You Spoony Guide! - A Troubadour's Libretto

I was browsing around on a Japanese Wiki for FFXI and noticed something interesting about Resist! traits. While it's a rough Google translation, it seems like the resistance songs (Operetta, Pastoral, Aubade, Gavotte, Capriccio, Fantasia, and Round) are similar to job traits, not magic evasion. I did some extremely rough testing in Dynamis Beaucedine on Yagudo crows and Silencega:

Scop's Operetta (Lv.19) w/ Song +7 cast on SMN87/WHM43
Resist!: 51
Landed: 35
Total: 86
Resist! Percentage: 59.3

Puppet's Operetta (Lv.69) w/ Song +7 cast on SMN87/WHM43
Resist!: 63
Landed: 29
Total: 92
Resist! Percentage: 68.5

I still have not tested Scop's Operetta. I know that magic evasion is usually better than resist traits, but this is still interesting. Also, the crow checked Easy Prey to the SMN but without any gear. I did not see a single resist through magic evasion; the spell either landed or was a straight resist.

JP website:
https://wiki-ffo-jp.translate.goog/html/795.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=ajax,elem&_x_tr_sch=http

Just as an update to AoE Lullaby in 2022, it is now not unreasonable to aim for String Skill 567 to hit the 7 yalm radius.

Forgive any math mistakes, but this is what I got:

Max String Merits, and 2100 CP: 425 base

Master Level 20: 445 base

String Skill +122 with this set

ItemSet 383236

Sacrifices:
Lullaby +6 - +2 from hands, +4 from switching from blurred harp +1 to Daurdabala. In exchange, 30% duration gained from Daurdabla. Only speaking in duration, not resist potential, results in approx +3 lullaby loss

Duration -41% which equals ~13 seconds on Lullaby I, and ~26 seconds loss on Lullaby II. Duration for dynamis and odyssey usually are not important three days, so it isn't much of a loss.

MACC-1 , but unknown amount of accuracy gained from the large skill increase

CHR-20?

The biggest loss is the cape. I cannot find +4 anywhere else that makes sense to switch... such as Kali path D is dumb compared to Carnwenhan, or Incanter's torque compared to Moonbow whistle +1 (even though that would allow us to swap the cape back to Intarabus). If anyone has ideas, let me know.

Interesting, but I have to ask: Since the values are just predicted atm, is it confirmed the larger radius continues through that tier?

Yeah, I tested this in 2017. Here is the discussion link. The rest of the page is also worth reading.

We are currently assuming that the tier after (648 skill for 8 yalms) is a thing though, as that is still not reachable today.

Edit: +152 String Skill is the most I can find with ninja sub and dual wielding Kali Path D. Interestingly, the only slot that does not give String+ to Bard are legs. +152 string skill gives us 597 string skill. With more Master Levels, 648 is still a long ways off.

I was also thinking of offhanding Kali path D as a solution. It offers nearly the same amount of macc as Ammurapi. but if subbing NIN or DNC is an issue, I agree Funk there's really no better way to distribute that set you put together.

also, I was pretty sure Kali's song effect duration worked in the offhand, but didn't see anything on it, so I went out to test it (didn't know if I was crazy for offhanding it). Lullaby 1 w/ no duration gear (plus JP/gift) lasted 51.5 seconds. with Kali in offhand, it lasted 53 seconds. so, a 5% duration would be a little bit more of a kicker for dw'ing to offhand Kali too.

Technically it's still -10% duration because Song +4 equals duration +40%, as we all know.

Details are not known but it's highly believed that while Wind skill contributes to macc with a ratio of roughly 1:0.3 (1 point of wind equals ~0.3 macc), String doesn't contribute to macc at all, it "only" contributes to widen the range, for the songs that matter.
Someone did some moderate tests many years ago which seemed to hint no increase in macc by raising String Skill.

Sing instead adds macc to both spells sung with wind and string instruments, and the convertion ratio seems to be somewhat close to 1:1


As far as the general new tier is concerned: it's more viable than it used to be thanks to the +20 string we get to ML but realistically still not very viable if you ask me.
Honestly I don't think I'm gonna bother until we get the next ML cap increase (hopefully soon! Maybe february already? /crossesfingers)


If you ask me what the ML20 truly granted us is more freedom for the 486 tier. Previously you didn't exactely have a wide array of choices. Especially if you wanted to reach the 486 tier WITHOUT using Daurdabla but using the Blurred Harp +1.
Now that's no longer the case and reaching 486 tier is quite viable for multiple players with multiple options even with Blurred Harp +1.

Yes it does!
Well it does for buffs so I assume that obviously it has to work for debuffs as well.

From my experience in early Albumen kills where I used to go /NIN with Kali offhand, I can say the results I was getting were pretty much in line with the monsters waking up at the same exact moment I was expecting them to.

Are the two durations mutiplicative or additive? If it's multiplicative, then Daurdabla's 30% could be a net increase despite losing 40% in +song.

GHorn lasts longer (10secs on my set) on Victory March comparing only gear changes of Daurdabla vs Ghorn.

Everybody always assumed it's additive, but no tests have been performed to my knowledge.

On one hand I'd be leaning to say they're additive because the results in durations we're getting with sleeps using my formula are correct, i.e. the message we get in chat from the formula correspond to the moment the monsters wake up just as expected.

This hints those values are additive (I treated them as such in the formula).
But... can't be too sure. I mean in the end if the results were off by a miniscule amount like 1sec or lower, I doubt you would notice.
This is the formula for when Soul Voice is not up:


All gear is assumed to be additive and the duration granted by instruments is also treated the same way.
The duration by Lullaby JP (which only affects lullaby of course) and Clarioncall are static and are added in that point of the formula and then everything is doubled by troubadour.
Duration.troubadour in my formula is a "2" if troubadour is up, or a "1" if it isn't.

Now I truly suck with math, but if Daurdabla were multiplicative then the formula should become something like this, maybe?


With no offhand, Troubadour Off, Clarion Call Off, Marcato Off, Soul Voice Off and assuming Horde Lullaby (60secs base duration) results would be
Additive Daur: 187.4 seconds
Multipli Daur: 214.2 seconds

With Troubadour on instead
Additive Daur: 374.8 seconds
Multipli Daur: 428.4 seconds


That's ASSUMING I changed the formula right to reflect an hypothetical multiplicative Daurdabla but I suck at math so I'm not sure.
Assuming I'm right the difference is so big it should be pretty easy to spot, I'll test it later if I have time!

Activating Battlemod

Foe Lullaby II stick time: 9:53:57

Additive Daurdabla wake up expected time ==> 9:57:00
Multiplicative Daur wake up expected time => 9:57:31


Mandragora woke up at 9:57:03, according to Battlemod.
It's a few seconds off but I guess we're within the margin of acceptable error.
I guess this confirms that Daurdabla is additive and not multiplicative?
Maybe?
I suck at math, would love more input on this.

Song stuff is additive. Also yes Sechs it is within margin of error due to server ticks/packet timing.

Allright! Good to know. We always assumed them to be additive, but now we know for sure I suppose.

So I wanted to try the Sheol C farming approach with 3DDs with the BRD taking care of pulling groups of mobs that the DDs will kill.
I managed to get over 1600 eva with capped DT in my idle set so I feel confident with that, but I have a few things that still concern me.

Even with capped Eva I'm still gonna get hit by ~20% of physical attacks thrown at me by the monsters I've pulled.
This won't affect much my Horde Lullaby casting since it can't be interrupted by physical damage BUT that means that in precast and midcast I won't keep my CappedEva/CappedDT stats.
How do we deal with that?

I was thinking to create a rule that will let me precast/midcast with my idle set. That way Eva and DT will remain at the same level, but I'm gonna lose Macc and FC.
The former shouldn't be a big deal since I get a lot of Macc from Nyame, but the FC? Will it be a big deal?
/RDM could help compensate with Fast Cast Trait but I'm not sure if it's gonna be enough.

How do you people deal with that?

You'll definitely want to make a special evasion/defensive midcast mode, but there should be no need to change your precast unless you often try to cast a second time before the first cast finished (e.g. spamming a macro, getting faked out by bad lag, etc).

Hello bards! i'm serching for a recent set for song duration, sleep.... but i can't find one, can someone recommend me something?
What is the maximum duration that has been achievedfor a song?

https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Obamiwannabuffya:_A_Bard_Guide_by_Funkworkz

The bard I go with that does this on asura is Eight he is jp, pulls all including the halos and he goes /pld

Horde Lullaby 1 = Full evasion/DT set plus daurdabla (or blurred harp if you are into that). They won't resist, mostly because full Nyame still has some meaty m.acc on it.
Horde Lullaby 2 = regular lullaby stuff. Most mobs should be dead by the time lullaby 1 wears off, but if you have nothing else to do, might as well overlay lullaby 2.

At what skill level does Victory March become 15.92% (163/1024) or is it that from 0Song and 0Instrument

If seems to cap at 600 combined skill.

Allow me to reword it.

Are V/A marches full potency from zero skill, if not, do we still have a list of tiers for it

Scale with song+ gear after capping skill. March page on bg-wiki

...

I swear to *** it's like training AI. Even when you make something as simple as possible you always manage to *** it up. I at least hope it's on purpose.

That's almost the answer to the question, but isn't. Anyone else want to answer the question I didn't ask.

I did answer your question. If you didn't get want you wanted, then it's your question that is presented badly.

No one has the exact tiers, only the skill level at which it caps base potency. For what it's worth, AM caps at 450 combined skill.

If AM/VM can give less than 10.55%/15.92% then that's what I wanted to know. The wikis do not list any numbers below those.
If I needed to bother skilling or I could just VM at 0+0 and cap haste. (with haste2)

That's what I answered in my first post. There's literally no reasonable way to misinterpret it. The wikis do not list values below those, but they DO list that there are skill thresholds at which they cap (even if they aren't sure of every exact value).

No one mentioned "base" until your recent post. Regardless, the FFXI bard community universally refers to capped skill songs before Song+ and JAs as the base potency for that song because that's more useful for use in discussion.

Yes, but if a state exists below that, then that is the actual base.

While the usefulness of the actual base potency is of little value, it's still wrong.

Doesn't matter, because that's not how the term is used. Term accuracy is irrelevant compared to how it's used.

And again, you didn't use the term base in your question in the first place.

When we get /brd 60 you won't be getting 15.92% VM (?)

It may be worth knowing the actual base value when that happens. (something like SMN/BRD Hastega II + VM to cap haste with only one job)

But you won't have 11 minute march if you do that! Irrelevant.