It works exactly like cleric stance.
It works exactly like cleric stance.
I liked BRD the way it was before WM... this is just awkward now. I'm kind of enjoying NIN now, it may be time to jump on another job boat until SE get their shit together with BRD. If they ever do.
I honestly doubt they will change it back. It seems to me that they were unhappy with our ability to handle mechanics with minimal impact to our DPS. Which would be fine if our DPS was on par with other DPS but even in movement heavy fights we still lost.
The cynic in me says down the line they will push more support buffs on to us to appease us / rationalize why we do less DPS. My wife always jokes to me that one day BRD's will be on the back line just singing and questing for their relic harp when it dawns on them they no longer have a bow. Obviously farfetched but it makes me laugh.
that would not be so bad if there wasn't 4 man content in which BRD fills a DPS role.
maybe SE will fix it when the gap is so much that getting a BRD/MCH instead of a "real DPS" adds an extra 10 minutes to Expert Roulettes and the tanks/healers just bail like it was pre-nerf Steps of Fate.
I am trying to enjoy 3.0 bard, been sticking to it and practicing, but I'm just not feeling it for wm
Like many others, I enjoyed the mobility etc.
I have nothing practical to contribute, just joining the choir :/
After playing BRD a little bit now I'm home from work I've come to the conclusion I can deal with the lack of mobility, it's the cast times I can't deal with. It makes it feel so clunky and that you have too many oGCDs to hit in too short a time. It will come in time but it feels like I'm watching my hotbars constantly and not the fight itself.
I think the building stacks thing when not moving and resetting/reducing on movement is the best compromise with the community even if WM damage boost has to come down a little bit. It means that BRD still fundamentally plays the same but you are penalised for moving.
@ Jem,
Macro should help with non-stop pressing button?
I agreed that the oGCD is difficult to slot in between GCD.
I tried playing during DREX run, and it's a pain ...
I guess
We can get the dps right, once we get used to the different playstyle.
Macros aren't really a help, if anything they are a hindrance because they will cause you to accidentally trigger more oGCDs than you intended.
Like right now if you get a Bloodletter reset somewhere in the string of your buff chain you're basically fucked. You have to either make the Bloodletter sit there waiting for a long time or fire it at a loss to DPS or delay your buffs. Then it's entirely possible that during this clusterfuck of queued oGCDs it's also time to Barrage/Empyreal Arrow but your DoTs are also wearing forcing you to Iron Jaws / delay things further. And if you have to move during any of this chain / cancel WM then you're going to have a bad time (Although I guess you can take that time to just pop all your oGCDs)
Basically right now it feels like we're juggling way too much during WM stance and that buffs/BL are sat unused for far longer than they should be. It just feels unnatural. Granted it's going to feel a lot worse right now because it goes against muscle memory so much. It will improve with time but it just does not feel good right now and it definitely is not fun.
Let's break it down.
Right now we have the following oGCD's to keep on cooldown
1. Bloodletter (15 Secs / Proc Resets)
2. Blunt Arrow (30 Secs)
3. Repelling Shot (30 Secs / WM makes this hard to keep on CD)
4. Sidewinder (60 Secs)
5. Internal Release (60 Secs)
6. Flaming Arrow (60 Secs)
7. Blood for Blood (80 Secs)
8. Hawkeye (90 Secs)
9. Barrage (90 Secs)
10. Raging Strikes (120 Secs)
11. Misery's End (12 Secs when applicable)
Then throw in that you have to worry about keeping on top of the following GCDs
1. Straight Shot (20 Secs)
2. DoTs / Iron Jaw (18 Secs)
3. Empyreal Arrow on CD (15 Secs / Ideally needs to line up with Barrage)
Being able to only weave one of them in between each shot makes keeping on top of all that an impossible task. There isn't really a rotation right now, it's just an unmanageable nightmare with mad flailing towards whatever is up at any given time. Being able to use 2 between each GCD made it far more manageable.
yea i don't even use repelling at all unless i happen to be in range and want to move, it's just too much of a hassle to bother with it
Playing around briefly on dummies before I fell asleep after maint, stance dancing seemed to be giving me the best numbers, followed by full time WM, then normal BRD. I imagine full time would be more efficient, but it becomes impossible to use all your CDs efficiently in WM.
They either need to find some way to allow us to keep using 2 oGCD's between shots or they need to consolidate some of them.
Maybe something like Iron Jaws but for buffs (I.e. hit this ability and it will trigger Hawk/IR/RS in 1 oGCD if they are available). And some sort of consolidation between Bloodletter and Sidewinder (If WM is up BL is disabled, SW is reduced to 20 sec recast, BL resets are now SW resets). I don't know, just some way of reducing the number of oGCD's we have to juggle.
Quick math to see if that even balances
Spoiler: show
Very quick math says we have to use an oGCD between ~55% of our GCD's with WM up. 75% if Miserys End is in play. Bloodletter resets are then on top of that.
That doesn't factor in if we have sing, move, attempt to line up buffs or if the mob becomes untargetable.
So yeah, it's hardly surprising it feels so hard to keep on top of everything now.
something ive been toying around with is around the 3 min mark in a dummy level fight, a lot of your cds start coming back up (b4b, he, barrage, ir, fa, sw). you can dip out of WM, use non-WM stance to weave gcds and ogcds as required, then dip back into WM. that would help a lot with trying to fit all your ogcds in a reasonable amount of time, especially in time for empy + barrage.
i havent successfully gotten it to work yet because i keep forgetting to refresh dots before but im sure some of the better bards on here can try this.
also what parses are you guys getting with new bard.
Could edit it but too lazy to do so yet the general principle seems to me to be pretty appropriate for bardmage now:Spoiler: show
Glad that Jem listed out all the recast.
IR , Sidewinder, Flaming Arrow seems to be good partners.
@ Repelling - for me, I'll run to distance to apply ONLY when Heavy Proc for SS. That's the only time I can run. Luckily, Heavy's proc is more than enough within 30s
P.S. : MCH seems to have better running with their Gauss Barrel up, as they do have more things to force proc on Weapon skill for mobility.
I'd be glad with anything that made WM Bard less clunky, your idea included.
BRD is basically a clusterfuck of shit atm and it's still pretty shit dps compared to other jobs, I hate it atm, it's not in the slightest bit fun. I have no problem not being best dps but I don't want to have to work this hard, for shit dps and it pisses me off I can't handle every mechanic while dpsing well. My choices are shit up my dps and take off wm, shit up my dps and add feint to my bar, or try to work even fucking harder and stutter step around. It's just an awful combination of stupid shit atm and my WAR is outdpsing me on half the shit we do anyways cause he just fulltimes Deliverence now.