Military Parade - A DD Bard Guide

I am putting together a TP set and wanted to get opinions before making further adjustments.

Assuming capped magic haste and 5% JA haste from DNC sub haste samba, can anyone comment on potential improvements I should make (should switch the cape from STP to Dual Wield)?

JSE +2 neck is probably not an option, but JSE +1 neck could be.

I have no volte pieces and they are unlikely to become an option any time soon, so please keep that in mind.

Thanks for your opinions in advance!

brd cant wear sherida earring, You want Eabani there or suppa if you don't have it (should get it now during the campaign).

Pretty sure outside of am3 mythic DA10 wins on cape?

You only need 11DW from gear if you /nin, 21 if /dnc, with cap magic haste. Belt + earring covers that for /nin, dnc sub would require dw10 on cape but you should prob be subbing ninja.

Thanks Autocast. I missed that on the Sherida. I do have Eabani and will swap that in and plan on using NIN sub. I guess I wont really be using DNC sub that often.

Did you have any thoughts on the neck? I dont see combatant's used much, but not really sure what other neck would be ideal outside of JSE +1 or +2.

If you go /dnc and you melee, then there is no reason not to use haste samba. With haste samba you only need 24DW to cap, so only 9DW in gear, so you can actually just use 2 earrings and wear windbuffet belt +1.

lissome necklace, ainia collar, clotharius torque, and your combatant's torque are all alternatives, ordered from best to worst (I'm fairly sure? someone else could correct me). Though all of them lose handily to even an NQ+0 augmented Bard's Charm.

Any opinions on this? I currently have STP but willing to change.

Also curious if most people sub NIN or DNC when DDing or do you find yourself going between both subs depending on situation?

Thanks!

From my multiple tests on an outdated spreadsheet some time ago, yes, DA+10 was winning more often than not, outside of Carns AM3 up situations.

I'd recommend DA without Carn AM3, STP with Carn AM3. DA if Aeneas. BRD really suffers from a lack of multi-hit.

Ninja is the better DD sub. The only times I recommend DNC sub are: utility (Spectral Jig), Omen if you're doing objectives, or some scenario where Trusts are unusable and you need to heal yourself.

Anyone else having issues getting wsd for rudras on their linos?
I have only got wsd +1 and haven’t seen one since and I’m over 60-70 augments using +2 stones.

I got WSD pretty fast, but it was for Mordant, not for Rudra's, so maybe game felt that and blessed me with better rng :P

What stone? My brd has carn too so could use for either. Lol

On Barfawc which path would be best for BRD DPS if I had to mainhand the dagger?

I have Carn 119 but it's not afterglowed yet so probably not ideal to use it in mainhand, I have Aeneas but I planned to offhand that with Barfawc. Suggestions?

Mainhand Aeneas.

Unless you already augmented it my suggestion would be to sell the Barfawc as soon as possible and use that gil to fund Carnwenhan/Aeneas/Twashtar upgrades.

Given your current options I'd say MH Aeneas for now.
R15 Carnwenhan is no joke though, consider it.

I assume OH Aeneas once Carn is R15? Working through bastok right now with my shell so it wont be long until I have access to augmenting. I have Jeuno clear so R15 Aeneas is an open option as well.

Wrong assumption, sorry. Aeneas is tipically a very bad offhand.
BiS OH for Carn used to be perfect Taming Sari.
Now Tauret probably beats it or, if it doesn't, it's close enough.

R15 Aeneas MH is also very good, granted its not much better than non Aug.
I never tested Twash MH for brd, but I don't expect great things from it.
Twash is BiS offhand for Aeneas MH though.


Aeneas vs Carn, both R15 and both MH, is a close call. Difference small enough to say it could be a matter of personal preference, probably.

I think I will go forward with the Carn setup, being able to sing in combat without losing TP seems more appealing should songs need to be reapplied like in Dynamis.

Thank you for all the information it has been very helpful!

With Carn you should be going Nitro to Nitro unless someone dies and you need to peel away from the rest of the group anyway to sing them non-nitro songs. In that case you lose dps anyway so it doesn't matter if you lose tp since your job is to buff first dps second. On my mule I have a Carn and Aeneas. I will MH Aeneas when dd'ing and I will be doing that to R15 here shortly. Carn is no joke at r15 but if you have R15 Aeneas as and option you should use it. OH for dps is gonna be Tauret or if you get frisky and use Barfawc for dt purposes go for it. But that is an expensive dt piece.

Hey guys just wanted to share my thoughts on savage blade for bard. I was doing some T1-3 in reis using kaja/cento with war brd cor geo rune whm setup. My average WSD on the T1 was 38k and for the whole shebang I was looking at around 28k. This includes some mobs with native DT like kabanda and oryx and I may have dropped cento OH on maju or another one of the T3s. On strophadia I hit a 50k savage.

I found this setup to be incredibly effective, particularly with a warrior in the pt. This synergizes extremely well with chango or kaja axe, pumping out nice light skillchains after almost every WS. Earlier in the week I paired myself up with a kaja war in dyna bastok and we were making quick work in wave 2 using savage > deci.

Here is my savage set for those interested, although I did not make a WS cape for it until just now (was using rudras cape for the 10 WSD) so add another 30 STR on top of my other results.

{ammo="Linos",
head="Lustratio cap +1",
body="Bihu Justaucorps +3",
hands="Volte Mittens",
legs="Bihu Cannions +3",
feet="Lustra. Leggings +1",
neck="Bard's Charm +2",
waist="Grunfeld Rope",
left_ear="Ishvara Earring",
right_ear="Moonshade Earring",
left_ring="Petrov Ring",
right_ring="Karieyh Ring",
back={ name="Intarabus's Cape", augments={'STR+20','Accuracy+20 Attack+20','STR+10','Weapon skill damage +10%',}},}

Hey, thanks for this post.

Has anyone else that has or wouldn't mind doing some more testing with this mind weighing in? Will Bard with Sword and Savage setup be better than using Daggers/Dagger WS's on certain/all content?

Looks like Bard has a C- Sword skill, so not sure at what point Acc would (if it would) become a issue

Going to make some sets and mess around with it either way

No, the loss of acc in my set is only 37 but the delay is horible compared to twash, 240 vs 176.
Maybe for undeads?

The delay difference is pretty noticeable, yeah, maybe i guess you also get more TP/hit.

I was mostly using it for SC properties since we had a chango war doing light / radiance and including SC dmg raid dps was higher than spamming rudras with a worse SC pairing. If it was a cor in pt would have used rudras for the same reason. It's just nice to have new SC options with the release of ambu weapons.

Mordant Rime and Exenterator are both fragmentation as well.

Exenterator is dangerous if used with an Aeneas (and frankly not many people have Exenterator specifically merited :-P)

Mordant Rime used in succession with Savage Blade will create a Distortion Skillchain, so that too is something you want to avoid, say, on stuff like Maju or Onychophora.

True, but they also do a lot less damage. I could do a 5k exen or a 40k savage, mordants are closer to rudras but still a lot less than savage. I'm personally not a fan of carn / mordant dps at all.

Sort of a side note, just did some ambu and with rdm frazzle 3 and march march mad min, sam/fighters, I was able to have 95% acc with cento offhand. Much higher wsavg but about the same raid dps from loss of rudras SC dmg (disto/dark). Setup was geo brd cor rdm rune whm. DPS on BRD was 3800-4k either way using kaja/cento or aeneas/sari including SC dmg. For pure WS damage I don't think anything can beat savage at this point, my rudras top out around 32k on non pierce mobs but savage has hit as high as 50k with a lot in the 40k range. Not saying it's the way to go for all content or anything but it sure is nice.

Barfawc worth crafting? Or another "some idiot will buy it" item?

Has some nichey use but it's mostly the latter, sadly.

I see everyone saying to use /nin for DD. But with dnc you get damage limit trait and ninja you do not. Bard friend of mine parses pretty close with a lot of other DD I've seen. And it's always extreme zerg situations. I dont see how ninja would be beneficial especially with dnc having sc bonus. Correct me if I'm wrong there.

It's been discussed before already here and following posts.

Yes, /DNC can lead to either higher group DPS, higher personal DPS or both.
Requires a small difference in TP gear and TP management in the way of steps/samba.