You Spoony Guide! - A Troubadour's Libretto

I removed them from the pages where I rigorously tested the effects of song+. Now that the benefit is simple and systematic *(1+song/10) there is no need to do the math for people.

If you give a formula that works for all values, you no longer need a table for any values.

If I tested(/remember) correctly Nocturne duration scales with skill so going from Gjallarhorn to Marsyas won't neccessarily equate to a 10% duration increase.

Pining Nocturne durations:

Terpander 00:04:45
Marysas 00:06:59
Terpander+2 00:06:05
Gjallahorn+2 00:08:47
Gjallahorn+2 (Carn 119, Fili body+1, Inyanga legs+1, Brioso feet+2) 00:12:50
Marysas+2 00:08:20
Marysas+2 (Carn 119, Fili body+1, Inyanga legs+1, Brioso feet+2) 00:12:23

I and other admins have to disagree with this while some people like to plug formulas in others rather just have the values listed. Look how hard is was for people to figure out DW needed at certain haste values even though it is a pretty simple formula.

I'll bring it up on the BG Discord with the others to make sure we were defiantly on yhe same page but based on what we were talking about earlier we thought it was just better to list the values for people too.
Already done. It was decided like I thought that we should keep the tables but also list the formula for both types of people out there.

What was the combined skill levels of both these tested? You might not of been capped at skill or there could be no known skill cap atm for this.

Combined skill was 1020 (511 singing 509 wind). When terpander was on, string was 458, so 969 skill.

So you had differing skills with GHorn and Marsyas? or did you make up the difference some how when you took GHorn off? GHorn and Marsyas is what I cared about

Yes I would have had 50 less skill when using Marysas

Those numbers are odd, shouldn't the Marsyas combination produce 10% bigger duration than Ghorn one?
If the culprit are those 50 skills difference then it means Nocturne caps above 900 skill?

From what I can see, my duration gear is adding 4 minutes 5 seconds to the duration, taking Gjallhorn from 8:45 to 12:50 and Marysas from 8:20 to 12:25. Each +1 is adding 40 seconds to the duration, and doesn't get affected by duration gear. The discrepancy I'm seeing is that Marysas should add 142.5 seconds but seems to only add 135.

i cnt find this info anywhere, does anyknow know what kind of stats you can roll on a "magic" skinflayer, mostly can i roll "enhancing magic duration" to go with the omen shield, can you roll fascast etc. anyone privy to that information? thanks in advance.

Talking about Honor March, I just confirmed the following values of Attack and Accuracy

+0 March => 42acc, 168att
+1 March => 46acc, 184att
+3 March => 54acc, 216att
+4 March => 58acc, 232att

Cast at 900+ combined skill all of the times, no Fili set bonus.
So... there's a small approximation here, not sure how it works but values are slightly lower than 10%, probably because of the same /1024 thing instead of /100 ?

Compared to Madri2 (119 acc) and Minu5 (248 att) the situation is a bit better than it was before the patch.
There's still sort of a gap between Honor and other songs, but now it's rightfully smaller.

floor(42/10)=4
floor(168/10)=16

So it's probably applying song+ as floor(base/10)*song+ rather than floor(song+*base/10).

While I'm in here, can someone verify this for other songs and tell me if min/mad merits are counted in the base or applied afterwards? Should be easy to figure out with minuets. If it's the above formula and merits are applied after then Min 3 gets +9 per +song; if merits are included then it's +10. If it's the latter formula then you should get +10 off Min 3 regardless, but you can easily differentiate between those two possibilities with Min 4.

I'm not sure I understood what you meant.
Are you trying to see if the Min/Madri bonuses are applied before the % bonus from song+ and hence benefit from it, or if they're applied after?
I'll try to find out, test needs to be done with only one Fili item equipped or set bonus will *** it up, but I'll be very surprised if Minu/Madri bonuses benefit from the % multiplier.

They are applied after, as are JPs.

Figured, appreciate the confirmation.

For Minuet there's Merits and JPs, for Madrigal just Merits.
Anyway:

With Song+8 I'm getting Minu3 at 197 attack, Minu4 at 226 attack. Not sure if this is the data you were looking for.
I also tried Soul Voice to see how it does with the 2x multi, it's 394 for Minuet 3 and 452 for Minuet 4
(gfdi, that's a lot of attack o.o)

Okay.

Minuet 3 is 96 base, 5 merit, 20 JP, leaves 76 attack to song+. 8*96/10=76.8 which floors to 76, so in this case it's flooring at the very end.

Confirm with Minuet 4: 112 base, 5 merit, 20 JP, 89 attack to song+. 8*112/10=89.6 floor to 89, also fits.

So Honor March (marches in general?) just works differently I guess?

Maybe it's because they're % based instead of fixed values, maybe they apply a different approximation method, and this influences the att and acc values uniquely present on honor?

So fall-out from the BRD changes. I've noticed that the update hasn't really changed when I use my bard. Additionally, I thought it was worthwhile to look at how RMEAs affect the viability of the job.

The effect of RMEAs
I looked at the 16 permutations of RMEs in 2 conditions (~30% Haste + Max Attack or ~30% Haste + Max Acc) and here's what I found:
1) G-horn is kind of shitty now. Obviously don't toss it if you've already got it, but it's a minor increase over second-best alternatives. It is worth 33 Attack (Max Atk) or 14 Acc (Max Acc)
2) The difference between Moonbow Whistle and Moonbow Whistle +1 is 58 attack (Max Attack) or 17 Acc (Max Acc) with all RMEAs.
3) For Atk, RMEA order should be Marsyas -> Carnwenhan -> Daurdabla -> (Gjallarhorn)
4) For Acc, RMEA order should be Daurdabla -> Marsyas -> Carnwenhan -> (Gjallarhorn)
5) The difference between a non-RMEA Bard and RMEA Bard is massive.
Max Atk no RMEA: 223 (~= +19% Atk for my DNC)
Max Atk RMEA: 965 (~= +82.5% Atk for my DNC)
Max Acc no RMEA: 107
Max Acc RMEA: 309

Because BRD RMEAs interact synergistically, having all of them roughly triples the potency of bard buffs.

As far as comparison to Idris GEO, Indi-Frailty is 41.8% Defense down which (assuming Dia II is on the monster and accounting for it) is comparable to an 86% increase in Attack. Indi-Fury is a 61.7% increase in Attack. Torpor/Precision are both 100 Acc.

For COR, Chaos Roll offers +46.2% Attack (same term as Indi-Fury).

Comparing buffer teams
Looking at the current game I find there are basically three situations:
A) You don't need to resist stuff and don't need Acc (Ambuscade, most of Omen)
B) You need to resist stuff, but don't need Acc (Omen Caturae)
C) You need to resist stuff and do need Acc (Albumen)

For situation A, RMEA BRD+GEO would be better than GEO x2, but COR+GEO would be much better than bringing a 0~2 RMEA BRD.
For situation B, GEOx2 wins here. One does Vex/Attunement and the other does Fury/Frailty. Geo matches RMEA BRD's Atk offering with a non-BoG'd Frailty and can choose whether they need more attack (Fury) or some Acc (Precision), and if you have two GEOs they can keep entrusted Indi-Haste up full time.
For situation C, I'm imagining Carols coming into play but I'm also imagining party swaps, so it's more like "do I bring 2 BRDs or only one along with my COR and 2 GEOs?" RMEAs are obviously appreciated here too.


Everything in FFXI is situational and this is no exception, but I set out to explain why I wasn't finding myself using my RMEA BRD very often and here we are.

The changes to the base potency of songs (and the fact +2/+3 song bonus is available now, whereas before it was not) can change something in terms of reaching haste cap, or overcapping for situations like unavoidable slow etc. Need to take into consideration even the 1,5 bonus granted by Marcato.

Leaving that aside, I'm not sure I agree with the priority you gave to Carnwenhan. Carn is clearly a very good all around option because it offers the best macc for midcast (grioavolr can be pretty close though, if we rule AM1 out), it offers a nice dagger to mess around with ddBRD, it offers of course additional duration.

Now, we have to consider what "type" of BRD we're talking about. Is it a mule BRD that you get in pt to cast songs and then kick from the alliance? Are we talking about fights that last more than 6 minutes?
In such a scenario, Carnwenhan becomes quite an useful RMEA.
In all other situations it's a QoL tool that allows BRD to focus on other stuff meanwhile because he will have to care less about his songs expiring earlier, but that's it.

Secondly, the need of accuracy requires further arguments imho.
When we're talking about att, it's relatively easy to cap pDIF through a combination of Frailty, Dia and Att bonuses, especially if we consider the use of Bolster.
But for accuracy, it's different. Despite the previous AGI change and the recent combat skill reduction, Accuracy is still needed for a wide number of players. If I try to think about my jobs or the jobs of friends I usually do content with, accuracy is hardly ever an issue now.
But if you go with PUGs (and I'm talking about moderately acceptable people, not complete ***who just reached 99/returned to game) I've noticed accuracy is gonna be necessary more often than not, even in content like Omen.
In such situations the potency of a fully geared up BRD can really make a noticeable difference and allow that party to make several steps up in terms of quality when they face whatever content.

Lastly, what was true before the BRD adjustments, is still true (if not even more) now. I'm talking about versatility.
When you have a strange combination of jobs in your party, the ability to pianissimo songs unto different players can really make a difference, GEO can't do that, entrust can't be fulltimed (and has ***potency) and sometimes you don't really want the GEO to be standing in range, which greatly affects the combination of bubbles you can use.
So when Versatility matters for whatever reason, BRD has a clear advantage over GEO and especially over COR which sadly is the worst in this thing.

I was taking Marcato into account. Max Attack used it on Honor March or Valor Minuet V as appropriate. Max Acc used it on Blade Madrigal in most situations.

Carn lets you permanently maintain Marcato, which is why it ended up being rated so highly. It is certainly not as beneficial if Marcato would have been up for the whole fight anyway, but Marcato'd Honor March ~caps melee haste and effectively frees up a song because you don't need a second March. So not only do you get permanent +50% Attack on Honor March, but you also effectively get another Minuet.

I did my last Albumen with SV Honor March/Madrigals, ate Sushi, and I think we had one Torpor. I didn't even need to use my high Acc build and I'm pretty sure I was blinded half the fight, but I parsed a 97% hit rate. If there's content that requires full-out Acc buffing, it hasn't been released yet.


Entrust'd Indi spells are affected by Indi duration the same as normal Indis, so they last more than 5 minutes. If you have two GEO, they can fulltime an Entrusted Indi-spell. Also, I'd trade Bard's versatility (which is basically Ballads) for geomancy's undispellable nature against current content.

In situations where dispel isn't an issue, and in situations where the fight lasts more than 7 minutes or whatever is the max amount of duration BRDs can achieve without Carnwenhan.
I mean, if we're considering fights that end before the effect of NiTro songs expires (I think pretty much the majority of fights that matter fall into this category? Or am I missing something?) then you're gonna have perma marcato even without Carn.
For fights that last longer than 7 minutes but are inside Escha zones, you have Super revitalizer for a total of ~14 mins. Is there any fight that lasts longer than that? I don't think so, since typically BRD is used in melee zerg setups and I can't think of any melee zerg setup lasting that long.

Just my two cents, I love my carns, but if I were to suggest a new brd the order in which to acquire RMEAs, I'm not sure I'd put Carn so high honestly (unless, as I said before, we're talking about a mule)

Marcato Honor March puts you at ~26% magic haste, add haste1 and you're almost at cap, sadly not quite there though.
If reforged empy hands will give march+2 aug, that's gonna bring Honor March + Haste to ~43%, gonna love it! :D


I agree, but we're talking about exceptional players. You're not the "average" player. I'm not as good as you but I wouldn't define me either an "average player".
Yesterday I joined a successful Gin run with PUGs. I can easily cap acc on Gin on my BARD, without even using Sushi.
Tank had floored acc, the THF was at 66%, the DNC was at ~55%.
I was on GEO and I was using entrusted indihaste, Bolster Vex, Bolster Frailty.
I had to ask the COR to swap one roll to Hunter's, and I think even with that they weren't reaching cap.
I assume they weren't using Sushi, their gear was clearly not awesome, but not that bad either (both had Afterglowed weapons, for instance)

I felt the lack of haste as well during the run. I was forced to swap to indihaste whenever entrust was down, and that was seriusly hindering my overall power potency and my versatility as well.
I would see GEO+COR a better combination for mage setups, if you ask me.
But maybe I'm just biased towards bard, I dunno.
Things would've been better with a SMN giving Hastega2, if our DDs were BLUs or if we had a melee RDM spraying Haste2 around, I guess.


This is a very very valid concern, altough honestly lately we haven't seen much "dispelga happy" mobs as we used to during the early adoulin Era, but in general I completely agree with that.
Dispel would be less of an issue (for non-mule BRDs) if they allowed us to "merge" Gjallarhorn and Daurdabla together. But being forced to always recast 2 fakes before you can apply full songs is such a pain... Altough one thing we haven't said so far: fakes are now much more powerful than they were before thanks to the increased base potency, and thanks to the +2/+3 you can stack on fake songs with Moonbow Whistle.


Also I concur with the "shared entrust with double GEO" thing you said, I brainfarted and was considering single GEO when I wrote my entrust considerations in the previous post.

BRD's versatility is awesome in theory, but in reality it's hardly ever that good, for practical reasons.

I put Carnwenhan second to last when maximizing Atk and just above Daurd when maximizing Atk.

The reason for that Carn beats Daurd when maximizing Acc is that, unless you're going for DEX Etudes, Bard only really has 3 songs that it can use to increase Acc. The fourth song from Daurd will necessarily not increase Acc further. If there's anything that should be reversed in that list, it's the position of Gjallarhorn and Daurdabla.

Marcato'd Honor March + Haste is currently enough for most DW jobs to cap delay, which is why I considered it capped.

What makes the difference between Gjallarhorn and the next best option, and Moonbow vs Moonbow +1, different? Aren't they both a difference of +1 to song?

You can't use Gjallarhorn with Honor March. Also, there are other +4 options in the Ranged slot (like Blurred Harp +1 for Ballads).

For your information, thanks to Chiaia I conducted some songs tests today, tested something that always made me curious: are all +X song buffs the same?

Compared several combinations of +song using Ghorn, NQ neck, HQ neck and "+1 specific song" gear and came out with the conclusion that, as was obviously expected, all +x Song gear produce the same results it seems :)