Bard Detail

[Niiro]

/wait 1.55

/wait only registers full second intervals, any decimals just cause it to round up to the next whole second.

[Robbinthehood]

Quick question which may have already been answered, but why shouldn't BRD use Ballad at the start of a boss fight?

Follow up, which songs should be used for boss fights?

[blowfin]

Quick question which may have already been answered, but why shouldn't BRD use Ballad at the start of a boss fight?

Follow up, which songs should be used for boss fights?

It's typically a waste at the start of a fight, your mages won't need the MP, and you're dropping your damage output by 20%.

There are certain milestones in fights where you want to start thinking about ballad though. Let's see, the snakes splitting in Turn 1 are one of the better examples for where I'm at at the moment. There's just no need for ballad at any stage before then as there's only one tank in action.

Songs are situational. Need more TP. Use TP song? Healers running low on MP? Use Ballad. Have a SMN or BLM in your group? Use reqeium where you can to bump up their damage. Are you feeling hungry? Probably should go eat something.

[Spider-Dan]

You should use Ballad only when necessary, as it has a 20% damage penalty.
At the beginning of the fight, mages have full MP, therefore you don't need it yet.

Use Requiem if you have BLM or SMN, but you'll need to manage your MP if your mages may need Ballad later on.
Use Ballad when mages are low on MP, obviously.
Paeon will probably get more usage in the future when there are long battles that are tanked by WAR.

[Majidah]

Spoiler: show

final post on this shit. Two of you are taking it really personal that your DL Hands are not the best or most necessary item ever.



I didn't make a blanket statement. I said IF YOU DON'T NEED THE ACCURACY. Caps because apparently you can't read. My point was specific to people who chose pants over body for AF2, like you. However, upgrading the Rings/Ears/Wrists to DL before Hands means you probably will never really need DL Hands. What's the harm in helping people upgrade better otw to BIS? Not everyone has all day to play or upgrade to every piece of DL, and some are upgrading multiple jobs. DL Hands should be a low priority, if ever needed, upgrade imo.




Again, IF YOU DON'T NEED THE ACCURACY. Meaning, you don't add the Acc into your equations, as it's meaningless. How is that hard to understand? Also, you can't completely account for the 11 crit in the damage formulas. So you are losing almost nothing, for almost 1% extra crit. Sure, neither seems to be major but which is merely a slight dmg increase, and which is both a dmg increase and gives you extra BLs?

And if you wear BOTH, IMP choker and Tox hands, suddenly it's +22 crit you are losing for those weak numbers you posted. .33 is considerable ws damage increase? Did you try to sell me on 48hp as well? Really? I don't have either DL Neck or Hands, and somehow I still happened to have enough Accuracy to do everything I wanted to do.

lol

I wasn't bitching about people and their bad upgrades, I was trying to give people who are upgrading NOW, a better idea of how/what they should be upgrading. It's going to take months for people to get to BIS for everything, why would you want to gimp yourself along the way? and who knows what BIS will be when Crystal Tower comes out.

Make sure you have Accuracy for whatever you are doing.
Make sure there isn't a massive difference in DEX between the two items. (2 is not massive, 4+ is probably bad)
Use the item with Crit. (Because DET is pretty minor so far)

Don't take shit so personal people, I wasn't attacking your personal choices. I was trying to help out future BRDs so they aren't that BRD sitting there in full DL because they figured w/e, it's just AK, and occasionally Turn 1 and it's i70, so it must be better.

And seriously, BRD with Full DL and Tox Ring and Relic has 513 Accuracy. FIVE HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN. Which seems to be above the accuracy cap for Turn 5 Coil. So which pieces of gear don't have crit, that we can sub out of other stuff?

Neck, Hands, Legs, Tox Ring.

Tox Legs give you Crit and acc. Brilliant.
Imp Choker give syou crit and you can meld Acc if you need it. Brilliant.
HQ Spinel gives you Crit and you can Meld Accuracy if you need it. Brilliant.
Tox Hands give you crit and omg, you shouldn't need the Accuracy since everything else gives it to you.

So let's see.

WAY over the accuracy cap BRD with +88 crit, +48 det
or
475 Accuracy BRD (before melds or food) with +144 crit, +13 DET. And you can still Meld VIT, Accuracy, DET and Skill Speed, if you want, on two items.

Probably a hard choice for two of you though. This is of course, all before spending any Mythos, which basically says, you only need DL Hands if you get AF2 Pants first, which could be remedied by getting AF2 Hands first anyways. My bad for figuring out I would never need DL hands if I upgraded properly and hell, I didn't even upgrade properly because I picked up AF2 hat first cause it looked better then the eye patch I never got. That's all I'll say on it though, because seriously, it's getting kinda stupid. I mean, 48 vit and .33 ws abs inc, really? Really?

I don't think anyone in this thread is taking Tox vs DL personal other than you. I own both hands so I have no reason whether to root for one or another and I have so much philo I have most the philo pets including the wind up qiqirn as to not regret throwing some on the hands.

So let me tell you, 11 crit is much less effective than 2 dex and 8 det. It's not a matter of the accuracy. The bards with highest DPS are *not* the ones with highest crit rate, it's the ones with highest base damage who take the medal.

I highly doubt 11 crit accounts for 1% crit but even if it did, lowering your base damage for 1% crit isn't worth it. It's not a matter of accuracy at all.

Take a look at allagan bracelets (BiS for bard). Dex 13, det 8. Vs dl bracelt, dex 9 crit 9. You are getting dex +4 det +8 crit -9 on that upgrade. And I assure you it's the better choice.

Tox hands aren't bad, but they are definitively not better than DL hands. Under no scenario whatsoever.

[chichicha]

/wait only registers full second intervals, any decimals just cause it to round up to the next whole second.

Oh, thanks! I thought somewhere in macro thread said it takes .55 two decimal rather .5 (single decimal) to round up. They must have been fixed.

On second things -----

Is there anywhere on internet that has confirmed what's or how Crits or Determination works with the numbers?!
If there isn't any, I think the "discussion" between you guys are going nowhere.

Every has their own belief on which stat made their DPS better.

If you choose to have DEX ( Base damage) to be the winner, go top it up without doubt.
If you choose to have Crits to be the winner, top it and spam your Bloodletter.

Until somewhere proved that
Crits > DEX > others
or
DEX > Crits > others

All questions are answered based on posters own experience and up to others to take it.

We don't really need to keep posting same "discussion" to prove your belief.

[Therin]

DEX is obviously the most important stat, but DET vs Crit is debatable.

[Niiro]

1 crit stat = .0693% crit rate

14.43 crit stat = 1% crit rate

This is obviously working from the base crit stat at level 50 (341) which starts you at the base rate of 5%.

[Ksandra]

Is there anywhere on internet that has confirmed what's or how Crits or Determination works with the numbers?!

http://valk.dancing-mad.com/?page_id=195

[Deadgye]

Take a look at allagan bracelets (BiS for bard). Dex 13, det 8. Vs dl bracelt, dex 9 crit 9. You are getting dex +4 det +8 crit -9 on that upgrade. And I assure you it's the better choice.

Allagan Bracelets of Arming: 13dex, 8det, 16skill
Gryphonskin Wristbands: 9dex, 6det, 12acc, [12crit], [10vit], [+2det]

4dex, 16skill, up to 2det vs 12acc, 12crit, 10vit. I wouldn't exactly declare allagan bracelets best in slot yet.

[madcow]

Allagan Bracelets of Arming: 13dex, 8det, 16skill
Gryphonskin Wristbands: 9dex, 6det, 12acc, [12crit], [10vit], [+2det]

4dex, 16skill, up to 2det vs 12acc, 12crit, 10vit. I wouldn't exactly declare allagan bracelets best in slot yet.

If we are talking BiS:

lol 16 SS. Det cancels each other out. At a BiS level you will be wearing AF2 body and Acc isn't an issue. Also at BiS level Vit is built into all allagan/AF2 pieces. For current content and full i90 gear 10 vit is a non factor Essentially your argument boils down to:

4 dex vs. 12 crit.

I'll take the 4 dex.

[Deadgye]

Well yes, if you stupidly disregard the stats it has over it then of course it will seem better. I don't know why you'd bother to do that since it puts your opinion far away from the facts. Unless of course you're trying to delude yourself so that you don't have to bother getting philo mats.

By the way, if you're using allagan neck, wrist, and ring you're only going to have ~460 acc at "BiS level".

[maxu]

At a BiS level you will be wearing AF2 body and Acc isn't an issue.

i dunno what BiS you're looking at but if you use Allagan Bracelets with the other pieces you only sit at 459 Accuracy. You need Myth bracelets to cap out.

[Viar]

My macros -

Heavy Shot

/ac "Mysery's End" <t>
/ac "Bloodletter" <t>
/ac "Heavy Shot" <t>

Straight Shot
Same as Heavy Shot but without Bloodletter.

DoT

/ac "Internal Release"
/ac "Wind Bite" <t>
/wait 1
/ac "Bloodletter" <t>
/ac "Blunt Arrow" <t>
/ac "Flame Arrow" <t>
/ac "Repelling Shot" <t>
/wait 1.55
/ac "Venomous Bite" <t>

Buff ( including Quelling Strike, which I have it at lowest line of macro)
All buff lines without /wait

My sequence
Straight Shot -> DoT -> Heavy Shot macro spam and between 3s wait, I'm buffing pressing

Or (not recommended, this is more like zerking for only short time)

Straight shot -> spam Buffs until all up -> DoT macro -> Heavy Shot macro spam until Straight shot and DoT need refresh.

At some event such as Bahamut Coil, you might want to take off Blunt Arrow off your DoT. Since BRDs are rotating silence.

At AK / Titan you may want to remove repelling shot, to avoid falling off at Wall fight.

I'm sure the way I played is not maximising the DPS BRD can do. People on this forum might have different suggestion

Don't use /wait in any of the DPS macro, you're losing DPS if you use /wait.

Rotation is straight shot(for buff)>DoT x2> heavy shot. Put straight shot/DoT back up if it wears.

Put ALL your buff/none GCD WS between GCD skills in your macro, from strongest to weakest.

So something like this:

/ac "straight shot" <t>(change this to heavy shot and DoT skill x2 too for the other 2 too)
/ac "Raging Strike" <t>
/ac "Misery's end" <t>
/ac "Bloodletter" <t>





and so on.....

Also both of your straight shot/heavy shot or w/e GCD skill you're using should have /ac bloodletter in it, in case it's up when you're pressing the button. Any delay on firing skills and buffs=DPS lose, even if the delay is 0.5 sec.



I use a turbo controller so I just turn on turbo mode and hold the straight shot/heavy shot/DoT x2 button(and they all have macro to fire off buff/none GCD skills between them), it'll automatically fire off every single buff and none GCD as soon as timer's up.

There's animation lag between each skill, so you can usually fire off 1~2 skills between GCD.

I don't put repelling shot in macro because sometimes it can be dangerous to use it, I usually use it manually. Blunt arrow is depending on situation too.

You should do the same to your AoE skills too, so in AoE situations you're still using none GCD skill/buffs.

[madcow]

i dunno what BiS you're looking at but if you use Allagan Bracelets with the other pieces you only sit at 459 Accuracy. You need Myth bracelets to cap out.

Yeah, that was my mistake. He said Allagan but I read it as AF2 which I have as BiS for my list.

EDIT: That actually makes it:

4 dex 4 acc (Hero's) vs. 12 crit 8 det (Gryphonskin). Which is a much more compelling argument imo and definitely makes Gryphonskin a good piece while you save up for other more valuable AF2.

[Helel]

Hey guys. I was using the damage calculator on dancing mad to try to decide what to upgrade next. I was under the impression that it was better to upgrade DL legs -> relic legs before relic bow -> bow +1. However, when I plugged in the numbers, the relic -> relic +1 upgrade was clearly ahead.

Dex 435; crit 455; det 243; skill speed 364; weapon damage 40; auto attack 43.73 - these are my stats as of right now with DL legs on (+ other gear).
=WS DPS of 47.31 and AA DPS of 39.86

Upgrading to relic legs gave me a WS DPS of 48.13 and AA DPS of 40.51

Upgrading to relic bow+1 gave me a WP DPS of 48.48 and AA DPS of 40.77

Is it better to upgrade relic to +1 before relic legs? I'm assuming the calculator does not take into account bloodletter resets so maybe that's why I've heard people recommend relic legs first?

[Deadgye]

The calculator doesn't factor in things like that, yes. The damage formulas also aren't perfected yet. It's only good for getting approximations. Upgrading the legs should give you approximately the same straight damage increase as +1'ing the weapon, but you also get the higher reset rate and more vit.

I upgraded from toxotes hands to af90 hands first, and then toxotes legs to af90 legs second. I'm probably going to get my Heroes ring this week, and then get my af90 body and then my +1 weapon. I may or may not get the Hero's waist and ears somewhere in between ring and weapon as well.

[Day]

I did legs > ring > hands and going to do body then finally +1ing. A big part of me regrets it though, I really wish I had just gone in ignorant so my weapon would be glowing right now lmao. I'm looking at like 5 more weeks or some shit before getting to weapon. I still might yolo and just get weapon next and take the abuse from FC.

As stated earlier in thread by several folks, it prob makes most sense to do hands/ring first, but i had enough for legs at the time of the decision and went with those to get an expensive piece out of the way.

[Deadgye]

I still might yolo and just get weapon next and take the abuse from FC.

You can probably get away with it by mentioning that limit break damaged is determined by the sum of the party's weapons damage. I'm only getting the body before the weapon because I don't like how the darklight body looks with the bard pants. :3

[Ksandra]

You can probably get away with it by mentioning that limit break damaged is determined by the sum of the party's weapons damage. I'm only getting the body before the weapon because it's faaaaaaaaaaaaaabbbbbbbbbullllllllllllllllloooooooo ooooouuuuuuuuussssssss

ftfy

(I am doing body > ring> weap next)