BRD Merits

[Sarial]

Feels so wrong putting this in advanced. . .

Recommendations for BRD merits outside obvious skill? Is 5 merits worth 5 extra attack, or is 5s off Lullaby too nice to pass up?

[Callisto]

5 Lullaby for sure imo, I got drunk and did a Finale merit like 2 years ago that I'm too lazy to undo, but otherwise I'd probably do 5 Lul/5 Minuet.

5/5 Troub/Night

[Gergall]

5 Lullaby is awesome. In an HNM shell, it's good for some bards to have Minuet and others have Madrigal, so that when you do alliances with rotating bards, you can have the best of each. Of course, you also have to consider that the bard with the highest march tier should do the march rotation.

5 Troub and 5 Night is widely popular, but I question this:

5 Troub is for BRD/BLM ES Elegy every 10 minutes at stuff like Cerb and Khim.
1 Nightingale is so you can squeeze in lots of songs during your Soul Voice Troubador buffs.
What are the other 4 nightingle merits for? Do you use Nightingale outside of Soul Voice? Some BRDs maybe just use Night and Troub every 10 minutes so they don't have to worry about keeping songs up as much, and that seems good.

But if you aren't using Troub/Night to be "lazy" then why bother? Dirge with -40 enmity sounds useful. That's -80 during soul voice, -84 with relic.

[Callisto]

Generally I've never found the Enmity songs to do anything for a healer or tank that another Ballad or March wouldn't be better than, idk.

Edit: I use Troub/Night together generally for things like Einherjar where I'm pulling, so I can lay a long lasting set on the party as quickly as possible, then get back out to more mobs.

[Skjie]

Troub/Night makes easy job even easier. The -enm never did much when I had it merited.

[Gergall]

Would -84 enmity mean anything to a BLM on a prolonged single HNM fight like Tiamat?

[Shin Volcano]

5/5 Min and Mad imo, i see no point in the others, 1 second for each merit in lullaby or finale dosn't seem to be worthwhile, for the cost and sacrafice of other useful ones.

Would -84 enmity mean anything to a BLM on a prolonged single HNM fight like Tiamat?

No honestly, because you are more then likely giving up something more important, like ele skill or INT, whichmeans you're getting resisted more, which means less damage anyway.

[Haroun]

Of course, you also have to consider that the bard with the highest march tier should do the march rotation.

Assuming they also have Haste, March tier is irrelevant with Soul Voice as they will be hitting Magic Haste Cap.

Would -84 enmity mean anything to a BLM on a prolonged single HNM fight like Tiamat?

-enmity caps at -50 as far as I know.

EDIT:

Dirge with -40 enmity sounds useful. That's -80 during soul voice, -84 with relic.

I remember asking someone a while ago, Relic horn only seemed to increase the duration of the merit songs.

[Kkel]

5/5 Min and Mad imo, i see no point in the others, 1 second for each merit in lullaby or finale dosn't seem to be worthwhile, for the cost and sacrafice of other useful ones.

No honestly, because you are more then likely giving up something more important, like ele skill or INT, whichmeans you're getting resisted more, which means less damage anyway.

The -Enmity would be coming from the fully merit'd Adventurer's Dirge.

Also: It wouldn't be -40/-80/-84, as i'm fairly certain that Dirge merits are -10 for the first merit, then -3 for each additional.

[Shin Volcano]

The -Enmity would be coming from the fully merit'd Adventurer's Dirge.

Also: It wouldn't be -40/-80/-84, as i'm fairly certain that Dirge merits are -10 for the first merit, then -3 for each additional.

I see, i misunderstood the question then, but even still, almost every job that you are there for will want 2 songs of a givin choice, i don't see how you can make room for adventurer's dirge instead of a second ballad or even an INT boost, maybe it's time for a specific 3rd song choice..

[Gergall]

Assuming they also have Haste, March tier is irrelevant with Soul Voice as they will be hitting Magic Haste Cap.

Bard Rotation is sometimes used in non-zerg situations where Soul Voice is not up the entire time. Einherjar is my best example because my LS does bard rotation the entire time. It works in KS99 too (Wyrm and Turtle much more than kited Behemoth).

You got me on the other points, but march tier does count for bard rotations when SV won't be up.

Edit: As for Dirge, I see now that it goes 10,13,16,19,22. 44 with SV. Very disappointing. Still, I was wondering if there are fights where BLM has plenty of MP (no need for Ballad I) but has to "hold back" due to enmity? Prolonged single-mob fights seem the most likely way that this could happen, so that's why I said Tiamat.

[Freazer]

i have 5/5 lullaby and 5/5 minuet.. imo best merits for brd

[astura]

depending on your skill gear you don't even need full min merits to hit the cap of +66 atk on it. Rest of them is really personal preference and gear options (now and in future). At least into both troub/night for SV. If you merit or do a lot of events you may find it handy to use for a 3 set rotation every 10 minutes.

[Haroun]

depending on your skill gear you don't even need full min merits to hit the cap of +66 atk on it. Rest of them is really personal preference and gear options (now and in future). At least into both troub/night for SV. If you merit or do a lot of events you may find it handy to use for a 3 set rotation every 10 minutes.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to say, but Minuet merits are unaffected by the skill cap. Valor Minuet IV caps at +56 Atk with 462 combined skill, you get an additional +5 from Cornette +1 and another +5 from capped Minuet merits (thus the +66 Atk total).

[Julian]

5/5 Min and Mad imo, i see no point in the others, 1 second for each merit in lullaby or finale dosn't seem to be worthwhile, for the cost and sacrafice of other useful ones.

Agreed with this guy. The only place I can see lullaby timer being good is in Ein, just get your rdm or whm to haste you, and use shair/sheikh gages, doubt you even need any other haste gear. If you need lullaby merits to keep stuff in merits slept you're doing it wrong.

[Sarial]

Good point. The simple fact of being able to take time off lullaby by other means, but no other means to squeeze out that extra 5 attack/acc makes it sound to me like Min/Mad is the way to go. Why waste merits on recast when you can get haste gear if need'd. Thanks for all the responses.

[Crizto]

5/5 Min Lullaby
5/5 Troub Night and never look back

[FailureMidgard]

For Dirge - any melee on any HNMish fight should be enmity capped. JoL/etc, you're gonna pull hate if you don't suck. I'd gladly take a Dirge.

Agreed with this guy. The only place I can see lullaby timer being good is in Ein, just get your rdm or whm to haste you, and use shair/sheikh gages, doubt you even need any other haste gear. If you need lullaby merits to keep stuff in merits slept you're doing it wrong.

And the alternative is madrigal merits? If your melee needs madrigal merits, they're doing it wrong. No wait, if your melee needs madrigal and isn't a KC drk, they are doing it wrong? And the KC drk is gonna be acc capped with 2hred madrigal+feint anyway.

I think Madrigal are the least useful of bard G1 merits, I'd get Minne merits before that.

[Julian]

And the alternative is madrigal merits? If your melee needs madrigal merits, they're doing it wrong. No wait, if your melee needs madrigal and isn't a KC drk, they are doing it wrong? And the KC drk is gonna be acc capped with 2hred madrigal+feint anyway.

I think Madrigal are the least useful of bard G1 merits, I'd get Minne merits before that.

Do people not use Sniper's rings anymore? 5 merits is equal to 1 sniper's ring added on top of the accuracy you're already adding. Double madrigal or single soul voice, 2 sniper's ring. Soul voiced and double madrigal, that's 4 extra sniper's ring worth of accuracy.

Ask anyone "Hey, would you like to wear 4 more sniper's rings?" and tell me if anyone in their right mind would decline a buff like that.

I think that the potency from extra accuracy from madrigal is the best upgrade from tier1 bard merits. It's more impressive than +5/10/20 attack, imo. The only difference is, you will use minuet a lot more often than madrigal. But when you do use madrigal, the difference is definitely worth the merits, especially when the alternative is just lullaby recast, lol.

Is the buff needed? No. Nothing in this game is really needed when you phrase it like that.

[astura]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to say, but Minuet merits are unaffected by the skill cap. Valor Minuet IV caps at +56 Atk with 462 combined skill, you get an additional +5 from Cornette +1 and another +5 from capped Minuet merits (thus the +66 Atk total).

Personal testing of mine 2 years ago showed that it will increase based on the highest single skill used (wind or singing) with divisibility by 10 past 220 base skill. If you want to know the details of my testing ill pm but i am caped on minuet with just +4 merits.

Edit: Tested out as naked taru brd/whm 39 base atk use minuet 4 with 4 min merits on skill merits and +2 instrument got 102 atk
102-39=63 remove the 4 from merits and i have 59 base. put on either +25 wind or singing skill caps me out at +66. (also both up at same time so +50 skill combined) Right now its possible to get up to +46 wind skill (56 with G horn) and only need 3 (2 with g horn) minuet merits to cap at +66 atk. This still leaves your sub/head/back/waist free. This also means if your over a divisible by 10 but not at the next one you can remove gear to keep your tier of atk and in haste/-enm gear.