use them. Dichotomic is ok, but costs a lot of endurance. I tend to avoid it in group content since you can't play it for infinite amounts of time, but I use it in raids. We can only use it on NPCs below our level. Here's a graph of bard discs over time: Here's my disc hotkeys: Epic/Fierce Eye: Code: /pause 1, /g Bard epic + Fierce Eye (crits, procs, accuracy) /melody /useitem 23 18 (Bard Epic) /pause 2 /alt act 3506 (Fierce Eye) Group discs: Code: /g discing ( + spell & melee dmg, haste, accuracy) /alt act 3702 (Quick Time) /useitem 17 (Bard BP) Personal discs (1): Code: /alt act 359 (Dance of Blades) /disc thousand /alt act 910 (Frenzied Kicks) /alt act 553 (Cacophony) Personal discs (2): Code: /pause 2, /alt act 7019 (Glyph of the Cataclysm) /alt buy 7019 /alt act 487 (Intensity of the Resolute) I manually click Flurry of Notes, Cacophony, and the pet swarm AA, but you could put them on your disc key if you want. I don't use Bladed Song on raids but it's not terrible, if you don't have too many debuffs on the raid boss. IoG and FE don't stack any more, they will overwrite each other. So you want to avoid using FE if IoG is on. It is ok for IoG to overwrite FE though since it's so much better. We don't really have to be concerned with our discs stacking with other classes aside from IoG. Ruaabri's Fury / BST Dichotomic HHE % won't stack with Quick Time, but Quick Time has other good stuff so I still use it even if BST stuff is on. In general I use epic + FE every 3 mins, time it with SHM epic if there is one, unless a named/boss is due within 3 minutes. I try to disc every 10 minutes and save it for something special if there is something coming. One of the best ways to improve your DPS on raids is to disc more than once. Most raid events last me more than 10 minutes, so you can disc twice. In an ideal world we would all know how to play every class, and know how their discs work, and when they were discing, and how best to support them. This is challenging, and players are unpredictable, so I try to focus on my own playing and make my best guess for when to disc and what discs to use. That ends up being to use them all every 10 mins (or when they refresh), since the effects stack (at least partially). As an example of this thinking - the bard epic adds 12% crit DD chance. If my group is already at 100% crit chance (from Auspice and other discs) should I save my epic for later? No, because the epic also adds Accuracy, and it stacks with everything. It also isn't much of an opportunity lost to use it too early - the epic is up for 2 minutes every 3 minutes. You don't have to know everything about other classes, but you do want to be open to communication with them. If my group asks me to save discs for something, or someone says "burns up in 2 mins" I will hold off for them to improve synergy. If someone dies, I will wait a little while to see if they get a rez before discing (but not too long). Here's my bard GINA triggers: link There are "Others' Discs" in there, but I don't really use them to time things any more.
Is your usage of Storm Blade purely because there's nothing else you could be twisting in, or is it better than it seems?
Hats off to Fippy !! Just does not feel like a simply like is enough. I so enjoy reading you posts as do many others. Interested if to setup in gina triggers leads to a feeling or tempo status.. knowing the team is doing this or that correctly.
Just be aware that Fjilnauk's Insult has a push and Tsaph's Insult does not, most raid leaders will give you the stink eye using anything with a push back. Take count of the debuffing/DoT classes in your raid, if you're casting Cacophony, Bladed Song, Bellow, or any other minuscule debuff, is that more of a benefit than a Necro or Shaman DoT which could be bouncing because no available slots? As far as storm blade, according to my logs over the last three weeks, Fjilnauk's procs on average about 1,000 times for the whole group in one raid night. You can take that data and give a best effort guess that storm strike would do between 1 and 2 million for the whole night. For comparison, damage shields do between .08 and .1% total raid damage at ~12 million out of 15 billion total damage. I might run it next week to sate my curiosity. I use pulse for extra endurance regen and reckless renewal for crit heal mod.
There's nothing else better. I think the regen songs would be more useful if your group is desperate for mana. Maybe with some heavy use BST/RNG. The endurance regen on our songs is too small to make a significant ADPS impact for melee classes. The spell dmg bonus song could be useful arguably in a hybrid heavy group. There are some parses on Storm Blade in this thread and discussion about it. It's not very good.
Quick question. Does the shawl proc that returns mana work on bards? I assume this is a no as I dont recall any mana return items working for bards.
One nice one is the fungi tunic from HH seb does. Have to wait a while for it to come back though! http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=128591
Amplification affects certain things that don't have an instrument cap, ex: [41655/16791] Selo's Kick XVII Classes: BRD/254 Skill: Kick, Max Focus: 320% Target: Single Range: 50' Resist: Unresistable Reflectable: No Focusable: Yes Casting: 0s Hate: 1 1: Kick Attack for 700 with 10000% Accuracy Mod Here's my kick #s after a short test:
There are changes to Boastful Bellow and Vainglorious Shout that benefit Bard DPS. They share a timer, so multiple bards can use one each and not worry about overwrite, with another bard running alliance.
