Ballad Problem..

When playing Bard, after I cast songs on the Melee then run to Mage and cast Ballad, I sometimes only end up with one Ballad, even after casting both.

It says in the log that I receive the effect of both but I will only have whichever I cast last.. Can tell by looking at my refresh rate- the icons are not just messed up or something.

For example- I'm doing this in Dynamis now:

Melee:
Victory March
Advancing March

RNG:
Minuet IV
Minuet III

Mage:
Ballad II
Ballad I

After I cast the Melee songs and both Ballad I have Minuet and Ballad. If I do Minuet first, I end up with March and Ballad.

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I've always had my song order as Highest>Lower tier as long as I been playing bard and never noticed any problem. I've tried casting III>IV instead etc. then Ballad I>II but nothing seems to make any difference.. Anyone else having this problem recently or is it just me? ><

Unless I'm reading what you're saying wrong then it's just that ballad doesn't overwrite Minuet IV. I remember scratching my head really hard when I leveled brd until I noticed that myself.

I always thought it was whatever was casted last on you. Like the overwrite in order

I have never had this problem, try doing ballad 1 then ballad 2 and see what happens. Thats what i do and i never have any problems.

You have +1 instruments for melee which extends the duration, and the song that has the highest remaining duration will remain, since Ballad has no + it can be the Melee buffs, which will give no effect. And I do Ballad II first every time, but I also never hit mages with melee buffs.

I don't actually need to read the whole post to know what your issue is, when you have two songs on, and you sing another, it will over-write the one with the shortest time left on it.

So you sing 2 minuets or marches or w/e, using a +2 instrument, which makes their duration 2:20 instead of 2:00. Then you go and sing a ballad without a +2 horn, and it will over-write the first minuet you put on, so now, you have ballad with 2:00 remaining, and one minuet with probably about 2:10 seconds remaining. So when you sing your next ballad, it will overwrite the first ballad instead of the minuet since it is the one that is due to wear off next.

There are 3 ways around this:
Play your songs in a different order
Wait a little while between melee songs and ballad
Get relic horn

This has been reported to SE countless times over the past 5 years and they say there is nothing wrong. Song strength (tier) must be measured by level, therefore higher level songs overwrite lower level ones.

Don't look for SE to do anything about it soon.

I have the problem all the time, I'm not exactly sure how to explain what I think properly but I'll try.

You don't have an instrument with +1-2 for ballad, and I believe that is what makes it not overwrite both melee buffs. I believe when you do minuet/minuet on melee then do ballads immediately after the 2nd ballad overwrites the 1st ballad based on how much longer the song has left to be on you.

edit: I was slow, someone beat me to the punch. :P

I don't know anything about how BRD songs work, but that's how COR rolls work. That's why I do my mage buffs first and then my melee buffs, that way both mage rolls are off me and I have a minute or so to have decent buffs.

Which is the exact reason brd does melee then ballad, so that the brd is left with ballad on.

Blazza is 100% correct. /end thread.

That's what I did, lol.

Correct apart from +2's give 2:24 not 2:20.

Depending on your fastcast/songcasting- gear wait anywhere from 12~16 seconds after your last melee buff before doing ballads and that should solve your problem.

In Dynamis I like having a march up to lullaby/finale/elegy awaiting mobs quicker so I do Min>>March>>Ballad1>>Ballad2 w/o waiting between, ending up with March/Ballad2. In a dd pt with rangers Minuet3>>Minuet4 on all followed by V.March on your frontliners then proceed to ballad.

Thanks all!- now I know the problem :D But.. I'm kinda embarrassed now.. Why did I never notice this before? I start thinking this was always happening and I never realized... I hope I just got faster and now it's not 'overwriting' like I was used to ><

Each party is just a little bit different and can change the way (or timing) you do things just a little bit. Getting yigit or sha'ir body may also speed up your casting just enough to make a difference. As Jimmyjazz says, there's only 12-16 seconds that you have to wait, so there's all sorts of things you could chalk it up to. At least now you know.

I noticed the same.But i realised fast it was because of the HQ instruments.But this will only affect you if you didnt hit the mage with your melee songs.If you didnt hit them with minuet they will have the 2 ballads but will only show 1 for you.If you accidently hit them, just wait a few before casting ballad (like a lil 20s).I know waithing in merit pts can be ewwwww, but in a certain way its your job to watch the range and its the mage job to watch his distance as well.

And knowing is half the battle.