Bard Dots.. do you even bother?

Do any bards use dots in their /melody rotation?

Started buying the DOT bonus damage wondering if its worth singing them when you get it all maxed? Improved Chants if maxed Increase Spell Damage by 350%

I think the critical Affliction (%chance to crit) helps cacophony ..Not sure about Destructive cascade (+% to crit damage)

Be nice to have an AA that would do all or some of the Dots on a target..

Just wondering if people use them or not. the damage seems rather sad to be honest.
Also, do any of you just use weapons for healing proc? and not even try to do damage? If so hows that working for you. our melee damage is not amazing but i am not sure the heals off proc is even worth bothering with.

I do not use them ever, except for pile of bones and slime in Drusella's Vault raid.

I don't bother except for slime in Drusella's Vault (sometimes use it on Overking Bathezid in Skyfire Group mission if we have limited range DPS).

Healing proc weapons are a complete waste for us, since we don't get any AA's that increase our healing unlike other classes. So if it says that it will heal 2400 per proc, that's it but if a Warrior or Ranger uses the weapon, they heal for 2400 base (so probably closer to over 10k per proc maybe more). Our DPS isn't a joke anymore either, so going for high damage procs (Jeweled Katana) is the way to go.

Kind of what i was thinking i use the Jeweled Hoarded Blood Orchid Katana and Dekloaz's Dirk now .. thought of changing to the Ancient Malevolent Runeblade for the stun but no idea if it will stun well or even be worth taking the DPS hit.

I've found that Jeweled Blood Orchid Katana and Arcrodant Axe are the best weapons to use, as they both have chromatic damage and mobs seem to take more damage from that. Most mobs are resistant to stuns so it's generally not worth the DPS hit. Might be worth it to have a bandolier set up for it, but I haven't done too much testing with it as generally most tanks don't need the mob to be stunned to survive. If I'm tanking, I use Reverberating Barrier to stun the mobs.

still so under powered even with max AA

Nope, you could twist up the whole lot and still do less dps than just meleeing.
All of the bard dots have been crap and getting worse since the big kiting nerf during PoP.

Our Dots are still useful. They provide high sustained DPS solo and even in many small groups. They Tick for around 33k and crit for around 115k. I do agree, however, that they are not useful in high DPS groups or on raids (with the exception of Vault, like some have pointed out). Still, I think many bards would be surprised how much DPS our DoTs do when compared to our ADPS songs, which when parsed produce a lot lower DPS than many realize.

As for weapon combos, as most have pointed out the healing proc weapons are lackluster, but you can improve them by singing Reckless Renewal, which will cause them to crit at an extremely high rate. The best weapons to have in RoS is a difficult question to answer due to how many different mobs resist various procs. Here is what I would say:

1. If mobs don't resist poison/disease, use Raid Katana and Dirk
2. If mobs resist poison/disease, use Jeweled Katana and group Katana.
   1. I've never tested Raid Katana and Arcrodant Axe. It's probably similar DPS.
3. If you are running Flurry of Notes, use Jeweled Katana and group Katana

Augs are tough to juggle here, but if you use this setup it is likely best to use your Blood Draining Spike and Conch of the Seas on your Katanas (or Arcrodant Axe, if that's what you are running with) and your Venomous Tear on your Dirk. Siren's demise might be fractionally better DPS somewhere here, but I'm using it in my frost proc weapons.
Something random to point out is that the Katanas don't share cooldown timers on their clicks, so you can use Lyre Leap, Petal Step, Petal Step, to cover large areas quite quickly.

I box a bard with the magician. I rely on /melody to provide a constant stream of songs for support. And because I only use one laptop and I do not use any third party software to control both at the same time, I need a melody that will not break.

Before the patch all my songs were buff songs that did not matter what was on target- aria, war march, etc.

Now post patch, with the change that if I sing a DD or DOT song and no mob is targeted it just skips to next song, I am eager to explore more options. I already have the non push Insult song incorporated into the melody, and am looking to see if i should replace songs like Arcane Ballad, Spiteful Lyric, Spry Sonata, etc. with a DOT or two.

As a duo, I do not kill mobs like I do in high DPS groups. So for me, a DOT might yield more damage than something like Arcane Ballad. Not sure but am testing...

In group content with a pet tank, you can probably use the pushy version of Insult with bit higher damage np

Wouldn't the push move the mob out of melee range? On the bard generally I pull, run to mage, alt tab to mage, pet attack when mob in camp, alt tab to bard, turn attack on, hit any discs or AA, alt tab to mage and then spend rest of event on mage. If insult push is moving mob out of bard melee range, I do not want that...

First of all, you can use both nukes and DoTs at the same time.

Second, the nukes will eventually run the bard OOM.

Lastly, while nukes are general higher DPS in a large group once you factor in synergy, in a small group the damage is very similar.

Wizards will eventually go OOM from nuking too. Seriously, are you really suggesting to not do dps because it will use resources? It's better to sit there with a full mana bar than to increase dps? Sit the bard for 30 seconds every 20 or so minutes, refill the mana and endurance (bellow/shout) bars and continue contributing more to the group.

It's logic like this that creates the gulf between those that find content easy and those that constantly complain that things are not tuned and too hard.

I think you misunderstand the context of that comment, segap. Cicelee is boxing and looking for something convenient.

Bards aren't exactly comparable to other classes when it comes to mana consumption. Wizards will not go OOM in the same way that a bard will, especially if the bard is actively pulling and such.

I didn't suggest anything like this anywhere in my post. In fact, in the first point I make I say that nuking and DoTing are not mutually exclusive. This thread is about bard DoTs, specifically.

This is also an oversimplification in how bard resources work.

am reconsidering group usage after last patch

Caveat- this is a box bard. Activity is primarily pull mob, hit a disc hotkey if applicable, auto attack, melody constantly going. So not much effort I put into bard like main bards do.

So I was doing some testing with insults and DOTs. Right now I do the following-

Slow
Aria, War March, Insult, Arcane Ballad, Reckless Renewal, Spry Sonata, Insult
Aria, War March, Arcane Ballad, Insult, Reckless Renewal, Spry Sonata
Aria, War March, Insult, Arcane Ballad, Reckless Renewal, Spry Sonata, Insult

Then melody starts over. This gives me enough time for all the songs to not drop off, and for slow to be reapplied if it fades.

My problem right now is that if I incorporate DOTs into that melody, two things are happening-

1. I have to get rid of a song. Maybe Reckless Renewal or Arcane Ballad or Spry Sonata. In order to use a DOT.
2. The DOT only lasts for 2-3 ticks before it fades. So now I am using it multiple times before I refresh Aria and War March, etc. However by using it multiple times, Aria and War March and others are fading before I sing them again.

I have yet to find a combo of songs that include Insults and DOTs, where I have no fading of buff songs like Aria and War March and others, where DOTs are not fading, that I can incorporate all of this within 64 seconds before i have to recast slow and start the melody.

I will continue to practice and find that sweet spot. Right now i am worried i may not be using DOTs like i thought i was. Unless it is proven to me that, say, it does more damage in 24 seconds than Arcane Ballad does...

A dot would have to be every 4th song to keep one up full time.

Given that, I doubt I'd even consider doing this sort of melody unless I had 2 bards in a group, which never happens. Our dots are just too weak individually to justify using them over our other songs imo. Would love to see a general use case where they balance out or are better, but right now, I just don't see it. I get there is a special case fight or 2 where using them might be handy, but I don't consider that general usage

Trying aria, march, arcane, insult, suffering, poison dot, fire dot, insult
Poison because Im boxing my rogue, but obviously that could be changed with group makeup. If it turns out there is a regen problem I might add back pulse.

This is not accurate. Bard DoTs do fine in a 7 song melody with the correct AAs and augs.

There are far better things to add when tune is up than dots.

For example if you parse it out even the smaller proc song nearly quadruples the dps of two dots even with only 1 melee.