Bard Merits

[Prons]

Hi guys, thereh asn't been a bard meriting thread since the year 2006 so I figure it's about damn time!

Now that I've just hit 75 I'm looking forward to meriting parties (but not getting norg fame!) and I'm wondering what on earth I should merit.

Frankly the options are interesting, but there's a lot of options.

For example, should I merit the instrument skills? Charisma? -Enemity? Or those abilities and songs?

Any help?

[Raydeus]

You'll probably end up getting merits for everything, just don't touch Emnity. It really isn't worth it.

[Sabaron]

If you're planning to level multiple jobs, Bard isn't where I'd necessarily put my non-specific merit points in:

1. CHR is good for sticking debuffs, but how many do we really have that we need to land? Elegy, Lullaby, and that's it. If you need merit CHR to Lullaby a mob, you probably ought to think of a strategy that doesn't involve sleeping it. Most tasks can be accomplished without merit CHR. I would only merit CHR if you plan to do BST--keep in mind that I don't play BST so I don't know if BSTs merit CHR. If they don't, I wouldn't be inclined to merit CHR at all.

2. Wind, Singing, and String can be used to increase stick rates for enfeebles as well as increase the power of buffs, but most buffs max out at a certain level anyway and the extra boost isn't going to be anything to write home about. Getting your last tick of March is worthwhile, but I believe it's possible to do this using only gear without merits. However, if I were putting something in for Bard, this is where I'd go first. I would go with Singing first since it affects your performance regardless of instrument. If you're planning to level other mage jobs, just do Singing or skip bard magic entirely.

3. MP Merits are awesome if you play BRD/WHM since the off-sub MP pool is definitely a bit shallow. If you never touch /WHM and always run around /NIN (Shame on you) don't bother.

Other group merits aren't for Bard at all. Boosting melee skills for a job that spends all day doing everything but attacking isn't helpful. We can't be interrupted so there's no reason to go there. Enmity merits are usually more trouble than they're worth--people who use them (that aren't exclusively tank or non-tank) often delete and readd them as necessary. I don't have the extra time to do that. Bard also doesn't garner much enmity. If you want Enmity-, just stick a point or two in Adventurer's Dirge instead.

Job-specific Merits:

Group 1:

Lullaby Recast & Minuet Effect: These are mostly forgettable, but the most useful of the bunch are probably Minuet Effect and Lullaby Recast. Madrigal's use in party is generally uncommon as most melees don't rely on Bard's to ensure their accuracy is up, Minne is about as common as the ebola virus. If you are going to be the Madrigal buffer in a zerg rotation, of course, merit Madrigal over Minuet. Also, 2xBRD meripo stationary BRD/WHM usually casts Minuet/Madrigal--if you plan to do a lot of meripo as BRD/WHM optimized (e.g. static) then you can optimize Minuet/Madrigal. Finale is ok, but you won't in general die because a mob has so many buffs you need to dispel them that quickly. If you're the only dispeller frequently, I say go for it, but I find I almost never get my Finales off before someone else does--I've always got a buff song going when the mob buffs itself so someone else usually gets it before I do. Most of the time you aren't going to be dispelling multiple buffs in rapid succession.

Group 2:

Nightingale & Troubadour: This is a very nice combo and is the recommendation of the set. These abilities are used for zerging buffs used prior to a fight that lasts under 3 minutes--Kirin and the Dynamis Lord are notable uses for this combination. If you merit them both all the way up, you end up with 10 minute recast which is nice. Keep in mind that you'll miss out on the merit songs, but the merit songs are almost never used anyway so no one will be disappointed if you don't have them.


All in all Bard merits are not really that great. Of them, I would prioritize in this order:

1. Nightingale/Troubadour: 1 each to start with and increase if you find yourself using them frequently outside of a zerg cycle.
2. MP: These reduce your reliance on MP>HP gear to get off expensive spells like Raise and make you an overall more effective backup healer. The importance of these improves toward Galka/Elvaan bards and diminishes for Taru bards.
3. Lullaby: The save-your-butt spell's merits are very useful. You don't last very long while getting pummeled and in larger battlefields like Dynamis you may need to sleep a lot of things.

Don't merit Singing, Wind, or String unless you're going to get something worthwhile out of it like a tick of March or Bard is going to be your only magic job. Of course, if you want BRD>All go for Sing/Wind.

Don't bother with CHR unless, as stated above, you also do BST and BST also merit CHR (ask a BST).

Don't merit Enmity--if you somehow find yourself constantly under attack maybe there's a piece of gear responsible or you should stop using Provoke.

[Malacite]

If you mean BRD specific merits and not generic ones (like critical hits) I recommend the following; (Keep in mind this is assuming you don't want to merit other magic skills)

Magic

Singing Skill: 8/8
Wind Instrument Skill: 8/8 (since string is almost never used)


Combat

To be honest, you do NOT need to merit this at all for BRD. I'd save the points to merit a weapon for another job (keeping in mind you can only merit weapon skills that BRD can use like sword and dagger)


Category I

Finale Recast: 5/5
Lullably Recast: 5/5 or Minuet 5/5 (the rest are garbage, and I'd go with Lullaby)

Category II

Troubador: 5/5 (This ability is simply amazing, it doubles the length of any songs)

And the rest is up to you. I wouldn't bother with nightingale, it's not terribly useful. I'd go with either Adventurer's Dirge to take pressure off DD's/Healers, or Foe Sirvante so that your tank's enmity won't decay as quickly.

[Sabaron]

Finale Recast: 5/5
...

Disagree. No one needs to cast Finale that Frequently. Minuet + Lullaby is better.

And the rest is up to you. I wouldn't bother with nightingale, it's not terribly useful. I'd go with either Adventurer's Dirge to take pressure off DD's/Healers, or Foe Sirvante so that your tank's enmity won't decay as quickly.

Let's see how useful Nightingale is in a zerg cycle:

Each spell with troubadour on takes 16 seconds to cast and each bard casts 3 rounds, but with Nightingale+Troubadour, they only take 8 seconds. Therefore, by not using Nightingale, you lose: 24 seconds of buffed attack time which during a zerg battle that only lasts 2 minutes is a lot.

Also, if you try to use Troubadour in a meripo and actually get off at least two buffs to make it worthwhile, you'll lose your chain when you take 32 seconds to finish singing.

If you plan to use Troubadour at all, you really need Nightingale to complement it. Make sure you merit both to the same level so the timers come up simultaneously.

I used to just have Nightingale, and it is quite nice by itself in a meripo. It's very good for tossing up a quick buff before you start long pulls, but I would never use Troubadour without Nightingale. Nightingale can be useful all by itself for meripo while you'll be hard pressed to find a situation where you'd rather use Troubadour by itself instead of together with Nightingale.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Well, unless you're serious about being and endgame BRD and little else, then sure, putting merits into singing and wind instrument skill wouldn't be a bad idea. Unfortunately, those are skills that don't cross over terribly well into other jobs, so that's something to consider. Summoning, Blue Magic and Singing/Wind/String skill are all rather job-specific in contrast to other magic skills.

If you were considering RDM, WHM, SCH or BLM for the future, you may wish to reserve magic skills towards those jobs since Enfeebling, Elemental, Enhancing, Dark and Healing Magic Skills tend to cross over between these jobs.

[Sabaron]

If you don't mind having long timers on Nightingale/Troubadour you can also go for Dirge. Dirge isn't very commonly desired, but it sure can be helpful in certain situations as it provides -10 + -3 per extra point invested.

Good uses for Dirge:

Chainspell Stunners
BLMs
certain DDs using 2-hour

Basically, whenever someone in your party is going to do something that will likely cause them to die, putting Dirge on them will keep them alive a little longer. Granted, the song is less effective proportional to the spikedness of the action--for example, Eagle Eye shot is only going to lose 10 enmity, but the effect is enormous when applied to Hundred Fists. The song may keep the monk alive long enough to actually finish the 2 hour effect. The maximum effect of Dirge is 10 + 3*4 = -22 Enmity which is huge. If you're only using Nightingale/Troubadour for zerg buffing or in conjunction with your two-hour (sing the first set of buffs normally and then sing the second set with N/T on just before your Soul Voice timer expires for maximum duration), then you don't need the lowered recast time and you can afford to drop all 5 points into Dirge. Monks and Black Mages will thank you for helping to keep their buffers intact.

Make sure you know when your recipients are going to use their two hours in advance and cast Dirge at the beginning of the fight before they have any enmity at all for maximum effect.

Just remember that Dirge doesn't take away existing enmity or make variable enmity go away faster--it reduces the enmity of each action taken after it goes into effect, so you must use it in a proactive manner for it to be worthwhile.

As for Sirvente, A NIN or /NIN tank will always want March x2 for Utsusemi recasts over anything else. Most NINs won't trade 9% Haste (lil' March) for a reduction in enmity loss. Paladins usually don't need this at all and the shortened recast on Flash or the additional accuracy/attack is probably going to benefit them more than the enmity-loss reduction. I can, however, see Sirvente as being useful for unconventional tanks like RDM/NIN. The song is mostly meh, but if you have extra merits laying around (you won't) go ahead and get it if you're not going for Night/Troub x 5.

Also Singing and Wind merits are stronger than I may have previously let on--They're just not usually necessary for buff sticking.

Let's examine them numerically for a few songs:

Minuet IV caps at +56 Attack and a Bard reaches this cap when he has a combined skill of 462. Bard skills cap (naturally) at 225 for a total base skill of 450 which means you only need +12 to cap out and you can get that just by getting yourself a pair of Choral Cuffs +1 from Limbus and your Bard's Roundlet from Dynamis, so you definitely don't need merits for Minuet. There are also cheaper sets: Minstrel's Coat (3), Bard's Roundlet (5), Trumpet Ring x2 (4) is the cheapest but requires Dynamis and NM camping.

By contrast, the last March tick (11%) requires 486 skill which means that you need +36 total skill to get it. To get that with gear you need to have (for example)

Choral Cuffs +1 (10 Singing) ~227k
Choral Cannions +1 (8 Wind) ~227k
Wind Torque (7 Wind) ~400k
Musical Earring (5 Wind) ~750k
Bard's Roundlet (5 Singing) free!
Trumpet Ring (2 Wind) ~10k

This is a fairly affordable March build that doesn't require any merit skill. If you can't afford the time/expense for this setup, then you can get there with less and use your merits to bridge the gap. This gear set costs about 1.6 million gil on Asura.

Finally, for Madrigal, the cap is very high, 508, so if you're trying to cap Madrigal, you may have to put some merits in to get to +58 unless you have a good bit of money and time to spend on gear.

Let's take a more potent gear set:

Choral Cuffs +1 (10 Singing) ~257k
Choral Cannions +1 (8 Wind) ~257k
Marduk's Tiara (7 Singing) ~2.2m
Wind Torque (7 Singing) ~400k
Musical Earring (5 Wind) ~750k
Astute Cape (5 Wind) free!
Oracle's Pigachets (5 Wind) New ZNM Item free!
Minstrel's Coat (3 Wind) free!
Singing Earring (3 Singing) ~400k
Nereid Ring x 2 (6 Wind) ~260k

The total for this rather expensive gear set is +59. This is the maximum possible +Skill build currently and it utilizes all of your armor slots to maximize the effect of Madrigal. Technically you can ditch one of the Nereid Rings for a Trumpet instead--you don't need both rings HQ. This gear set costs about 4.5 million gil on Asura.

The Magic Accuracy effect of skill, however, will be quite significant, but I would recommend getting your HQ staves and a CHR/skill equipment build before meriting. +CHR is quite easy to get, but it probably loses effectiveness at some soft cap--this effect is not documented. At some point you'll probably be better off adding skill and Magic Accuracy over CHR, but I can't tell you where that point is. If you want more Magic Accuracy and have exhausted your gear resources, go for as many as you like, but don't think that you need skill merits to be a good Bard. Skill merits can be used to replace high-end gear, though.

[Malacite]

Each spell with troubadour on takes 16 seconds to cast and each bard casts 3 rounds, but with Nightingale+Troubadour, they only take 8 seconds. Therefore, by not using Nightingale, you lose: 24 seconds of buffed attack time which during a zerg battle that only lasts 2 minutes is a lot.

Except that both are on 20 minute timers, and there are things like /RDM, Minstrel's Ring and Yigit Gomlek/Sha'ir Manteel for a reason.

[Sabaron]

Except that both are on 20 minute timers, and there are things like /RDM, Minstrel's Ring and Yigit Gomlek/Sha'ir Manteel for a reason.

You're missing the point. It doesn't matter what gear you apply. The point is that with Nightingale, you get half as much time loss due to singing. Alliance time loss is multiplicative across the number of parties you are buffing. You can say whatever you like, but the point I'm making is that if you're meriting Troubadour there is no reason not to modify it with Nightingale.

Assume we have 15 DDs all using two-hand weapons with about 4 second delay and the damage differential between buffed and unbuffed is 20 damage per swing. If you lose 4 seconds buff time per party because you don't feel like meriting Nightingale, that's 3 * 4 = 12 seconds then you have lost 15 * 20 * 4 = 1200 damage.

Second. If you have /RDM, Gomlek and Minstrel's Ring, then you are getting -50% casting time on bard songs. So instead of losing 8 seconds per spell (16 seconds per party) you are losing 4 seconds per spell (8 seconds per party) or a total of 4 * 3 = 12 seconds lost. It's less but it's still a loss.

Minstrel's Ring setup is also expensive especially if you have a Galka or Elvaan bard and need to invest significant amounts of time and money in Zenith gear to get a -25% swap setup. Of course, if you have the money it's great, but it's really hard to drop 25% HP on a Galka. A Galka BRD/RDM has a base hp of 1316 and has to drop 329 hp, minimum to drop below the point where he can use a Minstrel's Ring, so the build you are suggesting is not feasible for all Bards.