Military Parade - A DD Bard Guide

I'm seriously skeptic on the DA working for other people, and I can't get a hold of this guy who claims otherwise.

If it DOES work it's gonna be a mess. For Short fights it would clearly become the best option, for everything else there's Carnwenhan of course.

Moved to correct thread

Not sure why you're asking in the BRD DD thread?

I know I may be moving into crazy talk here, but has anyone considered Mandau with the new weapon augments?

The fact the 20% bonus is an overall multiplier brings Mercy Stroke on par with Rudra's (I am an Aeonic user now) at 1k (1750). You lose any benefit of bigger ws from TP overflow, but would gain the crit rate and dmg from AM, triple attack dmg from the augmented Mandau, and the triple damage mele hits. None of those are particualry great bonuses, but in total they may be enough to clear the gap given the similar weaponskill damage.

Yes I did, but never tested it.
One of the big troubles of Mandau before that was the base stats (dmg/delay), but those got changed a lot whereas Aeonic didn't get a huge boost.

Mercy Stroke is STR based, but BRD probably gets an equally/even amount of STR gear than DEX one.
It should be tested on a Spreadsheet, I guess.

Personally I only tested Twashtar, Carnwenhan and Aeneas and the result was, if I recall, something like:
Carn (AM3) > Aeneas > Carn > Twashtar

Of course talking about augmented versions.
Carn AM3 wins but that's not particularly "realistic" as in the majority of situations you really won't get the luxury of setting AM3 up. Or rather you do, but at a cost.
Aeneas is so much simpler to handle, you don't have to rely on any AM, you just engage and spam WS, doesn't matter if all of a sudden you have to stop to recast songs or whatever, things that instead would seriously hurt Carn and Twash (mostly Carn, tbf, Twash's AM is just icing on the cake, not a vital part of the weapon).

If I remember correctly this tier list was for dualwielding, not singlewielding.
The ToTM TPbonus dagger (centovente) had a place in that, but results weren't as good as DNC so I really didn't bother to consider it a realistic option.

Does lustrio still win if NQ in most slots? If not, what should I be looking for until then?

What's a lustrio?

Nvm I guess you meant Lustratio.
I think Lustratio (HQ) might still win for Rudra in at least a couple of slots, if you check pure damage and nothing else. If you get hit during that though... good luck with it but I guess it falls down to personal playstyle and preference.

Doubt that applies to NQ anyway.
Speaking of alternatives to be looking at, well, ruling out Volte because of obvious reasons, I'd say Ayanmo+2 (very good raw stats and acc, good defense, lacks attack) and Bihu+3 (lots of attack that makes it even better that Ayanmo in some circumstances despite the lower DEX. Can be very expensive, it's technically more a Mordant Rime set than a Rudra one)

Should at least aim to get Bihu+3 body imho, that's an awesome WS piece.

I want to make a few points:

• With all WSD+ bonuses, MS and Rudra's are theoretically very close at 1k TP, assuming the same STR and DEX. But as you said, MS doesn't benefit from TP overflow.

• I disagree with Sechs when he says that "BRD gets an equal amount of STR and DEX gear". BRD has more DEX gear now and even Bihu +3 has a bit more DEX in each piece (except the damned legs, but we have Lustratio or Jokushu for that). Not counting Ayanmo.

• Focusing in STR gear will possibly drop us in the same trap as Mordant Rime: an accuracy gap between TP and WS sets. However, STR gear means a bit more attack too.

• Critical hit AM bonus is nice but not that important on a job like BRD and Triple Attack Damage + is almost a dead stat because we have very few TA gear options.

• There's a substantial difference between Mandau and Aeneas D values: 131 on full Mandau, 140 on base Aeneas, 146 on full Aeneas.

  
I can't picture a full Mandau beating even a non-augmented Aeneas, but I'm just eyeballing. Some spreadsheet numbers would be nice.

Just checked the price, and I am kicking myself right now. Just a few months ago, it was 200-500k at most for nearly any shard. I should have stockpiled when it was dirt cheap and nobody cared about it. Wow...

I said "probably"! Didn't really go to check piece by piece.

I was mostly thinking about some Lustratio pieces which have good STR bonus or augs, or Ayanmo which has decent level of STR and a lovely STR set bonus.

DEX does help Crit (ddex) which does nothing for all WS except Evisceration, and it adds more acc of course.

STR does help with some WS (Mercy Stroke), it does help with STR tiers and it's part of every WS formula, it also gives att.
Having a good WS where you can stack STR instead of DEX can be a nice change.

Still, the TP overflow thing, in an age where TP overflow is quite common, is gonna make quite a big difference, especially on TPefficient WSs like Rudra and Mercy.


Couldn't agree more, altough pieces like Ayanmo+2 do not really pose that issue.

One big slot difference here would be neck. We get DEX/CHR on our neck (which arguably is the BiS option for most/all WSs) whereas for Mercy Stroke we would have to fall down on "normal" options.

That's ok, I forgot about Ayanmo set bonus too. ^^;

But it doesn't matter actually, both Ayanmo and Bihu have low STR, except for Ayanmo legs and Bihu body (which is BiS for every WS) and Ayanmo set bonus isn't enough to make up for that (only Legs have decent STR). Lustratio is certainly our best bet for STR but it is even better for DEX too.

If we math the maximum possible STR and DEX values for all 5 main armor slots (please, correct me if I'm forgetting anything or doing something wrong) and assuming Bihu body always, max STR possible is +196:
...while max DEX is +231:
Ignoring Lustratio gear, max STR possible is +148:
...while max DEX is +205:
Of course there are 11 more slots but the bulk of WSC comes from the 5 main armor ones. Conclusion: BRD has a clear advantage on DEX WS's. And all this with Mandau having 15 less D points than Aeneas. Again, I can't picture Mandau winning over even an unaugmented Aeneas.

Agreed.
Plus the 500TP bonus on Rudra which is clearly quite a BIG winner there lol
In addition to all the TP overflow that you're gonna get regardless of the weapon you decide to use. (which, again, is gonna benefit Rudra and will do ***for Mercy Stroke)

I am correcting you :P Volte legs have much more STR than Bihu so the max STR goes up to +209.


Mercy Stroke is 5 fTP, but with hidden damage and Mercy stroke augment you can count that as 8.4 fTP . So you actually need TP overflow and TP bonus from Aeneas to match it with Rudra's. Moonshade on top of that will push Rudra's to around 10 fTP tho.

Rudra's still looks better, but I still wanted to point out those things.

Volte Harness set in general has more STR than Bihu but we kinda ruled it out because it's not exactely something easy to farm, unlike stuff like Lustratio+1, Ayanmo+2 or Bihu+3.
The last of which can be expensive but once you've got the stuff unlocked it's basically just a matter of gil, really.

Volte Harness set, on the other hand...
Despite us killing all Wave2 Red Eyes NM with max TH, it's rare to see a Volte piece drop.
I've only seen one drop in Bastok so far (hands) and I've been lucky enough to win it.
I've been doing Dynamis non stop twice a week since the release.
Granted I rotate zones and I've been doing Bastok twice a month only.

True about drop rate, but only legs has actually more STR (not counting body from obvious reason) than other options. So if you plan to use Mandau and have "pick one volte you want to lot" rule in your LS, you probably want to pick legs.

Wat?

Volte vs Bihu+3 vs Ayanmo+2 (set bonus)

Head: 33 vs 21 vs 20 (28)
Body: 49 vs 39 vs 28 (36)
Hands: 29 vs 16 vs 16 (24)
Legs: 46 vs 33 vs 33 (41)
Feet: 33 vs 17 vs 16 (24)

Are you sure you've been watching the right Volte set? I'm talking about the Volte Harness set, the Bastok one.
Not that it changes anything, I still think Rudra/Aneas is gonna win by far over Mercy/Mandau.
Just saying that Volte actually has more STR.

"other options" include Lustratio +1 Sechs. In which case Head, Hands and Feet has more STR than Volte.

You can argue about low accuracy on Lustratio tho.

Ooh sure if you're counting Lustratio+1.
Granted that imho Lustratio+1 sucks because of 2 reasons: no defensive stats and acc issues (depending on the aug/piece).

That kinda falls down to personal preference/playstyle. I don't like Lustratio but I can't say it's a bad option per se.

Thanks. But I deliberately ignored Volte gear because, like Sechs said, they aren't feasible to farm, we can only get them by sheer luck.

That's why I said in my first post that Rudra's and MS are very close at 1k TP. Actually, Mercy is a bit better than that as any extra hits (like the one from offhand) will get Mandau bonuses too (equals to +1.68 fTP per hit). As you pointed out, TP overflow, Aeneas' TP Bonus and Moonshade are needed to match Rudra's with MS. Assuming equal STR and DEX for both WS of course.

THIS! Ayanmo is our main option for accuracy and it's loaded with DEX but not with STR (except legs). But the lack of defensive stats is by far the worst Lustratio drawback (I'm a main RUN and you guys can figure what already happened to me thanks to it). And playing safe creates TP overflow that favors Rudra's too.

In the end, Mandau's real struggle comes from BRD gear options that favors DEX instead of STR and its lesser D value.

Well im last to defend Lustratio. I dont even like it on other jobs with better accuracy. Personally I plan to use Aeneas and Carn, because one I can make for free and other I need to get for singing anyway. That beong said eventually I would like to focus on Carn and MR just because its unique for brd. I have enough fun with Rudra on my main with DNC and THF.

Carn was simply too far from Aeneas to be viable, pre augs.
Post augs this difference thinned out*
Carns is still behind but I'd dare to say it's now a perfectly viable option, especially once you can exploit the "perf" MR gear.

Carn with AM3 is of course ahead but as we all know that's simply not realistically viable in the majority of situations.

As a long-time hardcore fan of Carn for DD myself, I think I'm happy about the position it's in.



*
This "thin" difference that you can see on the spreadsheet is realistically still a bit higher than it seems because of the TP overflow, which greatly benefits Rudra's Storm and does ***for Mordant Rime.
Also Aeneas is incredibly versatile in its simplicity. You can basically engage/disengage whenever you want and you won't lose anything.
With Carns where you're struggling to use and mantain AM3 every second you disengage or cast a song mid-fight, it's an additional DPS loss that you won't see on Aeneas because of the lack of an Aftermath to seek/mantain.
Last but not last Carns "requires" two different TP sets. One with multiattack (same as Aeneas) to use when you're building TP aiming for AM3, the other (focusing on STP) to use when you have AM3 up.
tl;dr => Aeneas is simpler to use and more efficient.

I know this probably gets ask a lot but does anyone have any updated TP sets and WS sets for their BRD?

Also what RMEA main hand are people using these days?

Aeneas is the most efficient and easier to use.
Carnwenhan is what the cool kids use!

sets.engaged = {main="Aeneas",
sub="Twashtar",
range={ name="Linos", augments={'Accuracy+13 Attack+13','"Dbl.Atk."+2','Quadruple Attack +3',}},
head="Aya. Zucchetto +2",
body="Ayanmo Corazza +2",
hands="Aya. Manopolas +2",
legs="Querkening Brais",
feet="Aya. Gambieras +2",
neck="Lissome Necklace",
waist="Windbuffet Belt +1",
back={ name="Intarabus's Cape", augments={'DEX+20','Accuracy+20 Attack+20','Accuracy+10','"Store TP"+10',}},
left_ear="Telos Earring",
right_ear="Cessance earring",
left_ring="Petrov Ring",
right_ring="Hetairoi Ring"}

-- Sets with weapons defined.
sets.engaged.Dagger = {main="Aeneas",
sub="Twashtar",}

-- Set if dual-wielding
sets.engaged.DW = {main="Aeneas",
sub="Twashtar",
range={ name="Linos", augments={'Accuracy+13 Attack+13','"Dbl.Atk."+2','Quadruple Attack +3',}},
head="Aya. Zucchetto +2",
body="Ayanmo Corazza +2",
hands="Aya. Manopolas +2",
legs="Querkening Brais",
feet="Aya. Gambieras +2",
neck="Lissome Necklace",
waist="Shetal stone",
back={ name="Intarabus's Cape", augments={'DEX+20','Accuracy+20 Attack+20','Accuracy+10','"Store TP"+10',}},
left_ear="Telos Earring",
right_ear="Cessance earring",
left_ring="Petrov Ring",
right_ring="Hetairoi Ring"}
end

Datruthuhate the sets you posted have uncapped haste!

That doesn't cap haste unless you're getting Haste Samba. You'd also be short on delay reduction even with /dnc DW + /dnc Samba.

edit: beaten

I don't often worry about haste, i use my songs, samba & trust if needed for haste. It's not a perfect set but it works just fine for me, keep in mind main role is support, but i do some pretty good damage. You can always adjust as you see if for yourself.

I mean you could just as easily make your set not shitty.

Well if you can come up with some perfect options by all means do so, it's bad enuff there's limited options for brds and melee sets, and i didn't feel like augmenting gear like crazy.