Velium swiftblade - bards

[brecon]

It depends on your level. Lower levels where your dual wield skill is super low, you probably generate more dps from a faster mainhand than from a better ratio offhand.

If you are soloing post-40 or so, pre-epic you really won't be using your weapons: you will be using your drum for chant or fear kiting, a horn for aoe kiting, and a drum or a lute for charming.

The exception is if you are mez-soloing a named in a tight space and regenning in between, in which case you will probably be using melee weapons instead of dots so that you can lock down the mob again. This is a slow way to kill anything.

In a full xp-group when you are doing dps...the difference between haste percentage and the ratio is so minimal to the total group output that I wouldn't really sweat it.

My suggestion: get gear that prioritizes what bards need to do: (1) get procs on weapons like orb of tishan and epic, (2) mez, (3) survive playing a CC with minimal help from healers, (4) lull and pull, and (5) for raids resist fears and roots for kiting. So what you really want to prioritize in gear is:

Dex until ~110 (for procs and for fewer missed notes) > Resists > HP > Cha > AC

Nowhere on my list of Bard priorities is Haste or High-Ratio weapons.