You Spoony Guide! - A Troubadour's Libretto

could add madrigal to the list of useful songs, and a Stoneskin set

Made a few minor updates tonight still on my to-do list: tables for song+ tiers for certain songs, staff DD sets, more sidegrades, fix MDT set and a few others. Thanks for your suggestions everyone, I haven't been able to address everything yet but feel free to pm me if you're worried I've totally forgotten something you feel will improve the guide.

Any opinions on Fencer? Worth mentioning at all in the DD section? Mainly thinking of Evisc on mid-low VW tier/ dyna EP/Aby where it cranks out some pretty good dmg when it crits.



Also thanks for the guide.

I don't think this ever got answered (maybe it did but too lazy to look) so I did some testing tonight.

Naked Bard casting victory march:
no weapon: 75% (When the spell was interrupted)
Felibre's dagger: 70%
Apamajas I: 63%

45% -song casting time gear on casting victory march:
no weapon: 45%
dagger: 37%
apamajas: 34%

66% - song casting time gear on casting victory march:
no weapon: 26%
dagger: 23%
Apamajas: 16%

I'll leave it up to the mathletes to throw out what this means as far as multiplicative, additive, etc. All were done without any fast cast gear. Listed -Song times are before the weapon was added (i.e. in the middle example the dagger setup would have given -51% total sst.

16% is low. Really low. Like gives spell cast problems low. Fortunately madrigal and march are both lightning based so a lot of people will already have that staff. Minuet is fire based and ballad is light of course. That will take care of a large majority of songs. I'll probably get to work pretty quick on making those and then just use dagger for songs like scherzo.

oh and those times are eyeballed but I ran them several times. So they may be off by a % but they are pretty close. Close enough to make me believe the -casting time on the staves interacts with gear the same way as - song casting time.

Maybe a stupid question but is there any room for Alkalurops in a BRD set anymore?

Kinda partial to it and I wouldn't wanna see it go to waste..

It's not terrible if you want a single debuff weapon for all songs (perhaps for Threnodies that aren't covered); it should be better than an Iridal Staff. But Chatoyant Staff should beat it otherwise. Magian staves of the respective element are still the best though.

Otherwise, Alkalurops can serve as a nice SS piece if you need it to cap.

Think that's it though...

Great guide, I'm currently working on a brd mule and this helps a lot, since before I knew next to nothing about the job. I see that the OP has mentioned planning to build tiered sets and I'm hoping to see some AH or midrange sets in the future.

What kind of atmas would a brd use for abyssea? Id assume Merciless is one for macc and fastcast if that's needed. Minikin and the Shantotto atma too possibly ( dunno if the movespeed+ stacks with movespeed+ gear).

The guide has fallen into a state of neglect! But I am planning on doing this soon, at a minimum for Cure, Stoneskin, PDT, and Precast. On that note, other things I plan to update include:

/mage set for DD
tables for song tiers
sidegrades and more detail about DD stuffs
more information in the strategy section

To that end, I would love to hear any suggestions people have for the strategy section. If you don't want to post your suggestions in thread feel free to pm me!


Situational...DD atmas if you've gone Bruno and are killing all the things, I like Allure/MM/Apoc if I'm going to be spamming cure, if you're in a large enough group can probably just use Future Fabulous/PDT/regen atmas. Atma of the Master Crafter does not stack with movement speed from gear.

mass chalemie drops from Melisseus btw(Mega Boss for Meeble Burrows, Batallia Downs), pretty sure that's known by now but just thought I'd throw it out there to update the Guide


Evisceration actually is a little bit better than Exenterator when you're restricted single-wielding. The set would probably mirror the one in the guide, except maybe swap to Wanion Belt or Rajas Ring on certain things, since that set was made for Abyssea, assuming fSTR to be capped.

TP sets would look like this for most weapons/situations:
ItemSet 289847

and something like this if it's Abyssea:
ItemSet 289851

like Creelo had mentioned earlier though, assuming non R/M/E, BRD with Plenitas Virga using Shattersoul will outdamage single-wield BRD in high-buff situations like zergs/VW. the sets probably wouldn't differ much from what he posted. with low buffs, single-wield dagger would be better

A little more info on the above post by Bruno:

The point of the testing we did was to see whether dagger or staff would win in a high-buff /whm situation (in this case, the assumption was that you'd be in a COR/BRD -swapping alliance fighting PW or Odin 2, so the high-buff situation was Minuetx2/Chaos/Fighter's/Tactician's/Phantom/Embrava/Haste/Stalwart's) to see what a DD set would look like for someone who had Fanatic's/Perfect Defense and wanted to chip in on damage. The target mob was Qilin as we unfortunately don't have access to PW data. *Bear in mind all the simulations we ran are without atmacites.*

In a high buff zerg, the winning sets for /whm were Virga with Shattersoul (assuming, among other things, Staff Merits). All the other staves we tested (OAT, STR Magian, DA) were inferior to single-wielding Aluh Jambiya. The TP set for Virga:



Shattersoul:



In low-buff situations (or for Mandau/90+Twashtar users able to ride AM3), the dagger sets posted above by Bruno are the best sets for /whm (and most likely other mage subjobs). Will probably run more simulations on Evisceration vs. Exenterator vs. Mercy Stroke with mage subjobs soon, but for now I am intrigued by the possibilities Shattersoul (only 2 months after Creelo brought it up!). Now if only SE will let us fully merit more than 3 weapon skills...

Made a bunch of formatting changes to the gear section today! Also have added some AH/Aby sets, a cure and base precast set, and changed the MDT set to a Shellra V set as was suggested.

Planned changes yet to be implemented:
Tables for AF3+2 set bonus and which songs get what buff
More formatting stuff
More strategy (really need input on this! I don't know every groups' strategy for Legion, Odin 2, etc...)
A section for owners of Daurdabla on overwriting songs
Spellcast stuff

One last big change to announce...at some point tonight or this weekend I will be moving CHRitical Hit to its own thread. Making this move to clear up room for more information in this thread as well as provide more room to explore DD Bard stuff I don't have room for here.

I am looking for a good brd xml but seem to cant find one that will work right for me, if u have one or know of were i can find one hit me up please, thanks!

For my mule, which weapon would benefit me more between emp and relic? Inventory is not an issue with him so that's not a factor, but I wanted to know if I'd benefit from 1 more song or the higher tier 2 songs

Can try mine if you'd like. I try to keep it updated and user friendly since I've shared it a number of times now.

http://pastebin.com/6LpzhP43

I got Daurdabla first, but I got Gjallar shortly after. Gjallar isn't going to be outstanding unless you 99 it, which is pretty damn expensive. Especially if ADL gets more difficult for groups after the embrava nerf. Before 99, it's main uses are getting +'s to song types that are more limited, like ballad, scherzo and such where the instruments you can get are only +1 and to save inventory. You can already get +3 on most of the important songs, just takes a bit of effort in the collecting department.

Daurdabla is awesome and useful at 90 but also incredibly expensive to get to 99. Also be prepared to be rather busy... 3+ songs gets complicated and a bit annoying sometimes. It's also "Free" to get to 90 so long as you have some friends you'd like to subject to hours and hours of horrors(hello there colorless souls).

Thanks for the detailed reply. I'm 40 souls from 85 ochain so well do I know the pain that is soul farming, but I don't mind the time... It's what we play for right? I'll go the emp rout then. Thanks again!

Heh, gl with all those souls. But yeah it's worth it.

Regarding cure sets wouldn't Zenith Pumps (+1) be better since you can get either cure potency or cure casting time- ?

Hey guys, I just stopped by for ideas for BRD, and thought I would share a few of my own:

* Pianissimo and Tenuto still say 15 sec recast, thankfully they're now 5 sec.
* Perhaps explain how one can cast a dummy song (or two) with the Daurdabla and no song duration gear on, then immediately overwrite the additional songs with proper song+ and duration+ gear on. Real March -> real March -> gimpy Daurdabla Hymus -> gimpy Daurdabla Raptor Mazurka -> real Minuet -> real Minuet = 2*March and 2*Minuet, all at maximum potency. In this case, that's over 30 attack from non-Daurdabla Minuets. In other cases, that could be an additional 5 MP on a third Ballad, a stronger Scherzo, or whatever.
* Series I Magian staves in the Fast Cast/Precast sets (for Casting Time -14%). Fast Cast grips also available.
* Series II Magian staves for MAcc on debuffs, as well as recast reduction if there's nothing relevant to equip in the weapon slot.
* A recast reduction set; with Marches and Haste up, Hasting the melee is fast and easy. This is especially helpful in endgame events, when the WHM has plenty on their plate with heals and status removals to keep track of.

They're actually only an upgrade for cure precast set if you can get -6 or -7% cure spellcasting time, for cure potency there are better options unless your potency is uncapped. Will add them to precast set and make some notes on cure set when I have time.


Will be adding a section for Harp owners as soon as it is complete, recast staves I was already considering just haven't had time to implement, great ideas with the MAcc staves and recast set. Thanks for the input!

Sorry if this was covered, I skimmed through everything kinda quick.

With the Embrava nerf coming up and Marches going to be more important, I wanted to look over them a little better. It seems like a lot of people are a little misinformed about Marches as well, so it might be good to go over regardless.

(Shameless copy/paste from RQT inc:)

It's been floating around that Victory March + Marcato and Haste(spell) caps magic haste, and I've seen a few brds riding a single march with marcato, but unless I mathed something wrong or am misunderstanding the caps, it comes out to (assuming 99 G-Horn and AF3 piece) 40.7%, and quite a bit lower with +3/+2 instruments. (38.4% and 36% respectively). Is the 3~7% haste an acceptable loss to stick up a Minuet instead, or is it better to ride out 2 normal marches and be capped magic haste, and Marcato a Minuet?

I got a spoony guide for u :P

LOL :)

I'm planning on adding tables for Marches, Minuets, Scherzo, and maybe a few other songs, I've just been extremely busy the last few weeks and haven't had as much time as I'd like to work on the guide. Will have exact values for +X tiers as well as Marcato and Soul Voice. It's looking more and more like it won't happen until mid-April though, as I'm leaving for my wedding/honeymoon in a few days...hopefully Adoulin doesn't break Bard and I can sort it out when I get back!

I really have to wonder how this adjustment to 1h is going to affect Shattersoul use on Brd... It will be interesting to say the least! @_@

I've posted in past threads about what I usually do for song duration stuff with Gjallarhorn/Daurdabla so just gonna copypasta it to here. Hopefully it helps!


I did adjust post slightly. I now personally use Ghorn Song 1 -> Marcato Ghorn Song 2 as opposed to the Marcato song first because you never know if someone will run outta range, etc. etc. It can just make things more forgiving if something goes wrong while doing your Nitro songs.

Uh??

Song values would be very useful to have in one place. I think I've looked up march values dozens of times.

Shattersoul use.

No, I am not implying that this 1h update will affect Shattersoul, a 2h WS/set up.

I'm wondering about how it will affect alternatives (Dagger), which can already prove to be strong/stronger. By making dagger stronger, it would affect how often Shattersoul could be used. Personally, I've always loved Staff DD Brd ever since 75 since it's just so weird lol, so I'm just wondering how it'll all pan out.

Edit: Please don't quote in a way that twists my words. :/

Ahhh, that makes more sense.