For your setup.. maybe second spire is better than 3rd? 50% mana cost for 1.5m Your choice A.. long term xp.. if you don't like sitting for ooc regen less insult or slower insults B. Relook at your augs.. Personally I'm going 70% Hint and 30% Hsta.. monthly review it.. to adjust to what I'm doing.. Hdex is personally dps.. but we talking about group mods etc. C. I have started to map out similar items.. like weaps and other similar stat lines to chase a bit more MR.. Noting I'm not full build chanter style in plate.. but that is semi the idea. As in the past.. I used to chase bst or ranga builds Will this matter all that much? no. Min 2 different setups.. or 3 if you really want.. Peak burst.. say all out 5 min banger.. Plan B 12 to 15 min Regular burn.. with 2 mini break for yourself.. or the sucker ball. long term single insult that no ones likes.. but never run out mana. Playstyle wise.. I find myself pulling with mage or other toon. and sitting the bard to med between pulls.. thought about sitting him on a pig mount or something.. just ideas. Would be kewl to see if any type 3 slot aug from ldon have some mana regen on them to fill then 3s.. I think I'm dreaming.. but maybe.. someone smarter than me will post I hope. Last.. the mini manuel twisting of 3 songs 3 subset is custom friendly if only main playing non box..similar to my 4th melody set post death.. draws little to zero mana needs. just support for active song list. Labelled death mix.. heh Aura is interesting.. I stopped using the meele bonus ones.. and use the mana regen one for bard.. some claim the dps gains from meele aura on swarm pets is greater than the gains of that mana.. I have yet to test that one..
Thank you very much for your input. I have two playstyles: XP-grind and dungeon crawling (quests, missions, etc). The setup is currently identical, but the impact on resources is very different. In grind style kill time is typically 8-1 seconds, with 1-3 sec between mobs, and some seconds for the mob to run to me (Frontier Mountains). Having all relevant AA for level on most toons and having a setup oriented towards mana regen, with bard and enchanter, I can usually do a lesson grind without running out of resources, pulling constantly. This is the playstyle I design the setup after, I would rather go down in dps than being forced to take a break. (I use the class mana tools on the toons). For me, the main purpose of the grind style is to have a “reflex/muscle memmory” abilty for when I dungeon crawl, so that I can free up mental resources to adapt to the changing conditions in a dungeon. That is also why I place the box within aggro range of two T1 Named spawns, so that I relatively often get jumped by tougher mobs, and have to deal with a messy situation in camp. In dungeon crawl, resources do not matter, I am at max most of the time, since crawling for me involves a lot of movement and scouting, then some CC, and lastly combat. I am way behind on Augs though. I care very little for stats, since my setup means I adapt so that I do not run out of mana in a 30 min time full throttle frame. I try to get +dam for my casters, and +mana/end regen for my bard, and then good foci, and recently, good sympa procs.
I think you will find you get more total DPS out of Song of Suffering than Nilsara's Aria. Just as a quick estimate, Nilsara's adds 1560 dmg to fire nukes. If your MAG lands a fire nuke every 3 seconds (?) that's 20 nukes per minute, a total of 31200 dmg in a minute, or 520 DPS. If you're discing it's still 520 DPS (ok, 1040 with Twincast). For the bard alone, Song of Suffering should add at least 2000 DPS. I like Insult, and in a vacuum it's great, but in practice it can be difficult to use (maintaining a target) and not good for grinding. Basically I recommend you only use it when fighting named. I would have a separate melody for burns that uses it, and a regular one for everything else. It costs a lot of mana, and although you can nuke for a while, our low mana regen makes it unsustainable. My bard's melody is something like this: /melody 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 7 1 2 3 4 5 11 1 2 3 4 5 10 7 = Amplification, which helps our Selo's Kick damage 11 = Crescendo 10 = Dichotomic I do not really like to use Second Spire for the same reason I don't like Nilsara's. Although it's better than nothing, (for example, if your bard isn't meleeing), Third Spire will edge it out (unless your group is full of casters). To save mana I wouldn't cut out Crescendo. It's good for the amount of time you spend singing, and the amount of regen you get. For augs, I would use 100% HDEX on the bard. It's the best benefit to defense and personal DPS. For Auras, the benefit of overhaste is definitely better than the mana regen one. I also recommend using Boastful Bellow on the bard if you're looking to improve its DPS. Like Insult, you can't spam it forever, but I've found it more sustainable and easier to use when boxing than nuking. Overall I find personally that focusing on my bard is not a good use of time when boxing. I will add more DPS focusing on another character (except for, say, a cleric).
Thank you very much! My main problem is that I can’t figure out which songs land on pets. My bard is a pure melody-bard, and there are no melee classes in the group, however we have 2 mage pets, an enchanter pet, and a shaman pet, (and a large amount of swarm pets (all swarm pet abilities are on cooldown). So if Suffering lands on the four primary pets, it clearly seems like a very good idea. Keeping Insult running was a challange initially, because I wanted the /pet swarm and Lyrical Prankster on cooldown, but I found a way: using ISB, I have a macro that assist and thereby makes the mob the target, but my dps mash key has a /target bard, so I have a target all the time. Now I just run out of mana too quick. I think I could compose a sequence that insults every 4 spells, 5 spells, etc, until I reach a mana usage rate that I can live with. Nilsaria’s Aria: I did not realize the adps was 0.5k pr caster. I would prefer no song to that, and then maybe run something shorter than a 7 or 8 song rotation. Spire: do they land on pets? With 5 casters in group, and 4 main pets, the break even is if there are about 26 as many hits as nukes, assuming even mitigation. Aura: having Warsong in the rotation should cover Overhaste?
OK.. so Aria is good and so is suffering.. I'm so so on melody song.. Aura wise.. I do like that additional over benefits of Haste v3.. and use that when mana mains are soso.. and I can every 12 mins sit for 2 mins and restart.. if I cant have that option I'm will go with mana regen line only if I shorten up and have aria 100% up all the time. Its situational never a 100% this 1 way.. adjust mods to what you see and got running Melody sub sets 6, 7, and something 8 to 11 if I double down on Aria resets. but that longer set is rare and sometimes I lag myself out. Non box.. I will mix in dicho and all other mana support songs/disc if the others are burning thru there pools.. I will not break it if they are not burning mana. Again situational For me.. I like to find a logical camp and cycle number of set mobs to my groups need mod to kill rate.. after first cycle to clear any CC pulling issues.. we push hard as possible to run 100% max dps.. OOC still beats any other recovery mod I can get.. so if its every 12 15 mins 2 mins down.. I'm ok with that.. I can clear up loot.. afk etc.. mental reset. Ideal the self targeting option was for slower assist and or if you boxing a power play system on others.. and find bard to be melody support.. I still flip back to single click bellow FE QT epic.. and others.. but I'm only 2 or 3 boxing.. with draw out 5 line macro to caster.. or an agro lock on tank.. pretty simple stuff. Like at times I will auto melody.. to attempt to max play a mage.. to a mage 1.5 mash and casting.. its playstyle that is mega fun to me. I don't do the IS boxer thing.. would I gain from it yes.. but I will stick to my guns and not do it. cause I'm get off my lawn old school.. not always as right as I claim or want to be. I don't care for EoK content at 110.. I'm more into t2 RoS..and I'm mix of group and raid.. I only see top end raider where I camp. Is my kill boring slow at times.. yes.. but imo if I gain more xp.. but kill slow I don't new targets as often.. that points to less stress.. and burnout. ST golums are my fav target atm. Too many hps to care but a solid target to assist towards.. and bulk xp gain is better than I see in softie chardok.. too much running and target switching.. IE 25% more AA per lesson.
It's simpler than you think; any group song will. But only regular pets, not swarm pets. The overhaste aura lands on swarm pets, which is awesome (I think you already knew that). That is a neat workaround, does your bard try to nuke himself though when you target yourself? That would be my only worry; wasting mana attempting to nuke yourself. It would be great if melody skipped songs that require an enemy target if you don't have a target. I'm pretty sure Spire lands on pets, just not swarm pets. If you really want to pick the best Spire for your group, I'd look at some parses and see your # of hits for nukes (only the ones that cost mana count) and melee and calculate how much extra damage you'd be getting from either Spire. It sounds like they might be pretty close, so it might not matter that much as long as you use it reliably. Warsong doesn't have overhaste, Aria does, though. Both of these songs have other benefits that are pretty good. I think Warsong is better than Song of Suffering for ADPS, but I don't know for sure if it's just as good on pets. You should play both Aria and the Aura btw (they partially stack, or they did the last time I parsed it, which was, admittedly, a while ago). Hope that helps. Of course, this is just what I think and all bards are welcome to play as they please.
Yes, the bard attempts to nuke himself, which procs the Synergy effect, which is the intended outcome. With setup I tested above, with both insults in the melody, rank 2, and a 8 song rotation with 2 insults, I ran OOM in something like 15 min. I would like to stretch that to 30 min, so I will only use the slightly lesser of the two insults, if possible, and also downgrade it to rank 1. That will likely not be enough, but perhaps have a rotation with 1 insult in 5 or six songs will do the trick. I also need to find out what my flowing thought cap is, and make sure I hit that, and then make sure I get the Horn of Unity during Anniversary... not sure what else works for the bards...
Horn of Unity doesn't affect bard mana, but it's great for boxing and helping everyone else out. One underrated buff to bard mana regen is the Hero's Resolution AA, but of course isn't trivial to get.
lblis I think your starting to get it. Your thought pattern is starting to grow outside of yourself.. if or when bard can hold the dual insult up for longer than 15 mins.. target is 30.. hmm lesson? So that is why I'm focusing on Hint and not Hdex as noted. Bard personal dps is X.. the bard mod to group dps is XXX.. and either self targeting or selection of bigger mobs.. (ST golums) for longer target less switch.. imo gains more within a given time than Hdex benefits. As noted its a mix of 70/30 atm with Hint over Hsta.. because I love bellow as well. Now we talk about Gina often and I start wonder if I should have a trigger for bellow is up..for ideal toggle flops on my man 2 box setup with Mage or Warr. Again imo if you burning up mobs that mega fast.. which is kewl; I think its time to setup to harder trash mobs that offer better xp per kill.. and attempt to grow up some with your setup. For example charbok is ok. but I find it too stressful for this only reason.. target switching and moving around to next target.. I don't like it. But I love ST in RoS.. the trash is a little more hps and they dps harder on me.. but I see xp gains higher there than chardok is a set amount of time. And less stress moving and target switch less often leads for more or longer xp sessions. Noted the errors in this type of zone leads to deaths.. as chardok. can someone die is chardok? Bard efforts to mod others>is greater than self and so the efforts to focus gear should imo focus on the stuff that leads him do that more often and longer. Great return for lack of focus on him or key up and really focus on him.. support either way. This all assumes the bard is generally gear enough to meet AE or social agro damage from pulling or pathing adds.. enough for a passive healer to keep him up.. aka merc or afk clr type. Reguardless of your pick on the setup.. An alive singing bard is better than a dead one. Recovery sucks not matter what AA line you fool yourself into investing in. Have fun and adventure well.. sing to crowd. they will love you for it.
Few type 1 slot 3 augs in ldon.. mana regen 2.. its an option.. I understand plus 6 mana unit a tic is not much return.. but its something.. raw would show you its nothing.. but if work with that and add to it.. down the road.. maybe we can get to 20 mins.. maybe not.. but if I'm running max for 14 mins I'm ok..
