BRD Advice!? Help Me Not Suck :)

Greetings! After spending 5 hours slowly poking my way from BRD16 to BRD30, I was able to (In less time) sand-sweep my way to 77***.

BRD is my next job to 90, and it is my desire to devote full attention to it, as such I will be meriting Singing/Wind fully (I have no plans of ever touching BLM and my RDM is forever alone so no real need for other magic skills!)

I do have several questions, mostly about merits and gearing.

1.) Merits
Here's what I'm going for:

8/8 String
8/8 Wind
5/5 Finale Recast
???
***Should I also do 5/5 Troubadour/Nightingale? I haven't seen these used in forever, then again, I've never seen the other songs used at all, really.

2.) Essential gear(sets)?

Perhaps it's because I've never really paid attention to BRD updates before, I don't know off the top of my head what's best for what!

For example, I was thinking of picking up a Sha'ir Manteel today, but wasn't sure if it was still useful. I'd appreciate any advice on what I need to go after. (It feels good to need to go out and find gear again XD)

***This is not a thread about how burning jobs to high levels is bad, and makes you bad at your job etc. Obviously I am a terrible BRD right now, because I've not even played it. Point is, I'm learning it and am making an attempt to gear it correctly :) Hopefully I'll get some responses to this while I work on capping string/wind/singing on Hpmende!

Thanks!

Merit-wise:

Finale recast 5/5
Lullaby recast 5/5
Nightingale 5/5
Troubador 5/5

This is what I see most BRDs going with merit-wise. Group2 definately Night/Troub, Group1 really I'd say is your choice depending on your playstyle.


Gear-wise:

Aim for gear with +skill, -song cast time, +song duration, and +CHR.
The AF3 set is amazing, even just +1'd. Aoidos' Matinee from Sippoy (100% drop), Aoidos' Belt (abyssmal drop rate) from Megamaw Mikey, and Schallenband from the T2 in Aby-Vunk are a few notable pieces you should definately try for.

I'd make a haste/fastcast/-song casting set for precast, then switch to skillset/+song duration/+CHR set for maximum effectiveness.

1) Merits

If you have another job with magic skill you can avoid meriting Singing and Wind. If not merit Singing and Wind simply for debuffs.

I personally have 5/5 Finale because you have 3 lullabies so meh. You can put the extra 5 in Lullaby if you want, but I have it in minuet effect just in case I'm part of a rotation.

Night and Troub always at 5/5 no matter what. They're really nice when you soul voice, or if you need to keep buffs on DD's for the entirety of a fight (or near it) and you don't want to go in close to the NM or mob.

2) Essential gear sets

The only essential sets are precast for songcast- and Haste for Utsusemi's. (and a small debuff set)

If you want to really go all out then you can build a HMP, cure potency, DD, PDT and MDT set.

Buff set is pointless if you're capped in skill as you're hitting maximum caps for all songs.

Your debuff set should be at least 100 CHR and 500 Skill, with bits of Macc added on.

You want to be sitting at, at least 600 skill (so 300 singing and 300 whatever instrument)

CHR isn't worth really going for any more you'll be able to hit enemies with ease.

Make sure to get all the relevant instruments.

i like 5 minuet, 5 finale.

5/5 Night and Troub, the enmity songs are useless
5/5 Lullaby recast, Yeah we have 3 Lullabys but only 1 Lullaby II is my logic
5/5 Minuet effect

Is what I use for brd in terms of merits, and iirc is the most often used choice among brds.

If you have useful jobs other than brd that would benefit from magic skills enhanced through merits such as BLU, I would recommend prioritizing those over Wind/Singing skill merits, in that one can already reach the March cap naturally, and that your merits would be only be changing the potency of things such as Scherzo and Valor Minuet V by a very negligible amount.

As for gearsets, I would recommend having, at the minimum, an Idle, precast, buff, and debuff set.
For brownie points you are free to make cure potency sets with all the cure potency stuff brd gets like Surya's Staff +2 etc.

Idle containing the obvious refresh/regen/movement+/pdt

Precast contains song spellcasting time- and fastcast

Buff having potency gear for things such as Valor Minuet, Scherzo, and so on and so forth. Along with enhancing song duration gear such as AF3+2 body and af3 neck.

And lastly Debuff containing M.acc, singing, wind, and perhaps fastcast in the off chance of a resist or getting gayed on a grellow proc by the mob using a tp move etc, so it further reduces your recast so you can try again. Chr is moot at this point, our chance of landing songs is already ridiculously high.

I...think that's about it

Oh yeah I forgot that actually. Make sure to have all relevant pieces of gear with song effect+ on it.

Thanks for the quick responses!

I know March caps out, but I hear that Scherzo can get much higher with +Skill (doesn't currently cap)? It may seem like a strange thing to ask, but Scherzo is actually one of the things that inspired me to want to play BRD :)

Also, from what I'm reading, Sha'ir is a definite must-have for the pre-cast set, so I'll go ahead and buy that ^^

Scherzo caps at 34% iirc

With full AF3+2.

i wouldn't consider utsusemi essential, but i haven't subbed nin since colibri merit parties.

Also Sha'ir is pretty important. You'll eventually want to build a set for abyssea that isn't dependant on Deep devourer, so if you can make that 20% up anywhere you can gain another Atma.

I fish Sweepers and bluffalo.

That or Yigit body for the cheap, It's what I use :<.
Also consider using the af3+2 head and the af3 belt from megamaw mikey in your precast as well.
The only downside to this much spellcasting time- is that you might need to adjust when you swap to your buff set mid-song because it goes off so fast lol.

why?

Sounds like dominion party pulling, someones gotta do it.

Easy to obtain items for a quick precast set are:

Aoidos' Matinee
Aoidos' Belt
Schellenband
Locquacious earring


Minstrel's ring is cheap now too, and easy to maintain in Abyssea.

This^ The highest cap for song skill needed is 600 for March, so really everything else can just be nifty Fast Cast pieces for Song Casting. May as well use 5/5 AF3+2 for the +4 AGI on Marches to help with dAGI as well.



The Minstrel's Ring isn't the True HP 75%> so it should be viable in Abyssea easily, and you can even idle in Accursed Belt if you have mages with thick heads.

This. It's easy to fish 3 or 4 with speedy songs and then horde, buff and repeat.

With sweepers it's even easier as they aggro to magic. (if you're subbing /mage that is)

well that was obvious, but aside from leveling to 90 in the first place, for which xp i'd probably get just doing random nms, i thought most people were pretty much capped on merits.

so you need utsu when you sub mage? @_@

Please stop derailing the thread, you do this in almost every one I've seen you in, you confront people about something completely different other than the task at hand. People have a choice of subbing ninja, but despite what you're subbed, you want a fastcast set whether you're casting Utsusemi or you're casting Stoneskin.

When he's doing Buffalo he's not /mage!

You were wrong.


Anyway. If you have Merciless Matriarch and Deep Devourer you can cap songcast- with



If you just wanted to run Merciless Matriarch you could cap with



Outside you can cap with

I'd still carry a haste set with me for buffs. Stop derailing the thread with ***.

I know all those sets are based around Sha'ir manteel, but if you have AF3+2 head then you could supplement that for it too.

Unless you plan on using BRD outside often, the Sha'ir manteel in the first 2 gear sets can just be replaced with AF3+2 hat.

Beaten :I

he said a recast set was essential for utsusemi, i just disagreed. it could have just ended there, you know.

Yar lol. I just don't have it personally so I built them around gear I have lol.

If you're using utsusemi you should have a haste and fastcast set for it.

If I'm subbing mage I'd still have it on me for spells like Raise and Stoneskin.

Anything else?

Cap your skills it will help the most cause singing/wind/string will help the most with the effect of the song. After skill is capped then I would look for gear... I would deff get a precast set, and then get your main set which mostly consist of af3+2 I got full bard af3+2 the hands are really good for march I like them a lot. Also if you want to move faster in town or something or just in general get the feet +2 ASAP can always use more movement speed. You dont really go sub ninja as much as you use to back in the day for parties so I would make a support set for like cures, I go BRD/WHM often and the cure potency staff helps a lot so your not spamming CureIV over and over. Merit wise do singing over wind and string but if you can do both... Singing and wind then I would do 5/5 Minuet and 5/5 Finale for sure then do 5/5 Nighting gale and 5/5 Trabatour mostly spelt those wrong but you get the idea. If your going to be going bard to Abyssea get all the H.Q. staves there good for proc'ing yellow trust me swapping them in just for the magic accuracy helps a lot, I see some bards going BRD/BLM for lesser NM's and you dont need to if you can go BRD/WHM you will be more helpful but if you cant get the H.Q. staves stay BRD/BLM. The hardest part of getting the entire +2 has to be getting bard body +1 and thats not even that hard if you got some friends to help.

Happy Hunting if you want to bs about BRD hit me up with a PM.