Military Parade - A DD Bard Guide

The set I use (I have HQ1 neck):

ItemSet 379839

If single wield, I use Genmei Shield. Nyame Head/Hands/Legs/Feet Path B in blank spots.

@Felgarr
Other than the obvious upgrade through 4/5 R20 Nyame, your set is good.

For the neck to truly shine you need to be overcapped in attack (OVERcapped, not capped).
If you are, then you might get better results using 4/5 Ayanmo+2, a set which has zero Attack but lotsa STR/MND, acc and some DT.

Thank you x2

Thank you! Much appreciated @Felgarr

Ayanmo with full set bonus (+32str/vit/mnd) gives +8 Str, and +18 mnd over nyame base stats, that's using the ring with 4/5 ayanmo and 14 acc for the 4/5, at huge defense cost, I don't think that's a good choice even in overcapped attack situations. As a lead up to nyame it's nice but I don't think there's any buff situation where ayanmo is a choice over nyame, even at no augments but it's a small upgrade at best for a huge loss in dt/meva (15/317).

We were exactly talking about that Vaerix, it's even in the post you quoted.

"Other than the obvious upgrade through Nyame"

Sorry! Misunderstood the line about the neck, saying I'm overcapped attack situation 4/5 ayanmo would be better. My apologies!

Better than Bihu+3 (at least from last time I tested it on the spreadsheet). Not exactely better than 4/5 Nyame of course, which is king <3

I was wondering the same thing. All sets for savage I've seen (not nyame) have been with bihu +3.

Bihu gives a lot of attack, which really helps Savage Blade damage despite the lower STR/MND.
In that sense Bihu always was a nice option.
I'm talking for 4/5 Bihu+3, there's no discussion about the body of course.

As you get closer to the attack cap, not necessarily over the cap but just close is enough usually, then Ayanmo+2 starts kicking in with his much higher STR and MND, and it gets better than Bihu+3.
Ayanmo also provides more Acc.


Keep in mind that Naegling gives you ~1% attack for each buff you have (might not be EVERY single buff, and I'm sure there's a maximum cap of att % it can give, but nobody knows the details).
This makes it a bit easier for BRD to get to the threshold I mentioned above.
It sorta depends on the content though.
Are you doing a zerg? More likely to be superbuffed and/or past that threshold, then Ayanmo will probably win.
Are you doing normal content or something where you're nowhere close to the cap?
Bihu+3 will probably win.


All of these points have been made sorta moot by Nyame B anyway, as we already discussed some posts ago.

Oh, I guess my brain melted down. MND+13 on Ammurapi should easily beat attack on Genmei for Savage Blade. My mistake.

Any reason to pursue a Twashtar if you already have a R15 Carn?

Yup, Ammurapi > Genmei for SW DD BRD (Savage Blade).

I think twash is better when you can offhand tp bonus and especially if you are able to self SC. The only time I use carn is when I can't afford to use tp bonus, and sometimes when I know maintaining am3 won't be a problem, otherwise I use naegling most of the time followed by twash. I also like twash for the yagudo NM in the master trial, makes really quick work of him. With the SC dmg bonus on nyame gear I think twash is even better than before. Having said that, I also play thf and dnc so I did not make it just for brd.

When using Naegling is a multi attack build preferable over the standard STP set of Ashera and volte? Currently I am using the STP build, but I'm wondering if this is optimal.

If your getting fighters roll/need the defensive stats or need the acc then volte/ashera is fine.

Muti hit I usually use on fodder stuff

what do I aug jse capes with from ambuscade?

For mordant I am guessing all charisma?

How many should I make?

It depends how much room you have, how many weapons you use and how much you are into BRD.

CHR/WSD
CHR/MACC
STR/WSD
DEX/WSD
FC/MEVA
DEX/DA
DEX/STP
DEX/DW

DEX/CRIT
AGI/DA
INT/WSD

Depends on how deep you wanna get.

You're gonna need at least

1) Macc Cape - CHR+30, Macc+20, FC+10 is what I have
2) WS Cape - Depends on the WS. DEX+30/WSD for Rudra, CHR+30/WSD for Mordant Rime, the first cape I mentioned works decently for Mordant as well, but it's inferior to a dedicated one. You might want even more cape if you use other WSs a lot like Aeolian Edge, Evisceration etc. For Savage Blade you probably want a STR+30/WSD one
3) TP cape - Which one you want, depends on your setup. The most average cape is DEX+30, Acc/Att+20, DA+10, PDT-10. This cape is decent (second best iir) for Evisceration as well. Other alternative TP capes put DW+10 or STP+10 in place of DA+10 but they'te the same in the other slots.

Another cape you might want to get eventually is one with HP/Meva/DT for idling.

New Shinryu dagger seems to be by far bis offhand for Carn build and the boost is pretty significant (almost 6% over TernionR15). seems to even marginally beats Gleti's R20 for uncapped attack. All that before counting in TP drain.

Yea the dagger screams Carn BRD

Updated the spreadsheet with relevant Crepuscular items. This includes the 3% CHR additional WS mod calculations for the Dagger.

https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/51200/currently-maintained-dps-spreadsheets/

If making nyame on a character which is on BRD 95% of the time, would you still 5/5 path B? I was thinking it might be optimal to go path A on a piece or two, mainly body as the relic+3 body is the go to ws set piece. They use carn or naegling for melee. Cheers!

Hmmm not sure about that.
Best candidate to go 1/5 A in that case would be Nyame body, because for BRD of course Relic+3 body is pretty much always gonna be better.

But then again on BRD you also have Ashera Harness which is arguably better than Nyame A, at least in terms of DPS (Nyame is better for defensive purpose I suppose).

Would I go Nyame A for any of the other slots, Head, Hands, Legs, Feet?
Personally no. Not at the moment at least. New gear in the future might change this but at least at the moment the only piece I would consider going A for a 95% Bard is Body.

If you already have Ashera Harness then I hate you... I mean, then you could consider other options too, like going path C for mage stuff, or magic WS? I don't even know if that would be better than other options tbf.

Thanks! I was thinking the along the same lines. The likelihood the BRD gets ashera feels pretty low, it's the last body I need on Flowen and would take priority the day it finally drops.

Ayanmo body is still very serviceable and don't forget nyame wsd path is nice for aeolian edge which I use almost exclusively in wave 3 with good results (not sure how it compares to cohort cloak).

Has anyone experimented with kclub offhand with carn to see if it beats other offhand options? I'd imagine it doesn't win over centovente when using naegling.

Also curious if carn and mordant would be the right choice with kclub offhand, am3 + kclub is pretty ridiculous and you can maintain it easily but not sure if a different dagger and/or rudra's would make use of the tp gain better

I try avoid using carn at all costs but I'll give it a shot next time I'm on brd. Chances are carn /kc won't beat naegling / cento. Definitely won't try it in odyssey as I like killing mobs in two ws before they can get any tp moves off and that just won't happen with carn kc. If I use rudras with carn I'm either off handing cento or I overtp too much. I don't think I would use carn kc to spam rudras same as I wouldn't do it with naegling kc because tp bonus would be better.

I'm like the exact opposite, Carn is my bread and butter for BRD DPS, outside Odyssey of course.


I feel like kclub would be overkill for a Carn, Mordant doesn't scale with the TP overflow you're likely to see from kclub. If anything I'd pair with with a Twash or Naegling, but then you run into losing the Cento. While I like the idea of a kclub, I don't find it fits very well for BRD imo.