March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

[Sabaron]

I have been levelling Bard, and I'm at 62 now (teetering on Minuet IV). This argument has been coming up a lot lately and I wanted to get a sample of opinions on it.

Basically, we're talking these songs:

Blade Madrigal: 28 + 4 (instrument) = 32 Accuracy = 16% Hit Rate
Advancing March: +9% Haste with Faerie Piccolo
Victory March: +11% Haste with Faerie Piccolo
Valor Minuet III: 48 + 5 (instrument) = 53 Attack

Now take the following scenarios:

You are in a level 75 Dual Bard Meripo with a NIN Tank. Which four songs do you want on the melees?

For some reason, parties are choosing this foursome:

Blade Madrigal, Minuet IV, Victory March, Advancing March

instead of

Blade Madrigal, Minuet IV, Minuet III, Victory March

which boils down to:

Minuet III vs. Advancing March

Which is better?

+55 Attack or +9% Haste?

My damage calculator tells me that +55 Attack is equivalent to 0% - 27% damage boost versus a mob whose level is 8-10 levels higher than the melees' levels which, if it's an even distribution, is roughly 13.5% higher damage output. Versus anything less than 8 levels above the melees, the low-end rises making it better overall. Therefore the 9% Haste is less effective on mob kills.

The only thing that the 9% haste does that's good for the front-line is make shadows come back 9% quicker, but with Minuet III, I'm killing the mob 4.5% faster, possibly increasing chain. Unless your tank was getting flattened and your healer was running down on MP wouldn't you want the 4.5% death speed more than the 9% shadow recast?

--Now the other argument seems retarded to me.
Some people advocate this combination:

Minuet IV, Minuet III, Victory March, Advancing March

versus my preference same as above boils down to:

Advancing March vs. Blade Madrigal vs. Minuet III

So now, what they're saying is that 9% Haste is better than 16% Hit rate. The death efficiency is 7% better with Blade Madrigal than with Advancing March, and the Minuet III is 2.5% less effective than the 16% hit rate. Why would someone want this combination instead of the one I'm advocating?

[Olorin401]

Re: March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

Not only is the second March better, the melees know it.

Regardless, I usually ask a party I'm in which songs they want. If I'm the only BRD, they'll ask for Min + Mad. If there's a second BRD, one of us will cover double-March and the other will cover Min + Mad.

[Malacite]

Re: March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

Do you know how haste works? The more you have, the stronger the effect. Haste builds up exponentially as opposed to attack and accuracy which are linear.

Simply the put, if the melee already have haste gear, then they're going to want that 20% extra haste to get ever so close to the coveted 50% and above mark. Now granted, even with gear and double march the most anyone will manage to hit is 45% without other forms of haste (Haste Spell, Hasso, etc) but it's still well worth it.

At 50% Haste your attack rounds happen twice as often and at 66% it's three times as often. Very few jobs can even dream to get that high never mind your average player, but even if you can't hit the 50% mark if you can at least get close you're going to swinging much faster.

That's well worth it over a 16% accuracy boost. Of course this is all situational too, since if you're fighting high evasion mobs like Mamool Ja THF or NIN then yes, you'd have to be stupid to cast the haste over accuracy but in most cases the haste wins.

[Callisto]

Re: March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

Depends on what I'm fighting and what the DDs are wearing/eating. If I'm on Colibri, just double March most times since most DDs stopped using food vs. Colibri anymore(and the birds are so freaking squishy anyways), or 1 March/1 Mad/Min depending on what's defficient.

[hongman]

Re: March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

Dual Bard meripos are my favourite, and I normally see Min + Mad and 2 x March with Melee eating meat.

On Lurkers we change to Mad + Mad + March + March.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

First off, any and every melee out there can gear for accuracy simply and easily. There is gear and sushi out there to take care of melee accuracy. The amount of attack granted by stacked Minuets cannot be matched by ANY meat on the market and like accuracy gear, STR gear is not difficult or terribly expensive to obtain.

But additionally, you need to consider your party set-up. Some jobs are affected by Haste and others are not. Rangers and Corsairs that DoT with ranged weapons will draw no benefit from March songs at all and will be considerably ticked at you for ignoring thier needs, in the case where such jobs are present, it would be advisable to favor Minuet over everything else. RNGs don't need accuracy and they can't use haste aside from what Velocity Shot gives them.

That said, even with non-ranged melee, I'd never March x2, but use Victory March and Minuet IV. I don't care what anyone says, I don't care about the trends of ToA camps as those trends are subject to change - melees should take care of thier own damned accuracy. Don't look at me because you can't land all hits on Rampage, that's your problem. BRD is there to enhance, not compensate. I will never use madrigal when we're fighting something so brain-dead easy to hit.

[Olorin401]

Re: March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

Depends on what I'm fighting and what the DDs are wearing/eating. If I'm on Colibri, just double March most times since most DDs stopped using food vs. Colibri anymore(and the birds are so freaking squishy anyways), or 1 March/1 Mad/Min depending on what's defficient.

I don't know if you've noticed, but some of the people I've been in meripo with lately have been bringing 2-5 STACKS of food with them just so they don't have to worry about Snatch Morsel. Where do these ppl get this kinda money...
------------------------------------------

That said, even with non-ranged melee, I'd never March x2, but use Victory March and Minuet IV. I don't care what anyone says, I don't care about the trends of ToA camps as those trends are subject to change - melees should take care of thier own damned accuracy. Don't look at me because you can't land all hits on Rampage, that's your problem. BRD is there to enhance, not compensate. I will never use madrigal when we're fighting something so brain-dead easy to hit.

I started to think like this a while back, but decided it was more cordial to give people a choice between Double Min, March+Min and Min+Mad. It really varies from party to party.

[Malacite]

Re: March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

Most melee sub NIN these days too (even some SAM... makes me wanna cry) so the added haste is nice for utsusemi recast.

As said above, it's situational really. Depends heavily on the mobs targeted and what jobs the DD are. I still say unless it's a THF or NIN mob (possibly G Colibri) I'll take 20% haste over +32 accuracy any day. Like BBQ said, Accuracy is the DD's problem, not the BRD's.

[Icemage]

Re: March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

Valor Minuet IV, Valor Minuet III, Victory March, Advancing March.

Only if melees aren't using sushi and/or 2 handed weapons would I consider sacrificing one March for Blade Madrigal.


Icemage

[Callisto]

Re: March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

I think my next party is getting Pastoral/Abaude just because I now finally have enough macro space to macro all of my songs.

[Sabaron]

Re: March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

If I am doing 20/100 = 12 DPS and I haste myself to 25% I'm now doing 20/75 = 16DPS, and if I haste myself to 50% I'm doing 20/50 = 24DPS.....

which is an exponential progression rather than a linear one.... The math portion of my brain somehow equated 25% haste with a 25% increase in killing speed which is not the case: 16/12 = 1.3333 or a 33% increase.

Let's just call me duh on that, and we'll chalk it up to the fact that none of the people I've talked to actually understand this mechanic in a way that could defeat my (admittedly flawed) argument.

I see it now. The double March is better unless the DD's are RNG/COR mix.

So now tell my how a Valor Minuet III is better than a Blade Madrigal (provided melees can't eat or there is something preventing them from achieving accuracy cap).

[Spinnthrift]

Re: March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

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

Reason for this is:
Take cheapest highish cap meat out there - Meat Mithkebobs. If you eat this, it gives you +5 str and 60 attack (in merit - if you're not getting capped attack you should delete your character at this point). So - at bare minimum, you should get +62 attack out of Meat over +55 Attack out of Minuet III.

If you then compare Sole Sushi to using Minuet III, you get the same +acc as with Blade Madrigal, but 5 less attack overall, and your party will cease to function much sooner as most players won't be burning through stack after stack of Sole Sushi.

Any Bard worth their salt knows this, and while 7 attack may not seem like a lot, it can make the difference between a low of 1xcRatio on pDif and a low of 1.2xcRatio - 0.5.

For example - on G Lolibri, that means you need 521+ attack to be at this point, considering that you'll net the same accuracy gains with Madrigal vs Sushi (ideally reaching the 95% acc cap), you've just pushed yourself closer to the ever beautiful melee attack cap: 772 on Colibri (this is without Dia btw).

Edit: Ok.. that's as a rule of thumb for what wins, however.. if your melees are good enough to hit a 90% acc rate without Madrigal/Sushi, then Min x2/March x2 wins, as you're able to push attack up enough on meripo to make a sizeable difference on your output, but - for the most part - your party won't be hitting that acc cap without either mad/sushi.

[Sabaron]

Re: March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

The reason I asked the question is because Icemage picked this:

Valor Minuet IV, Valor Minuet III, Victory March, Advancing March.

and I would daresay he is a Bard worth his salt.

If you then compare Sole Sushi to using Minuet III, you get the same +acc as with Blade Madrigal, but 5 less attack overall, and your party will cease to function much sooner as most players won't be burning through stack after stack of Sole Sushi.

Your comparison is totally flawed. This statement has no quantitative value. Why would you compare a Song effect to a Food, and further why are you comparing a Minuet (a +Attack song) with an Accuracy food?

Any Bard worth their salt knows this, and while 7 attack may not seem like a lot, it can make the difference between a low of 1xcRatio on pDif and a low of 1.2xcRatio - 0.5.

This contradicts your assertion that Blade Madrigal is better, and 7 attack is not a lot... I calculated the damage effect of pDIF of the song above (in the original post)--the maximum line damage bonus for 7 Attack differential above the mob's DEF is 3%, and where did you get 7 anyway--the only time I used 7 was in terms of a percentage difference between Haste and Madrigal which makes no sense when translated into an attack differential.

That's it... You're on drugz. I'm calling your mommy.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

I never assume how well my pt is going to do. I get in the pt, use my usual setup for songs, and then after a few fights, adjust accordingly. Different mobs, different jobs, different outlooks from players, etc always affect what I do in a pt. The thing that irritates me the most is when you get in a pt and one person wants this set of songs, another wants a different set, and you feel you know what would work the best. I don't want to argue and I don't want to spend 15+ minutes while they all "discuss" it either. More often than not, I just go with whatever the pt wants. I'll suggest what I think is best but won't argue the point if they disagree.

[Spinnthrift]

Re: March vs. Madrigal vs. Minuet

The reason I asked the question is because Icemage picked this:



and I would daresay he is a Bard worth his salt.




Your comparison is totally flawed. This statement has no quantitative value. Why would you compare a Song effect to a Food, and further why are you comparing a Minuet (a +Attack song) with an Accuracy food?



This contradicts your assertion that Blade Madrigal is better, and 7 attack is not a lot... I calculated the damage effect of pDIF of the song above (in the original post)--the maximum line damage bonus for 7 Attack differential above the mob's DEF is 3%, and where did you get 7 anyway--the only time I used 7 was in terms of a percentage difference between Haste and Madrigal which makes no sense when translated into an attack differential.

That's it... You're on drugz. I'm calling your mommy.

Ok.. let's start:

Why compare using an attack song and using acc food, and an accuracy song and using meat?

Well - generally, from my experience in parties - players take one or the other to net a solid accuracy rate, they don't take both, it's overkill on accuracy at the cost of attack.

So, with double min, you eat sushi... to be able not to whiff.

Now - you can say I'm on drugs, and threaten to call my mother.. but, I'll explain why I wrote what I did and justify it further. Yes - you were correct with the % difference on the effects of attack, what you didn't take account of was however, the range of numbers pDif generates, which is basically where +/-1 attack can actually put you in a different range. I agree exactly with what you wrote, but you missed something (little details).

Now, let's look at our kind meripo mob, the lolibri, this mob has a defense of 336, nice and low. Now, if a 75 can push their attack past 520.8, then the lower range for the pDif values (as we know there's a +/- value) which is calculated as:

Defense (336) x 1.55 (level correction plus lowest point for the minimum value of midrange pDif) = 520.8.

Now, I know in my personal tp'ing setup, with Min/Mad - I reach 523 (while buffed), so I can put in Haste/Str in other slots to increase overall damage. Now, if I had Min/Min and had to use Sushi, I'm at 516, which while only a tiny difference on paper in pDif, the end minimums at 1.26 and 1.04 respectively (per setup) as a multiplier. Not really a huge deal, but it adds up, and I believe you were asking for the best. Situationally, each is useful, but - overall, more players will be around the level.

And again, I'll explain where you get the 7 difference from.

Assuming Meat Mithkebobs on Lolibri, as I'm going to wager you're not using Arrabiato and neither are your melees, that gives you (again), 60 attack (capped at 272 attack) and +5 Str.

Now.. let's simplify. +60 attack and +5 str. With me there chief?

So, given a worst case scenario of said melee using a one handed weapon, then str will only give a 2:1 ratio on str:attack, giving... tada - 62(.5)

With me there so far?

Now.. you've said you can only get 53 attack from Minuet III, and assuming now you're using Sushi to get accuracy now, that gives you +5 str from sole sushi.

So, 53 + 2.5 = 55.5

Wait for it.. and I realise I'm being patronizing now, but you did threaten to call my mother, and I really do not like my dear old mum that much...

62.5 - 55.5 =?

Seven.

Now, even with full merits on Minuet, you're still a single point (in my case), under the key number, if I'm using Sushi.

Now, I might be alone in being so anal about working out the exact numbers that you can call me OCD, that's a fair statement. And, for the most part, that 3% difference won't affect the majority of your hits either, but - for the small part that it does... there we go. ^^

You're right, for the most part, 7 attack is trivial, but it's also not sometimes. Hell, 1 attack can be trivial or not. It's all situational. Like most things in this game.