Bard

[Damien 1,514]

This thread is for comments about our Bard job guide.

[Guest musicmaster]

think the food is out of date 6.2 has better buff foods

[Dook 13]

On 9/25/2022 at 5:03 AM, Guest musicmaster said:

think the food is out of date 6.2 has better buff foods

It is in the melding guide, it's being corrected right now. Check the Best in Slot builds for right now, as the lists always include food.

[Guest GruffGuffRebuff]

Thank you for this guide and for keeping it updated!  Based on what I gathered about the DPS rotation, I have a few questions and suggestions, particularly about the leveling section.  (I just got my bard to level 50 and have not unlocked HW content yet, so I am very glad there is a leveling section!)

1) The idea of the burst opener is to maximize the overlap of our buffs, right?  Since Raging Strikes has a duration of 20 seconds and Battle Voice has a duration of 15 seconds, we would ideally want to use Battle Voice within 5 seconds of using Raging Strikes?  That means that at levels 50-55, if Raging Strikes is effectively late-weaved in step 1, we want to be using Battle Voice by the late-weave at step 3.  (Levels above 55 seem to already do this and levels below 50 have not unlocked Battle Voice yet.)

2) A further question on levels 50 and 51 (after unlocking Battle Voice but before unlocking The Wanderer's Minuet): The recommendation is to Bloodletter once Battle Voice is up, which sounds like a good idea on paper, but our opening song is Mage's Ballad, and we lose any Bloodletter procs while already at maximum charges.  Combined with my first suggestion, would it be a good idea for step 3 to be Venomous Bite -> Bloodletter -> Battle Voice or Venomous Bite -> Battle Voice -> Bloodletter, rather than just Venomous Bite?

3) I like the "How to Improve" section!  Are there any more suggestions on how and when to use non-damage-dealing abilities?

4) I'm curious about the reasoning behind the rankings of the three songs.  I am not questioning it; I just find the songs difficult to compare and am curious.  Also, since each song is a combination of a party buff and a randomly-proccing personal effect, does party size effect the recommendation?

[Cetonis 0]

1. Good observation on the 5 second gap. The reason it is recommended to go a little wider in the 50-55 open is because before Iron Jaws, we are only going to use our damage over time skills once each at the start. 

This means that if we do not use Raging before Windbite, that whole run of 15 damage ticks will not be buffed. Whereas with Iron Jaws, we only leave six or so of them unbuffed. Getting that full run of ticks buffed by Raging Strikes is better than buffing a slightly stronger (due to party buffs and Battle Voice) Heavy Shot later on.

2. The first Bloodletter is used immediately after Mage's Ballad, before you can get any procs. The note about Battle Voice is meaning to say that you want to wait on using your second Bloodletter until the buff is up. You cannot max out on charges before then.

3. I can think of a couple things that are not mentioned. First, if someone has just revived, putting a Minne on them can help the healers top them off. The second is for Troubadour. In raids you usually will use it on spots with big party damage. But in dungeons boss damage is rarely that scary, and it can sometimes be put to better use on trash pulls that drag on for a while, to help the tank while they are thin on cooldowns. 

4. To quickly touch on the last part, the difference between passive song buffs is not very large. Army's Paeon's buff is slightly weaker than the others, but it ends up not mattering.

You may have noticed that Mage's Ballad falls behind Army's Paeon at level 76. This is because the Burst Shot upgrade makes our average weaponskill strong enough for Army's to win out. 

Tying not to go too deep into the math, In Wanderer's Minuet, your procs are an 80% chance to provide (usually) 120 potency. So, 32 potency per second.

In Mage's Ballad, your procs are an 80% chance to provide 55 potency. That is 14.667 potency per second.

In Army's Paeon, we are concerned not with the value of one proc, but the passive value of having full stacks. Because, what we are considering here is spending less time at full stacks in Army's to instead spend nine more seconds in Mage's.

When our average filler weaponskill goes up to 235.5 potency at level 76, in tandem with our auto-attacks, the Army's buff is worth 18.62 potency per second. 

This is about 4 potency per second higher than Mage's Ballad. There are some adjustments (especially surrounding the Empyreal Arrow) that close the gap, but not all the way. 

[Guest GruffGuffRebuff]

Thank you for the reply!  I understand much better now, thank you!

[Guest Chocobo Mazurka]

Will the Opener Infographic be added before the 30th? It's kinda vital to the rest of the rotation and I'd like to get some practice in before Savage.

[Dook 13]

On 7/28/2024 at 5:07 PM, Guest Chocobo Mazurka said:

Will the Opener Infographic be added before the 30th? It's kinda vital to the rest of the rotation and I'd like to get some practice in before Savage.

Hey! Bard theorycrafting has been a bit bumpy, however the image is up now. We apologize for the wait. Some jobs just had more to figure out than others 🙂

[Guest Beldr]

So can someone clarify to me why I shouldn't use hearbreak during army's peon?

[Cetonis 0]

 

On 9/18/2024 at 3:18 PM, Guest Beldr said:

So can someone clarify to me why I shouldn't use hearbreak during army's peon?

You can use one early on, but once the timer hits 40-35 or so, you want to start saving them up so that you have as many to use under buffs as possible.

When in doubt, it's free to wait on them and see where the cooldown is compared to your Wanderer's Minuet cooldown timer, if you are going to cap Heartbreak around the same time (or before) WM comes back, fire one off.