Hello fellow Bard enthusiast, I’m back with my 3.0 Bard guide and I would like to share *my* thoughts, ideas & opinions on how to play a bard in a Endgame PVE environment during Heavensward. In case you don't know me I play under the nickname Krietor Senpai, i'm part of the Angered Gaming Management and Sub-GM of the FC ANGERED on the Ragnarok[EU] Server. I've been playing MMOs for as long as 18+ years, and I have always been a huge fan of proper in-depth Class/Job Guides. Therefore I decided when I started to play Final Fantasy XIV:AAR that I would also start doing my own guides, sharing my POV, thoughts and conclusions about the Job that i would be playing.
This Guide will be continuously update whenever i have time to update it. If you would like to get a notification every time i update this guide, just press on the Subscribe button above.
Like the description states this new Song increases damage dealt by 30% while ceasing auto-attack and adding cast time to all archer and bard Weaponskills. Before 3.0 our Auto-Attacks were 30~35% of our overall dps. Now even with the DET nerf, our auto attacks consists of 20~25% of our overall dps depending on your crit rate/luck.
Lets list the BAD of Minuet:
Casting Times
Restricted Mobility
Rotation Fluidity is worse
No Auto Attacks (20~25% of our dps)
Missing potential Bloodletter procs by not being able to spam it while Casting other skills.
Double OGCd not advised
Unable to queue Flaming Arrow while casting
Recasting after moving or using repelling is clunky and if not done properly it will result in an interrupted cast.
This the Opener "Rinchan Nau" currently prefers and i do agree that might be better if you get bloodletter procs, and the weaves feel more natural then the double Empy Opener
By doing this it will give you the ability to move around freely with a minimum dps loss due to the fact that everything is on CD including your Minuet snapshotted DoTs and you'll also have your auto-attacks turned back on.
NOTE: There's currently a bug while your moving & dropping minuet, your next ability will still have casting time as if u were still in minuet but the damage dealt will be as if theres no minuet up. This will also prevent you to cast double oGCDs during that period.
Ive created a new 3.0 spreadsheet that shows in a "patchwerk" 10 min type of fight, where i align the cooldowns & Weaponskills for maximum optimization:
This spreadsheet uses my opener, therefor timings for everyone else's openers would be different, and the alignment too. Also in this spreadsheet i handle Bloodletter/RoD as a 15 sec recast time ability instead of a proc based ability. Use the priority rotation displayed above to know when to cast procced Bloodletters
This spreadsheet also does not take into account milliseconds, the amount of skillspeed you have, nor your connection to the servers (ping"ms"), its just a rough estimate.
Ive asked myself the following questions many times, so i took into my own hand in finding out. You might ask why is CD alignment better? - after extensive research and testing ive found out that CD alignment is indeed better, due to the fact that you are making your Barrage much stronger during that period Aren't we losing dps by waiting when a cd is available? - It depends on the fight, but if you can use B4B without risk of dying you should always use Hawks+B4B+Barrage together.
The following Cooldowns should be weaved in between GCDs
http://xivdb.com/?skill/102/Flaming-Arrow: Use it every time that its off GCD, but make sure its always ticking for its full duration since it has 350 oPotency. under Minuet this skill CANNOT be queued so be careful, wait for the cast to finish and then press on it.
http://xivdb.com/?skill/109/Blunt-Arrow: Is our go to Silence Skill, but if your in a fight which doesnt require you to focus on interrupting, this skill should be weaved in in between GCDs everytime that its off GCD and Bloodletter/RoD is on CD.
http://xivdb.com/?skill/112/Repelling-Shot: Its a Nice skill that allows you not just do extra DPS, but it also helps you out insta dodging Plumes, or re-position yourself in a fight. Use it wisely. Under minuet use it when you get a straighter shot proc so you don't interrupt a GCD rotation cast.
Our Songs are pretty Straightforward, but there are some rules on when to pop them to maximize dps, while buffing your team.
Rule #1 - http://xivdb.com/?skill/110/Bloodletter needs to be on CD (although it might be reseted while casting a song). Rule #2 - If you have any of the following buffs activated, do NOT use songs:
Rule #3 - Make sure your http://xivdb.com/?skill/113/Windbite &http://xivdb.com/?skill/100/Venomous-Bite are up on your target and still have at least 6 sec uptime on it Rule #4 - http://xivdb.com/?status/130/Straight-Shot should be up, so that you don’t have to deal with recasting it and your dots right after the song cast is finished Rule #5 - Time your songs with the Boss phase transitions, where the boss is either invulnerable, not target-able, or just pure downtime where Ballad and/or Paeons should always be used to top off everyone’s resources Rule #6 - Research fights beforehand and make sure that when you sing, all the CD stated above are on CD. Rule #7 - If you need to sing Peon for yourself, make sure to cancel it once invigorate is back up Rule #8 - Insist that your healers use X-Ether on Cooldown, so that you spend less time singing for them thus increasing overall & personal DPS. Rule #9 - Ask for http://xivdb.com/?skill/2249/Goad don’t be Shy
As a general rule Bards should apply their DoTs on all Mobs if each of them take longer then 20 Seconds to kill.
We should apply 1 set of of DoTs on the first focused mob, and while we apply our DoTs on the 2nd, 3rd & 4th Mobs, the first focused mob should be dying, so make sure you use http://xivdb.com/?skill/117/Rain-of-Death as much as possible and also http://xivdb.com/?skill/103/Misery%27s-End on the dying Mob. When you swap to the 2nd mob you have to decide if you are reapplying your DoTs based on the HP of the 2nd mob, if its lower then 40% then apply/reset your DoTs on the 3rd and 4th Mob, and help killing mob number 2 with the normal Priority "Rotation" and spam http://xivdb.com/?skill/117/Rain-of-Death as much as possible. Same rule will apply to the rest of the mobs, if the 3rd add is under 40% HP apply/reset your DoTs again on the 4th mob and help killing mob number 3.
If you go any higher the 5 Mobs with Multidotting, it will be almost impossible to cast any oGCDs & other GCDs besides IJ and RoD, therefore in my own opinion after several hours of testing, i think that 5 targets should be the MAXIMUM amount for Multidotting.
Multidotting 5 targets is extremely hard to keep up, especially with Tab targeting system being so wonky. If Tanks move quite a lot is going to be even harder to target the right mobs so you can do your reapplications, therefore the only advice i can give you is, Work with the Enemy List and don't skip and RoD procs.
I also would like to add that reapplying/resetting your DoTs when you know that its a phase change and the boss will be either untarget-able or invincible is a pure TP to Potency loss. That being said you have to know exactly the percentages of when the boss is about to phase change so that you can decide if you should reapply or Not.
Since the introduction of Minuet, not being able to queue Flaming Arrow has been a real pain in the ass, therefore "aiurily" came up with the following macro to alleviate the timing on the cast.
These are rough numbers according to my experience during Alexander progression. These number might NOT be 100% correct, but i can tell you that they are pretty close.
These new values were calculated with Minuet turned on and they are 95% correct. According to iDervy there might be small adjustments, but you can already base your new BiS selection upon these numbers, cause even if they change it will be by a small margin.
3.0 EU/NA Bard Weights WD - 11.602 CRIT - 0.224 DET - 0.140 SKS - 0.111
3.0 JP Bard Weights WD - 11 CRIT - 0.179 DET - 0.137 SKS - 0.128
Of course, it's hard to find a static-weight which is 100% accurate, but these weights are as close as you can get which include slight variations due to peoples gear and their actual stats.
That's why every major item level increase patch, or significant changes in the jobs skills/traits, the weights change.
Additional Info on SkS and Lag: I would also would like to mention that having around 450+ SkS (or Lower) and a connection under 150ms will allow you to cast 2 oGCD spells weaving it in between your main rotation (no Minuet) without losing any dps at all. The more SkS you have the harder it will get to use 2 oGCD Skills, because higher sks will decrease the time between GCD skill usage. Abilities with Big Animations, or Potions wont allow the use of 2 oGCD without losing dps.
Now Under Minuet its a different story, the more SkS you have faster your casts are, which is a direct DPS increase. Lets also not forget that SkS effects DoT damage (although you'll need a truckload of it to even make a difference)
Additional Info on Weapon Damage and DEX: Bards work differently from other DPS because of their lower Weapon Damage. You can clearly see that for melees, their secondary stat weights hover around 0.2-ish range compared to the Bard 0.33-ish range. BRDs DPS is mostly critical hit based due to http://xivdb.com/?skill/110/Bloodletter procs.
Ill be posting a video soon of WAR doing his 27sec opener with and without WTFast. But basically what happens is that without WTFast (40ms Extra) he cannot cast is last skill due to the fact is still @ 50% of his last oGCD, therefore we can safely say that every ~50 seconds he will lose 1 GCD skill which means that he will lose more then 10 GCDs skills in a 10 minute non stop fight….
I will do doing my own write up soon, but if you are really interested into upgrading your raiding bard arsenal you should definately check out Cetonis post on Reddit
http://xivdb.com/?skill/2885/Hypercharge is also similar as Foes but it depends on turret you have up. Physical or Magical Vulnerability will be applied for the duration of Hypercharge depending on what turret was deployed.
MP/TP songs come @ a cost of 15% of bards dps to be decreased, while the turrets come at a cost of 10~14% of Machinists overall dps
Singing MP/TP song costs 1.5 GCds and 2 oGCDs (3 sec cast time)
The amount of MP drain while singing/promoting is the same.
Deploying a Turret and promote it costs the Machinist 2 oGCDs (2 instants)
Machinist http://xivdb.com/?skill/2889/Promotion works during oGCD making turret activation and deactivation much easier without losing dps. On bard you have to wait until the GCD is finished to be able to turn off a song, sometimes resulting in a small dps loss
You can deploy and Promote even if you are moving or stutter stepping. On bard you'll have to stand for 3 sec and finish the cast.
Bard has probably the most underated skill that no one is talking about which is http://xivdb.com/?skill/117/Rain-of-Death and Machinist has no equivalent. It should NOT be used to meet accuracy requirements but only to boost accuracy. ex. (T9-stacking in front of the boss)
Now lets talk about Math for a Second: Comparing both of their "DPS" boosts in 2x Melee and 2x Mage party comps:
(1.2%/2.16%)BRD - 1x Mage Group - 1.2% | 2x Mage - 2.16% (Math Below) (Do note that results may vary depending on if a Brd can consistenly play Foe. Also Caster dps deal slightly lower dps than melees)
(1.15%/2.07%)BRD with only 2x BV Foes - 1.15% / 2.07% Respectively
These are rough estimates of course but it is very apparent that even in single Caster compositions, Bard Still provides more group dps even when assuming they can only cast 2 Foes in one encounter.
Credits goes to: Eliroo for working out the rough math
Dps and the numbers you produce are co-related with the connection you have. Assuming the same class and same skill same rotation someone with 200 ms, will never beat someone with a connection of 100 or less.
ilvl 209 - 3:30 on Dummie with Steamed Staff, Drac Pot and party(no miserys, no Disembowel):
Haurchefant Greystone replied
437 weeks ago