You Spoony Guide! - A Troubadour's Libretto

Magic acc trial staffs are better, even chatoyant is better.

I just think that the only way that would be possible is if every brd enfeeble had a severe macc penalty to counteract the higher than normal macc. 778 skill naked with merits gives them over a 300macc lead on A+ skill jobs. An incredible macc penalty sounds very unlikely, so I'd wager that the formula is more complicated than 1skill=1macc.

This seems possible but I unfortunately wrote the guide using the information I had access to, I spent quite a bit of time during the writing process trying to dig through BG Maty Parts for this info but I apparently did a worse job than I thought D:

Like I said a few posts ago, I would love to do some testing on it. If anyone can devise a test, pm me, otherwise it will have to wait until I have time.

As far as testing goes, I'm as clueless as you. I think it's worth leaving a note for now about gearing though, as it's pretty likely that 1macc>1skill.

I ascribe to the theory that mobs have an increased base Magic Evasion against Songs, to account for the double C skill a Bard has. This is somewhat backed up by how impossible it is to land a threnody/elegy as /BRD (or on BRD in Salv) and thus without an instrument. No Instrument, no second skill pool, and your Magic Hit Rate is crap, every time.

This is all a guess, of course. I have no idea if the half skill MHR is due to high base MEva or if the loss in Instrument Skill (and singing skill if /BRD) is enough of a penalty to floor your MHR.

Any achievable gear for debuffing for a new BRD like myself? I've got no chance of getting hold of Marduk, at least not for a good while.

Orvail Hand/Head iirc have a good amount of MACC/CHR

ItemSet 298865

just made one quickly off of what i already knew. something like this look good? any suggestions maybe? :o

Cheers for the suggestions!

Something to work toward now :)

Oh yeah, one thing, I already got an Apollo's staff, is Terra's staff still the best option for Elegy as an alternative to Chatoyant's?

You will probably be able to get full marduk +2 before being able to snag an enchantr earring off AH. Of the 6 that have shown up on AH over the last year none of them lasted more than 30 minutes.

oh you're right on that Barber, didn't notice that, I remember having trouble chasing mine down now that I think about it XD

The Wind/Singing earrings seem to be the same rarity so..maybe AF3 Earring instead rather?

Obviously a lot of big changes today, particularly to debuff set, Bruno and I are still trying to sort it all out but he has a new preliminary set for Debuffs, I will post it once AH has time to upload the new items.

As far as the new dagger was released today goes, yikes. Will try to have a DPS comparison as soon as I have time. For anyone following closely wondering about the sporadic updates, I'm sorry, and I will hopefully have time for a large update soon.

For Debuffs why would you use Aoidos' body over Nares assuming CHR is .5 Macc? Or is the skill that much better?

Unless I'm missing something, you're forgetting that you get 20 total skill from AF3+2 body.

10 (singing) + 10 (wind) + 5 MACC (CHR) = 25 MACC from AF3+2
14 MACC + 4.5 MACC (CHR) = 18.5 MACC from Nares Saio

Assuming 1 Skill=1 mAcc still, this looks like the new goal debuff set taking into account the April update:

ItemSet 244320

Ugh, those earrings...Hidden Effect: Inventory -2

Related to the topic at hand: if anyone will puh-leeeeze devise a test for MACC/Skill/CHR, Bruno and I are talking about it right now and we've got nothing.

Ah yeah I didn't calculate the skill just noticed it was there. Mega stupid.

Anyone know where that ring comes from Bruno posted up? Would go nice with my Maquette :p

Killed the Delve NM Perdurable Raptor last night and I got these
EDIT: Just turned in 3rd Airlixir. 1st stage done!


I also got an airlixir to start the augment paths on these, the 3 different paths were
A-> +6 macc
B-> +6 mab
C-> +8 acc
went for the macc path on these.

We're going to work something out, but I will no longer be updating this guide or answering any Bard/FFXI-related questions via PM. Until I have a chance to sort something out with mods, please direct all Bard questions to Bruno, who will be taking care of the guide moving forward.

Is there even anything you can't land songs on with cap, dura, Aidods' gear etc? What if you sub geo and use Mag Acc Indi or divine seal.

I haven't done the real high level Adoulin content on bard, and i"m working on my empy, as well as haven't quite sat around and finished skilling up all the way.

So... not sure what the NM resistances are like. That stuff isn't really going to help if you're buffing right? Is there a chance to get Mag Acc bonus on delve daggers or staff?

I've slept everything inside including the mega bosses ive come across and pretty much everything but genbu I landed first try. I can generally hold the T1-3 nms for 10-15 minutes if i need to before they resist. genbu couldnt land squat so gear wont help there.

Cant land stuff after rage either but i dont think thats a gear issue or if even ele seal would help. Well, guess that is moot now anyways.

Came to post this as the new debuff set. And yes it will be necessary on some mobs to cap out your gear.
I don't know why you are referring to Kurma as Genbu, that is confusing, just call the mobs by their real names. Furthermore Kurma resists a lot but finale and nocturne can be landed with just gear Macc. And, under the effect of Troubadour with 5/5 merits both will land rather successfully. Seeing as brd songs get dispelled often, you should be using N/T for debuffing on that mob.

The cure precast set should use an augmented genbu shield not a vivid strap especially since you main a sword.
Mdt set is missing Cthlonic Staff and can also be noted that Bokwus Slops and Lore gear are options.
Bokwus Boots should be listed in the song precast as being an alternative to Bard Slippers +2, Both pieces you should have anyway.
Also if an Iaso Mitra is in your potency set it should be in your precast set instead of Hyaline Hat since you have 4% occasionally quickens spellcasting from witful belt and veneficium.

ItemSet 300398

Genbu's Shield with 5% potency, 4% cure casting time, Iaso Mitra 10% Cure casting Time, Iaso Boots or Zenrith with 4% Potency 6% Cure casting time.
Will cap casting time/fast cast at 80%, potency at 50%, and have 6% chance of quick magic

Another thing that could be added to the guide for brds out there that are working on both ghorn and daurdabla is how to get 3 or 4 songs up with full ghorn effect. There's mention of being able to do this but not tactics behind the duration complications that arise.

Song base: 120 sec
+1 - 10%: 132 sec
+2 - 20%: 144 sec
+3 - 30%: 156 sec
+4 - 40%: 168 sec
+5 - 50%: 180 sec
Neck - 10% +12 sec
Body - 10% +12 sec
Legs - 10% +12 sec
Daurdabla(90) - 25% +30sec
Daurdabla(95 & 99) - 30% +36sec

The guide recommends full empy +2 for the Stat boost and neck. With a 99 Ghorn your first 2 songs generally have 204 sec duration and your 3rd and 4th song with 99 harp will have 192 sec duration.
Given song casting time lets say avg 6 secs apart your songs will come out with;
Song 1 - 186
Song 2 - 192
Song 3 - 186
Song 4 - 192
duration remaining. So if you were to overwrite songs you would have to play all 4 again with horn. Or, you could take off the neck for the 3rd and 4th song dropping their duration by 12 sec;
Song 1 - 186
Song 2 - 192
Song 3 - 174
Song 4 - 180
so that now if you put on the Ghorn only the last 2 songs will get overwritten.

Note that the original songs wanting to be overwritten should not be the the same songs you want to overwrite with.
Complications with this particular tactic; if for some reason you have longer delay from one song to the next, like getting silenced, knock-back, stunned or terror, you may end up with your 1st song having lower duration than your 3rd or 4th.

Another option is to play 4 placebo songs all with the harp and rewrite them all with the horn. takes you 2 more songs to be fully buffed and if you are currently fighting the placebo songs will temporarily weaken the DDs.

Generally people will not encounter this problem during Nightingale/Troubadour being that the song casting is only 1-2 sec and the duration gap between horn and harp doubles.

This is what I do.

Use JA's NT/marcato.

1st song: V. march with gjallar
2nd song: A. march with gjallar

3rd song:
placeholder: hymnus with daurdbla
overwrite: Minuet V with gjallar

4th song: (I've not actually tested this as I don't have 99 daurdabla yet but I assume it works as it works with 3 songs.)
placeholder: hymnus with daurdbla
overwrite: Minuet IV with gjallar

6 total songs casted but hymnus is a shorter cast time than most songs so it makes it slightly faster when you're buffing without N/T.

This is the quickest way I know to get all songs up and they are in potency order so if you're fighting, you get the most out of the first songs and the last ones are more minor so you don't loose as much.

As was suggested to me by others, you can cast your hymnus without duration gear to ensure that it is the song that gets overwritten. It'll work so long as it hasn't been a super long time since you cast your other songs.

I should have clarified. I only could not land lullaby and elegy on gembu. I can't give first hand testimonial on other debuffs I hope they will make monsters require more accuracy gear. Ever since that first four hour colibri party where I wore terra staff and crafting gear and didn't have a single elegy resisted I've kinda felt like that set hasn't really been needed. Hope it is moving forward.

The problem generally arises when using a +3 instrument with 90 Daurdabla or +4 Ghorn with 95-99 Daurdabla. And it barely occurs during N/T given the intsa-cast and the double duration.

My gjallar is only 95 so it's +3 atm and my Daurdabla is 90 and I never have any problems provided I get all my songs off within 30-35 secs.

What issues are you having exactly?