You Spoony Guide! - A Troubadour's Libretto

Nightingale+Troubadour - I got lucky where it hit me right as I was typing the same question after burning my bard up :D

Little known tip. If you're in Clarion Call mode and your melee are buffed but can't think of a 4th or 5th song for mages, try Light Carol and Light Carol II with 5/5 Aoidos on. It will give mages +100 max MP.

Wouldn't it be badass if Mage's Ballad was a dark based song? Then you could give mages Balladx3 and Carolx2 and give them +250 max MP too :)

Never got why Ballads were light based, usually spells and equipment relating to +MP are dark, not light.

Also, lately I've been going /SMN to events and I think it is a very underplayed and oft forgotten subjob choice. Things you gain from /SMN:

Reraise II(targettable too)
Raise II
Spring Water -AoE 200ish Cure(similar to Curaga II) but removes several debuffs including Para/Poison/Slow/Blind/Petrify.
Hastega(3min duration)
Auto Refresh
Crimson Howl(if you already Hastega'd and want to give your melee or RNG a little extra boost, it's ~60ish attack for 1min, so like an extra Minuet IV)

You lose targettable haste/cure4/sneak/invis and -na and erase, but generally if you go with a Yagrush WHM or doing an event that won't necessitate a lot of erasing, /SMN is pretty solid, almost better imo than /RDM unless you really need that Fast Cast or Flurry. As a BRD/SMN, since I almost always have Ballads on, the 100+ MP cost for BPs is negligible especially if you idle in Autorefresh stuff. Being able to Marchx2 and Hastega a DD party makes you a very efficient buffer, and being able to AoE Stona/Paralyna or remove Slow with Spring Water is a huge boon. Only thing is it only removes Slow1, so Slow spells/TP moves that overwrite Haste can't be removed with Spring Water unfortunately, but if you roll with a Yagrush WHM then you can follow up their AoE erase with Hastega! You can invest in 2 pieces from mini-expansion that give -3-4 BP timer each I believe, and Magavan Slops which give another -2, so the buff timer on BP Ward isn't so bad considering you'll be sleeping/dispelling/buffing as well.

If you're in a solid group where you find yourself not needing to cure party members heavily, /SMN does have a lot of neat things to offer. Before entering a BCNM, before doing Hastega you can throw on an Aerial Armor(3-4 shadows lasts 15min) while people are gathering or discussing strategies etc...

Awesome guide that I have been using for months, just one thing I may(or may not) have caught: Artsieq Hose better in precast for cures/non bard songs? I think they might be the same fast cast as Orvail, but they have haste, which is always nice :P

As precast pieces, they're equivalent since Haste only gives recast reduction during midcast. That said, you're right that Artsieq would be a better option since they do everyone that Orvail does and more.

benthos grip for debuffs seems like the main thing of merit this update.

lebeche ring is a replacement for veneficium ring in precast sets that have non-active latent on minstrel's ring/don't need Minstrel's Ring to cap, and is also a good partner with Veneficium if you need neither Minstrel's nor prolix ring(precast sets that don't need Minstrel's and/or Prolix Ring generally would be a set utilizing Magian Staves with perfect/near perfect Gendewitha augments, or a set for /RDM). Lebeche Ring also probably has a place in the Cure sets.

coalrake sabots match bihu slippers +1 for precast, you could argue very trivial matters for both cases, such as maybe Coalrake Sabots are better because of the brief 1 HP/tic Regen when swapping into your precast set. But, Bihu Slippers +1 do offer PDT-3% which is more attractive for survivability in the event you get hit briefly when swapping to Precast, and because of this and the Nightingale augment, Bihu Slippers +1 are more inventory efficient, as they're macro'd in for both Nightingale and PDT. As for a Regen piece in general, aoidos' cothurnes +2 give 2 HP/tic, so they are better.

Anyone have a stun set they wouldn't mind sharing?
I know it's possible, likely won't hit max recast but it could be viable. Or at least I thought I'd give it a shot

Cures: Nabu's shalwar


Fastcast: Artsieq are the Best for the 5% fastcast but mainly because they double up as an Inventory saver for Debuff songs also.

bump

Viable for what? /SCH and a nuke set makes sense up to Delve2 content or so, because of Dark Arts, but if you need Stun you'll have the skill of a 49 BLM or DRK so I wouldn't expect to be stunning Delve1 without a GEO. Here's a baseline set that might work:

ItemSet 329976

(Artsieq+Twebuliij path B)

My friend uses BRD/BLM to stun Delve1 when he doesn't feel like dealing with shout stunners. He hasn't been on to give me the set uses though.

ItemSet 329978

majority of the gear stunner sch uses bard can use, and considering bard JSE doesn't really give anything awesome in the FC area, reusing what most of what sch uses is probably good. this set only hits 25% haste with ionis. could use hasty pinion instead of aurorole, could use a different pair of hands if you're outside adoulin

note: i left staff out because I'm not sure how well bard ventures with the lack of dark skills, but I also don't know how good of a recast you want/need for your purpose (i.e. if you need to stun everything or selective stun) so apa II or ilevel 119 staff like twelliij or leb +2 depending on your needs

Does anyone have an updated gearswap for ghorn + terpander? Please pm me, thanks!

Lehb for sure, even on tojil level bosses using the apama you start to see resist early on if you don't have any outside macc being added aside from food.

For the precast set in the guide, why would you want to use Witful Belt? If the "Occ. quickens spellcasting" triggers your song casts instantly and, even with GearSwap, you will lose out on any benefits from your midcast sets.

Wrong.

gearswap factors in instant cast as does Ashita cast, perhaps you might want to learn how what you're using actually works?

:3

That's interesting, would you mind pointing me to the section of the GearSwap code that handles this? I'm a software engineer myself and I'm curious how it works.

This isn't just because of plugins. Vanilla macros will still give you bonuses even when instacasting, so long as there isn't any /waits in your macro. Instant cast doesn't mean the spell instantly casts from that point in time. When you initiate the spell, the game checks for and applies spellcasting time reduction(including instacasts), then there's a very, very brief period of time before the spell will actually start casting(allowing you the swap to midcast) and then the spell actually begins to cast.


Easy to test for yourself with Nightingale(5/5) up too

ie

/so "Mage's Ballad" <me>
/equip legs "Aoidos' Rhing. +2"

still get the extra 1 mp/tic, regardless of there being no casting time and AF3 Legs not being equipped at the initiation of the command.

gearswap does it by removing gearchecks done by the client side of POL much more efficient;y than the game does natively, however its in built into the game also.

Spellcast had 0.2 spellcast waits built in hence it didn't manage it as effectively....

Ah ok, so it's not anything special that GearSwap does, it's just that there's enough of a delay from when you tell the server you're attempting to cast to when the server actually confirms that you are casting. Thanks for the info, I didn't know that :)

Gearswap does remove a check the Client side does though IE!

Nares Trews < Something else > Nares Trews (This would error due to a processing delay from the game thinking nares was on but server side recognising the gearswap had been done so gave you the w.e leg bonus you used)

This check is removed in gearswap hence it's much more effective with certain swaps if they are used in multiple sets and overlapping errors that could occur in spellcast and vanilla pol can not happen in gearswap.

Ah yeah, that makes sense. Thanks for the info. Learn something new every day :)

Was I being insulting, I certainly hope not, I even did a " :3 " face to show I was being um... fun?

IDK I try to be nice But in all honesty, it is something I'm rubbish at.

I'm only occasionally an arsehole anyways, like when someone says stupid ***about game mechanics.. software is different.

or perhaps everyone not from england isn't used to Dry Wit and take it as insult and maybe need to check if they are being over sensitive to be upset by someone on the inteerwebs, who probably sits in his mums basement and shouldn't seek gratification from a forum of what some random stranger on the internet thinks about them. IDK MAYBE IM CRAZY THINKING THAT WAY!!!

canto necklace +1 looks like best in slot debuff neck now depending on how Unity ranking effects work? Didn't see if it's in the notes at all or not, like if your unity is in last do you still get the minimum effect of CHR+5? Even if not and Piper's Torque still has merit if this effect isn't always active, still something to keep in mind.

Obviously all these rings are God tier for various different reasons, but the one that sticks out most for BRD is Weatherspoon ring, excellent precast and debuff ring. Renaye ring is one worth mentioning, aside from idle purposes, if Singing Skill ever becomes more relevant for potential higher skill cap songs again in the future.