Bard Merits

It is worth putting (or in my case keeping) merits in Wind and Singing skill? From my understanding, something like 800 combined skill is all that's needed anymore, right? I without merits, I can get to 746 and just eyeballing it, I'm fairly sure I get the remaining 54 skill from my current gear. (And slowly working on my g'horn...)

I'm mainly asking so that I can free up merits for Healing Magic for whm, now 16 skill is a considerable amount of healing power, now. But if it takes me down a tier or two from capping out on bard songs I'm not sure if it would be worth it.

It looks like you have BRD, SCH, and WHM. With that in mind, I'd probably merit enhancing for sure, and maybe healing magic as well if you need to. Depending on how you use your SCH, elemental magic might be something you want to do as well.

You can leave some merits in singing/wind, but it'll pretty much be for resists only.

My bard is a mule. I don't play any other job on him. Anything I should change merit wise?

Max MP - 15/15
CHR - 15/15
MND - 15/15
Singing Instrument Skill - 8/8
Wind Instrument Skill - 8/8
Healing Magic Skill - 8/8
Enmity Decrease - 5/5
Spell Interuption Rate - 5/5
Lullaby Recast - 5/5
Finale Recast - 5/5
Nightingale - 5/5
Traubadour - 5/5


I was thinking that maybe I should do Enhancing instead of Wind Instrument, but I don't really ever use bar spells on him because our whm always does that. I pretty much only use my bard for spell haste, cure4, and marches.
Sometimes I'll throw up pining nocturne and carnage elegy when I feel like it. Might use a Carol2 or Scherzo in place of adv march, but usually it's really straight forward. Anything I'm overlooking?

K, well, if you use that bard in any kind of SV rotation scenario, merit minuet. You dont really need lullaby's recast impo because you have horde 1 and 2 and single target 1 and 2. Finale is good for situation you need to spam dispel, worm in legion, diabolos in tav. And night and trou 5/5 are a must.

Also, i might be mistaken in that MND is useless to merit, but if you only play bard, idk what else to tell you. Int for Magic damage taken purposes? lol

*ninja edit

Merit your wind and singing, it affects your song potency in tiers, and if its a mule, i doubt it has top notch gear to go without merits. Enhancing is dumb unless you want embrava and since your only a bard... yeah.

Int? LOL maybe that is a smidge more useful. Maybe I'll just wait until I'm capped merits first lol.
What is a SV rotation? I mean I know what SV does. I haven't bothered to use it, but from what I've read, the best songs for dps are just victory and advancing marches.
Hey, thanks for the advice =)

Sv rotation includes 2-3 brds rotating through parties using sv the whole time to enhance songs, ussually one brd sings x2 march, one sings x2 min, and one sings x2 mad or if acc isn't an issue than another song that would meet that particular mobs requirements, enabling each dd to have 4-6 songs on them at once with a sv back.

It's only really important if you are doing like provenance or legion etc. But, if your just using it to low man stuff or whatever, march is usually the best song to go with and haste :)

Yeah I don't see my mule being used in a SV rotation ever. For Bard specific merits, I just did 5/5 Finale recast and then went straight to group 2 to get Nightingale and Trobadour. Haven't finshed them yet, but after I do I probably won't even bother doing anything else in Group 1.
Oh that reminds me, is String Instrument Skill worth putting points in to? Should I even bother skilling it up?

Ever plan on using a harp?