Looking for advice on burn dps

[Zacatac]

Did some parsing today, trying to see why, but 4 parses all 2 hours long all resulted in Jolt, Fickle Bolt being higher DPS than Jolt, Bolt, Fickle.

While this may be true, the reality is those people burning have a 4th spell on top, the RS pet. So the real test is-
RS, Jolt, Bolt, Fickle vs.
RS, Jolt, Fickle, Bolt

What can often happen on raids is that 4th spell doesn't always get cast because you refresh before you get to it. Jolt on raids is obviously a winner. So the question is which spell would you mind missing occasionally in the 4th slot, Fickle or Bolt? Most would rather make sure Bolt, being the biggest BOOM we have, goes off everytime.

[JerusEQ]

I use the RS, Jolt, Bolt, Fickle rotation, and it ends up (with my focus and all the AAs) rotating this way:

RS, Jolt, Bolt, Fickle, Jolt, RS, Bolt, Fickle, Jolt, Bolt, RS, Fickle, Jolt, Bolt, Fickle

And it repeats that if it just goes. It only refreshes to where you actually see it's refreshed a few times and it's just barely light up then casting again.m The reason I don't go Fickle before Bolt, is that it just doesn't matter. With using clickies between casts, and having enc MR on usually it's just not worth worrying about Flames of Power recourse. Now if they fixed it to only work on spells you cast that would be different. So basically I'd rather have Bolt possibly cast 1 more time than to have fickle possibly cast 1 more time. On the rotation each spell casts 4 times though so ideally it doesn't really matter.

[Kassiandra]

Great advice all around, thanks. The group setup is somewhat due to some chars being boxed so thats less likely to change except for very stationary fights.

[Zatpus]

If bard is boxed and fight is going to be longer you can also do a 48 second melody including grubers ..

sample:
/stopsong
/melody 6 7 8 9 6 7 8 9 6 7 8 9 6 7 8 5
where gruber's lively crescendo is on 5

spellslot 10/11/12 sometimes bugs out whole melody, so don't stick songs there you want to use in a melody



next level would be combining both crescendos for more mana still:

1 2 3 4 = reg songs
11 = crescendo #1 (Gruber's)
12 = crescendo #2 (Kaerra's)

(11 and 12 just as sample, never stick melodied songs here)

/stopsong
/melody 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 11 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 12

the 2 crescendos trigger after around 30 seconds but are locked out 45 seconds, so running Kerras while grubers is still locked, gives some more regen and mana to the group.

Details you can look up at the Bards Concert Hall.