/BRD for StaggersFollow

Hello!

I'm a blm main and our static NEVER has a brd around to go seal/+2 farming with ... so I have decided to finally unlock and level up brd strictly for this purpose. Is it really difficult to land the threnodies? Do you need to ES before even trying to do so? Typically I use Fast Cast & MACC atma's when I am grellow staggering. I also change out my gear so I am not nuking too hard; therefore killing off the mob before we can get our staggers. I put together a list of BLM equippable gear that has + singing skill that I figured I could invest in and will cap my singing skill on brd to level 49 cap. Just wanted to hear from others who have done it and see if I am heading in the right direction.

Thanks!

Sweet thanks. The plan is to go thru the rotation like normal and when we know its not blm, nin, blu, or whm in case of light then toss out the threnody. I appreciate the response.

You would think that it goes without saying, but I have one particular member of my group that, even when myself, the Mnk, and the Thf have all turned or disengaged, needs to be told practically every fight to turn around or disengage so that he doesn't cause it to TP in the middle of trying to grellow proc.

If you find yourself leveling too fast, there's an old bard trick to leveling up skills VERY fast - go out to {sea} and spam threnodies on goldfish. They'll just stare at you curiously and won't attack, but you'll get skillups without any danger. Just avoid the sharks and UFOs.

And in many cases, it's not worth keeping the mob alive long enough to do this. You're better off either just killing the mob, or deaggroing it to reset its weaknesses.

Man thanks for the tip! I went to abyssea and casted a therondy and I gained .5 skill. Then the next one I gained .5 and BAM! Skill raised to Level 2..... I never used the harp until I just got the mp +1 harp last night...

For /brd I've landed it without Elemental Seal or a tonic, but after the 4th or 5th resist I'll often use them just to make sure.

My normal atma set up for this is Minikin, Apoc and Merciless Matriarch.

To be fair, this is probably a good way of establishing a solid chunk of hate at the battle's start so that mages can feel free to try to proc while (probably) not ripping hate in the process. They just need to... y'know, turn around and stop feeding after that.

He is saying that they use Ukko's fury constantly until the NM is at 30% and they haven't proc'd yet. He isn't saying it is bad to use at the start. He jokes saying he is 'constantly checking to see if it is Ukko's Fury' several times during the fight.

Using it to establish hate is fine.

Using it over and over and killing the mob before proc is not fine.

I think that long ago people got the idea that they needed to full time DD mobs back at level 85 with bad atmas to shorten kill times. Since learning that lesson, they haven't revised playstyle for level 90, 3 atmas, and actually having the empyrean gear on their seal run tanking jobs.

Some of the higher level instruments have helped with inventory issues, but yea it's always gonna suck. What level range are you looking for gear-wise? As a general rule while leveling, more CHR is always good. Eventually when you get to AF1/2/3 levels you'll become more concerned with +skill and to a lesser extent -recast gear. Speaking of which, almost all of our AF is pretty kick-ass for their respective levels so go ahead and quest them (I'll assume you'll probably skip over AF2 for the most part and go directly to Abyssea for AF3; that's fine).

Merits...
People have always been all over the board on this. Even more so now that Abyssea has diluted our usefulness. Max out a few categories or spread the love around, it really doesn't matter.. However, here are my personal preferences. I play based on the idea that come Lv. 91-99, we'll be out of Abyssea and BRD buffs will regain their importance again.

Category 1:
5/5 Lullaby/Minuet- With 3 lullabies at our disposal, 5 merits allow us to spam them with little regard for recast timers. Great if you ever find yourself in a position where you need to keep multiple mobs at bay and typical Sleepga isn't available. I could have gone with either Madrigal or Minuet, it just so happened the other BRDs in my LS went Madrigal so I wanted to cover the other base for BRD rotos. Meriting Finale has arguable usefulness. Guess it depends how often you travel with a group that doesn't have Dispel or fight dark-resistant mobs.

Category 2:
5 Troubador, 1 Nightingale, 3 Dirge, 1 Sirvente. Troubador and Nightingale were made for each other. I maxed Troubador out only because it's the more important of the two. 7 minute Soul Voice is awesome. Dirge and Sirvente I unlocked just because I wanted to have all songs. Their usefulness is limited at best. I can probably count the times I've used them on both hands. Do whatever you prefer with these.

Putting time and effort into gearing BRD is as rewarding as you can convince yourself it is. I dote on my BRD, and as such I have like 50 pieces uniquely for it. If I were cut that number down to 25, nobody else would be any the wiser, and the only noticeable effect would be that my backup status removals could be delayed a second or two, a small portion of the time. And let's face it, BRD isn't as widely used as it used to be.

For gear, I'd say that you should prioritize hunting down pieces with massive Singing skill stats, which will help both buff potency (which only really shows on Minuet V at 90) and debuff MAcc. From there, CHR will give you half an MAcc per point via the standard dCHR formula, and the effects of your Singing/Instrument Skill aren't proven, but it would seem to follow that with double the skill to draw from, half the standard 1 MAcc per point. If anyone knows better than this, please correct me!

As for merits, the standard is 5 Minuet, 5 Lullaby, and at least 1 Troubadour and Nightingale. If you know you're the "Madrigal BRD," then go for that. I chose to go 5 Troubingale, because I don't like going in AoE range to buff the tank/DDs very often. Oh, and Dirge/Sirvente are pretty useless.

That's the thing, you could be Lv.70 by the time I'm replying to this. A year or two ago I would have been a lot more defined on the "must-haves".
Now it's a matter of "what can I get by with until 80+?". For instance, I would typically advocate getting a Gaudy Harness until you could equip Minstrel's Coat, but unless you have them tucked away already it's hardly worth the time spent farming them for the time you'll use them. Even die-hard BRDs would have trouble justifying that (sadly). So I guess here's my list of must-haves, for the Abyssified FFXI of today:

•Elemental Staffs will still be your bread and butter for weapons. Get a Quire Grip when you can.
•AF3+2 is tops, all of it.
•AF1 will get you by for a while. If you do Limbus at all, +1 pants/gloves are unbeatable until AF3.
•Get a Musical Earring and pair it with a Singing or Wind Earring (Melody +1 if you can't afford either, Aoidos' Earring if you can get one).
•Wind Torque or Piper's Torque
•CHR rings until Trumpet/Nereid Rings
•Jester's Cape +1 until Birdman Cape (easy to get now)
•Corsette +1 -> Gleeman's Belt -> Aristo's Belt

The craziest of the crazies macro in -song casting gear at the start of the song, and switch to +skill or -recast before it finishes. Whether your playstyle requires that extra effort is up to you.

Also, make liberal use of Pianissimo when fighting NMs with nasty AoEs. It's frustrating when I'm tanking and I see BRDs take damage they don't need to by running unto AoE range, especially if I'm solo tanking.

Oh and 1 last piece of advice- remember that songs overwrite based on time remaining (2 minute base for all songs, modified by +instruments and other gear). If you're keeping busy and giving people specific songs they need, knowing what order to sing songs and when will make your life much easier.


Edited, Jul 21st 2011 2:21pm by Prim

I love /whm. Like yourself I really enjoy the pure support role of BRD. Between singing I keep tabs on what the mob is doing and help the healer remove status effects, topping off sidelined melee's HP, etc. I've been half-jokingly yelled at (by the WHM) for getting critical effects like Petra and Silence off people faster than the WHM. Also if I ever need to move in to dangerous AoE range, Stoneskin has saved my ass on more than one occasion.

/blm is used almost exclusively for Elemental Seal + Elegy. I don't even know if that's still needed nowadays, but it was a big deal back with ToAU HNMs and such. This was also the primary reason for meriting Troubador (the other being 7 minute SV). 2 fully merited Troubador BRDs can keep an ES Elegy up full time.

That's... about it. There isn't a lot of variance in subs for BRD. You could probably substitute /rdm or /sch for /whm depending on the situation but again it's all about your playstyle. I grew up as BLM/WHM so I guess I'm just partial to /whm.

I know I'm old. It's ok though, I've come to terms with it. :)




NOW GET OFF MY LAWN!

Edited, Jul 21st 2011 4:51pm by Prim

BRD is now 84 and I have picked up the Vihuela, Ney, Apollo's, Syrinx, Iron Ram, and one other that I can't remember the name. I have some seals saved up just from random runs that fell to me, so now it's time to go get the rest of my seals!

I haven't had much luck with Mage's Ballad 2 though, which makes me sad. Going to head out to Castle Zvahl's again and keep camping the AH and hope to get lucky!!