You Spoony Guide! - A Troubadour's Libretto

FWIW, it took me 9 tries to get the +2 augment. Magic Evasion by far showed up the most (and wouldn't be a bad idle piece with multiple flutes I suppose). All in all, not too bad. It didn't help that I've been putting forth very little effort to make gil lately. I don't know if I care enough to keep trying for a +3.

I'm up to 16 snowdim+2s and still missing out on songs+. Did you already have a leaf stone on? Mine has a Leafdim +2 and that better not somehow interfere with getting songs+

I put a random Leafdim +1 (for a whopping 1 FC) on it before All Songs showed up. All Songs came from Snowdim +2 traded by itself afterwards. So yeah, it doesn't interfere with it.

He just ignores you when getting multiple stones traded at the same time. I mean I hope there isn't something that limits the available augment pool because a leafdim+2 is already on as opposed to any other stone. I mean, it would be weird and a little underhanded, but hey, who knows?

Apologies if this is a dumb question but after what happened yesterday i want to ask this.

The way that i have my GS set up (mule is just a 3 song bard) is that I don't have to sing a bunch of dummy songs. I can pop SV/Call sing 3, do my 1 dummy, and my 4th in a row.

I usually ask my mages/melee or rng/mages etc to stand apart, yesterday this static group just would not listen and I don't have my gs set up to do all dummy songs first.

I basically got screamed at in a shout group for not singing all dummy songs first before going SV/Call

Am I being inefficient? just curious.

If there is down time before you sing (for e.g. mages rebuffing, people afking wc-ing) then yes I guess you could argue you're being slightly inefficient due to the need of singing 5 songs instead of 4 after popping your JAs/SV

If you got to camp and they're ready straight away then you probably waste more time putting dummy songs up.

I think the answer is no, the difference is minimal at the assumption that you had down time to put dummy songs up. It's probably more likely that the group is used to their bard doing dummy songs before buffing.

Personally, I like putting dummy songs up before SV/JA provided there's downtime to do so. This means I don't have to worry about distance when i use my harp for the mage line to unlock extra songs, and can get through songs quickly and go pull, thus using the most out of the SV buffs.. But I wouldn't say a bard who don't do this is a noob, provided the right songs are up.

The only time presinging dummies is really mandatory is when you have to be concerned about JA timers running out. Like, if you're singing a lot of different songs and party swapping. Otherwise, it can be situationally wise. I make that judgment based on the circumstances - player positions, amount of available downtime, etc. That group probably had no good reason to be upset over how you chose to get the songs on them. I can only guess they didn't totally understand how BRD works.

The way you have your gearswap set up, is it basically a one-macro press command to do an entire song cycle? It might be worth your while to add some flexibility to that.

For example, in my gearswap:

//gs c Cycle3 would do Minuet > March > Dummy > March.
and
//gs c Cycle13 would do Minuet > March > March.
With if, else rules to put on a fourth song when CC is up or forced by a toggle.

The latter would function for presung dummies or overwriting songs before they wear without unnecessarily redoing a dummy song. Or overwriting melee songs on your mage without redoing a dummy. The point being, that it's useful to set things up so you can be more dynamic. It's not 100% necessary, but it will make your life easier.

The way I chose to do it works best for my playstyle/macro set up, but you could also just add an if/else and a toggle to keep it confined to one command.

i.e.
Minuet > March >
if Dummy toggle on, then Dummy > March,
else, March.

Before I SV, yeah I'd usually pop up all dummies timed up with the boss pull just for the sake of maximizing song duration during the fight. It probably shouldn't matter because if your group is taking longer than a N/T song duration to kill a boss, you have a lot bigger problems than the way you're singing.

You shouldn't have to have people spread apart though. If you have problems applying Ballads that's more of a gearing issue(Marduk Pants +1), otherwise melee songs should function fine as "Dummy Songs" to be overwritten by piano-othersongs for RNG/Mages.

If you have problems overwriting Ballads, don't use Marduk Pants +1 during N/T melee songs. If you're having problem sticking Preludes, get Marduk Pants +1. Or figure out the time you need to wait to overwrite them and condition yourself to wait long enough(not exactly the best use of your time during N/T, though).

Well ballads will have a shorter duration. Compounded by N/T. This will cause your second Ballad to overwrite the first. (+5 on both ballad / and DD songs, but ballads lack Marduk's duration bonus). Singing the dummy's together and then having mages run away seems like the most efficient method.

I do my songs (dummy no ja) as 4x carols ~

I then do other songs because it *** with Ballads everytime otherwise. Well not on trash NM's, I just pianissimo the WHM seperately.

That's why I said take Marduk out of melee songs, at least for N/T. If you're not under N/T, by the time you're ready to sing Ballads you're probably already pretty close to the timer being correct, or worst case you can twiddle your thumbs for an extra 2 seconds. Obviously the gap extends to 24 seconds if using Marduk on melee songs while under N/T and that's a whole different story. Its something you individually can have complete control over instead of having the 4 or 5 other people influence if you're able to perform your job right.

Grats to those who said +2 was "easy" to get. 19 +2 stones in and I'm throwing in the towel and farming the +3 instruments until more +3 augment proof comes out.

The other solution is to just give up on Marduk legs. And never bother again.

+3 is attainable, I believe its the +4 all songs(including the +1 on linos) that is still under debate. its all luck on getting either of them though.

There's been a few different screenshots of a +3 augment, whether it's worth pursuing might be up for debate. Although you'd likely have to be very, very unlucky to spend more on +2 stones than it'd cost to make a Gjallarhorn.

+3 isn't that hard to obtain. Didn't take me long.

Whether it did or didn't take you long. This is a rare augment. I have 99 harp/horn and considered it for an insta cast finale build. After looking at the numbers and considering that some people have gone 30+ augments of hq stones with little success let alone insta cast aug, Gil is better spent elsewhere (not to mention you can hit a 1-3 sec recast on gear alone with haste). To make it so potential brds don't get confused - this is a nice to have but not a need - similar to Cali I would always suggest making horn after you first make 3-4 song harps.

Ya, it sucks the +3 (+2 aug) stories were all about how easy it is. It sounded like about every 2-4 stones would at least get you +3 in total. And that would have been completely reasonably priced and hoping for the super rare +4 total would be the stretch goal in spending more stones. I'm 19 Snowdim+2 (if that's the wrong stone I might just quit bard and delevel it) stones in and haven't seen a Songs+1 yet.

Are the gear setups on the first page up to date?

For the most part, yes. The BRD essential sets such as Songs, Debuffing, Song Precast, as well as PDT sets, are up to date, though the "budget" sets could be argued otherwise. Idle, Cure Precast, Stoneskin and Fast Cast sets should also be up to date, I believe some of the MDT sets are also recent, though some look to be out of date. Not sure about the Cure sets though, they look like they haven't been updated post-SoA.

anyone got Song Spell Casting time - X% on Ipetam ?
i was wondering if i could finally /toss Felibre's dague if i could get more than 6~7% on it

Thanks mate.

If you've got the dedication and inventory space, try going after the Trial of Magian staves. Granted anything above 6% might be an improvement, you're far likely to maximize your potential with them. It shouldn't be that hard especially with new staves to nuke a mob down, switch to trial staff, and get credit. Though I did all 8 of them as old school blm, the light(ballad/paeon/lull/finale)/fire(minuets)/thunder(march/mad/prelude) ones are going to be the most useful.

Throw in earth for scherzo and maybe wind for etudes? Go figure.

Unfortunately, it's hard to get a grasp on exactly how probable an All Songs+ augment is. There's no resource like FFXIDB tracking those stats. When you just have testimonials, you never really know who's just lucky, or who's just really unlucky. My 1/9 is too small of a sample size for me to personally reassure you about how likely you are to get it. Snowdim +2 is most definitely the correct stone though. Multiple people aside from myself have corroborated that. I had that same worry at the back of my mind at one point, lol.

The other +3 instruments are still a good option. Just keep in mind that Ballads will be limited to +2 with Eminent Flute. Also, if you don't already have the March +3 instrument, Langeleik, you might be in for just as frustrating an experience as augments are. It's a Voidwatch drop and those are notorious for never dropping when you want them. In addition to that, it has a larger AoE range than you'll probably care for.

You can count me among those who are skeptical that the +4 Linos (+3 augment) exists. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it hasn't been credibly confirmed by my standards.

The tyranny is over - stone 20 gave +2 aug!

Can you aug the dagger with +3?

aside from perhaps DD stuff, think the only thing bardy we got was Enchanter's Earring +1 for debuffs and could replace Aoidos' Earring in precasts just cuz inventory and recast. anyone else notice anything?

So since the SC update about 6 months ago, SC damage can be increased proportionately to the resistance of the mob. So lower resistance to an element results in increase SC damage from that element. That being said, I think it would be prudent for BRD's these days to be Threnodying mobs during content. For example, we know now that Light and Dark SC follow the element of least resistance. So a Light SC on Wopket does Wind Damage but a Light SC on Dakuwaqa does Thunder damage and a Dark SC on Hurkan does Earth damage. That being said, using the correct threnody ought to boost Light SC or Dark SC damage a pretty good amount I think(especially under SV or with Ghorn, assuming those enhance potency too.)

It could potentially add thousands of damage over the course of a 7-8min fight especially in Delve where SAMs are spamming 10k SCs ever few seconds.

This also applies to RDM Enspell IIs and Ninjutsu(and Ancient Magic) but this is a BRD board. =)