Bard merits....Madrigal or Lullaby

[phane]

Just wondering what others are using for their category 1 bard merits. I use bard in merit parties all the time and was wondering if Madrigal merits might be better than Lullaby. I use bard in dynamis rarely and only a couple salvage areas. Right now I have 4/5 Lullaby merits and 5/5 Minuet merits, but I am considering dropping the Lullaby merits just because I dont see an enormous use for them. Nearly all my merit parties are LS parties with 2 bards.

My main question I guess is if Madrigal merits will make a big difference for merit parties and in salvage areas. If the increased accuracy isnt noticed then I will just keep my Lullaby merits i guess.

[Obev]

I have 3 Madrigal, 2 Lullaby, 5 Minuet. I'd say that the madrigal merits help, especially if you're doing a lot of meriting on Mamool Ja. Once I complete my haste/fast cast setup though, I may drop the Lullaby merits to get full Madrigal. The reasoning behind this being that you can get gear to reduce your Lullaby recasts, but you can't get gear to make Madrigal better.

With 3 upgrades, I certainly notice a lot less chains lost on Lurkers and Infiltrators, but it could just be that my pulling and dispelling has improved since I started upgrading.

5/5 Madrigal's certainly better for "zerg" fights such as a TP burn Kirin or Bahamut v.2, where Lullaby merits are entirely worthless. However if you're stuck sleeping most of the time, such as Dynamis or Vrtra, even with a full haste build Lullaby merits may prove necessary.

Basically... "meh". Depends what you do with you Bard and what gear you already have for it. Shit is situational, et cetera.

[Sylphet]

I have 5 minuet, 5 lullaby.

Minuet because it's the only way to increase it's potency, and Lullaby because 1: You're never always in a 2 BRD merit pt and 2: With enough haste/song recast gear you can get really close to being able to infinately alternate Foe and Horde Lullaby. This comes in handy greatly for things like Einherjar where you can be faced with masses of undead. Five seconds can seem like an eternity if you have a horde of mobs beating on you.

Very often I find that the people I merit with most often, are at or very close to the accuracy cap (eating sushi but w/o madigal) and end game use for madrigal is.. limited at best.

Chose whichever you like though. Also, if you do a lot of end game BRD you might want to consider Finale Recast.

[solsovly]

I don't like bard enough to actually merit it, so take this with a grain of salt. It depends on what you actually do with your bard. I'd rather merit lullaby as that can help save your party, especially doing things outside of meriting (helps even then). Meriting madrigal is nice but won't be a big difference.

But I mostly use bard for limbus, nyzul, salvage and non HNM / non meriting situations where helping keep things asleep is more useful. If you are regularly doing a low number dynamis I'd probably take lullaby as well. Otherwise if you are there purely for melee support, go madrigal/minuet.

edit: single bard I usually sing march/min, double bard, I'm usually on march/march role anyways. Madrigal mostly for high evasion mobs.

[Dexster]

I'm working on my brd merits finally...

5 into Madrigal
3 into Lullaby
2 into finale

3 into Troubador
1 into Nightingale
2 into Foe Sirvente

My brd is generally used for things like Fafnir, Cerberus and Khimaira.

From time to time i'll do burn parties with dual bards so thats why my first level merits are the way they are.

[Carnusty]

The first thing I merited on Bard was lullaby to full...the reason being was that in the Dynamis shell that I was in, people were rather slow at sleeping, and like sylph said...being able to just cycle between Foe/Horde if you get resisted/lots to sleep, it really awesome @.@

Eventually when I plan to merit bard again I'll be maxing Minuet :3

[Carnusty]

I'm working on my brd merits finally...

5 into Madrigal
3 into Lullaby
2 into finale

3 into Troubador
1 into Nightingale
2 into Foe Sirvente

My brd is generally used for things like Fafnir, Cerberus and Khimaira.

From time to time i'll do burn parties with dual bards so thats why my first level merits are the way they are.

also wtf@Gjallahorn and you don't have full merits for bard yet <_<

[Daahan]

5 Minuet 5 Lullaby

You --BARELY-- use Madrigal in endgame, maybe every once in a while when you are zerging things with DRK, which in that case you don't even need to merit Madrigal because unmerited Madrigal is just fine. People prefer to merit finale, but I never found myself to spam cast finale, because finale usually isn't strong enough on certain endgame things.

Lullaby is the most important though. You are a BRD, you will be pulling in merit parties and having fully merited Lullaby recast is Yinilicious.

[Kaylia]

Lullaby Recast (-1 second per upgrade)
Finale Recast (-1 second per upgrade)
Minne Effect (+1 per upgrade)
Minuet Effect (+1 per upgrade)
Madrigal Effect (+1 per upgrade)

5 lullaby, 5 madrigal I would say.

The attack bonus of minuet not worth it imo, especially now on collibri where player eat cheap meatkabob instead of sushi.

[draxyl]

But the extra 10 attack makes such a huge difference!!!11one

Actually, if I had a gjallerhorn, I'd merit minuet...otherwise, no.

I'd merit madrigral over lullaby, if thats the direction question the OP was asking. It will make a large difference in meritpo - provided you can get all your sushi munching melee to eat meat instead.

[LLK]

Shit is situational.

We should literally close down the Newbie forum section and just make a sticky that says "Shit is situational".

[Carnusty]

I'd merit madrigral over lullaby, if thats the direction question the OP was asking. It will make a large difference in meritpo - provided you can get all your sushi munching melee to eat meat instead.

Unless you merit with LSmates alot you're going to see 9/10 parties using sushi all the time; minuet ftwwww

[Kaylia]

Shit is situational.

We should literally close down the Newbie forum section and just make a sticky that says "Shit is situational".

Not every situation are as common, so there is a ton of place to valid argument. But yeah... that would answer 90% of the question

Unless you merit with LSmates alot you're going to see 9/10 parties using sushi all the time; minuet ftwwww

I'm glad when I see food nowaday, people are freaking lazy against collibri.

[alphacat]

I love meriting on Mamool Ja, and if you do them, you'll realize how important madrigal is.

[Tulun]

I'm glad when I see food nowaday, people are freaking lazy against collibri.

I dunno.. I've had times when I've had food stolen every 3-4 minutes. As long as the pt maintains infinite chain, I don't see the difference.

[Sendra]

5 Minuet, 5 Lullaby, and one Troubadour is what I have. I really don't know what to do for my JSM2, probably just 3 Troubadour and 3 Nightingale if I ever get around to it.

[Julian]

Infinite chain doesn't automatically translate to best exp you can get

Madrigal/Minuet ftw for me.

[Eldelphia]

I'm meriting my BRD right now. Gonna max lullaby as most peeps seem to agree on. Already have 3 in that and have opened up Troubadour.

I was told that finale was a good option for BRD merits?

I tend to use my BRD for events and the occasional meripo. I tend to merit on WHM although want to go dual brd with a friend for some camps.

Just wondered about Finale really...

[alphacat]

I actually like the idea of meriting finale, I find the recast for it to be overly long when you're in salvage/nyzul when fighting soul flayers. I personally went for 5 mad 5 min because I'm such a merit whore, but you should tailor your merits to what you do most.

[Dexster]

I'm working on my brd merits finally...

5 into Madrigal
3 into Lullaby
2 into finale

3 into Troubador
1 into Nightingale
2 into Foe Sirvente

My brd is generally used for things like Fafnir, Cerberus and Khimaira.

From time to time i'll do burn parties with dual bards so thats why my first level merits are the way they are.

also wtf@Gjallahorn and you don't have full merits for bard yet <_<

I didnt expect to finish the horn as soon as I did, I was thinking i wouldn't get the attestation forever :\ I got it on the 4th try.