You Spoony Guide! - A Troubadour's Libretto

Yeah crappy trusts BRD overwrite our songs, when I did Quetz I just used like Honor, Min 5-4-3 and hasted myself since they don't play those songs.

You should be able to use Tenuto to prevent other people's trusts from overwriting your songs on yourself.

Domain Invasion songs are special, not sure if Tenuto works with that. Probably?
The bad part about Tenuto is that it forces you to re-cast fakes on yourself, since you won't be able to overwrite your own songs.

Supposing we can rely on what they said in the FFXI Digest #2, all jobs that have spells available from Merit Tier2 category, will see those spells available as scrolls.

For BRD that would mean finally being able to use Dirge and most importantly Sirvente without having to sacrifice NiTro duration.
Can't wait!

I just started a alt and am leveling bard for the 1st time. I saw the moon whistle and the NQ version which I can afford has plus 2 to all songs. Does that stack with instruments or is it only for when you cast with a duarab or jse instrument since they don’t have plus 1-3 on songs?

All songs+ equipment stack. Empy hands, gjallarhorn & whistle+1 would give you March+8 for example.

Refer to this page for maximum song+ for each song, and the capped potency for each tier: https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/BGWiki:SongPotency

Our time for Merit adjustments incomming!

Dirge/Sirvente buyable from npc hopefully.
And new merit categories Probably Macc & being, SE Song Duration breaking Carn c.c;..

Hope it's not gonna be anything good because I want to keep my 5/5 NiTro >___>
It's the whole point why so many people didn't merit Dirge/Sirvente.
If they put some OMG godly merit in their place, we're back to square one.

They could also fix NiTro so 1/5 gets the stuff you get now at 5/5, and additional merits give some meh stuff.
But I don't see that happening.

Nightingale was great back when fast cast gear was limited, but these days it's basically just a convenience unless you're singing like four sets of songs in one JA rotation. Just put on a bunch of FC gear and it's not that much longer.

I could see Dirge bsing useful if you get max potency for free, especially with all the +Song there is now.

I was doing 5/5 Nightingale 1/5 Troubador, don't need the song accuracy effect from troubador really ever if you have 5/5 AF1+3 an an AG Carn. 4/5 if you have Regal Earring.

A lot of us were, to gain acess to the songs, but it's still a compromise and I cba swapping my merits back and forth, personally.

I wrote a plugin to deliver that exchange if I felt I'd need 5/5 troubador for say.. albumens adds but even then just /blm and that takes care of that problem.

GET HYPED GUYS! ILVL GJALLARHORN COMING!!

Ok, in all seriousness I'd just hope for a change like NiTro songs can't be dispelled, but you know it'll be some strange goofy adjustment on its way

As long as they don't touch nightingale and troubadour I don't think we can really lose. Sirvente and Dirge (especially) will be great to have.

I'd never give up Troubadour 5/5. I think it's occasionally maximizes magic accuracy for songs +100%.

I like Nightingale 5/5 too. It lets you precast your midcast sets, but I think if the other categories are good you could live with 1/5. 5/5 is definitely nice for rotations in instances. More instances being awful though. Not a fan of 2-4/5. I don't think I'd like some of my songs instant casting and others not.

I'd expect Song magic accuracy, song duration and song spellcasting time as the categories.

I would like an -SDT effect added to threnodies through merits but seems unlikely.

I hope they give a WSD+% merit category to really *** with the jobs choices.

Granted I don't care about Albumen and Vinipata anymore, and granted that our gear nowadays is much better than what I had when I was fighting them, I can tell you that I've never ever ever ever ever ever ever had a partial resist with NiTro 5/5 (i.e. they wake up earlier than expected) whereas I had a few with Elemental Seal.
Meaning that the Macc bonus granted by Elemental Seal was not completely reliable.
I stopped relying on /BLM since a couple of wipes because of that.

...altough, as I mentioned before, I guess maybe the situation is better nowadays with the new Macc options we have.

I think we're gonna get 2 categories only? One to replace Sirvente, one to replace Dirge.

5/5 Nightingale is quite handy in very lagged zones and hard to give up when you need to buff multiple parties with 5 songs ><

5/5 Troub uh... I could live without. I've been on 1/5 for a few months, it's fine, but I'm kinda melancholic about being 5/5 x2.

If anything song duration would just further put carn ahead for allowing those bards to DPS more and allow their debuffs (lullaby most importantly) to last even longer.

My alt is hyped and ready!

Rebuff question:

When Songs are wiped (Alexander HTBF for example) what is the best process for rebuffing DPS?

Honor > Victory (Ghorn) > MinV (Daur) > MinIV (Daur)? Then rewrite?

Because of full MP/buff wipe, I usually have time to get full 4 dummy songs up and re-write like normal since mages are recovering and rebuffing as well. Dharp songs are weak anyways, so doing 2x Minuet with dharp on won't really change your DPS by that much for the time period. If you wanted the optimum setup that'll save you max a few seconds here or there, can do HM, VM, 2x minuet with dharp, re-write minuets with ghorn.

Sorry but I dissent.

Not questioning the fact that Ghorn songs are much better of course, but Daubla songs are not as bad as you make them sound.
If anything, they're much better than they used to be.

Minu 4+5 with Daubla = 329 attack
Minu 4+5 with G_horn = 424 attack

Both these values will get multiplied further by all effects that boost Attack on a % base (Smite trait, Berserk, Warcry, Chaos Roll, etc etc)


You need to consider that Daubla songs now get Minu effect +4, before they used to get Minu+1 only, that's thanks to the new Neck. (difference with Ghorn is still +/-4 of course).
Also you need to consider that some time ago most songs were buffed in their basic value.
My point? My point is that Daubla Minuet songs nowadays probably give the same (actually I think much more!) attack values than Ghorn songs used to give like 1-2 years ago.

Would you have said that 2x Ghorn minuet songs were useless, 1-2 years ago? I don't think so.




tl;dr
Ghorn songs are always better, but this doesn't mean that Daubla songs are irrelevant or don't matter at all.

I usually do MIN X2 first and then do haste songs so that when I do X2 ballads on the mages, they keep the haste songs. I could be doin it wrong though.

If you want to minimize the amount of time spent overwriting songs (that is, cutting that down to two) then Honor March has to be one of the first two songs you cast.

That way you can do the following rotation

1) Song1 (or Honor March)
2) Song1 (or Honor March)
3) Song3 (Daubla)
4) Song4 (Daubla)
5) Overwrite Song3&4 with Ghorn versions.

Can't get any shorter than this.
...unless you completely avoid the overwriting phase of course. which is not optimal but it can be acceptable imo if the circumstances call for it, Daubla buffs are still nice.

Only situations where I can see that valid are
1) Dispels are so frequent and you need to do things other than buffing, you can't waste so much time overwriting (but if there's so many dispels why even bring a BRD?)
2) People are so spread around that you need the 19,9 range of Daubla to reach them all.

Can't think of anything else atm :x

Only time I'd consider using Daurdabla over re-applied Ghorn songs is when using Pianissimo on tank from afar or a downed party member while mid-cycle nitro. Even then H march and V march (weakened) are off Ghorn and less important songs off Daurdabla.

You're 100% right. Definitely wasn't the best way to state what I was getting at. However the choice of keeping myself and those in range capped haste vs 100 extra atk from my songs, I'll always pick the former.