It seems to me like Song of Suffering is bettee in every way. In what scenario would a bard use Arcane Harmony over Song of Suffering? Or am I missing understanding how good Arcane Harmony is?
One has caster spell procs, one doesn't. I will leave it to an exercise for the reader to imagine scenarios where one would be preferred over another. The suffering line has a deaggro component, which means tanks are probably blocking it (or probably just don't care at this point). I'm not really sure where your disconnect with the song data is coming from so it's hard to answer your question without just copying the song data and say ... here.
Neither has a place in level 120 melodies. The proc songs add damage but their overall performance is lower than getting in additional dots and insult-synergies. But, for the sake of academia: Note that while the group's pets can carry more procs into battle, they're not the same as players as they don't crit procs. They deal (again, very rough number) 1/10th the dps with them that players will do. Additionally, having any sort of proc on pets cuts the pets' own melee damage - this is probably a bug, appears in testing to be associated with raid/instance lag, but is empirically true. Suffering is, as you may have observed, 20% or so (extremely rough number) higher dps on just the melee procs. But Suffering is melee only. Arcane gains substantially (on the scale of these songs) when party members can "double dip" on both swinging & casting. For the classes/players that do, Arcane is stronger. Bards, because they're such special kids, get to multiply their Arcane procs by song mod, and so can be expected to out perform even the cast/melee double-dippers with this song by a bit. Coupled with the above, Arcane > Suffering also for the bard themselves. And, while it's worth reiterating that neither has a place in level 120 melodies, both can be played they don't interfere with one another. If what a bard wants is group procs, then proc proc proc.
In today's game, there should be no reason at all why a caster is not meleeing mobs. So a caster will benefit from the Song of Suffering procs. On my mage/bard box duo, I can proc the three charges of Song of Suffering before it fades. I also see it crit for around 75-80k damage per proc. And IIRC the base damage of Song of Suffering is around 14750, while Arcane Harmony cast proc is 1950 base and melee proc is 900 base (at rk3, approximate numbers). So maybe I am dumb. Which is why I am asking. I see 3 melee procs at base 14,750 damage for one song. I see 4 procs for another song which can do either 900 or 1950 base damage, depending if it procs off of melee or spell. I know the Song of Suffering gives my mage between 75-80k on a crit hit. Is Arcane Harmony doing that much damage off of a base of 900 or 1950?
Hmm, my bards do melody as War March, Insult, Dot 1, Dot 2, Aria, Insult , Dot 3, Dot 4. That's 8 songs and the mob dot debufs and group songs result in continuous coverage. I can see Song of Suffering and/or Arcane Harmony replacing Insults once my bard is oom and wants to regen mana for a while. Otherwise it simply has no place in my melody. Although, I usualy run the melody with Insults replaced by mana-regen Chorus while mana-recovering. Perhaps some sacred bard trickery is eluding me.
Arcane Harmony does not lose charges procing in melee. I'm not misspeaking when I say double dipping on melee+casting. 63065 Arcane Harmony Rk. III BRD/120 3s 0s 12s+ n/a Caster Group Stacking: Arcane Arias 28 Max Hits: 4 Matching Spells 1: Cast: Arcane Harmony Effect III on Spell Use (100% Chance) 2: Limit Effect: Current HP 3: Limit Spell: Exclude Arcane Harmony Effect III 4: Limit Max Level: 120 (lose 100% per level) 5: Limit Type: Detrimental 6: Limit Type: Exclude Combat Skills 7: Limit Min Mana Cost: 10 10: Add Melee Proc: Arcane Harmony Strike III with 400% Rate Mod 63035 Shojralen's Song of Suffering Rk. III 119 1 3s 8.75s 12s+ n/a Caster Group Stacking: Songs of Suffering 21 Max Hits: 3 Offensive Proc Casts 1: Add Skill Proc: Shojralen's Strike III with 250% Rate Mod 2: Limit Skill: 1H Blunt 3: Limit Skill: 1H Slash 4: Limit Skill: 2H Blunt 5: Limit Skill: 2H Slash 6: Limit Skill: Bash 7: Limit Skill: Hand to Hand 8: Limit Skill: 1H Pierce 9: Limit Skill: 2H Pierce the bolded lines are not the same Arcane's melee proc is SPA85, Suffering's skill proc is SPA429
I thank you for this information presented in this thread, as well as in game. I noticed the 400% proc rate vs 250% proc rate, which makes me think that Arcane Harmony can proc a lot more times that Suffering. Add that with the cast procs, and I can see where they can be close in overall damage, if not Arcane doing more. It is almost like Arcane is death by a thousand paper cuts, whereas Song is death with one... err, three swift strikes. At least now I can understand that Arcane can be comparable to Song as far as overall damage. I still like the de aggro proc on Song, but I would also like to do more testing.
Well with the change to Insult/Disdain being on the same timer may have to think about one of these as 10th song in the lineup. Make sure if you have pet classes though in your group then have them blocked on their pets because procs hurt main pet damage especially in raids. In a 10 song melody it was nice to have 4 insults and 6 during quicktime with a 12 song melody. So am struggling with whether to put in an Arcane Harmony at the end or just go to 9 songs and go multi dotter with only the 3 Insults. Will have to do a lot of testing after this patch.
