BRD Help ._.

Hihi,

I'm 75BRD and have been for a while (at least 18 months). I use it mostly for NM's only, but recently started using it for meriting (typically I used WAR).

Whenever I'm pulling, I can land Elegy 95% of the time easily, yet Lullaby seems to resist maybe 50% of the time.

When I'm zz'ing, I use (swapping out the normal pieces for Elegy, Grip + Staff):

Light Staff
Light Grip
Mary's Horn
Opo-Opo Crown (+Pamamas)
Wind Torque
Melody Ear x2
Nereid Ring x2
Bard's Cuffs
Minstrel's Coat
Jester's Cape +1
Gleeman's Belt
Choral Cannions (AF1 legs)
Oracle's Pigaches

In all the CHR+ gear I have on my char, I can achieve 117 total CHR.

I've always been told to stack Skill over CHR, so I do in as many slots as I can. I have very limited money, because farming makes me want to blow up a bus of angry nuns, so I upgrade my gear "slowly" (as in, buy 2-3 things at once then wait a bit and buy some more when I have it spare).

Can anyone think of a reason why I might resist so much with +27 Wind skill and 92 total CHR? Would I be better off swapping out Minstrels Coat and AF1 Legs for Errant? Any help would be great because it's getting quite upsetting seeing BRD's that use far easier to get/cheaper options over what I do and still do better XD

But yeah, seriously again >.> Any help would be awesome.

Thaaaaanks! <3

If it's greater colibri I haven't noticed much of anything to make much of a difference. X3 They're just jerks. Otherwise your sleeps should be landing just fine on merit parties.

Personally, I'm not an expert at Brd by any means. But I think AF hands > AF2. AF have 4 CHR and 5 singing skill vs AF2's 3 wind skill. I also use Iron Ram horn over Mary's since all Mary's does is increase ZZZ duration and doesn't help land at all and Iron ram has 4 CHR. I use osode instead of minstreal coat too, but I see how that could be costly if you didn't have one yet. Musical earring is a great upgrade too, but can be costly again.

But in merit on birds I tend to still get resisted 1/4 of the time myself or close to lol.

Glad to know it isn't just me then.. XD

The only reason I ask really is because I've been talking to a few BRD in my LS, and after partying with a couple I notice they get very few resists.. maybe ~10%. Their gear is nothing better than mine, the only difference is that they use Errant Body over Minstrels, which I honestly can't see making much of a difference.

Oh well, guess I'll just have to keep trying different things XD

I'll post up here or something if I find anything amazing.

I'm saving to get my WAR his brutal ear and my BRD his Musical atm, so I hope it won't be /too/ long before I have those XD

I use Apollo's staff for lullaby, as well as Terra's staff for elegy. It does make a big differens, and its well worth the money if you use to merit on brd. I'd say those 2 staffs are as important to brd as hauby is for any DD job. Try that, you'll see a differens.

Upgrade to an Apollo's Staff.

-Choral cuffs > Bard's cuffs fo shizzle.
-Bard's Roundlet > Opo crown (if you do dyna work towards that)
-Errant houppe or K.Osode or equivalent instead of minstrel's coat
-Sha'ir seraweels or Errant legs or equivalent instead of Choral cannions
-Appolo's staff if you can afford it
-Singing(lolwind)/Musical earrings when you can get 'em

Those are some changes you could try that should dramatically affect your resist rates. obviously some are easier obtained than others however first if you have not already...merit your wind/sing. 8/8. yes 8wind/8sing. dont be lazy, be crazy.


Not always best. Make sure your CHR is not suffering when trying to land elegies/lullabies/threnodies. I try to keep mine around 110-120. you might be getting resists because of your low total of 92 on lullaby.

Happy Barding!

yeah cheapest way to upgrade ur gear atm would be an apollos staff. makes a pretty huge difference.

if you really want to get technical about it [i dont really play brd anymore.. but i did at one point with sheikh gloves + manteel... lol so i never really worried about missing]

i believe someone told me once its chr+ to land spells. wind skill+ to sing buffs. i might have them reversed... but i also remember something about song mods upgrade in tiers. so for instance like singing skill tier is @250, if u have 255, it wouldnt make a difference unless you got to 260+. sorry i cant be more exact, but im sure someone has posted the correct info. but now you know what to look for. :)

btw cheapest way to increase ur accuracy non-gear wise is to merit wind [if your using marys] or string [if thats what ur using] i never had too much problem sleeping.. but then again i have 8/8singing and 8/8wind. i sold my manteel and sheikh and use errants and AF2 gloves and i still dont miss too much [granted i just dont sing very fast or often]. you shudnt have too much of a problem finding meripos... brds are the most sought after merit jobs

Yeah, I'm slowly working my way to getting those. They're my "Priority BRD items" and I've got them set just after I get my Brutal.

(Although I've been saying I'll get them for a long time.. Just never really get round to it ><;)

Personally I used the Sha'ir Turban and Tuna Sushi instead of the Opo crown. I think it ended up 8 Chr and Haste rather than the 7 of the crown. AF is better than Relic hands by far. Swap out AF legs for the Sha'ir Seraweels. Right there is 13 extra chr and that's not even counting swapping out the Minstrel's for Errant.

If you can afford it, an HQ staff will do wonders, if not though, it is perfectly doable to do without.

Should definitely look into Alla (I know, lolalla) but Etain has some amazing Bard related posts. I learned all I know from her, she's a great bard. :)

I'll take a look over at lolalla then some time ^^

Thanks everyone for all the tips and advice XD I'll make a huge change to my macros tomorrow to see if it helps any. Any other suggestions and such would be awesome, feel free to PM me or /t me in game if you have anything to say ^^~

On that note, Good night! Happy new year and such too =P

I would suggest Sha'ir Gages over anything else. CHR+5 + 2 seconds off Lullaby recast > CHR+4 + Singing skill+5 (which doesn't do anything for debuffs). Not only do they increase your ability to land Lullaby, they also let you recast Lullaby 2 seconds faster if you get a resist.

An Omega Ring and/or Goliard / Shadow Clogs (not sure if you have access to a good Einherjar / Nyzul group) would do wonders for your resist rates, too. Also, Bard's Cannions are a nice (and gil free) piece for your legs.

Chr+4 singing skill+5 will do more for you're debuffs than Sha'ir gages but -recast are nice for a lot of situations. and the NQ are cheap.

and on Magic Accuracy if you have access Goliard clogs, Balrahn's ring, Omega ring are all great and aren't all that difficult to acquire. some a little more consuming or difficult to get Shadow gear...Alkalurops? :)

If you've got the skill and the charisma and you're still getting a load of resists, you're missing magic accuracy.

The absolute best way to lower the resist rate on any debuffs (for any jobs, not just Bard) is to buy the HQ Stave of the respective element. Apollo's staff is a little expensive, but it's well worth the price tag. The extra five percent really does make the difference. You could sell your two Nereid Rings and put them towards an Apollo's; any Bard worth their salt will tell you "Apollo's > 2 Nereid", if you can't afford both.

The cheapest way to lower your resist rate would be to merit Wind Instrument Skill. The only problem here is that you have Black Mage to 75 as well, and I'd definitely argue that Elemental Magic is far more important to a Black Mage than Wind Instrument is to a Bard, if you can't merit both. It depends what you use your Black Mage for, how often you use both jobs, and what jobs you plan to level. Merriting Enfeebling really helps Black Mage out as well, but that discussion is for another topic.

Grab yourself an Omega Ring and a Balrahn's Ring, if you can. Their combined magic accuracy is very nice for landing debuffs. If you've already picked another ring, just wait for the update where they let us change. I'm waiting for that update too, very patiently (!) =)

Annoyingly though, Lyali is right. Colibri are just jerks. You'd definitely not get resisted as much at Mamool camps (except for the Blusterers, they're as bad, if not worse).

Everyone else is talking sense though, so listen to everyone, if it's not too overwhelming... :p

Good hunting!

Simple suggestion ya should be able to do without much cost would be to swap the Bard's Cuffs for Choral Cuffs and use Errant body and pants (or Sha'ir pants).

This would give from those 3 items
Singing +5
CHR +21

instead of the current
Wind +9
CHR +0

The Singing sorta balance out the Wind and then 4 Wind isn't all that much but 21 CHR is a big chunk added.

Something you might want to consider, when meriting Brd/Nin. Having /Nin is 4 CHR lower than when you're /Whm (at least for Elvaan) so if you're looking to hit a target CHR you might have to invest in a little more CHR gear as /Nin.

Yeah, you may be correct for Hitetsu. My wind/singing merits (I refuse to ever level another mage job) allow me the luxury of wearing Sha'ir over Choral Cuffs (and I couldn't care less to get the HQ).

For reference: I have 60+60 CHR, 248 Wind, 246 Singing, Mary's Horn, and Apollo's Staff. I had an 11% resist rate before Apollo's, close to 7% resist rate with Apollo's. With March2, Haste from the RDM, and merits, I have a 12~13 second recast on Lullaby. So if I do get a resist, I don't have to wait long for timers.

It's funny, I have half the gear people have mentioned I should be using XD

I'll hack and slash my macros a bit and see what my resist rates go to after changing a few bits.

Thanks again for all the tips!

(I was expecting this to turn into some sad flame thread filled with "omg you fail as a brd, go back to wow" >.>)

Another question though, I've been looking for a definitive answer to this for a while but I can't get anywhere >.>

I know you can swap out songcasting- gear and haste+ or song recast- gear at different points in a song to get lower recasts and a lower song cast time.

Is it Songcasting- -> Haste+/Recast-? Or is that just a myth that doesn't actually work? >.> I've never seen any other BRD do it, I'm guessing because of the amount of gear you'd need to carry, but I rarely have more than 2 spare room anyway from carrying other jobs gear XD

hmmm i dont think that works. i never had a problem with timers, and if u do MERIT LULLABY! i mean if yur onry trying to lower recast in case u get resisted... either DONT get resisted by leaving ur chr gears on... or MERIT it.

i mean whats the point of buffing in haste to lower recast times for buff? lol anyways at 75 u shud have utsusemi ichi + ni u shud be able to wait out the recast by casting shadows. if ur gonna lose shadows before u finish singing, id rather recast my shadows up first so that i dont accidentally get slept as soon as the mob wakes like half a second later when ur meripo engages that mob.

I intend on fully meriting Lullaby recast, but atm I'm finishing my BLM's Magic skill merits. I'm just curious though, I don't really have a problem with timers until I get streams of resists. I'm just changed all my lullaby macros, now I'm seeking and trying to test them out. Depending on what happens, decides whether I come back and start asking more questions.

To be fair though.. I didn't direct the question to Lullaby, and I mentioned in my first post I use my BRD mostly at NM's, so lowering my recast on Elegy and Finale would be a pretty big pro for the occasions I get resisted on them, which admittedly is almost never, but it still can't hurt to prepare for the worst.

Your only visible weak spots are:

SATFF: get HQ

Ears, musical earring would be massive improvement, then whatever else you want, im not a fan of melody ears i used them for far too long lol

Hands: AF > AF2

Head: AF2 hat or even a Demon helm is much much better imho than opo crown, since it gives skill

Body: minstrels is fine imo, but i'd go for a yigit or manteel for /nin'ing, body is a pretty weak point for bard in all honesty you're looking at +minimal skill in that slot or some CHR, or -cast time, me personally i like to be brd/whm in merits, in 2brd setups obviously and in that case i rock the dalmy :P

If you do einherjar i would reccomend getting an Omega ring vs one of your nerid, since i've been using it i've noticed a bit of difference, possibly that i've upgraded other slots too, but +3 chr and some magic acc can't be a bad thing

your feet look damn nice tho, i need to get me some of those :) I use goliards clogs which i think is a pretty decent piece for.. every mage job really lol

Other than those things i can't really see anything too horrid with your gear, definitely an appolos staff would be the place to start or if you have a few merits to dump into magic skills that would help a bit as well

I get some resists in my setup on birds but i also havn't fully merited bard, i can only do 4 into wind skill and even at that im gimping it up as rdm and blm with 6 ele and 6 enfeeble, but i couldnt merit brd without some + to skill, colibri are rather resistant ***.

I'll be working on BRD merits after I finish BLM magic skills and Double Attack on WAR.

I'm working on getting Yigit body in my spare time, so that'll replace my Minstrels for buffing and such.

I've not really done Einherjar, I've tried it a few times with my LS (small chat ls) and we failed, in style >.> So I've not really delved much into Einherjar XD

I'll look into picking up a Demon Helm when one pops on AH and see what life's like with that =P

demons helm is quite cheap at least on my server it was when i used it, would be worth a try at least, i used it 73+ till i got my af2 hat a bit after i turned 75, it is really ugly though if your not a taru i gotta say...

I got a question for some bards, the stupid latent ring, minstrels ring, is this worth using or not? I'm a taru and i kinda fear low HP but i could stack a little more HP or even eat HP foods since i dont eat anything when i merit anyway lol, seriously if i could cut back my songcasting that much i would be like god pulling...

I get alot of mixed opinions about this ring from people and i've personally always stuck to either a CHR or skill ring once nerid was released.. i'm kinda torn, i wanna get it but i dont want to spend gil and then be like "oh this thing blows"

Well the thing about minstrel's ring is that if you are in competition against another group it might not do too much. I had a Brd try to pull from my birds (I was on bottom him on top) even though he had some of his own still up. All we had to do to keep him away was cure him when he came near and ruin that beautiful latent so that he wouldn't get the latent. I know when I merited on Mnk and Sam I saw others do the same too when there was competition. I guess it might sound like a shady thing to do though, but hey if you can't show common courtesy and stick to your own camp then I have no pity.

It's worth it if you're in the sort of party that really is non-stop. I've been in a merit before where the DD's were killing so quickly, I literallly only had chance to pull, let alone put buffs up. It's that sort of environment I really wished I had all these Songcasting bonuses.

If you're the sort of person who merits on Bard non-stop and loves to pull, go for it, you'll really like it. If you don't pull or merit that often on Bard, spend your money on something else.

http://www.ffxiah.com/item_sets.php?id=49729
Thats what I use for merit, I don't bother to swap out yigit for errant either.
Wind Torque made a massive differance for me, and merits really help. When I first hit 75 I had around a 30-40% Sleep rate, with 4 Wind, 3 Singing, and that setup, Im about 75%. If I had sea.. it'd be a lot better ; ;.

http://www.ffxiah.com/item_sets.php?id=49731
Thats what I personally would aim for.
But, also after a point, you need to realize that you will miss sleeps, and want some damage mitigation setup:
Terra/Genbu's Kabuto/Jelly Ring/Kirin's Osode = 25% + 25 VIT

The main thing that (and I'm suffering from a slight New Year's hangover, apologies) no-one appears to have mentioned (and again, I may have missed it!) is AF+1. I would definately try and get AF+1 hands and legs, as they're inexpensive to get (basically free, less a crafted item). Personally I find these are invaluable in almost all situations, depends of course on whether you do limbus or not.

I merit in :
Apollo staff
Staff strap (arguably this could be changed)
Instrument
Bard roundlet
Wind torque
Musical earring
Loquacious earring
Sha'ir Manteel (by no means a necessity, I had a Yigit before this and difference is fairly marginal)
AF+1 Hands
Nereid ring x2
Jester cape+1
Gleeman Belt
AF+1 legs
Rostrum pumps

I find this gives a nice mix of CHR, fast cast, and song cast-. Aside from Manteel, most of this is pretty affordable, although doing Limbus would be a real help.

I find even on Mithra (with low CHR) this puts me at around ~100-105, and if I'm struggling due to day / mob I have a few pieces I can switch in instead (ie. replace Rostrum pumps with CHR+ feet).

Main advancements I would suggest on your current setup, is AF+1 hands, Apollo stave, AF+1 legs. Hope that helps. I wouldn't overly fuss over dmg-, just a Terra / earth stave should be sufficient as long as your meripo isn't totally slack. Don't forget if you're getting hit a lot, you can always Pianissimo > Paeon V yourself, you'll find within a couple of pulls your HP is back to capped and it will only interrupt your routine by a couple of seconds.

Likewise, if you're travelling to a further away mob (for instance, if you're meriting on Mamools) whipping out a Piano > Zurka can be a nice time saver and save the chain.

Rry

I kinda stopped using that ring after awhile when i realized that no matter what you tell the healer they wont keep their fingers away from the cure macro. kinda unnessesary to have a 400 k + ring that you cant really use. just my opinion.

I borrowed one from my friend for a meripo and while I can say I did notice a difference and it WAS nice, it wasn't SO NICE that I had to drop anywhere from 300-600k (price just jumped from 400 to 600k on my server) on it. But then again, Im also in the process of working on a Marduk's Jubbah so for me, 600k towards an Imperial Wootz ingot would've been better spent than 600k on the ring. Maybe I'll get it one day for shiggles but I do not feel like less of a bard without it, at all.

If you have the spare money for it and don't have any other big purchases prio'd, it's a nice investment. But if you don't, you'll do just fine.