You Spoony Guide! - A Troubadour's Libretto

I did some more testing after you Sechs and saw Minne and Mads seem to follow Minuets getting floored at the end. Funkworkz and I are going to mess around with Marches tomorrow and see whats up. I got a feeling its just going to be Honor March that is the one off but got a bunch more to mess around with on my ghetto BRD.

Pretty confident all songs get truncated the same, and Honor March is the exception (IF it is an exception)

Still if you guys can obtain exact results for Marches, it's gonna be useful! Good luck with that though, we're talking about such small differences I don't think it's gonna be easy to catch em.

Hypothetical values should be:
Advancing March +7 = 17,6% (181/1024)
Advancing March +8 = 18,7% (192/1024)
Victory March +7 = 27% (277/1024)
Victory March +8 = 28,6% (293/1024)
Honor March +3 = 16,1% (165/1024)
Honor March +4 = 17,2% (177/1024)

But of course getting a rounding/truncation in different ways/spots might make those numbers slightly different.
I really don't think it's realistical to find these differences.
I think it would be much easier to see how Honor March truncates/floors values for attack and accuracy (which you're doing already) and simply assume the same happens for the haste.

If my calculations are correct Honor March with +5song (filihands+3) would cap magic haste together with Haste1, if sung with Marcato (1,5 bonus)
Atm with song+4 it gets you pretty close to haste cap, but not quite there. Enough for DW jobs to cap, probably for some 2handers too, not enough for the other jobs alas.

There's no meaningful reason for Honor March to be different in the first place, and thus no grounds to safely assume that other marches follow one pattern or the other. We do know that it deviates from how minuets, madrigals, and minnes operate however, therefore it is certainly an exception in some manner.

Regardless, there's only one instance of truncation in the formula. The results will fall on one side or the other and we'll know from the end result.

Yea but we need to see how other Marches work if they follow Honor or or not so its got to be tested.

Yea but we need to see how other Marches work if they follow Honor or or not so its got to be tested.[/quote]
Good luck with that :P
Maybe differences will be easier to spot with SoulVoice/Marcato.
Those should make the numbers bigger and hence slightly easier to spot differences?

Delta for the respective equations on VMarch at +7 and +8 is 2/1024, so SV would raise that to 4/1024. It's more about finding combinations that result in visible differences in recast timers for a certain spell however, so a resolution of 1/1024 is quite possible with the right setup.

The problem I see with that is that the large majority of recent pieces of equipment were never thoroughfully tested in their xxx/1024 values.
We just watched what other pieces with the same +X% values, and ASSUMED all other pieces with the same numbers to have the same /1024 value.

But thing is, that's likely the case for the majority of items, but not necessarily the case for *everything*.
So really, good luck with that, gonna be some massive testing, I don't envy who will perform it but trust me on this I will wholeheartedly apreciate the results :)

I was putting together a spreadsheet for myself and did some basic testing and my values are not lining up with yours.

Base Attack: 786

Song+7

Valor Minuet III: 978 (+192)
Valor Minuet IV: 1197 (+219)
Valor Minuet V: 1436 (+239)

This lines up with an equation that looks like this:

attack = ROUND(song_multiplier*(song_base + merits),0) + job_points

In my case that was:

Valor Minuet III
(1.7 * (96 + 5)) + 20 = 191.7 = 192

Valor Minuet IV
(1.7 * (112 + 5)) + 20 = 218.9 = 219

Valor Minuet V
(1.7 * (124 + 5)) + 20 = 239.3 = 239

Following this same equation I would expect to see you (Song+8) getting values of:

Valor Minuet III = 202
Valor Minuet IV = 231
Valor Minuet V = 252

I can't explain the difference between your observed values and my observed values.

EDIT: I was not taking into account the STR+5 given for each minuet! Back to the drawing board!

attack = TRUNC(song_multiplier*(song_base)) + merits + job_points

and then adding 2.5 attack for the extra STR mostly solves the issue.

I just did a Soul Voice test and got some interesting numbers as well:

Song+7

Valor Minuet III = 380
*380/2 = 190, this is 2 points lower than expected

Valor Minuet IV = 434
*434/2 = 217, this is 2 points lower than expected

Valor Minuet V = 474
*474/2 = 237, this is 2 points lower than expected

The only way I am able to rectify the numbers is if Soul Voice calculates attack bonus differently than normal casting.

If the Soul Voice bonus is calculated as:

attack = TRUNC(song_multiplier*(song_base)) + merits + job_points

and this value is added to the original song values I get these values:

Valor Minuet III = 192 + 188 = 390

Valor Minuet IV = 219 + 215 = 434

Valor Minuet V = 239 + 235 = 474

Seems odd, but I don't have another way to currently explain the observations.

EDIT: As indicated in previous post, I was not accounting for the extra STR provided by reforged Empy armor. This rectifies the problem.

I just retested and I can confirm +197 Attack on Minuet 3 (5/5 minuet merits, 20/20 minuet job points) with Song+8.
226 attack Minuet 4 with same setup.
248 attack Minuet 5, same setup.


In this specific setup I used:
1) Only one AF3 piece (to avoid the set bonus)
2) 900+ skill (under 900 you're gonna get smaller numbers because not capped potency, at least on tier V song. Tier4 and Tier3 might cap sooner)

Yup, I just updated my original post. I was not accounting for the extra STR.

Just wanted to say the march testing didn't happen Sunday. Funk & I weren't on at the same time. I plan to see if we can do it this coming Sat or Sun if we can catch each other on at the same time.

Anyone know if Adventurer's Dirge's Enmity down is counted towards gear enmity or multiplied like Tranquil Heart?

It counts towards the gear cap. See Kaeko's notes here.

After reading the last 5 pages I am more confused now than before I started reading. If I start going for REMA's, which order is the best to go in?

I'm not sure I get where your "confusion" comes from. There's only been a couple of posts from me and Byrth on the topic?
Byrth actually made quite an excellent one explaining the reasoning for his tier listing.
I just disagreed on a couple of places but it's more about personal opinions than who is right and who is wrong.
If you want a sum of my opinion on the 4 BRDs RMEs:

Marsyas >>>> Ghorn >\ Daubla99 > Carnwenhan


Reasoning behind:

1) Marsyas > Honor March it's an incredibly powerful song by itself and allows for otherwise impossible combinations. Starting to play BRD after you already farmed a Marsyas is going to be a completely different story. Difference is so huge I'm not sure I would even consider a BRD without Marsyas for quite a large amount of content (not all, clearly)

2) Gjallarhorn is a nice inventory saver, but since Song+3 instrument is not that insane to get (not ruthlessly easy either though) it's "only" a ~10% increase over non-Ghorn next best option. From this it might seem less important than Daubla (see below, ~33%), but sometimes having stronger songs is more important, Ghorn offers additional benefits for Midcasting songs and last but not least, being a relic it's kinda cheap to get.

3) Daurdabla99 isn't anymore what it used to be, but it's still a nice thing to have. If you wanna see it in terms of numbers, Daurdabla99 used to be a 100% increase in BRD overall potency, now it's "only" a 33% since Terpander exists. It's still quite nice, but you have to go through the annoyance of doing fakes before, and sometimes having stronger 3 songs can be preferable than 4 weaker ones. I used different tier numbers, but in my opinion Ghorn and Daubla99 are kinda in the same spot

4) Carnwenhan is an awesome weapon in many aspects and the fact it allows you, among other things, to fulltime Marcato Honor March is great in theory, but in reality I don't think it's as good as it sounds on paper because of practical implications which I think I explained in the previous page.

I don't think this will be an issue.

Reraise recast with Advancing March will differ at +6 (50 vs 49 seconds) and +8 (49 vs 48 seconds).

Reraise recast with Victory March and Haste (150/1024) will differ at +6 (36 vs 35 seconds) and +7 (35 vs 34 seconds).

Any tier 5 elemental spell's recast with Honor March and capped gear haste (256/1024) will differ at +4 (26 vs 25 seconds).

All with no fast cast or additional sources of haste. Formula 1 in each case is song*floor(base/10), formula 2 is floor(base*(1+song/10)).

Yeah, I didn't rely on gear when checking the base potency of marches /1024 at all.

Hey all. Trying to optimize my Ambuscade points this month getting gear I need, but then trying to get gil as well. And I also don't Omen on my BRD too often as it's brand new, and not very good yet. So the Cards I do get on it, I wanna be sure I am using well.

If you were to mix/match an Af+2 and Inyaga+1 set for the purpose of enfeebling, how would you put it together?

Since you so nicely listed these for me I just went with your test.

Advancing was 49 seconds at +6.
Victory was 35 seconds at +6 + Haste 1(WHM).
Honor was 26 seconds at +4 and capped gear haste.
Done on GEO for no type of FC reduction.

So Honor seems to be the one outsider on the way spells got handled maybe its because they nurfed the base potency of +Song afterwords and someone else handled it or w/e but it is different.

new bard here, just finishing skill-up up for bard magic song and string to cap.

however wind is only 10, got a long way to go. how important is it to cap wind as well?

Pretty damn important.

Ok, we had some drama on Asura tonight someone was saying there friend says that a BG Wiki page still list the overall cap of Songs as +5. Normally I would take this as a BS but I could see somewheres we list this because for years it was Ghorn + Emp for a total of +5. Which would of been poorly worded even for its time but I could still see it listed.

Anyway I just wanted to point out to the less mathy people if you see something that doesn't quite make sense on the wiki call us out and let us know what page. We can A) fix it (and/or better explain why) or B) say you right and refine the page.

P.S. - I didn't find out what page it was tonight since their "friend" logged but I figured I'd post here anyways in good measure.

BTW it wasn't just that we had old info(if we really do) it was that all songs cap at +5 and the newer necks added don't matter.

Figured this is as good a place to ask as any: Has anyone personally gotten double attack+3 on their Linos? The augment cap thread says it caps at 3, but after over 300 leafslit+2s i'm still stuck at 2. Wouldn't be the first mistake in that publication, so some confirmation would be great before I continue throwing stones/gil.

Yeah. I have a DA+3, QA+3, Acc+15 Linos. I don't know if the Acc can go higher, but the other two are the caps.

Acc and Att (separately) should go up to 20 max, Acc+Att (together) cap at 15.

I'm on your boat Comeatme btw, spent around 240 +2s, then even more +1 and nq over time, never seen DA going over +2
Likewise with the QA, I'm stuck at +2 (but spent way less stones there).

Maybe it's just my bias but I always got the impression the randomizer for weapons tends to get slightly worse results compared to the randomizer for armor.
At least, as big of a coincidence it may be, it's always been my experience with Alluvion Armor and Weapons, and Linos is a "weapon" in theory.

Took me maybe two stacks of dusk/leaf and I never went back for better snow augments but I guess I could.

Does it matter whether I use Snow-slit/tip? I forget >:/

By the way, you're wrong. There is no combined augment and the cap is 15.

For the instrument, no there is no combined augment. There is for 1H and 2H weapons though.

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Category:Alluvion_Skirmish_Weapons

PS: Byrth, can you share your TP and WS bard sets?

Would anyone mind posting their lullaby set for Vini? Trying to get brd going again since I got back and still have a lot of work to do, but didn't see a lullaby duration set on main page and was hoping I could take a look at someone's set to make sure I'm not overlooking something. Thanks in advance.