March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

[Sabaron]

Re: March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

Ok.. Let's start with 7 because it's the least important thing... It doesn't matter where you got it because you're comparing a food to a song... I can have both.

You said...

Valor Minuet III isn't as good as a Blade Madrigal.

Nothing that you have said so far supports this...

I've since found out why anyway. A Greater Colibri's level is 81-82 which means that in meripo, the level difference is 6-7, having a lower level differerence like that raises the "low-end" damage boosts of +Attack. Therefore, the value of the +55 attack bonus increases above 16% making Minuet III better than Madrigal which is always +16%.

Blade Madrigal is situational in that it is better than +Attack if you are fighting High-level High-defense mobs (like Troll Paladins) wherein the +Attack bonus is pushed below 16% average (e.g. your Attack is less than or equal to their defense and their level is more than 7 above yours).

Oh, and I noticed that you gave a specific number for a Colibri's Defense value. Where did you get that? Is there a database somewhere?

[Spinnthrift]

Re: March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

Both in posts from Divisortheory on BG, and verified by myself to check the exact defense ratio, as I've been going through perfect setups on various mobs for our HNMLS so that we can streamline gear.

This is the link from Divisortheory: http://www.bluegartrls.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16214

In my OCD'ness I've made huge posts on my LS forums exactly on how things work (mostly for Thf's trying to force up TA damage on Fafnir/et all.. but that's another story).

I've got Ultima in an hour, but I'll do it straight afterwards - give myself some odd gearings and hopefully be able to prove it to you. Then, if you'll believe that, I'll do the same for the Assassin's Legs/Andravanauts post on the Thf side of things.

I realise my tone isn't always shiny, but I don't say stuff deliberately that's wrong. So sorry if I upset you.

If you want to test it yourself on Colibri, it's fairly easy to as well, just use gear swaps and /check.

Remember:

/check will display the ratio without taking into account Level Correction function
If AttackDefenseRatio < 1.00 → High Defense
If AttackDefenseRatio > 1.25 → Low Defense
Other ratio range → No defense info displayed

P.S. I'm going to assume that sig is out of date for your job levels. As a melee, you should know that Madrigal + Sushi is relatively pointless if you're using a decent setup. Not that it'll change your mind much.

[Sabaron]

Re: March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

Both in posts from Divisortheory on BG, and verified by myself to check the exact defense ratio, as I've been going through perfect setups on various mobs for our HNMLS so that we can streamline gear.

This is the link from Divisortheory: http://www.bluegartrls.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16214

In my OCD'ness I've made huge posts on my LS forums exactly on how things work (mostly for Thf's trying to force up TA damage on Fafnir/et all.. but that's another story).

I've got Ultima in an hour, but I'll do it straight afterwards - give myself some odd gearings and hopefully be able to prove it to you. Then, if you'll believe that, I'll do the same for the Assassin's Legs/Andravanauts post on the Thf side of things.

I realise my tone isn't always shiny, but I don't say stuff deliberately that's wrong. So sorry if I upset you.

If you want to test it yourself on Colibri, it's fairly easy to as well, just use gear swaps and /check.

Remember:

/check will display the ratio without taking into account Level Correction function
If AttackDefenseRatio < 1.00 → High Defense
If AttackDefenseRatio > 1.25 → Low Defense
Other ratio range → No defense info displayed

P.S. I'm going to assume that sig is out of date for your job levels. As a melee, you should know that Madrigal + Sushi is relatively pointless if you're using a decent setup. Not that it'll change your mind much.

Thanks for the link.

My ADR is useless as both RDM and BRD--I have to rely on the melees for that type of information..

The only difference in my sig is the Bard level and it's currently 62--it's close enough (I'm not doing BRD Meripo yet, I'm just looking at maximization).

Madrigal + Sushi is only pointless if the Sushi brings your Hit Rate so close to 95% that the a portion of the Madrigal is lessened by virtue of the 95% cap. Again, I have to rely on the melees for information on their Accuracy.

The numbers hold up, and this is the reason I said "situational". I still don't know why you're OP said that Madrigal > Minuet... I'm assuming it's a typo now because you clearly don't believe that.

[Spinnthrift]

Re: March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

Damn.. my post got erased by some silly backspacing at the wrong moment, so I'll repost the simple version (Ultima's been delayed right now ).

Basically... what's ideal for melee (from a heavy melee standpoint)

If I have Min/Mad/March x2 + Sushi, I lose 60 attack as a minimum.
If I have Min x2/March x2 + Sushi (to retain accuracy on high eva mobs), I lose a few attack, usually enough to lower my minimums below what's ideal.
If I have Min x2/Mad/March + Meat, I lose haste. That's bad for the reasons you posted before.
If I have Min/Mad/March x2 + Meat, this is about as perfect as I can get, with the attack bonus from food being better than Min III, but with Madrigal to give me enough acc to comfortably eat Meat.

March x2, isn't in question. Given the second Bard.. it's a must have.

Then it becomes a question of what's better, Min/Min or Min/Mad. In terms of attack, you can get a few more attack, while retaining enough acc to keep a high % - with Min/Mad, which is why Min/Mad is better overall.. therefore making Blade Madrigal a better choice than Minuet III.

Not to mention, it's much more cost effective to eat stacks of cheap meat over stacks of sushi on the food eating ^%$&ery that is Colibri. Because to retain similar numbers, you have to eat sole sushi, while you can get slightly better results with meat mithkebobs. Knowing this, when you go to other merit mobs such as Mamool, you can get much better returns on Attack with the same setup, while still keeping your accuracy as high as needed.

It kinda changes with War's with Ridill, who may need more acc to retain that solid hit %, but for the normal folk without one.. if you have a Ridill or other very high end items, they change the rules somewhat.

[Malacite]

Re: March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

Who the hell eats Mithkabobs @75?

Courel Sub/Yellow Curry tyvm >.>

EDIT: My god do we need better meat foods... sushi isstill horribly broken by comparison.

Yellow Curry is only really good because of it's duration, but even then a stack of subs will beat it out for not much more. The Plus 1 subs are even better but ungodly expensive ><

All the really high capped foods have such crap attack multipliers as well that you freaking require a BRD to even justify using them. When's SE going to change this?! (off topic I apologize but god damn...)

[Spinnthrift]

Re: March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

On Colibri, it's often food of choice. Mamool's/Imps(Thanks for the offer, but I'll have to pass)/Trolls/Kindred/etc.. I'll eat better food. On things that eat my food, I'll take the best cheap option to keep my damage high without destroying my wallet.

[Sabaron]

Re: March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

Damn.. my post got erased by some silly backspacing at the wrong moment, so I'll repost the simple version (Ultima's been delayed right now ).

Basically... what's ideal for melee (from a heavy melee standpoint)

If I have Min/Mad/March x2 + Sushi, I lose 60 attack as a minimum.
If I have Min x2/March x2 + Sushi (to retain accuracy on high eva mobs), I lose a few attack, usually enough to lower my minimums below what's ideal.
If I have Min x2/Mad/March + Meat, I lose haste. That's bad for the reasons you posted before.
If I have Min/Mad/March x2 + Meat, this is about as perfect as I can get, with the attack bonus from food being better than Min III, but with Madrigal to give me enough acc to comfortably eat Meat.

March x2, isn't in question. Given the second Bard.. it's a must have.

Then it becomes a question of what's better, Min/Min or Min/Mad. In terms of attack, you can get a few more attack, while retaining enough acc to keep a high % - with Min/Mad, which is why Min/Mad is better overall.. therefore making Blade Madrigal a better choice than Minuet III.

Not to mention, it's much more cost effective to eat stacks of cheap meat over stacks of sushi on the food eating ^%$&ery that is Colibri. Because to retain similar numbers, you have to eat sole sushi, while you can get slightly better results with meat mithkebobs. Knowing this, when you go to other merit mobs such as Mamool, you can get much better returns on Attack with the same setup, while still keeping your accuracy as high as needed.

It kinda changes with War's with Ridill, who may need more acc to retain that solid hit %, but for the normal folk without one.. if you have a Ridill or other very high end items, they change the rules somewhat.

.....but Ridill doesn't do anything for Accuracy or Attack--it doesn't "change the rules" at all. Minuet III isn't "a few more attack" it's 55 attack which is very powerful unless you are approaching the 2.4 pDIF cap.

If my melees are geared to max their accuracy, it is likely that they can't cap attack and vice versa. Therefore if capping (in either sense) becomes an issue, then the song opposite the capped stat is the better. I don't get to tell the melees what to wear and eat--I just decide which songs to play.

Why is it necessary to mention what you're currently doing in game? Does that somehow add to this discussion, or are you using it as a tool to attempt to boost your credibility?

[Spinnthrift]

Re: March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

Go back over your first few responses.. they all say the same thing as I did, except that I explained why to eat meat, and showed where the caps were at.

As Icemage put it, if they're eating meat, he'd consider dropping one Min for March. I've just explained why eating meat nets a greater return than Minuet III.

As for your Ridill comment, it shows what you don't know. It's a B ranked weapon on Warrior, which the guy in my LS is adamant that he has to eat sushi to get close to the acc he can with an Axe. I'm a Thf (albeit Blm mostly atm), with smatterings of Rdm and Nin as and where it's needed. Why would I want/need a Ridill other than for the sake of having one?

How about a nice roundup.

If you're geared for Acc/Meat usage, to extend the duration while minimising the cost of a merit party - the choice is: Min/Mad/March x2, and the melee know it.

If using sushi, then they're going to need that second Minuet to make up for the attack they're losing, but Min III cannot reach the levels of even a Meat Mithkebob, whereas a decent Madrigal will often negate entirely the level correction in accuracy, same as sushi provides.

Have a nice night sunshine, it's 4am and I really should be asleep.

P.S. If you want the *HUGE* essay I've been writing on the topic of haste, and attack vs acc setups and how they work, PM me. I'll send you those and the rest, not that you'd believe that I could ever write anything of worth, even though I've been around long enough to learn from people who taught me well.

P.P.S If I'm free, I'll do some quick and dirty testing tomorrow to show what happens with Assassins Culottes/Andravanauts, I'll post them, then you can go, I'm sorry, I was wrong. Night night, catch you soon. /waves.

[Icemage]

Re: March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

I'll explain my reasoning behind Minuet III vs. Blade Madrigal in as simple of terms as I can.

(1) Every good merit or XP party goes in assuming 2x Minuet or 1xMinuet 1xMarch as a baseline. I don't know of ANY melees outside of ones in a static party who will gear themselves to expect having any outside +Accuracy boosts. As such, most melees will set up gear/food to optimize for Accuracy. This makes Blade Madrigal of very limited usefulness unless you run into an especially hard IT++ enemy with high evasion (maybe a Mamool Ja Infiltrator).

(2) Even if there's ONE melee who breaks from the pack and doesn't optimize Accuracy, it's still a better move to sing Minuet/March or Minuet/Minuet for the rest of the group. If you're so lucky to have that one person be a 2-handed user, you can compromise and give them Uncanny Etude after the fact by using March/Minuet/Etude, or Minuet III/Minuet IV/Etude, in that order.

In a two bard situation, it's still no contest. If you're XPing against Colibri and melees are hesitant to use sushi, then that's probably the only time you'll think about using Madrigal, but Colibri are generally not very tough at level 75, so most decently geared melees at 75 don't need any extra help landing hits against them anyway, so really the application is limited to the lower level ones in the mid/late 60s. In every other case, Madrigal is overshadowed by March and Minuet.


Icemage

[Sabaron]

Re: March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

...P.S. If you want the *HUGE* essay I've been writing on the topic of haste, and attack vs acc setups and how they work, PM me. I'll send you those and the rest, not that you'd believe that I could ever write anything of worth, even though I've been around long enough to learn from people who taught me well.

P.P.S If I'm free, I'll do some quick and dirty testing tomorrow to show what happens with Assassins Culottes/Andravanauts, I'll post them, then you can go, I'm sorry, I was wrong. Night night, catch you soon. /waves.

The problem is not necessarily that you don't know what you're talking about, but it's that you expect me to somehow be able to know the reasoning behind what you say without saying it. I did happen to miss that you used WAR specifically in your discussion of Ridill, but other than that--much of what you were saying is not easily decipherable. You assume that I know things that I, in fact, do not. I still maintain that the most confusing thing about your posts was that you started off with a very flat statement putting Madrigal over Minuet III and then, by your own arguments, went against your original premise--that sort of colored my attitude toward your posts.

I suppose this post didn't really resolve anything except to say that it's always based on the melee's gear and the target--which I guess I expected.

Basically, Spin is saying that against the Greater Colibri, which has low defense, most melees (who will be pushing 500+ Attack) will be able to hit (or get very close to) the 2.4 pDIF ceiling using a very cheap meat food (Mithkabobs) and just Minuet IV; therefore, versus Greater Colibri, in this situation the most efficient Meripo setup are a bunch of Attack-boosting melees and the Minuet IV, Blade Madrigal, March x 2 song set.

Icemage says that most melees gear for Accuracy, which is what i usually see--lots of Sushi, Optical Hats, Sniper's Rings, Peacock Charms, etc. and, therefore, these guys will be approaching their hit rate caps when dealing with the rather feeble mobs (such as Greater Colibri) in a Meripo, thus making Minuet III a more attractive choice than Madrigal because of the lower level difference and melee's predisposition toward accuracy.

Have I got it?

[Icemage]

Re: March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

Have I got it?

Pretty much.

Now, IF you're in a static party, and IF that party is set up for TP-burn style with two bards, yes, you can indeed drop Minuet III in favor of Blade Madrigal if you inform your melees ahead of time so they know they can de-emphasize ACC in favor of STR/ATK. I do not think this will work in a pickup party, or even a partial static where you are unsure about the gearing of your melees.

If there's only one bard, I would still go with Minuet IV + Victory March over any combination using Blade Madrigal unless you're going after the aforementioned Colibri, who are special in that they like to steal food effects (making sushi very unreliable/very expensive).


Icemage

[Malacite]

Re: March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

Depending on your job (DD I mean) it's often better to get the attack songs and eat sushi anyway.

Reason being that sushi is uncapped and adds a hell of a lot more accuracy than you can reasonably stack on with equipment, making the minuet more attractive. I'm aware that you can actually get more attack out of food than you can accuracy out of sushi despite sushi being uncapped, but it's rarely practical and in actuality, requires attack songs (See Bison Steak and Red Curry ><)

[Spinnthrift]

Re: March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

Couple of minor details.

Sabaron, wasn't trying to get to 2.4 pDif.. was trying to make sure that the melee could reach 1.25 cRatio, as that is the threshold where you get a marked jump in your absolute minimum damage. 2.0 cRatio (which gives 1.6~2.4 pDif) is ~656 attack with Dia III on a Colibri.

Secondly - I'm not sure about everyone gearing for acc/attack any more. I was pretty sure it was all about the haste, and has been that way for some time. We make sure our haste is as high as possible for meriting, then put in extra's as and when and where possible. At least it appears that way at 75.

Pre 75, when you don't have access to the same power of gear - Accuracy and Attack are kings, as I'm rediscovering while levelling up my low level Drg.

Sorry for confusing you with the Ridill.. what makes sense in my head, often doesn't translate to others. ^^