Maybe I'm a bit confused about stacking. I play Aria of Va'Ker Rk. II and either Echo or Aura Va'Ker Rk. II at the same time assuming my group will get max benefits from each spell. Am I wrong about this? Should I only be using one? Aria of Va'Ker Rk. II: 1: Increase Spell Damage by 42% 2: Increase Haste v3 by 25% 10: Increase Chance to Triple Attack by 39% 11: Flurry Chance (6%) 12: Pet Flurry Chance (33) Echo and Aura of Va'Ker Effect II: 1: Increase Spell Damage by 29% 2: Increase Haste v3 by 25% 10: Increase Chance to Triple Attack by 25% 11: Flurry Chance (19%) 12: Pet Flurry Chance (25) By playing both will my group be getting the following? 1: Increase Spell Damage by 42% 2: Increase Haste v3 by 25% 10: Increase Chance to Triple Attack by 39% 11: Flurry Chance (19%) 12: Pet Flurry Chance (33)
The rule of thumb is... if the buff list's a percentage, the highest one takes affect. If it does not, it will stack. This isn't always true for certain values like increase critical damage and others. (IIRC) I asked others to chime in on this as I know I'm leaving out some.
Whether something stacks or not is completely dependent upon what you are talking about. In the given example, those effect will not stack, the highest will take priority.
What Beimeith just said is that your conclusion is correct. Your group will receive what you listed last.
That is correct. The advantage is, an echo can be dropped to continue to increase damage while the bard is out pulling, and the aura and echo affect swarm pets, which the aria will not. If you don't have pets and your bard never pulls while the rest of the group is still killing, it is not necessary to use both.
If you're group has a lot of melee in it then it actually is necessary to use both to max potential. Aria does not have the best value for all of the slots. Flurry chance is significantly better with Echo/Aura. So if you don't have melee then Aria is better (this assumes that all the pet classes have the appropriate AAs which pass on the effects they get to their pets), if you don't have a lot of casters then you will want to do Echo/Aura, and if you have some of both, then you will want to do both.
The main thing to be aware is that Aria's flurry chance get's boosted by a Flurry bug. The Echo/Aura is not affected. This is why the Flurry chance appears so low on Aria. Once the multiplier kicks in, it's equivalent to the 19% of Aura. Note : The multiplier could put it over Aura in terms of real gains, however Aura (the higher number) would take effect - i.e You'd actually lose DPS from Flurry by running Aura as well as Aria. If you look at the two as a whole, then Aria is better overall in all the other area's, and this is because it's "activated", rather than "always on". There is a limiting factor in choosing to run Aria as it means you cannot run another Song. So it stands to reason that the boosted Aria Flurry is better (even slightly) than the normal Aura Flurry. I'm too lazy to parse it out however and I generally just run both on my bard.
Another thing to keep in mind w/ Aria vs Aura, Aura is unaffected by Exteneded Notes and Sionachie's Crescendo and thus only has a range of ~60. However, Aria when fully Extended w/ Sionachie's has a range of ~300. A range of 60 is fine for a group surrounding one mob, but on a raid there will almost always be one if not several persons out of range of your aura.
An additional note to keep in mind is that a person's aura will affect swarm pets of other players (and not their own, in general). This means that the Aura would provide group members' swarm pets in range with the overhaste and triple attack benefits they wouldn't have gotten otherwise. By contrast, the Aria doesn't inherently affect swarm pets.
little of subject but im a raiding bard... and just use Aura and always think about the random ranger i get in group not getting aura. If using aria what would ur song set up be? i typically use... Doben's, war march, song of suffering, arcane proc, ae hp/mana song with melee group.
Depending on the event there's a fair chance that even the melee are oor of your aura. The aura range is rather small and with the size of raid mobs this expansion it's very easy for even a melee to find themselves outside of aura range. To answer your question though, I think it's safe to say Aria is a good song to have in your lineup. Substituting it for Chorus or Doben's, depending on the event.
