You Spoony Guide! - A Troubadour's Libretto

Ah, yes you're right. Ty

Ive been randomly thinking on gearing bard, but unfortunately at this stage of the xi career. Ive got several jobs already in place with gear. The joys of inventory management. Not counting DD sets, I have no interest in messing with those, about how many inventory slots is bard taking up nowadays, just a rough estimation? Marysas, ghorn, daura 5 spots for af +3, im assuming 3 pieces of relic +3, and full empyrean +1 for now. My guess is about 40-50 slots from what i do know about bard, which isnt a lot. I dont want to begin the time sink or gil sink into a job if I dont have the inventory space to begin with. Not wanting to take one of my other jobs out of commission either. Thanks

Can someone please show me the Brd DD sets people are using? Seemingly no Brds DD on my server so I have no reference point. :x

Check this thread instead.

whats a simple way to make a 3 song macro? I tried making one, but it does not work half the time...

I had:

/recast song
/equipset 1 (terrebanber)
/so song name
/equipset 3 (+2 song flute)

whats missing? thanks!

Does anyone have a BiS Lullaby set floating around? Curious how it differs from the debuff set on page 1. I'm reading on BG that af+3 hands beat inyanga, but what else should change? D-harp would win over Blurred +1 I assume?

ItemSet 364377

Couple things to note.

- this set does achieve 900+ skill to cap out; no you do not need to use Renaye Ring in this set to accomplish that, it's just what
I have for my bard/geo alt.

- Duration bonus from Marsyas without any other bonuses raises the duration in this set from 150s to 225s

- If a Gjallarhorn were used the duration would be 174s

- Daurdabla 99 is better than Blurred Harp +1 coming to a 210s duration sleep. String skill does not give any magic accuracy only radius so you should only be using harp to sleep with when NiTro is available.

these numbers assume you cap out your skill, have moonbow whislte +1 & AF1+3 hands and no other gear enhancing song duration.

If I'm wrong please correct me, but this is just what I've observed and mathed out based on the knowledge from bgwiki and is the current set I use for both.

Your numbers are all wrong.

BiS Set: (You could change the M.Acc Waist for Haste if you wanted capped Haste.)


These Numbers assume you have 1200 JP for 5% Duration Bonus Gift and have 20/20 Lullaby JPs. None of the rankings would change though even if you didn't.

Base Duration: 60s
Marsyas: 200s
GHorn: 194s
Blurred Harp +1: 194s
Daur 99: 188s
Blurred Harp NQ: 188s

Hmmm first time hear about this. I tho string and wind skill are both the same for macc and the only bonuses to macc from Gjallarhorn over Daurdabla is from +4 all songs.

So the set on BG is still best then.

Correct, Funk is BRD 4 Life and would update it if anything changes.

But this question's answer would be no. "D-harp would win over Blurred +1 I assume?"

Awesome thanks, will continue to refer to that guide then since it's more thorough than the one here.

He's wrong about it. String/Singing/Wind skills give Magic Accuracy, same for lullaby+ (and song+). In all cases we don't know how much though.

Also any duration+ gear (including Carn and Marsyas) is additive with other duration+ or lullaby/song+ gear. That means Carn/Marsyas will increase Lullaby II songs by 30 seconds only (assuming 900 skill and no SV or Troubadour), regardless of all other gear used. By the way, Blurred Harp +1 and Gjallarhorn both increase any song duration by 40% and Daurdabla by 30% only.

Then I think what instrument is better for Lullaby is debatable:

• Marsyas gives the longest duration (+50%), no MAcc and only 4' AoE radius for Horde.

• Gjallarhorn gives the highest ammount of Magic Accuracy (CHR +10, combined skill +50, Lullaby +4), a fair amount of duration (+40%) and the same AoE as Marsyas.

• Blurred +1 gives the same duration as Gjallarhorn, some MAcc (Lullaby +4) and an increased radius for Horde.

• Daurdabla gives the least duration (+30%), some MAcc (combined skill +40) and a bit more AoE radius than Blurred (String +20).

If you ask me, I go with Marsyas for general uses, Ghorn if I want every point of MAcc possible and Blurred if I need AoE range for Horde. I don't think Daurdabla has any real advantages.

EDITed for clarification.

CHR+20 (thread), Mag. Acc+20 /Mag. Dmg.+20 (dust), Mag. Acc.+10 (dye) for all debuff songs.

Matter of personal preference but on a cape like as the one Alex pointed out I also stick FastCast+10, that way it becomes my precast cape and the FC+10% doesn't hurt midcast for songs and regular debuffs recast timers.

Lullaby Wind Sets

Max duration
ItemSet 364379
A Kali off-handed would add 5% more duration too.

Max Magic acc
ItemSet 364378
Bihu Roundlet +3 probably slightly beats Brioso Roundlet +3 so long as you are getting the set bonus from ear. But there's not a lot in it. If you switch any other Brioso out Brioso Roundlet+3 will win from set bonus.

Recast
ItemSet 364380
Song Recast-14 between hands and legs. This is probably overkill. Especially since you'll probably have Marches. But it's useful if you have to spam a lot of lullabies.


Lullaby String sets

6 yalm radius for Horde II, full duration except instrument (489 string skill)
ItemSet 364381
Still a rather large sacrifice on Waist and ear. A Path D Kali offhanded would allow for better options.

6 yalm radius For Horde II m.acc. (488 String skill)
ItemSet 364382

Regal Earring not required because 5/5 AF. Could use a different earring or switch out a piece of AF. Probably legs for Inyanga+2/Fili Rhingrave+1. Fili Rhingrave+3 will probably be incredibly good once they come out.


6 yalm Horde II m.acc with recast. (488 String skill)
ItemSet 364383
Similar to the wind recast set. Useful for spamming when BLUs are cleaving. Favoring magic accuracy over duration though.

It requires 486 String skill to reach the 6 yalm radius on Horde Lullaby II. Horde lullaby caps at like 154 string skill so you don't need to use any string skill for that. The skill values listed assume Master Bard.

CHR+20 Magic Accuracy+30 Fast cast +10 on Cape.

Porous Rope is probably very close to Luminary Sash but Magic accuracy tends to be more reliable than CHR.

Barfawc is potentially useful as an offhand for Magic accuracy too.

String skill not giving magic accuracy is still speculation. See this JP blog: http://noranekofantasy.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-320.html
I'm inclined to agree though.

I'm coming up with 474 skill atm in the same set bar the waist and musical earring (5 skill each). Am I missing something? or is it 2 skill short of the 486 required for 6 yalm radius?

It should.



Sounds like you are missing 5. Do you have the Darkside Earring? It also assumes Master and capped String merits.

Right, but doesn't it require 486?
nevermind, looking at the wrong value

Sorry if this was already posted, but BGwiki still says Barfawc doesn't work on the offhand when it actually does:



Naked BRD except Barfawc on sub. 4 songs up. 2 people in range. 12% should have mitigated 60 damage, so prob rounded down to 59.

Hey guys, I just recently started playing again and ended up running some content as my BRD. I'm finding that whenever I NiTro and full buff the melee groups that I'm having a hard time overwriting multiple songs with Ballad on the healer. It only lets me cast a single ballad and on the second one just seems to overwrite that ballad. My guess is because all other songs are fired off with the Inyanga pants and that Ballad is using the Empyrean ones so it just overwrites the shortest song. Is this true or could I be doing something wrong?

That’s exactly what it is. If you’re singing full duration melee songs and the mage gets hit with them, when you pianissimo the first ballad since it’s a different song than the other 4 up, it overwrites the song with least remaining duration. The problem is when you pianissimo the second ballad all it does is overwrite the ballad you just sang because unless it’s a different song it won’t force overwrite of a song with more remaining duration. So if you sing ballad 3, then 2, mage ends up with just a ballad 2 and 3 melee songs.

If the mage absolutely needs 2-3 ballads, they have to stand out of range when you sing nitro melee songs, or there’s nothing you can really do but get 1 ballad 3 up

You could either:

Cast Ballad in Inyanga shalwar +1 to make the ballad duration closer to DD songs.
or
Have your mages separate from DD songs and cast separately.
or
Pianissimo the song you want to replace in minimum duration equipment and then Pianissimo the Ballad in regular gear to replace it.

Thanks for the answers guys, I'm glad I'm not crazy.

I think the last option sounds the least invasive, I may need to work some lua magic to make that happen.

Hopefully the ballad issues will be solved when they release Empy+3 legs with Ballad+2 augment!

*wishfulthinking*

Anyone mind sharing their brd lua?

Speaking about new Magic Accuracy options, BRD has access to the new staff, but not to the new grip.
New staff is probably BiS nuking for lolbrd.

In terms of magic accuracy, assuming for the sake of making an example magic accuracy skill to convert 1:1 to macc and CHR to convert 1:1 to macc as well these are the results:

R15 Carnwenhan has ~15 more macc than the Staff.
When you factor offhands, Ammurapi has much more macc than the best grip (Clerisy+1, macc+15) BRD can use.

If you factor dualwield, then Tauret dagger has rouhgly the same macc as Kali path A.


For people w/o Carnwenhan, Tauret and the Staff both represent interesting options for macc on BRD.

Has anyone tested how retribution fares with the new staff? I wonder how hard it hits at 3k tp, especially on bard