You Spoony Guide! - A Troubadour's Libretto

Ghorn absolutely required unless you're dinging 99 on a new brd that already has a stage 5 prime horn.

Leaving S5 Prime away for a sec, I would say what's "mandatory" is by far Dau99 for 4 songs and then Marsyas for Honor March.
Ghorn is good and, most of all, it's relatively cheap and fast to obtain, so really no reason not to get it.
But "mandatory"?

You can get (total) Song+3 on other things like Linos or Miracle Cheer.
So really the difference with Ghorn is what? Missing Song+1.

Some examples:
Minuet5: 210att instead of 223
Minuet4: 190att instead of 201
Herc Etude: 23str instead of 24
Blade Madrigal: 108acc instead of 114
Carol: 144elemental meva instead of 152

I'm not addressing march because most of the time you only use Honor March (which is on Marsyas, so Ghorn can't be used).
If for whatever reason you're using double march (HM+VM) you're gonna reach magic haste cap regardless of being at Song+4 or Song+3.
Last but not least Ghorn provides additional macc for landing debuff songs, altough I wouldn't say they're extraordinarily valuable. Well threnodies on some V25 fights and on Aminon, for sure. For the rest it's an additional nice bonus but I wouldn't say it's the difference between failure or victory.


So, tl;dr, is Ghorn mandatory?
Imho no, it's not. But it's so cheap there's really no reason not to get one.
Make sure you do have the HQ neck (song+3) though-

Minuet 4+5 without ghorn: 400 attack
Minuet 4+5 with ghorn: 424 attack

Minuet 4+5 +chaos roll @9 (17%) without ghorn: 468 attack
Minuet 4+5 +chaos roll @9 (17%) with ghorn: 496 attack

-28 attack including a 9 chaos roll going from +4 to +3 songs on the instrument.

Without taking into account base attack.

Absolutely mandatory, yes.

I'd never call 1/3 of a food mandatory. ***is always extremely silly.

Repast+1 is now mandatory. Sounds dumb right. It's ~13 more attack, not optional.

Magma steak+1 only. Mandatory.

Gjaller is nice to have.
Gjaller is low effort (relatively).
Gjaller is best in slot.
Gjaller is not mandatory. -1 song potency is not a deal breaker anywhere.

We recently took it as a group effort to go from a Linos/Blurred Harp to kitted out, as he was mostly just a song slinger alt. Got him his Dau99/Finished mythic/had Marsyas already. Also has the HQ neck(was the 2nd thing he bought IIRC. Think Blurred+1 was first?).

Kinda what we were thinking when it comes to the horn IMO, so good to know we're about on the right page.

Look at it this way.

Once you have mythic, empy and aeonic, you already have 3/5 instruments for brd and most of the benefits, yes.

At that point you can say "gonna stop here, +3 is good enough" or "I already ground out a damn mythic and an empy, why don't I just do the relic too for another +1".

Choice is yours, of course. I know what I did and it's not stick with a linos.

Now if relic was as time consuming as a mythic, that would obviously change what the options cost you (time+money). Worst part of ghorn are the trials, which is a few hours at most.

If you could pay 40m for a permanent HQ food bonus, wouldn't you pay it?

Comparing it to consumables is a false equivalency. You're not buying a relic horn every time you use it.

Well, they did say this mule will eventually get S5 prime, in due time. Which will be a lot lol xD well Stage4 will be faster I guess, but still a lot of time.

It's just a mule, I don't think going either way will be a massive difference for Dathus and their group.
I don't think Ghorn is mandatory at all if you have a Song+3 instrument.

But, because it's so fast/cheap to get horn and because it's gonna be a long time until Laughnashade will be completed, I don't see why not getting as a temporary thing to use on your way for S5?


Really, both reasons look very solid to me and, if anything, this should be further demonstration that having it or not having it won't really be a massive difference either way.

What kind of dumbfuck statement is this?

You dont lose your Gjallarhorn if you die. You dont need a new Gjallarhorn every time you do an event.

I got Gjallarhorns on 2 of my alts so I could use them for EP farming instead of having one char stuck on bard every time. Its cheap and takes negligible effort.

I have a question... just wondering with Null belt being out would it be a good replacement for Acuity Belt+1, or does the int from Acuity out-weight extra 15 macc on songs...


p.s never tried sim thing so just general curiosity

Int doesn't give macc for songs, CHR does. Null is bis for debuffs

I am very close to reaching stage 3 Loughnashade. Once I get it and can add Aria into song rotation for Sortie runs, should I immediately swap my Marcato use from Honor March to Aria, or more context dependent? We do physical damage setups for our runs, and do have COR + GEO along.

with s5 horn, i still mostly use marcato for HonorMarch. at s3/4 it may be useful in sortie to boost the duration of Aria and get it closer to matching your other songs

if you are talking songs then i dont believe int does anything for you. Songs have CHR as dstart/modifier for Macc.

So in short.. use null belt for songs

Tonight my squad finally finished our second aeonics meaning I now have a Marsyas. I do not have a Carnwenhan and normally I'm using a Miracle Cheer, but is there anything else I'm missing to extend the duration? The relevant gear pieces I have are the following.

Moonbow Whistle +1
Kali
+2 Empy Body
+2 Empy Hands
+2 Inyanga Legs
+4 Artifact Feet

Bard is mastered and if I pop Tenuto, Marcato, and Troubadour it ends up at just about 10.5 minutes. Clarion Call or dual wielding Kali would add a bit more but not something you can do all the time obviously.

That's it for duration, though you should add empy head for set bonus.

Similarly, while using MC it's also a good idea to use as much empy as possible, since legs/feet don't matter with 15m durations.

Got it, thanks. My buff song set does include all the empyrean gear, it's only being modified for Honor March in this case.