You Spoony Guide! - A Troubadour's Libretto

Looks ok, I have a toggle myself to apply TH4 to targets.
If you wanna use Horde Lullaby II check that you're at least to 486 skill. If you need more you can swap dignitary Earring for the new +10 string earring.

If you wanna use Horde Lullaby I that should be no concern, I seem to recall you autocap the max range with native skill.


You may wonder "why should I use Tier1 Lullaby when I can use Tier2 that lasts longer?!", well in situations like Dynamis, unless you get huge train-link and you've got half the alliance dead/weak, duration isn't really that big of an issue.
In those situations Tier1 Lullaby is quite nice because of the huge range.

Thanks for bringing this out! I didn't see this gets CHR+10 Magic Accuracy+10.

best in slot for debuffs, before Odyssey, was double Stikini Ring+1. However, R15 Metamorph Ring +1 in most situations should beat out Stikini Ring +1. although there may be variation due to target's CHR and Unity Ranking bonus, I think it's safe to say you would be best replacing a Stikini+1 with this in your debuff set.



while we're on this topic of Unity augments:



Acuity Belt +1 looks like a new optimal debuff waist. Its base stats don't offer anything much, but at R15 gives Magic Accuracy +15.

The augs are INT/MND/CHR+10 and Macc+10.
Assuming max Unity rank that becomes a CHR+16/macc+15 ring.
On average we can approximate this converts to roughly ~31 macc on stuff that matters. This number could be much lower if your CHR is higher than your target, and vice-versa.

The contender of course is the old Stikini ring +1 which offers:
Macc+11, Sing+8, Wind+8/String+8.
This is also complex, it converts to roughly 21,5 macc.

That's like ~10 macc difference. Worth it, if you ask me!


Some things to consider now:
1) Stikini Ring +1 gives less macc (around ~19 total) if you're using a String instrument. If you are though you will probably want Stikinix2 to reach the 486 String tier for range. Sadly Metamorph isn't an option in those situation.
2) Stikini Ring +1 gives less macc, but always gives the same exact amount of macc. Metamorph will give variable numbers because of the CHR part. 16 CHR can convert to as low as 0 macc, sometimes half of its value, sometimes 1:1, or even 1:2 if your CHR is greatly underneath the target's CHR. Sadly I have no clue what's the average CHR number of stuff that matters so I'm not really sure if we can calculate a reliable average of the CHR:macc conversion. This problem gets bigger if your unity isn't rank 1.

Outside of Midcast for song, Metamorph+1 is probably BiS for Mordant Rime, if you can afford the lack of Accuracy.
I don't have a spreadsheet in my hands atm but I think it's gonna beat both Epaminonda and Karieyh+1.


tl;dr
In perfect conditions Metamorph +1 is a solid and worthy upgrade.
If you're concerned by inventory space and get annoyed by the fact Metamorph won't always perform the same (it could theoretically give worse number than Stiki) then you can keep your Stikini+1 x2 and it won't kill your BRD performance.

Pretty nice sets from Briko

https://www.ffxiah.com/node/355

Some random comments from me, would love to see more opinions.
1) Querkening Brais might have a spot in the song precast in place of Volte.

2) Gendewitha Gloves +1, when augmented with Song Cast -5%, are the best option for that slot. Not sure I'd suggest anyone to run farm a pair, but still the difference with Perf Leyline is not negligible.

3) AF+3 body vs Inyanga+2 in song precast. Heh, kinda depends on how these two different stats intertwine with each other. Additive? Multiplicative? Which gets calculated first and which after? I don't seem to remember detailed tests on these 2 stats.

4) I warmly suggest to AVOID precasting songs with anything other than Moonbow+1, lost packets at the wrong time can *** you up. Same thing applies to instruments, and it's the same reason why a lot of people precast bubbles with Idris on GEO.

5) Not sure I see the point of having DT stuff in a precast set, unless you want to counteract possible situations where for whatever reason you get stuck in precast gear for X seconds because of interrupt and/or gearswap failures.
I can understand it if that's the reason but personally I equip excess FC over the 80% cap to handle situations where there's Addle or spellcasting slowing stuff.

6) Midcast debuff: Dignitary vs Enchanter+1. Dignitary is gonna give the same macc value regardless, Enchanter on average will give the same, on some targets slightly more, on some targets slightly less. On those targets you probably won't have issues landing stuff regardless of your macc though. Also, midcasting with FC helps with songs recast. For these reason I personally tend to prefer Enchanter+1 over Dignitary, but they're pretty close.

7) As it was discussed in my previous post, excluding aoe lullabies, Augmented Metamorph+1 is very likely a solid upgrade over a second Stikini+1 in the majority of situations for song debuffs.

8) The most interesting discussion of all now: Inyanga+2 hands vs Brioso+3 hands. If you already have 4/5 Brioso+3 and Regal earring, adding Brioso+3 hands won't grant you the +15 macc set bonus (with that, there would be no discussion).
Inyanga have: 32 CHR, 43 Macc, All skills +20 (this converts to roughly +26 macc, with a wind instrument. Just +20 with a string one, but let's assume wind for this example)
Brioso have: 39 CHR, 48 Macc, Sing +17
If we assume the CHR:Macc conversion to be 1:1 (most of times it probably will) we get Inyanga 101 Macc, Brioso 104 Macc, and that's without the set bonus.
In the rare situations where 1 CHR gives more than 1 Macc, Brioso would win more clearly.
In the situations where 1 CHR gives less than 1 Macc (or no Macc at all) it means you're fighting something so easy it's probably irrelevant to talk about Macc because you're gonna land 100% regardless.
So, who wins? They seem pretty close, if I really had to choose I'd probably be leaning towards Brioso though.

9) I see in multiple idle sets a Linos with 15M.Eva, -5PDT, 20HP. Let me remind everyone though that Nibiru harp exists, augmentable with Mag. Eva.+20 PDT -3% MDT -3%. Personally I prefer it. Either way it's so similar it's worth mentioning, given how Nibiru is so incredibly easy and a Linos with those perf augs could take you months/years and hundreds of millions of gil.

10) Not sure I get why Briko suggests to cast Scherzo with Marsyas, am I missing something? Hymnus/Mazurka I get it, Dirge too (not listed, but better cast with Marsyas obviously). But Scherzo?

1/2) the set provided has better m.eva while still hitting cap.

3) They're additive I believe. Just need a combine total of 80%.

4) Thats the reason I avoid all instances of quick cast for song precast. Haven't had this happen yet, even in dynamis, but you are right, Milage varries depending on your latency.

5) Since 90% of the time im meleeing, I value the extra survivability.

6/7) My personal preference is the dignitary/stikini because its a known value always. Same reason you don't see alot of oseem augments and definetly no DM augments in any of my lists lol!

8) agree.

9) Preference for horn because I don't like blinking.

10) It doesn't say that... anymore... dunno why I said that...

Some more free thoughts from me:

1/2) Yeah but did you mean these sets as your personal goal? Or as a general guideline to offer to others? If it's the former I'll just shut up, because it's a matter of personal preference/playstyle, but if it's the latter I would at least mention the items I listed. Especially because there are instances where you're gonna be casting with slowdowns (Addle, Troub without Nightingale) and without the neck slot, so having a bit more FC/Songcast will be nice. Will these situations be rare? Absolutely, but arguably more common than getting hit in precast gear, if you ask me.

3) Not sure they are simply additive terms. I mean most people have been treating them like that, myself included. I doubt it works like that but nobody simply ever did detailed tests. Without that it's hard to say which is gonna win between these 2 bodies, Inyanga has 1% less in theory but could be just as "fast" as Brioso+3 or even better (and it offers MDT and Meva)

4) Yes, I despise quickcasting too for Songs but that's not the real issue. If you're using Gearswap and nothing bad happens (lost packets, latency etc) then Gearswap will correctly handle the right gear at the right time even when quickmagic procs.
The problem is more when you lose a packet, and this can happen and will happen more often than not for server issues, rather than client-based latency issues. Personally I suggest all bards to precast with Moonbow+1 and with the right instrument. Better not risk it if you ask me, easy enough to cap all the necessary values without using those 2 slots.

6/7) Enchanter/Dignitary hardly matters whatever one chooses, it's realistically so close it's not worth discussing too much. For Metamorph+1 though I feel the difference is gonna be quite big and in favor of Meta, for anything except AoE lullabies. I think I explained it a few posts ago. Don't want to convince you eh! I don't get paid to suggest people to use Meta+1, I still have to upgrade mine lol. Just saying that I'm pretty confident it's gonna win by a considerable margin in all situations where macc matters.

9) Now I get that you don't like blinking, who does? But since you're gonna blink regardless each time you swap from Horn To Daubla to Linos when TPing, is it really sane to worry about that? I mean if you already have a Linos with +15meva/20hp/5PDT ok, it's done already, hats off to you. But you still have to get it I'd honestly go for Nibiru, more meva, no augs to worry about, and it's DT rather than PDT.

10) Add Dirge to the list as well! Dirge doesn't benefit from Song potency, it gets just duration. So might as well get 10% more from Marsyas over Ghorn ;-)

1/2) the sets are BiS for my playstyle.

3) I was actually contemplating swapping Etiolation to enchanters +1, and brioso to Inyaga to facilitate 80% but higher defenses anyway.

4) Ive never had this issue, if you are prone to it then adjust accordingly.

6/7) Ill look into metamorph a little more.

In theory: yes.
In reality: ***can happen that makes you midcast with precast gear for some slots.

I don't think this can happen if you use the ingame gearsets, and I have no clue about Ashitacast, but with Gearswap sadly it can and will happen.


It affects all jobs, you can't control it. It's not like you can avoid precast entirely either though.
The solution imho is find a compromise, and such a compromise is ignoring this issue exists except for "key" slots where you're gonna precast with your midcast gear.
Not all jobs have such key slots if you ask me, for BRD this concerns neck and ranged slots, for GEO it concerns the Main hand slot, to make two very simple examples.

You've never had it, or you've never noticed it the few times it happened to you?
It's not like when it happens you have a magical flag lighting up telling you that your Minuet is giving ~10 less attack, or your march giving 3% less haste, I could keep going.
Friend of mine had a similar issue on his Idris (not the same problem, but same result of occasionally not midcasting with Idris), he didn't notice for several months.
Another guy on these forums had a similar issue for over 1 year, never noticed.

This doesn't happen all the time, it's a rare thing and it's more common in zones like Divergence and Omen. So I ask you again: are you really 100% sure it never happened to you? Or you simply never noticed before? :D

Keep in mind it's mostly a server-side problem (or rather: related to the internal network communication protocol), not particularly based on the client's connection quality.
Of course if your connection sucks it's gonna happen more, but that's not the main culprit here, alas.

I've never had it, tracking buff statuses too. Even in dynamis-sandy (most laggy ***ever for me), it has never happened.

Briko can’t be trusted.

venturing into bard, so Briko's sets good gearset guide to go by?

Briko's sets are overall pretty awesome, some are a bit too much tailored on himself but still lots of nice stuff.

Can check Funk's sets as well.
No meleeBRD stuff here but lotsa of interesting sets. Funky offers some variations/alternatives for many of his sets.
Briko doesn't but he has way more sets with nichey stuff, compared to Funk who only covers the main generic things.

Just check both, they're awesome, then decide which ones you feel are closer to what you're lookin for :-)

They are very good sets, yes. They aim for BiS regardless of cost or inventory though. I'd recommend consolidating some pieces rather than making everything.

Briko or Sechs do you have a BRD.lua that you share including Battle conditions? Thanks.

Is there a consensus/resource on the best order to sing for 4-song? I'm someone who prefers to gear a job to a certain point before really playing it so I'll be finishing my Daurbabla this weekend but I have no real experience playing BRD other than meleeing solo to 99. I've got relic and aeonic completed as well but want to make sure I don't go about singing in a way that is sub-optimal. I know I could just download a .lua to do it for me but I want to make sure I understand the ins and outs of it.

The best "order to sing", wut?
I have no bloody clue what you're talking about.

Please elaborate and hopefully I'll be able to help you!

As in, when to sing your dummy songs(guess I neglected to mention the dummy songs part ^^). 4 dummy songs then 4 real, or put up 2 full potency songs then 2 dummy and overwrite? Maybe I'm losing my mind but I've seen it done both ways.

Can do it both ways, 2 real 2 dummy then overwrite 2 dummy is generally better because it's faster, it's 2 less songs to cast and you give full potency already on the first 2, in case you're singing when fighting (doesn't really make a difference if your party/group isn't fighting when you sing)

Doing 4 dummys has a single advantage that I can think of. If you sing all 4 songs with Daubla they're gonna have ~19,9 yalms of radius, which is a pretty wide radius, 2x the one of Ghorn songs.
This is useful if you want to apply songs to pt members that are spread out or that are gathering towards you or for whatever other reason.

4 Songs sung with Daurdabla are much weaker than those sung with Horn, but they're better than no song and better than letting a song disappear (like when you have 5 songs up from Clarion Call, for instance)


In situations such as these it can be useful to use 4 dummy songs temporarily as you wait for things to settle down.
In all other situations that I can think of using 2 Real > 2 Dummy > Overwrite the 2 dummy is tipically faster, especially if you have to singe for a single party.




Was this what you were wondering about? Not 100% sure I got your question honestly °-°

Oh yeah, in some situations it's gonna be semi-irrelevant whichever method you choose.
Think about having to sing in 2 pts, coordinating with another BRD.

PT1
BRD1 (HM, VM, Madrigalx2)

PT2
BRD2 (Minuetx3, Scherzo)

This is the starting situation.
Both of the BRDs will have to cast dummys and those dummys will necessarily have to be the songs that you'll be supposed to sing, the ones between brackets.
Once BRD2 is done doing the 4 songs in PT2 (they can be dummys) and BRD1 for PT1 they swap pts.
Situation will look like this:

PT1
BRD2

PT2
BRD1

They keep singing the songs they're assigned to sing, but in a different pt this time. When they're done, all the party members (except the 2 BRDs) will have 8 songs up, all dummys probably (or 4 might be real, but it's irrelevant anyway)
As soon as 8 songs are up the 2 BRDs coordinate to use SV and NiTro and then they will proceed to overwrite their 4 songs in their current pts with SV Gjallarhorn songs.
They will then swap back to their original pts, to a situation like this:

PT1
BRD1

PT2
BRD2

Now the 2 BRDs will do the same, sing 4 Songs with NiTro and SV still up in their original pts.
Once they're done all party members will have 8 "real" songs and the Alliance will be ready to engage.
In a situation like this it's kinda irrelevant which method you choose to sing your songs.
2 reals and 2 dummys? 4 dummys?
Whatever.
It doesn't matter because the alliance isn't fighting.
It doesn't allow you to save time because you're gonna have to resing them all to apply the SV+NiTro effects, wether they were dummys or "Real".
So yeah, in situations like these who cares, really.

Dummy songs is a bit of a relic of how songs used to work. It used to be you couldn't replace a song with the same song until it had less than 120s duration. Now you can just use the song you're gonna cast as your dummy songs. (This might be a bad idea if you are weakened and have long recasts).

You'd still use 4(5 with clarion call) dummy songs in situations where you are trying to maximize your Nightingale/Troubadour timer. Usually this is when you are rotating parties or Troubadour Horde Lullaby II sleeping things. (Although Troubadour is fantastic for debuffing in all situations). In both those situations your JAs wearing off before you finish singing is a disaster and having to make your corsair blow random deal/wild card is the only way to fix it (or using a super revitalizer in Escha/Reisenjima). Once you've Nitro'd you'd just use Real>Real>(Real if clarion call is up) > Dummy > Dummy > Real > Real. E.G. When you join 2nd party if you didn't do dummy songs for it beforehand.

I tend to use Ballads/Marches/Paeons as dummy songs. Ballad if MP isn't full, Marches if people are buffing, Paeons as a generic one. If you end up in a party with another BRD at the same time you want to make sure you don't use the same dummy songs or you'll run into problems. I sometimes change to Minnes if this happens.

Now if you actually fighting and get full dispelled you generally just want to get songs back up as quickly as possible. Honor March you have to cast with Marsyas. If I'm using Scherzo I usually do that next just so no one gets 1 shotted. Then you can just cast your other 2 in full gear+harp and replace with g.horn after.

Lastly, Mazurka, Hymnus and Scherzo tend to make poor dummy songs because SV doubles their duration.

I generally don't use "dummy" if for dummy one means "stupid song used only to apply the song effect on party members".
I just cast with Daubla the songs I want to overwrite with Ghorn, same song, period.

When for whatever reason I really want to do "dummy" songs, I do the same exact thing you do. Marches/Ballads/Paeon according to the specific situation.
Using stuff like Aubade or Operetta etc never really made sense to me.
For mules maybe, I dunno. I personally always used a hotkey I press to select the instrument I'm gonna sing with, then use my macros to sing the songs, period.

Thanks guys, this is exactly the type of specifics I was looking for. Now to figure how out to macro/lua this to make sure I get the right songs/instruments at the appropriate times.

Since you mentioned this, I think it should be said how it currently works with the song with the lowest duration being the one that will be overwritten.

Ive had new brds not understand how songs were overwritten before.

There's a double system at work. Generally is "song with the lowest duration" but if there's a song of the same category, generally it will be overwritten even if there's another song of another category that has a shorter duration.

It's complex. It usually works fine but sometimes it can create messy situations, all because not all song categories have the same amount of "song +", and this makes it messy to overwrite some songs with other songs.
There are solutions to this problem, but they're all very annoying.

I have heard that dummy songs should be in a set with no duration+ so they are sure to be the ones overwritten. Any other tips for a budding BRD?

Correct me if I’m wrong it’s been a long time since I’ve Played BRD.

Full pot Honor > full pot victory/mad/min (depends) > no duration+ min/mad > no dur 4th > rewrite step 3/4 in full pot.