Confused On Setting Up Songs

I am just starting to gear up and level BRD and I am curious what the strategy is behind setting up songs? Specifically, I’ve been reading about dummy songs and overwriting and I am so confused. The guides don’t really start from the beginning in terms of things like this and this is more important at the start than what gear to start farming. Any veteran Bard’s able to explain how to buff a party as BRD in simplish terms? Thanks!

as a bard with any instruments you can put up 2 songs
howversome instruments (most famoues the empy harp) gives you extra song "slots" but to do that you need to cast the song with that instrumetn and into that slots so that would be slot 3 and 4

so to cast 4 songs you do
song 1 with best bonus instrumetns
song 2 with best bonus instrumens
shift to empy harps
song3 with empy harps
song 4 with empy song

however as you can see song 3 and 4 is pretty weak as empy harp does not add to song potency

so you recast the song but sin the slot is already open you dont need empy harp anymore

Song 3 again with best bonus instruments
song 4 again with best bonus instruments


Boom now oyu have4 songs with best bonus instrument

as long as all4 song are there the slots are "open" and you can refill it with new songs

dummy song is simply the song you sing with the harp to open the slot

new next step is to use CC 2h ability. this will next you another song. however this becomes the 3 slot and empy is now the 4 and 5

So you use cc
song 1 with best instruments
song 2 with best instruments
song 3 with best instruments ( this goes in the CC 3rd slot)
song 4 with empy harp (to open up the 4rth slot)
song 5 with empy harp ( to open up the 5th slot
song 4 again with best instruments
songs 5 again with best instruments


and yes as ong as all 5 slots have a song in them they are open and you can overwrite it keeping the 5th song for extended time

Thanks so much for this! Makes much more sense

To expand a little, this all comes down to both how to establish song slots on the party, and how to order songs so that you end up with the songs you want on each member.

Songs, along with Corsair rolls, occupy a buff category that players have 12 "slots" for (not a cap that comes up much outside of alliance buff rotations). As described, as a single BRD, you can establish songs in up to five of those slots, after which they'll be maintained provided that a song effect is still active. If a song wears off, gets dispelled, etc, then the slot will need to be reestablished.

A key point here is that song slots are per-character, so you need to keep tabs on how many songs each party member has on.

Also, just to reiterate, Clarion Call always counts as your third song slot. Even if you've already got 3-4 songs up. Getting that last song or two up will always need to be done with an "additional song" instrument.


The second half of this is ensuring that you end up with the songs you want applied to each party member, which can also be a source of frustration.

The basic consideration here is that, unless the song you're singing is already present, or you're establishing a new song slot, songs will overwrite whatever has the lowest duration remaining.
If you are trying to do anything but apply the same songs to the entire party, you may need to strategize a little on the order that you sing. Especially as you start getting more song specific gear, since that can end up making some songs last notably longer than others. This is a combination of having different levels of Song+ gear available for different songs, along with what slots it fits into.

If you're trying to Pianissimo a song to a healer or tank, for instance, and it keeps taking the slot of something you don't want it to, this is probably what it'll come down to.

Must have been such an exciting day when this was discovered.

This is what most bards I see struggling come up against. 9 times out of 10, it's ballads and it's because to cast a more potent ballad, you have to swap out of Inyanga shalwar +2 to sing it, so you lose 7% duration (not really 7%, but the legs go from 17% to 10%) on the song. That generally puts ballads as your lowest duration song even when sung last. This also affects minnes using NQ mousai legs, and mambos using NQ mousai feet to some degree.

A patient bard that wants to overcome this while still having max duration on the others, needs to wait until 12ish seconds before troubadour wears off to put the ballads/minnes up.

Just pianissimo whatever songs you want to overwrite for your tank / mage in your TP gear first (i.e. sing Minuet V/IV in your TP gear) that will lower its duration to like 4-5 mins with NiTro up, then sing the songs you want for the tank / mage in your singing gear again for that 10 mins Minne V/IV and Ballads III/II

I have a follow up question to this. Do you HAVE to sing a dummy song? Or once you have 3-4 (or 5) songs up can you just sing them again they all be at boosted levels per instruments/skill+ whatever?

Like could you just go minn 1, minn 2 minn3, minn 4 with harp, then minn 1, minn2, minn3, minn4 with horn and get the same effect?

After a song is up, you never have to re sing with harp unless a song drops/ gets dispelled/ person dies/ zone. Resing with horn. Just be aware that the song with the lowest duration is always overwritten first, unless you sing a song that is already on yourself/ another person then that one is overwritten.

Also keep in mind that just cause you have 4-5 songs if another Party member lost 1 or all songs, they need fresh dummies.