You Spoony Guide! - A Troubadour's Libretto

That's what I was thinking at first, but the recast can be troublesome at times :< I've found it easier to just stick to paeons, especially without n/t up.

This, unless you are in a hurry to get all songs up during the middle of a fight and will have to go back later to overwrite. Also, my paeon's auto equip daurdabla and if I use the actual song, I have to hit my daurdabla toggle which isn't a huge deal but it's another thing to worry about and if I forget, well there goes my first song which sometimes may have been marcato'ed.

Yeah, for some reason I thought SV caused Hymnus to restore extra HP upon raising. Guess I'll go back to a slower dummy song. :< I'm also not a fan of trying to overwrite the same song. Little bit too messy for comfort.

Oh, and does anyone else have this problem? If I ever do stuff with people not in my ls, it seems like no one understands why I cast a dummy song. I get a lot of "we don't need that song, stop casting it" or whatever. I definitely appreciate hearing when I've made a mistake (so I can fix it), but usually people don't check to see that their buffs are in fact correct before questioning my process. I'm usually also painfully aware when I've made a mistake anyway. XD

I hate having to explain myself every time, especially when it's a JP group. x.x I can't get IME to work with ffxi, so I have to type my responses elsewhere and copy/paste. -.-

How it is messy? You would think that overwriting a song with the same song would be the cleanest way to go.

I always CC songs first before pull, then as the mob comes in, I'd then SV/T/N songs.

Think they're referring to situations where you aren't T/N-ing. Since you usually wouldn't let buff wears anyway I guess it'd be situations where dispel happened? Valid point i guess.

This probably only happens with 3 song bards because with 4 songs your 3rd song recast is pretty much ready after you sang the 4th song.

@Carrelo
I don't have this problem because I use carols or goblins gavotte or something as my dummy songs. and if it's SV it's usually before a boss in delve or before we enter a bc. So i would've put the dummy songs before i pop T/N and SV. Even if i didn't, recast isn't really a problem during T/N so i would've sang the same song and overwrote them with ghorn.

can i get updated sets please,

The essential sets in the OP should be up to date, but for reference:

ItemSet 321745

ItemSet 190786

PDT sets may be out of date, but here's various ones I threw together. Have yet to work on anything MDT/MDB related:

ItemSet 245506

ItemSet 322809

ItemSet 322810

ItemSet 322811

Job points effect+ anybody know what they do?

http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Job_Points

In a word... Disappointing.

Minne. Right cause that's something I ever use unless I'm the second brd and have nothing left that's useful to sing. And making it a single point of def was pretty much what I'd expect from the Job Point system at this point.

And the song casting time would be lovely if it wasn't hamstrung by the under soul voice requirement. I'd have preferred a buff to N/T duration as that'd would be far more useful.

Hopefully future expansions will be worth while, or at least not worthless, but given what there is so far, I don't have very high hopes.

I'm kinda glad they suck. Getting those things is pretty painful :/

There is that. Blu got a pretty nice buff that'll take me 10 years to finish ^^;

But the + to the song is its effect then not duration? and works as a 1:1 ratio not like gear says +1 and is a given amount per tier?

There's no confusion here. +1 is not +1 like an instrument's +1. It will not affect duration and the only bonus will be 1 def per minne per job point, that is all.

Has anybody figured out when "Increased song duration" is calculated? Like can I use -songcasting time gear and such then swap in my legato dagger and Empy body at the end of casting? Or does it have to be on the whole time?

Increased song duration gear is calculated when the song finishes casting. You want to cast in -song spellcasting gear/fastcast gear, start singing, then swap to increase duration gear.

Does the same apply to +songs? Like "march+1" is calculated at the end along with it or does that have to be on at the start?

doesn't have to be on at the start, but has to be on at the end

Thinking of leveling BRD, in the OP there's no mention of song duration gear for buffs just 5/5 AF3? For most BRDs do you just sing in 5/5 AF3 but have triggers or special rules for when JAs are active, you sing in duration gear?

Singing in 5/5 AF3 vs using Marduk legs and Brioso feet is a personal preference, only. Using all 5 pieces of AF3 gives you a few extra stat boost. (The bonus on brd Af3 gives you +1 stat per piece per song, depending on the element of the song. So Minuet with 5/5 would give you +5 str, March gives dex, etc). However, with the massive amount of statvomit on everything, most people prefer to use Marduk legs and Brioso feet over Af3. Using those will give you an extra 24s (or 48 with Troub)... all the little extra duration pieces really do add up. (With every piece of available duration gear, including a Legato dagger and not a Carnwenhan, and a G-Horn.. March, Minuet and Madrigal can last 3min54s). For ballad, you'll need to use AF3 legs instead of Marduk, and to a lesser extent the same with AF3 feet and scherzo.

Edit: I never looked over the sets on the front page much. I think some of them are a little old which explains the missing Brioso feet, but not sure why there's no inclusion of Marduk legs. It's generally considered more beneficial to use Marduk Legs and Brioso feet opposed to 5/5 AF3. Again, however, it really does come down to personal preference.

I personaly use 4/5 for scherzo or ballad. 3/5 for everything else. I've yet to see any difference.

But i'll second Calispo here, it's a matter of personal preference.

I can't see any situation where 2str would be a win over 24seconds duration.

I'm gonna say it's more of a situational decision than a personal preference.

If I'm just thrown in a standard DD party(where I most commonly find myself), I'd stick with 5/5, I don't see the duration helping you with much there so long as you stay ontop of things, I think recasting slightly earlier is the better option as opposed to not giving any boost to the party, even if minuscule. If I have some janky party setup though and like half of them want different songs, then I'd consider 3/5 lol.

I'd probably do 3/5 on constant BRD rotation too. If I was presented with some other task like pulling (in a situation where I could do that) or something else of that nature, I would go 3/5 there as well, there's two things I'm doing that I don't wanna miss a beat on, and with one I have a little more security.

Depends on the song too, I mean, you obviously wanna go 4/5 for Ballad and prolly Scherzo, the 2-3 CHR isn't going to be doing anything noteworthy for mages, and anything you're using Scherzo for, you want to be absolutely sure it won't drop, I feel that takes precedence over 1 VIT. On a lesser scale here since it probably doesn't matter a majority of the time, but 3/5 on Carols depending on which one it is and what jobs are receiving it. Like, I think a PLD would be fine without INT+4 from Wind Carol X2, if you were to give one that for some reason. You also want 3/5 for Hymnus and Mazurka! :P

Can someone explain the range of string vs wind? I'm planning on making a Ghorn and since all my songs will finish with the horn on, how will that affect my range(is it even important?). I heard wind caps at 10.00 so I guess id need to throw a harp on if I want to debuff and not be wrecked by AoE?

Anytime I use 1hours or N/T I'd say 3/5 is going to be best. Any extension of those more powerful songs will win against anything and since I'm far too lazy to make a variable for swapping out, I just stick with 3/5.


Range means the aoe range of the spell, not the distance you can cast it.

Wind is always 10, period. There is no variable range for it. And since debuffs are generally single target, you don't have to worry about it.

String is varied based on skill, but most any song is going to be capped. IIRC it's somewhere around 20 and the only thing that wouldn't be capped I would figure would be the highest level spells. The only practical uses for string is to sleep in a larger aoe (it sure as hell doesn't hit a 20' aoe on lullaby though and is only a small increase so it's only slightly useful) and hitting people with a short term buff where potency isn't important such as a quick mazurka when your group is running around. But even then, I hardly ever use string.

If you are using strings to sing then you are likely not getting the proper buff from your instrument which makes it pretty useless.

Okay and last question is what's the dummy song thing I keep hearing about? If I have a 3song harp I need to sing the 3rd song with the harp obviously but is it inevitable for that song to be gimp since it won't benefit from Ghorn(since I have the harp on) or can i sing it again and override it for extra potency.

Daurdabla

Dummy song is a song used to get rid of the problem you describe.
you can do:
2ghorn song+duration gear -> dummy song+no duration gear -> Ghorn song+ duration gear.
The last song will overwrite the first song that will wear off. This will be the dummy song. This is the fastest way to put 3(or4) real songs up.

With recent update you can however overwrite songs without the need of a dummy song.
You can:
Ghorn x2(march for exampls) -> Minuet5 in 3 song instrument -> minuet 5 in ghorn.

Since you can only have 1 Minuet 5 on it will always overwrite the weak song. Easier option but you do have to wait on recast timer of the dummy song, so slightly slower.

ooh yeah, didn't make the connection with SV/CC in my prev post for 3/5 pros

Anybody have any idea how much Magic Accuracy it takes to land debuffs and finale on Delve bosses? I have a pretty decent magic accuracy set and can't land stuff to save my life. Skills capped obviously

Lurid Mitts or Bihu Cuffs +1 for debuffs?

Bihu Cuffs +1 are slightly better than Lurid Mitts.