min/min/march/madrigal or min/min/march/march?

[Mifaco]

Let's assume this is a meripo party. Is Blade Madrigal worth the 9% haste loss?

[solsovly]

Is March/March Min/Madrigal an option? That's what most people prefer.

[Ryko]

Depends on the food, if you use meat drop a min for a madrigal, if you're using sushi drop the madrigal for a minuet? The loss of blade madrigal with a meat dish dropped me off 12% accuracy last exp pt I was in on birds so it's actually quite a bit of damage lost in both TP gain and WS.

[Beckwin]

min/mad/mar/mar is generally the best route. Otherwise min/min/mar/mar if it's mamools and everyone is eating sushi, or trolls if everyone has good acc gear.

[Mifaco]

so, does minuet 4 really cap attack?

[Ryko]

With an attack food I don't see why it wouldn't, the food itself gives more attack than minuet 3 does.

[aurik]

Whatever your other 2 songs, you definitely want 2 marches.
With meat, you're better off taking a madrigal than min3.
With sushi, you probably don't need that madrigal and could use some more attack.

[Carnusty]

Whenever I'm a lone bard in a party my melees usually ask for min/march (Pretty sure they usually eat sushi, though). On birds I get asked for Mad/March.

I used to just double Minuet in merit parties, because I like to know that my songs are constantly buffing the party, instead of where March only buffs during TP gain. I got proved wrong later, though, because I forgot how much haste one March song really is XD

The few double bard parties I've had though, they've been on Colibri, so the static norm there has been March/march/mad/min

[Sylphet]

Most of the time people seem to ask for Min Min March Mad, with BRD/NIN doing march and madrigal and BRD/WHM doing Minuets + Ballads.

Whether your attack is capped or not obviously depends on your gear/food/the mobs you're exping off of.

Madrigal is more important at colibri camps because so many get lazy and don't use food. Mamool 2x March and 2x Min usually works, unless people are having fun with curry then Madrigal is better.

Depending on the party makeup, you'll need to adjust. Running a parser helps so you can see if your party needs one song over another.

[Tulun]

I always prefer 2 Marches, than the other 2 are subjective to the mob. Haste is just too win especially stacked.

[Amastacia]

I really don't understand why people prefer 2x Minuet + 1x March in any normal 2 BRD merit situation.

If you're in a 2 BRD merit party to start with, odds are better than even you're competent and at least moderately well-geared and merited (or extremely lucky and gimp, in which case you might well be kicked and replaced in short order anyway). I know there's no absolutes, but in my experience not that many atrociously bad WalMart WARs, Eva NINs, and Rasetsu/AF MNKs show up in 2 BRD parties. Everyone should, between gear and merits (and the increased average from Berserk if you have it), have enough Att that the 2nd Minuet becomes less useful than an extra 9% Haste.

I'm hesitant to throw around numbers since there's quite a bit of variance between jobs, but I know on NIN I sit just shy of 400 Att in the gear I usually use for 2 BRD parties, Minuet IV + Coeurl Subs or Hedgehog Pie pushes that to a bit over 500, Berserk virtually caps pDIF most places with Dia II and leaves my overall average Att in the mid-to-upper 500s. The problem with adding Minuet III is that Berserk is up more often than not, and 2x Minuet + meat + Berserk pushes my Att well past the pDIF cap with Dia II on most mobs and there isn't much Att gear I can really remove to prevent that (or more precisely, little I could replace it with that will still provide some useful improvement in another area).

I don't want to be wasting Att nearly 3/5 of the time to increase my pDIF around 2/5 of the time, especially when even without Minuet III my Att's already high enough that a second March is doing more for me.

Edit: This is all just coming from my own playstyle and experiences, but I find there's not really much of anywhere other than the Jade Sepulcher camp at Mamool Ja SP that sushi is really warranted in a 2 BRD party (and even then, if recent parse results from Nyzul Mamools with Min/Mad/meat bear any weight, it might not even be worth using sushi there except with less competent melees). With Senj/Unji (got my Perdu Blade last night, haven't gotten to parse with it), 43 Acc and 25 DEX in meat-oriented TP gear (pre-food), I parse above 80% Acc with meat + Madrigal virtually everywhere. Sushi would overcap my Acc and Minuet III adds a whole helluva lot less Att than Subs or Pie. Most competent MNKs parse similar or slightly better Acc, most competent WARs a bit higher.

[evilpaul]

I'm hesitant to throw around numbers since there's quite a bit of variance between jobs, but I know on NIN I sit just shy of 400 Att in the gear I usually use for 2 BRD parties, Minuet IV + Subs or Hedgehog Pie pushes that to a bit over 500, Berserk virtually caps pDIF most places with Dia II and leaves my overall average Att in the mid-to-upper 500s. The problem with adding Minuet III is that Berserk is up more often than not, and 2x Minuet + meat + Berserk pushes my Att well past the pDIF cap with Dia II on most mobs and there isn't much Att gear I can really remove to prevent that (or more precisely, little I could replace it with that will still provide some useful improvement in another area).

You have a Perdue Blade I'm guessing? /sigh I need to do more Assaults.

Getting Min/Mad+March/March makes me happy at Nyzul Isle. I don't remember having two BRDs anywhere else recently.

[fantasticdan]

min/mad/mar/mar

[Sendra]

When I merit, it's pretty much exclusively at Nyzul Colibri or Mamool north, and I ALWAYS do mar/mar/mad/min. Madrigal is just retarded to give up if your DDs are eating meat in either of those camps.

[Amastacia]

I'm hesitant to throw around numbers since there's quite a bit of variance between jobs, but I know on NIN I sit just shy of 400 Att in the gear I usually use for 2 BRD parties, Minuet IV + Subs or Hedgehog Pie pushes that to a bit over 500, Berserk virtually caps pDIF most places with Dia II and leaves my overall average Att in the mid-to-upper 500s. The problem with adding Minuet III is that Berserk is up more often than not, and 2x Minuet + meat + Berserk pushes my Att well past the pDIF cap with Dia II on most mobs and there isn't much Att gear I can really remove to prevent that (or more precisely, little I could replace it with that will still provide some useful improvement in another area).

You have a Perdue Blade I'm guessing? /sigh I need to do more Assaults.

Getting Min/Mad+March/March makes me happy at Nyzul Isle. I don't remember having two BRDs anywhere else recently.

Actually, I got it last night after a 2 BRD party on Nyzul Mamools, so no, it wasn't counted. I do have Usukane Sune-Ate and Divisor Ring though, and those are. :D

Also, price on Fire Bomblets went totally batshit crazy on Asura, it's the one thing glaringly missing from my meat build (aside from a Sniper +1), so there's an extra cheater 6 Att from a lolBombCore.

[Ryany]

I feel the whole thing depends on what people eat. Plus a warrior with max sword skill and a ridill is still going to be quite a bit lower in total weapon skill level than the other jobs. Maybe it is different for monk or ninja, but I seem to benefit more on war w/ a min/min/mad/march when I use meat.

[Khamsin]

What about in a party where half the melees eat meat and the other half eat sushi?

[Ferien]

With the majority: Mar/Mar/Mad/Min.

[Loren]

Madrigal is very strong if you need it, but it's wasted if you don't. Between combat merits, Hauberks, and general sushi addiction I think you're more likely to bump into the Acc cap long before you run into the Atk cap. Any smart melee should be prepared to BYOA (accuracy) anyway since--gasp--sometimes you'll need to fight stuff outside a merit situation with no BRD.

If all the frontliners are friends/shellmates and can communicate clearly on what's best, there are a lot of setups where Madrigal is helpful (to allow more Haste gear for example) but if you grab 3 melee at random, chances are some of them will end up overloaded on Acc.

[Carnusty]

I think I can honestly say that I've never had to cast Madrigal outside of Nyzul thickets.

Also I'm pretty sure the only place I've seen melees eating meat is in the Mire. None have even bothered asking me for Madrigal if they want to eat meat in other places :\