So with the recent change to skip songs that are on CD, all the spell damage in TBL and the pretty intense resists in TBL, I'm taking a fresh look at my melody for my boxed bard. What general purpose melodies are you bards running? I feel somewhat unsure of: 1. Whether the resist debuff from harmony of tone is worth dealing with the ~22 second duration with a tune stuck in your head. 2. How important War March is really if your group is already haste capped from other buffs? So much of it is superseded by other buffs. Is the +43% min hit damage that useful? 3. How useful is Dissident Psalm? It looks good on paper, but the spell / melee damage bonus is beaten by so many other abilities that I feel like it's never utilized. My bard has more endurance deprivation with how amazing Boastful Bellow is that I don't want to spend so much to gain so little mana/endurance. 4. If I'm using the Darkened Breath of Harmony frequently enough to proc Doben's Spry Sonata, is there any benefit to using the higher level Kluzen's Spry Sonata? 5. Is anyone using Dirge of Lost Horizons? Without it being focusable it just seems so weak compared to the kind of damage being put out. Does it even stack with the Skull of Null? With the above uncertainty laid out there, here's what I'm thinking: Note: that in all of these cases I have Sathir's Insult between each song, taking advantage of the ability for it to skip. Bard's synergy is so strong that each Sathir's Insult is a huge amount of damage, so I cast it as much as possible. Note: Harmony of Tone lasts ~22s, the buffs last ~31s, so you can improve these melodies by making them much longer and interspersing Harmony of Tone in them. Harmony of Tone - Constant Killing (has regen): Harmony of Tone ->Aria of Maetanrus->Rigelon's Reckless Renewal->Jembel's Lively Crescendo->Pulse of Xigam->Chorus of Xigam Harmony of Tone - Burn Harmony of Tone ->Aria of Maetanrus->Dissident Psalm->Rigelon's Reckless Renewal->Song of Suffering->Spiteful Lyric Harmony of Tone - Defensive Harmony of Tone ->Aria of Maetanrus->Rigelon's Reckless Renewal->Spiteful Lyric->Kluzen's Spry Sonata No Harmony of Tone Aria of Maetanrus->Rigelon's Reckless Renewal->War March of Dekloaz->Pulse of Xigan->Chorus of Xigam->Song of Suffering->Spiteful Lyric For now I think I'll just run the Harmony of Tone - Constant Killing version and use the Burn in missions (when I remember to switch...) Thoughts?
6. Whether I should start using Chant of Flame if I'm running my mage/bst/rangers with their fire DDs.
Just as an update after doing most of TBL this weekend: 1. Some very specific mobs (ex: the djinn in Contract of War in Esianti: Palace of Wind) have pretty obscene resists. On these ones I use tash + harmony. For most every other mobs I use my normal melody that doesn't bother with harmony. 2. I kept War March in my buff lineup. 3-6. I haven't been using dissident psalm, kluzen's spry sonata, dirge of horizons or chant of flame. I did however use all the DoTs on the Twister trial in TBL where you can range DPS the rooted / non-summoning boss. My boxed bard has literally never used his DoTs before, so it was nice to get something out of the hundreds (thousands?) of AAs I've poured into them.
I’ve been meaning to reply to you, but haven’t had a chance. I haven’t used harmony of tone on anything yet. Tash, Bellow, and chant of chaos have gotten the job done. I generally only use war march in a full group of hybrid/melee DPS. Even then, I still use Jonthan’s Mightful Caretaker, which is always in my lineup. I don’t use the dicho. It drains way too much endurance. Maybe on raids with a lot of hybrids in group. Potentially for tanks also. Kluzen’s is a big upgrade because the AC buff is focusable, but I typically just use the clicky because I’m mostly concerned with the chance to resist spells, and that isn’t focusable to begin with. I’m using dirge of lost horizons in various situations. There are plenty of large DDs in TBL, and although I haven’t tested what it does and doesn’t, stack/work with, I’ll continue to assume I’m gaining value. If someone shows me otherwise, I’ll drop it. That said, I’ve been using it when solo/molo and it at least feels like I’m more sturdy. Lastly, if they are landing and you can run them without gaining agro, bard DoTs are some of the best DPS we have. Plenty of our group DPS songs have stagnated in power to the point where when our DoTs are fully AA’d they are together contributing over 100k DPS. It really just depends on group makeup and efficiency.
Just try parsing it. It’s one of our highest personal DPS songs. 1: Increase Melee Haste by 70% 2: Increase Hit Damage by 8% 4: Increase ATK by 25 7: Increase Min Hit Damage by 220% 8: Increase Worn Proc Rate by 110% I think the main increase is from Worn Proc Rate. Just start smacking a dummy with this song off and then start it. Suddenly you will be spammed with proc messages. Additionally, min hit and hit modifiers are higher than war march.
Does the worn proc rate stack with Fierce eye? (3: Increase Worn Proc Rate by 300%)? I'll have to try parsing it, but I don't know what the AC values of TBL mobs are. I'd guess 5000? If +min hit damage works like I think it does, it'll do more when my atk is low vs mob AC. And since the Increase Hit Damage of war march is so close to Mightful Caretaker (5 vs 8) I imagine most of the contribution is from the min hit damage.
As far as I know, they stack just fine, but you might be better off talking to someone smarter than me about it. As for the hit damage, min hit damage, and attack trade-off, I don’t know, but my bard’s DPS is substantially increased when everything is proccing, and its only going to get better now that we have new weapon proc augs for the first time in 4-5 years. I consider my actual weapon damage to be somewhat lackluster, and I’ve never see anything indicate it is more than that.
I don't see anything in lucy that would cause stacking issues with Fierce Eye and Jonthan's Mightful Caretaker.
I guess it might be possible for proc chance to cap, but I don’t know what point that would be. And, of course, our Flurry of Notes AA makes +proc chance irrelevant, so you could say we have 45ish seconds where Jonthan’s and FE are meaningless if you use it with them. I recommend not using Flurry of Notes blindly when burning; think about what ADPS you are getting. It certainly works will with something like illusions of grandeur, but if you are in a melee group it might be fine just to use whenever the best overhaste is running. Just depends. I personally do not like that Jonthan’s is so good. Mostly because I don’t like that it doesn’t stack with War March and it is a pet peeve that I’m singing a song that doesn’t land on me. I think they should be fixed to stack with each other. They could then keep it as a song or make Jonthan’s something we get through an instant AA or some recourse effect of another of our abilities. In either scenario, the DPS we will gain from having both Jonthan’s and War March is not game-breaking. It would also be interesting to get an upgrade at some point, but I’m not holding my breath not overly worried about it. It’s all mostly QoL I’m thinking about because none of this is game-breaking.
