Weapon Choice For DD Bard

Have a friend whose working towards mandau for his dd brd and was curious as to which dagger would be best off-hand for it. Coruscanti, STR ToM Dagger or the OaT dagger?

STR ToM or Coru, Wouldn't bother with the OAT.

twashtar ! or mythic! lol

idk, twash seems a good choice, nice dmg, low delay and nice acc for the dex you get

They'd be better off spending their gil/time on a STR ToM. Coruscanti isn't that great. Puginculus might be an option if it's obtainable for them, but you'd need someone to math it out.

He has all 3 of the daggers i listed as options so, they're done lol

:o actually, mainhanding Mandau, Pugiunculus is giving me best results in just about every scenario(excluding VW) in the offhand on my BRD spreadsheet. Coruscanti isn't implemented(I'd assume it wouldn't be that great), but in about most general things I was getting this, varying food and subs (can post DPS values later if you want, but I'm getting ready to head out right now):

Pugiunculus > Twash99 > STR Thokcha > Twash 95 > Aluh Jambiya > Twash 90 > Oneiros Knife > Twash 85 > Parazonium OAT

In Abyssea - Pugiunculus > Twash 99 > Twash 95 > Oneiros Knife > Twash 90 > Aluh Jambiya > Twash 85 > STR Thokcha > Parazonium OAT

What about Mandau? How does that rank? I'm not making it solely for fun times battle Bard, mainly for thief, but how would it rank?

Bruno's listing assumed main handing Mandau so that's why it's not in the ranking.

GHorn 99, sing for the actual DDs, get more damage output than you would swinging any dagger.

FTFY

DD Brd? Lol, Christmas Early.

It's obviously meant for fun, and there isn't anything wrong with DD brd in between song casting when /mage support isn't needed. 99harp is a much better gil investment if you're going to mention ghorn at all.

I think it's pretty blatant that almost doubling the DPS of a full party of actual DDs will do way more than a BRD waving around a Mandau. But you're not restricted to only buffing, it doesn't have to be a "do one or the other" type of choice, you can easily do both. Obviously this isn't suitable for a lot of high-end content situations like Legion, Odin, VW, etc etc...it'd prolly work best in zergs(outside of Legion since you wouldn't really make a difference) when/if you're under PD, and a bit of tamer content like Limbus, Abyssea, Dynamis if you're on BRD for it, Einherjar if you do it, and maybe some Meeble Burrows.

You can definitely melee as BRD on most VW content.

oh no, I mean you definitely can, but I guess I was just speaking from personal experience, the majority of shouts I get in on BRD I'm the only one calling out magic procs with no time to DD after ; ;

Clearly the answer is both.

I use DDBRD on my dual boxed mule during Dyna when im farming with my THF friend ._.' i dont have a program that does songs so havign assistance and meleeing while keeping Marches up is awesome ._.'

In any of those easy situations I find that pulling when I'm on BRD is much more effective than DDing, simply because the real DDs can do their job then instead of wasting time faffing about waiting for a pull or pulling a mob.

Something like Limbus I'm always running out of time to do things with just double marches and pulling because I go with competent people who can kill the mobs quicker than I can pull them, even with capped SongTime-. Dynamis and Ein are the same stories, and in Abyssea I'm only ever there with a small group and a BLM is /BRD for procs (Usually me lol). The only time I ever bother taking out a melee weapon is for random fun after a Troub/Night buff or a proc in Aby. There are a dozen things I could be doing on BRD that are MUCH more effective and productive than meleeing.


All that being said, a Strength Thokcha is unparalleled when it comes to offhands. STR Thokcha till Mandau, then Mandau/Thokcha.
Edit: Reason being the attack boost is godlike for 1handers who have a difficult time capping attack, the math's somewhere I'm just lazy. :D

I can see your point with Limbus, besides maybe CS Apollyon II since everything's pretty much right there anyways.

Speaking from personal experience, in Einherjar, we usually have a PLD go and round up whole waves of mobs and hold them while everyone else picks them off, so I can't really go out pulling there. If a PLD isn't there, I'm designated puller on BRD, and even then I'll go in and bring back just about every mob from the wave(I might miss a few depending on what the mobs are, if I can afford to stay out there or if I'll die by the time I get back) and then a BLM, BLU or myself will sleep them and we'll just continue to pick those off.

As for Dynamis, I think that would kinda depend on the situation...like above, it's not hard to round up mobs and sleep them, or if you're duo or something, target nearby mobs and execute a Lullaby or some sorta debuff to grab em. Unless you have fierce competition, you don't necessarily have to be on pulling duty for Dynamis. The camps are pretty compact for the most part imo, except maybe Treants in Valkurm..I can't think of anything else off the top of my head.

Can definitely give you those, I just think gil would be better used on a GHorn and Pinkharp. xD

oh yeah definitely XD its mainly all in fun situations for the most part.. but i think I would 99 ghorn and daurdabla before I considered Mandau lol, unless I was getting it for THF

what wrong with the DD brd? and why when someone talk about a whm rdm brd DDing they bring up the endgame stuff VW, Legion etc and others things like they cant lolmelee. iam sure most good mages know that but some people not into the hardcore endgame stuff.

maybe i wanna exp pt, Ballista, join a random seal pt for some fun and excitement,Campaign and more. also it fun out DDing most exp or seal pts on my mages, (mostly whm/nin working on brd/nin gear) since iam only seeing just leechs/key and lots noobs. it sad lmao :(

I don't dd on bard because I'm lazy, but the bottom line is that with whms getting 20/tick refresh outside of abyssea nowadays while wearing -50% casting time and max potency cure gear....well my little cure 4 that takes half an hour to cast seems to do one of two things:

1) Next to nothing
2) Nothing, because they are already topped off

Sometimes I'll focus on the thief since they get cured last and that makes me feel productive, but at this stage of the game where whm's can just chaincast it doesn't matter if you poke stuff. And hey, if you outparse a crappy War or Drk you get to put that little trophy on your mantle for a while.

The problem with it is when those jobs prioritize DDing over doing their real job. I'll happily admit I do Melee SMN and RDM for fun but if I'm brought to a single serious event regardless of what the event is I'm going to do my job before messing around, and I firmly believe if you're not constantly doing something on a mage job you're doing it wrong. There's nothing wrong with having fun, XI is a game afterall, but oftentimes you'll do nothing more than frustrate and upset people you're playing with who are relying on you to do you job well. As such I'll refer to the earlier comments, get the things BRD is supposed to get first like Ghorn and Pinkharp BEFORE for fun items. It's why I recommended STR Thokcha cause it's easily obtainable and not terribly expensive, but one of the best mainhand options and the best offhand option.

If you're honestly yearning for that one handed DD fun/solo fun level DNC in the meantime or something. Good DD BRD is a good goal but it's not much of an accomplishment if you can't perform your basic tasks. :\

carnwenhan

A MACC Thokcha isnt a too terrible option for a dagger for voidwatch if you really really wanna help on dagger procs and not gimp your song accuracy while holding a dagger instead of a chatoyant/magian staff.
The extra 100mp is really nice and lets you unlock the triple attack latent on an oneiros ring for tp'ing.
The trials were slightly annoying but I have no regrets making one.

You must play with a bunch of shitty BRDs. I feel sorry for you.