Dirge: Useful?

[samthedagger]

I am wondering if I should bother with Dirge. The damage seems a bit anemic. Are there ways to improve it? Does spellpower help? Or should I focus my points elsewhere. My bard doesn't have a lot of means to deal damage so it is nice to have at least something that contributes some damage. My worst complain is that dirge doesn't have a timer on my buff bar so I never know when it is going to end, thus letting me keep it going in rough fights.

[cru212]

I am wondering if I should bother with Dirge. The damage seems a bit anemic. Are there ways to improve it? Does spellpower help? Or should I focus my points elsewhere. My bard doesn't have a lot of means to deal damage so it is nice to have at least something that contributes some damage. My worst complain is that dirge doesn't have a timer on my buff bar so I never know when it is going to end, thus letting me keep it going in rough fights.

It's the best dot that bards have. It's weak. For a fresh lvl 20 starting with ED, it's okayish. It's not affected by spell power, as far as I know.

[samthedagger]

Do you have to target a mob, or is it always centered on you? That is one of the things that is throwing me for a loop.

[cru212]

I recall it affecting everyone around me, I have not tried targeting it.

[Ironforge_Clan]

You have absolutely nothing to lose by having Dirge. I have it and use it on my warchanter RuneFury. It is nice to have a dot ticking off and dealing extra damage while I'm in the thick of melee. As mentioned the damage is a bit lack luster but any little bit will help when it comes to bards.

[Aashrym]

Dirge is affected as a song and not a spell. That means no spell power enhancements or metamagics, longer duration from lingering and other song duration effects.

As far as benefits go, it affects many targets, unlike many higher damage DoT's, and does not require targets to remain in a specific area or need kiting like many persistent AoE direct damage spells.

The damage itself isn't that low but the rate of damage is. 36 seconds of dirge on 8 targets is going to be over 10k damage to that group for the cost of 1 song. Attacking with harmonic resonance the damage will increase with the sonic vulnerability inflicted, and dirge will also proc masked ball.

Even if you just stack dirge on top of melee it will be a DPS increase worth having because bards don't have a whole lot of direct damage options and stacking an AoE DoT on top of melee helps with that.

If damage is what you are concerned with I would recommend keeping dirge and twisting in sense weakness or energy burst as good damage boosting options.

[FuzzyDuck81]

Don't know about on bards, but on a couple of non-bards with fatesinger i use it to activate masked ball for the sneak attack & mobility buffs & its very handy.