Bard Merits

[beitlich]

Hiya, I just got BRD to 75 and have been meriting my ass off.. I was just looking for some insight as to where to spend these merits.. I'm thinking right off the bat raising Wind to 8 as well as Singing.. but what I'm wondering about are the group 1 and 2 merits. Do most bards do a combo of lullaby and minuet for group 1? And as for group 2, I was thinking of going a combo of troubadour and nightingale.. Any insight?

[Merkury]

5 minuet 3 lullaby 2 finale is what i have for Tier 1. Tier 2 id go 3/3 Troubador, 1 nightingale , then 1 of each song. Troubador is really nice to have at 15 min timer for stuff like khimmy where you need brd/blm to land Elegy.

[Leeto]

if you plan to level another mage job (namely rdm or blm) to 75 I'd skip the magic skill merits. Wind is nice though if you're sure you aren't. Other than that, max lullaby merits, IMO max troubador, then do whatever else with your group 2. The remaining group 1s are up the air really. the minuet effect is extremely miniscule compared to the madrigal effect but then again so is the amount of times you use madrigal compared to the amount of times you use minuet. I don't have capped merits so that's up to you

[Sylphet]

My BRD merits are as follows:

Group 1:
Minuet: (5/5)
Lullaby: (5/5)

Group 2:
Troubadour: (1/3)
Nightingale: (1/3)
Dirge: (1/3)
Sirvente: (3/3)

The big no-brainer for group 1 is lullaby. You'll use it for most BRD end game activities including merits, dynamis and einherjar. As for the other group 1 merits, most people chose between either minuet or madrigal. It's a personal choice really and I chose minuet simply because of the rarity with which I used madrigal end game. However if many other BRDs in your shell have minuet merits, madrigal could be a good alternative.

For group 2, the ones you should prioritize are troubadour and nightingale. Everyone should get them and the personal preference comes in with how many upgrades you want for each. I only have one because their best use is when combined with Soul Voice. This is extremely effective when using zerg tactics on anything. The enmity songs again are personal choice and how you chose to merit them should be determined which usage you think will be the best. I chose to fully upgrade sirvente because sometimes when you have a mixed tank group (e.g. NIN/WAR and PLD/NIN: no comments on this please it does happen from time to time). you will need to keep on march + ballad for the PLD/NIN but the NIN/WAR wouldn't need the ballad and hence would prefer the extra enmity, which they'll likely need to keep up in hate with the PLD/NIN. I seem to recall in kaeko's enmity testing that he said that fully-merited sirvente was actually broken and did not have an effect on enmity-that really annoyed me. Does anyone have any idea if that's been fixed or not?

For magic merits, ONLY if you're not going to level another mage job would I recommend maxing out both singing and wind skills. If anything though, I'd do singing first unless you're going to get a gjallarhorn since singing skill affects your accuracy on both wind and stringed instruments as well as having the same effect as wind skill in raising your tier on march potency. (Pro tip: max out your total skill - singing + wind for marches) -

read this for details

Anyway, hope that helps some! GL on end game BRD.

[Conrad]

I'm doing my BRD merits slowly, but right now I have:

4/5 Lullaby
1/3 Troubadour
1/3 Nightingale

I'm going to finish Lullaby merits, and then probably cap out Troubadour and Nightingale. The extent of my bard endgame activities include Limbus, Dynamis, some sky excluding Kirin, and Salvage; none of my tanks should need any sort of enmity aid in any of these events.

As for my other group 1, I'm stuck between capping Finale and Minuet. 5 attack doesn't seem like enough to warrant putting 150,000 xp into, but at the same time, I can always get more Haste+ gear to lower my Finale recast. I rarely use Madrigal so that doesn't seem like a good choice.

I would also say that capping singing or wind is a bad idea if you're not planning to level another job. Enfeebling merits are far too good to give up if you have WHM/BLM/RDM(/SCH?) at 75.

[deced]

I seem to recall in kaeko's enmity testing that he said that fully-merited sirvente was actually broken and did not have an effect on enmity-that really annoyed me. Does anyone have any idea if that's been fixed or not?

If I recall correctly, that was removed because the original test could not be reliably reproduced.

5 attack doesn't seem like enough

It's not. But then again, I went five minuets as well, and in a zerg situation, where you SV, T/N and bounce between parties, those merits give +20 extra attack across two minuets for anywhere from 8-15 different melee. Looking at it individually I agree it's rather meh, but when multiplied over that many melee, I don't feel like I wasted my merits.

You can't really ever go wrong with Finale either though. And though I don't care to get into the sushi v. meat BS, if you're a bard that does use Madrigal often, those merits are actually more potent than minuet merits. Although often it's again, overkill, due to the accuracy cap. The point though is you can't really go wrong between Finale, Minuet, and Madrigal so long as you make reasonable use out of whichever you choose.

[Phla]

i did
5/5 lullaby
5/5 finale
3/3 troubadour
1/3 nightengale
2/3 sirvente

that other merit song is shit... -3 enmity? 1 merit into it is a waste, i'd rather have a tank with 10% more enmity if shit hits the fan

[Awoir]

5 minuet
5 lullaby
3 troub
1 nighting
1 sirvante
1 dirge

[beitlich]

Thanks a bunch for your help, I'm planning on leveling RDM after I finish NIN so I suppose I'll hold off on the wind/singing and focus on group 1, HP/MP, and attributes for now.

[Bakthi]

5 minuet
2/5 lullaby (I didn't care about this until Einherjar)
1 Nightengale
1 Troubadour
1 Dirge
3 Sirvente

If your LS does Khim/Cerb, I'd go for the 3 Troubadour; mine doesn't. I use Sirvente on a few things still (um...Despot, and we kite Temperance when it's in blunt mode). I think if you're not going to put more than 1 merit into Dirge/Sirvente, it's probably not worth bothering.

I figure melee pay stupid amounts of gil for 5 more attack, so I don't really have a problem meriting Minuet. Also, see zerg+BRD swapping notes above. Or even just 20 more attack for a couple of Hundred Fists and a Meikyo every Salvage chariot. I don't regret it; sometimes we win with seconds to spare.

The first things I did were 8 MP and 4 Wind/4 Singing (which at the time was the cap). Since they increased the magic skills cap, I've been debating whether it would seriously make a difference to cap both, or I should hold off in case I level BLM or something.

[Obev]

4 singing
4 wind

5/5 Minuet
3/5 Madrigal
2/5 Lullaby

3/3 Troubadour
1/3 Nightingale
1/3 Sirvente
1/3 Dirge

Troubadour for Khimaira and Cerberus, Madrigal because I hate people missing. I figure I can decrease Lullaby's recast with gear, but can't increase Minuet or Madrigal beyond their caps without merits. I gave in and put a couple of merits into Lullaby recast though, specifically for Dynamis and Einherjar where because I'm using lolstring I can't sacrifice as much skill gear for haste gear. Musical skills are at 4/8, because of Red Mage.

[Seditedi]

to everyone that uses dirge/sirvente:

... i've seen it used, but i've never, ever, ever seen it make a difference. What gives? or have they changed it fundamentally since about 6 months ago?

Barely makes a difference, it was never changed AFAIK.
Waste of merits imo.

[Sylphet]

to everyone that uses dirge/sirvente:

... i've seen it used, but i've never, ever, ever seen it make a difference. What gives? or have they changed it fundamentally since about 6 months ago?

Some people I trust as tanks swear it makes a noticeable difference (capped sirvente that is) but lets face it, it's hard to tell.

And well, my ls hasn't once camped khim and rarely kills cerb. We never once have used BRD/BLM so didn't make much sense to me to fully merit it. If your ls does camp them regularly (and you're going BRD/BLM) though 3/3 troubadour is definitely worth it.

[Kang]

For my brd merits, I put 5 in minuet, split the other 5 with madrigal and lullaby, maxed our troubadour and put just one in nightingale and the other songs.

[Sylphet]

Ah, fair enough.. our tanks really never seemed to need it, perse. I have 2/2 in troub/night atm, was just wondering if i should unlock the other 2 or knock them up to 3/3.

In your shoes I'd probably just go for 3/3 troub/night.

I don't think that the enmity songs are worth it at all unless you're going to max one or the other. Let's face it, -3 enmity will never be worth it for a mage over ballad. Even maxed out at -9 enmity I don't think I'd personally ask for it... maybe main healing on RDM on something like a salvage chariot assuming MP was not an issue but pulling hate is. I've only ever used it on myself for the hell of it. A -15% change in the rate of enmity loss however should be a noticeable difference, and as I said, if you're in a multi-tank situation where for some reason they don't all want March and Ballad, why not use it? I've also used it on PLDs in dynamis where I'll give them Ballad II and Sirvente and they appreciate it.

It's worthwhile to mention that I'm a Gjallar BRD so having Ballad II on is already pretty good MP, giving me the freedom to mess around with other songs to a greater extent. I've always wondered what the +2 does for Dirge and Sirvente but I don't think we'll know anything except the affect on duration.

[Kaeko]

About Dirge and Sirvente from our testing...

Having Dirge song effect on you is the equivalent of having - X enmity on you. Level 1 is =10, 2 is -13, and 3 is -16. I do not know if Ghorn affects this level or if it's just merits. We have some Ghorn BRDs so I can test this later still - I think if it added more levels, a -20 or greater enmity song would be reasonably effective in some situations.

Sirvente we have no clue what it does yet. We did once post about it but yes, it was removed. We couldn't reproduce it so it was taken down. I can tell you it does NOT affect the VE decay rate like we said it did though. It also does NOT act like + X enmity (i.e. not the opposite of Dirge). My gut feeling is that it lowers the amount of CE you lose when you get hit for damage. BUt that's just speculation.

Also, as far as merits, if your LS uses BRD/BLM for Elegy, max Troub please! :D Otherwise not a big deal. Our BRDs don't really bother with maxing it since we don't use /BLM but the ones that do seem to love this for ES + Troub Elegy on things like Khim or Cerb.

[Alibeemac]

5/5 Lullaby
5/5 Minuet

1/3 Troubadour
1/3 Nightingale
1/3 Sirevente
3/3 Dirge

I use Dirge on HNMs/fights like Tiamat/Bv2 etc cause I am usually the tank party BRD with March. There has been many times where we have only had 1 WHM and 1 RDM in attendance at Tiamat, both in the tank pt so after I do my Marches on Tanks, I stick Dirge on the WHM doing all the curing and the RDM/DRK stunning. I have now removed the macro tho due to a recent oopsy on Tiamat where I accidently Dirged both tanks as it is in the same spot as Viruna on a different pallete >.> The tanks yelled at me ;; lol. I now Dirge from the menu lol.

[Sylphet]

Thanks so much Kaeko, I didn't realize that level 1 dirge was -10 enmity (yep, been busy and haven't gone over your testing thread in detail despite meaning to lots of times). That's actually a lot better than I thought it would be and given that, I actually think that level 1 Dirge is not a bad thing to invest in.

Once again salvage is the first thing that pops into my mind because I'm often main healer on RDM for it. While I'd much rather have 2x Ballad for the early parts, once you reach the boss, I find that solo healing + enfeebling, especially on RDM generates massive amounts of hate by the middle/end of the fight and RDM doesn't generally have access to the same amount of -enmity gear as WHM does. As well, the best -enmity gear RDMs have is often at the cost of a couple hundred MP. I'd rather lose a ballad and have -10 enmity on me than have an extra mp/tick. Yes I know RDM has access to Raven's but with all of my main gear sets, I am at around 64/70 as is and carrying around a true -enmity set would be slightly impractical for Salvage. especially since Ravens has no other redeeming stats for RDM.

If you find out what effect Gjallar has on it could you either post here or PM me please? :D I'd love to know. Or maybe I'll just get off my lazy butt and read about it myself and test it in which case I'll post!

[Kaeko]

I'll definitely try to figure the Ghorn thing out for Dirge/Sirvente. Most of the stuff we're doing atm is purely for completion's sake (do you really care how much hate Angon is?), but how the BRD merit songs work actually directly affect a BRD's merit choice, so it's a bit more important.

[Gergall]

Dirge (and possibly Sirvente) looks pretty good with Soul Voice / Troub