Since previous is closed.
I'm assuming we start a new one for 3.0 to share our thought.
Since previous is closed.
I'm assuming we start a new one for 3.0 to share our thought.
At 57.
Learned
Wanderer's Minuet
Empryeal Arrow
Iron Jaws
Changed noticed
Rain of death shared Recast with Blood Arrow
Barrage - non-crit hit x3 of next cast.
So... Playing a bit diff -
At dungeon-crowd
WM on -
1) all buff up, except internal release, and barrage + Emp A for fun damage x3
2) flame arrow - straight shot, internal release, venom bite + wind on each mobs, wide volley/quick noct and Rain of Death spam. Iron Jaws one mob, until all death.
Boss fight
1) same
2) WM off, since many boss fight need dodging.
3) WM up, when barrage and Emp A are up.
Don't quote me, still learning and above may not push our Dps to great one.
Iron jaws applies a new snapshot of your current buffs.
Sidewinder can be used outside of WM, contrary to its tooltip.
Sidewinder has the same issue as fester/bane, where you have to wait a half a gcd for the dots to register.
Straighter shot is instant while in WM. Unfortunately there's a bug where you can still have a cast time when it has proceed.
Using a shot in WM after repelling will interrupt your cast.
I've not done any dummy tests and I don't plan to until I've gotten my law gear, but with minuet up, you don't have the option of weaving both an off-GCD and Bloodletter unless Straighter Shot procs. Trying it will noticeably decrease your DPS.
With the Barrage change, it seems to make sense to save it for Empyreal Arrow (at ~15 and 90 second respective CD, they should line up nicely anyway). Don't weave any other off-GCD before Empyreal Arrow, your DPS will noticeably decrease.
The question is whether WM sans BL is more DPS than oGCD BL weaving sans WM. (The answer is almost certainly "no" because otherwise, WM would be useless.)
Long story short: WM should always be higher DPS than not-WM, and if it's not, you can expect a hotfix to make it so.
I don't have any parse data yet (lvling smn first) but I'm highly interested to see the results of the det nerf on AA and if WM accounts for the previous approx 30% dmg our AA accounted for. Eyeballing it for now, with all the various bugs and whatnot specific to bard, it doesn't seem to be the case.
Regardless of what it is doing, it definitely isn't enough with respect to other DPS. The gap between a good BRD and a so-so DPS is huge in a bad way for BRD.
That's really sad. I'm actually really happy that I switched to caster for my static this patch. I know for a fact I would have been raging so hard. I could have gotten used to the changes, begrudgingly I'm sure, but its just not my idea of bard. I loved the movement/utility aspect of bard, and I feel like even if they implement fixes (I'm sure they will) it will never be what I loved about bard. So sad
Is this even possible??? I was out dps-ing another brd in aurum vale by a fair margin. He was full dreadworm and zeta synced at 49 and I was 46. Kinda off topic but just seems crazy to me. I was pulling hate a lot neither of us hadmsongs up
Under sub-50 level sync, the difference between players is almost entirely playstyle, so that's not surprising at all.
My comparisons were pre-Sidewinder. The gap feels a bit less horrendous now. That said, SW doesn't require Minuet.
WM just feel really awkward right now. I hope it's just because it's so drastic a playstyle change from what I'm used to so with time will feel better.
I'm not 60 yet so it could change but it feels like it only just does enough to be slightly better than no WM except with all the added drawbacks. And as soon as you're going to have to move, it's going to be worse. I wish toggling WM was oGCD as that would help.
Has anyone done any Skill Speed testing yet? I'm guessing there's no amount of Skill Speed we can pile on to make WM nicer since the cast time it already pretty short? I suppose the question will be whether it outweights Det now though.
Any use for Paean? We tested that it does not prevent WAR's Berserk from pacifying themselves and are at a loss as to what else it is good for at the stage it is obtained (58-60).
I get the feeling it's going to be in there for future. Remember when SE said before that certain jobs/abilities will be required for certain fights. I think that's going to be one of them.
Also thinking about it. I think a lot of BRD's are going to be better off completely ignoring WM. Obviously the good BRD's will not. But I think the majority will be better off not using it because they won't be able to play the job well enough (plus dodge where applicable) to get the DPS improvement. I mean macro BRD's are going to see a far larger DPS loss from using macros with WM.
That may prompt SE to change it in future if too many people just ignore it.
Request thread title change to "Bardmage 3.0".
The reaction on Reddit is hugely negative. BL/SS proc issues, AA vs. WM dmg, etc. seem to be coming up a lot. BRD is my second job and it's vaguely disconcerting; my whole draw to the job is the mobility, despite a cost to DPS. I have not played it any appreciable amount post-HW, but a lot of people are saying that the dmg increase with WM is not significant and its cost is that it completely changes the playstyle of the class into a pseudo-BLM. For people like me who specifically chose BRD over BLM due to the playstyle, it doesn't sound awesome.
Again, everything I typed above is hearsay; would enjoy hearing reactions from those out in the field as high 50s / 60.
The not moving isn't a big deal (although admittedly is a big draw to BRD), it's the butchering of oGCD that makes BRD feel so awkward now. I mean you can still have mobility at the trade of damage by toggling WM off. But using WM shouldn't drop your DPS other than for movement / non-AA reasons but it does. It's like what's the point of Bloodletter resets when you have to sit on it for cast time and/or choose between firing BL or a buff. And because WM use doesn't seem that far ahead of non-WM mode, it seems too easy for it to drop below non-WM mode through movement or messing up your cycle
If Empyreal / Iron Jaws weren't gated behind WM use, I'm pretty sure WM would be a DPS loss. I could be wrong but it certainly felt that way
Pre-60, weaving WM to reapply dots and emp only, I was extrememly competitive with even nins. This is an extremely difficult rotation to keep up flawlessly though -- especially with all the glitches on brd atm.
I just hit 60 and am curious as to why barrage is not stacking with SW... I can not find anything in the action descriptions or notes that say the two will not stack. Is it possible this is another sidewinder glitch or did i miss it? 7k sidewinders, I want to go to there. . .
I recall someone excellently explaining it back in the .dat mining thread
So pretty much just an Empyreal Arrow toy... barring that, I guess Heavy Shot :/
Note: I haven't messed with BRD post-50 yet, despite it being my main class pre-3.0, so I don't have any personal experience with it. Insta-queues on WAR was too enticing.
Question for those of you who have messed with BRD (yes, I realize I could answer this myself since it doesn't require any post-50 skills): Does Barrage work with our AOE skills?