You Spoony Guide! - A Troubadour's Libretto

Looking for a bit of info on BRD, it seems like quite a fun Support.

People here keep referencing +8 songs, I've been looking for a bit more information on this as I can only see +7 (+4 from GHorn and +3 from Moonbow Neck HQ). Is the extra coming from Gear like AF3 Body that increases a specific song i.e. Minuet+1?

Second question, would GHorn and Oboro Harp be an alright starting point? Or is Aeonic pretty much required? I'd be looking at things more on Ambuscade level and not Reisenjima HELMs etc.

Some of the gear has +1 or +2 to songs. For example, the fully upgraded AF1 set has a few pieces with +2 to songs.

Then you also have the Ambu JSE back with +1 Mads and Preludes.

Can anyone answer the second question? Or more-so what is the minimum gear needed to be effective in a group. At least in terms of enhancing your songs and landing whatever debuffs need to land. I am a bit curious about BRDs situation now too.

I suspect most ambuscade groups would be happy to have a BRD with oboro/ghorn and decent swaps. If you're doing harder content with geared people, it's very unlikely they'd be satisfied with a non-aeonic brd.

Would Ghorn + Oboro be enough to allow you to progress to an aeonic weapon?

It's probably going to break 1 or 2 laws in your country,

Can you at least put some pants on ?

What Relic/Artifcat/Empyrean Armor/ Pants should I be focused on getting then? =P

Doesn't matter until you get to helms if everyone is competentish and properly geared. Atm the helms can be zerged with smns in a worst case scenario but it'll be harder traditionally since it can be easy to time out for inexperienced groups.
I had a brd that was incapable of getting the extra song from clarion call up and still won vs WoC and Kirin so they aren't the threat they used to be imo. I've not done the helms post-nerfs so I cant personally say anything about if they're in faceroll territory yet.

The big problem for a returning bard is probably Vinnie since that fight tends to be reliant on a brd maintaining maximum duration lullabies on the adds while everyone else does the real fight.

Unfortunately, because BRD is a very specific kind of Job in this game, you basically need almost every (if not all) pieces of JSE (AF/AF2/AF3) @119.

On the bright side, though, you don't need any RuAnn or Reisenjima gear...nothing to augment. JSE+Inyaga covers just about everything unless you are trying to mele. And you can make really nice enfeeble sets with just AF+2 and Inyaga which is awesome, and helps make you functional quickly. Empy Body + AF Feet + Inyaga legs are your buff duration pieces - prioritize them first.

For quality of life, relic feet and body to 109. You don't need 119, you just want the longer Nightengale and Troubador durations - it's so nice giving yourself more time trying to squeeze in everything you wanna do when those are up.

Edit: Did some homework and was able to apply honor march to motes gs.

So, the new JS set got released, each piece enhances a specific song category. +1 for NQ, +2 for HQ. (Head Etude, Body Threnody, Hands Carol, Legs Minne, Feet Mambo)

Something funny about the head now.
Each +1 song adds exactely +1 stat to Etude.
So NQ JSE head would add +1, right?
But by equipping it instead of Fili+1 you go from 3 pieces (+2 stat bonus) to 2 pieces (+1 stat bonus).
Result? Etudes will produce the same numbers as without the JSE hat.
Hilarious!
You would still get +10% duration of course.
Still, kinda funny. Wish they included Etudes as well when they buffed most BRD songs a couple of months ago, they're really weak.

So basically if you wanna see a (tiny) improvement in Etudes, you gonna have to go with the HQ hat (+2 on hat, -1 lost from set bonus => +1 stat on Etudes).
All of that for what will likely be >100m hat.
Totally worth it, inorite? XD

That is a pretty funny oversight

So what pieces of the new JSE are desirable? the Body and the hands?

Is Mambo and Minne used in end-game content at all?

Premise 1: just my very personal opinion
Premise 2: a hardcore BRD will likely want to go 5/5 HQ regardless because... gotta catch 'em all!


Etude:
We already discussed this. You need the HQ to get a +1 stat and +20% duration, for what will likely be >100m piece lulz. Etude gets tipically used as a filler when att, acc and haste are capped.

Threnody:
Each +1 gives -5 elemental resistance. This is okaysh, but who does use magic setup still? Eh...
Also, this body is arguably the third best in slot for body atm, but it's behind Brioso+2 and Brioso+3. This body HQ provides ~93 macc (if I remember correctly) whereas Brioso+3 with set bonus it's ~139.
Gonna be a painful choice to pick one or the other, but in general I'd say this is probably one of the best pieces

Carols:
Carols were kinda meh until a while ago. But now Vex/Attu got nerfed and Carols get used mostly to resist some debuffs alligned with specific elements. For those zerg setups, I guess these hands can be cool-ish

Minne:
Minne's potency got buffed in the brd-tweak patch a while ago, as such getting +2 is nice, but Minne gets tipically used as a filler song for songs, or "icing on the cake" song, more than something vital, so there's that

Mambo:
Mambo became quite powerful now. But who relies on evasion these days?
Until someone provides to the community a particularly effective strat relying on Eva, nobody is gonna want Mambo.



So all in all you could say all pieces are kinda "meh" in the end, with Body and Hands being the ones with some larger utility.
But like I said in my premise 2, a hardcore BRD will likely wanna go 5/5 HQ regardless :(

Hands and Feet are my top priority pieces from this set, although I doubt I'll ever use the feet.

Don't see it here, did you all catch the Pining Nocturne buff from the update? + Song will now impacts it's effect. Assuming it had a 13% effect before, its now 20.8%, or 22.1% for Moonbow + 1 necks.

Also, I am relatively new to Bard. Do we have any idea if the percentage (which I just lifted from BG) is the same for both the casting time, and magic accuracy effect? Cause that's a ton of magic accuracy down if so. But I think Addle is a fixed amount not percentage, so probably not.

Addle 1 Capped at 40 Magic accuracy down before any additional effects (Not sure if Enhancing magic effect, effected Addle).

How do we test the new Values of Pining Nocturne? I'm genuinely curious as well.

I have overhauled song information on BGwiki. We now have a master category to edit potency and such when things change or are added. See that page here: https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/BGWiki:SongPotency

I also redid all of the individual song pages, and the above potency is inserted into each page.
Example: https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Mage's_Ballad

Lastly and most importantly, every song category was redone, with all equipment bonuses and the above information inserted into the pages.
Example: https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Category:Ballad

I would ideally like to do with every song/potency what i did with Mage's Ballad 1 and add the soul voice and marcato values to each song. That will take some time and effort, so I do not know when it'll happen. If someone else is bored, have at it.

Please feel free to review and fix any mistakes I made along the way. Skill caps could use some more definitive numbers as well, I only used what was available or what I could dig up.

Anyone have a decent up 2 date lua?

https://goo.gl/w8Bws6

Im having trouble getting 4 songs up with NiTro.
how can make this code allow me to continue ot swap my instruments thru ghorn/daur/marsys
(my song gear is ghorn, maybe i can change that somehow)


Maybe if i made my song gear for a specific song (operetta and pastoral) a daurdabla then would that 'equip_song_gear(spell) equip my diration set or my pastoral set?

Your text to link here...

So, what are the BIS sets? No updated guide anywhere?

BiS for what?

Ty

anything. DT, precast for songs, precast for curing, refresh, TP sets for single/dual wield, highest accuracy, highest magic accuracy, longest duration lullaby, etc.

I was tired, I guess, because I meant sets not items.

hey all so im total noob when it comes to bard.
does higher skill increase duration on songs or no im almost capped skill now but i have noticed any difference in length of the songs.

Skill (usually) impacts song potency - most of them scale according to combined skill, at least up to a cap. It doesn't increase duration.

Duration can be increased by both gear that plainly states it increases song duration, and by Song+ which boosts it by 10% per +1, or 12 seconds per due to the 120 second base duration.