BRD merits?

[Kainos]

As a mage, there are a ton of situations Ballad2/Dirge is better than Ballad2/Ballad1.

Like what? As someone who had 3/5 in both dirge and sirvante, and took them out to finish 5/5 troubingale I would love to know.

[FailureMidgard]

Like what? As someone who had 3/5 in both dirge and sirvante, and took them out to finish 5/5 troubingale I would love to know.

Well, to start with, you know all those fights that the mages never go out of mp on? I'd say this covers like ~95%+ of the situations in this game...well, ballad does very little for you (likewise, when you're never pulling hate, Dirge does very little).

As for specifics, here's a few (and by no means a complete list).
LAC.
BC. (if he does 2 discoids early on, it's nice to have extra -enm until the tanks have a decent lead)
Einherjar vs any mobs with high aoe damage.
On Scholar, vs virtually anything (mp is basically never a problem...)
On some sort of kite fight that you'd rather it be on a paladin kiter more often so you can get more nukes in (a kiting BLM does very little damage as opposed to one that can continue to cast...the Mamool ZNM, Dea, and Nuhn are a few examples that come to mind).

Is Dirge -needed- for any of these? Of course not. Neither is Ballad though. But Dirge is significantly better, IMO, in those situations. And there are more on top of that.

[jimbobsonofgod]

Einherjar vs any mobs with high aoe damage.

And I'd say the majority of the AOE damage in Einherjar are not 20' or greater.
Don't know how often people do Einherjar as mage and aren't low on MP like 120% of the time.

[FailureMidgard]

And I'd say the majority of the AOE damage in Einherjar are not 20' or greater.
Don't know how often people do Einherjar as mage and aren't low on MP like 120% of the time.

huh? WTF does aoe damage range have to do with -enmity vs Ballad? I'm not talking about stoneskin or something, I'm talking as a white mage having to keep melee alive and not wanting to have to tank...
And as a whm/sch, I rarely, if ever have MP issues (keeping everyone hasted in my party, tossing out reposes when needed, and keeping everyone alive). I have died to pulling hate before though...

[jimbobsonofgod]

Needs more stun bots ?

But I have to ask you think that Dirge would have saved you from being dead?
I mean you can gear -enmity , you can merit it too, only so much refresh you can get.

[FailureMidgard]

Needs more stun bots ?

But I have to ask you think that Dirge would have saved you from being dead?
I mean you can gear -enmity , you can merit it too, only so much refresh you can get.

Some TP attacks are stunnable, some aren't, sometimes there's enough -aga casting mobs in camps it's hard to realistically expect every aga to be stunned.

As for if the Dirge would have saved me, occasionally, sure, I'd say it does...other times it doesn't. I'm not saying to full-time Dirge by anymeans, I'm saying it's worth the merits, and there are a lot of times where it is more useful than a Ballad. You also have the ability to overwrite it with Ballad whenever you feel like it (mage's MP drops under half, etc).

I do think you overrate the necessity of Ballad with /sch (for whm). Ballad was a big deal before /sch was added...now, I have more MP available to me without ballad/refresh, than I used to before with both, and I'm still getting Ballad2 if I'm getting dirge.

[astura]

Me personally i went 5/5 troub/night so could spend less time casting songs and time supporting with cures/na's or pulling in merits. Also it allows me to have a (almost) 3 song rotation every 10 minutes. That was the real seller me as it allowed me to average out a song duration time closer 3:20 on songs over 10 minutes. It also fairly convent for me when i do assults/NI/limbus/znm pops to just use at the start to buff/elegy and not have to worry about recast being up if i need it.

As for T1 i went 3/3/4 finale/lullaby/minuet. The reason for this is i found myself often wanting finale more often on a lower recast then lullaby. (i often like to finale mobs when rdms may be busy like dynamis/limbus/assaults etc) Accuracy is rarely a issue for my melee so that's why i went minuet. If melee's really wanted a acc boost they would use pizza (gogo 11% acc 111 atk with capped min 4) or sushi. (note this isn't applying to zergs with SV)

[jimbobsonofgod]

Each his own I guess. I mean I've done my fair share of endgame, and I have never once Been asked to Dirge or Sirvente ever.

Its not because I don't have the merited, because I do ....

But I could probably live the rest of my game days without them.

[ghanima]

I have:
5/5 Minuet
5/5 Lullaby
5/5 Troubadour
1/5 Nightengale
1/5 Dirge
1/5 Sirvente

My LS does everything and I am BRD about 90% of the time.

I have 2 more upgrades I can do but I waffle back and forth on what I want to do with them, I still have flashbacks to when I had 4/4 wind and 4/4 singing and changed out the 4/4 singing to go 8/8 wind... painful and then they upped the totals on them. Honestly to me Nightengale is garbage if you have a full -casting time and haste setup for recast, but I have it for the odd time in zerg scenarios where one of the other bards is slow to sing or a party leader is slow to invite.

There's honestly nothing wrong with having Dirge and Sirvente, it's not required but a good option and makes you more versatile. However there is absolutely no excuse for not having 5/5 Troubadour if you are doing any kind of TOAU HNMing.

Group 1 is really more dependent on what you do. If your main job for merits is BRD, 5/5 Lullaby will save your ass if someone attacks the wrong enemy, especially on birds since you shouldn't use Horde Lullaby. Lullaby recast will also help you out in Dynamis if you tend to go to Dynamis often on BRD.

If all you do is the random zerg with your BRD, then do 5/5 Minuet and 5/5 Madrigal. My LS is set up so that we are able to rotate a 5/5 Minuet BRD with a 5/5 Madrigal BRD for zergs, so just talk it out with the other BRDs in your shell if you go this route.

Seriously- Finale merits? Pull with finale and by the time you get back to camp in salvage your timer will already be up or your RDM can Dispel it for you. Don't give me that Flayers BS either, they don't cast it nearly enough to warrant having to spam it on them.

[jimbobsonofgod]

However there is absolutely no excuse for not having 5/5 Troubadour if you are doing any kind of TOAU HNMing.

My excuse is 4/5 troub 4/5 night 1/5 sirv 1/5 dirg

Oh and too lazy to remerit.

[jimbobsonofgod]

I have the solution: take out minne merit ability (srsly? srsly.), replace with BALLAD merits! PROBLEM SOLVE!

Fixed

[ghanima]

My excuse is 4/5 troub 4/5 night 1/5 sirv 1/5 dirg

Oh and too lazy to remerit.

Totally hear you on too lazy to remerit, the one time I had to remerit I wanted to kill myself. :3

Should read that as "if you're starting from 0 merits."

[detlef]

I have Lullaby and Finale merited. Whenever we zerg there's always somebody who has Minuet merits so I'm covered there. And Madrigal is just too situational for my tastes. Lullaby merits and Sheikh Gages allows for nearly continuous casting (slight exaggeration). I also find Finale to be incredibly useful for what I do. I can see why people would merit Minuet or Madrigal but for my purposes, Finale was the way to go.

For category 2 merits, I like 5/5 Nitro for situations where I'm jumping between parties continuously.

[ryskar]

I like finale merits because I just don't count on other people to Dispel shit; I'll take it into my own hands, thanks.

[Arthars]

some of you guys certainly does not even know the power of dirge

im not going into argument here because obviously people who are right, will always prove that they are right and never will admit wrong.

i can go all day "dirge good!" and you can do all day "dirge bad!" if you dont agree.

each to his own. if you like spamming those JA whenever its up, go 5/5 np and no one is stopping you. No LS will deny a good bard even if he dont have full meritted trou/nigh or deny if he does not have dirge

[Arthars]

I like finale merits because I just don't count on other people to Dispel shit; I'll take it into my own hands, thanks.

^
this and i dont really count on BLU(dont always have 1 anyway) to dispel flayers in nyzul either

[Kainos]

some of you guys certainly does not even know the power of dirge

im not going into argument here because obviously people who are right, will always prove that they are right and never will admit wrong.

i can go all day "dirge good!" and you can do all day "dirge bad!" if you dont agree.

each to his own. if you like spamming those JA whenever its up, go 5/5 np and no one is stopping you. No LS will deny a good bard even if he dont have full meritted trou/nigh or deny if he does not have dirge

Do you even have a 75 Bard? lol
Iirc after -35 enmity is diminishing returns. So lets say you 5/5 Dirge, that's a song with -22 enmity. That's great, and I'm not debating that. But if you have good healers or good tanks I should say, It's not going to mean anything because they wouldnt be getting hate anyway. Most mages/healers get giddy when they have a high mp refresh tick. In my expirience dirge is only good when a overzealous black mage nukes too much/hard and I throw it on him to save his ass. It is a very situational song where a mage, or rang w/e gains a lot of hate.

SMN: don't need it, avatars get hate
BLM: most would tell me to do march/ballad if they didnt want 2 ballads, even Sage etude lol
WHM: debateable, I say a good whm will not be pulling enough hate that a tank cant recover
RDM: again why not ballad/march for faster haste,refresh or logical etude for MND enfeebles
SCH: the only real solid argument i will accept b/c of SCH MP efficiency. Only for a healing one not a nuking one.

So is it justifiable to spend 22 merits on a song that you will full time on a healing scholar and situationaly use on someone who gets to much hate? IMO you are better off spending those merits elsewhere. The question isnt whether Dirge is a good song to have or not, but is it better to have than nightingale?

In my experience Nightingale is great for times you have to go afk for a few min or just got back from being afk and you can re-apply songs quickly. Using it with Troubadour gives you time to do other things (Cure, Raise, -na spells). Running into oshit situations like AOE dispell and getting songs up again or being busy sleeping a bunch of adds and using it to rebuff and then go back to sleeping. 5/5 its a 10 minute timer that you WILL find a way to use every time it's up.

Neither Dirge or Nightingale is "needed" and unless you are hellbent on maxing bard group 2, prolly better to use those merits for another job. But in my experience I use nightingale much more than I ever did "Dirge". And boy did it hurt taking out those merits ><

[Valyana]

-Enmity has increasing returns, like Haste or -Damage Taken, up to the cap of -50.

I think Nightingale and Dirge are both valid choices, depending how you play BRD.

[Rilu]

You know the Aristocrat's Coat you synthed in your sig? You realize that 2% extra healing really isn't gonna do anything either.

If you don't care about 5 attack per song here (10 attack with double minuet, 20 attack with 2hred double minuet), why care about an HQ amemet mantle? And I guess 5 attack for a proper instrument is a waste too. Definitely wouldn't want to have the melee waste time getting 16 attack from meriting their WS.

Really, I don't know why you'd try to single out bard merits as not worthwhile. They are as worthwhile as using an Ace's over a Turban, as using a HQ Amemet over NQ. Games like this are about stacking lots of small benefits, and it really adds up faster than you realize.

I care about the aristo in my sig because, its got a White Box and its signed. Why do I have cloth a 100 (spending the MILLIONS and MILLIONS in pure loss) instead of 99 because there really is no benefit of having it at 100 over 99? Simply because now, its capped and having all my CRAFTS capped is worthwhile in my book.

And yes, I still don't believe bard merits are THAT important. I do have Dirge and Sirvente both merited, but I have yet to ever need them for ANY activity in my LS (except for Sirvente when I helped out a LS one night really late who's tanks really were no good and couldn't keep hate on Khimaira).

You act like I have no idea what i'm doing in this game, yet fail to realize i've probably played bard longer than anyone here, and have come to realize that it really doesn't make that big of a difference to the normal player. My decision isn't "Would an extra 20 attack be worthwhile" because i'd be dumb to say it wouldn't, BUT, my argument is, is that 20 attack worth the HOURS and HOURS of meriting. My answer to that question is NO, it is not. What i wouldn't give for the dozens and dozens of merits i've lost in the past before they upped all the caps for merits, because I wanted to move merit bonuses around.

I'm not trying to tell people what they NEED to do, i'm simply stating my opinion on the value of bard merits vs the time needed to put into them and the effect overall you are going to have on the game. I can think of other merits on other jobs that have FAR better returns for the time you put into getting them. I will never make fun of, or chastise people for whatever merits they decide to get, its their time not mine, but if I were to choose things to merit on my 75 jobs, bard abilities and songs would not be in the mix, thats all i'm saying.

[Ultimagi]

"Time not important, only life important."