Bard (Song) Focus: How what when?

Hey Everyone.

I've been perusing bard songs for some time now and have developed a few questions about focusing then.

I've grown to understand that the effective cap on bard songs is (for rk2) 4.4
Going out on a limb to guess that means 4.4x the base listed values of songs (via lucy, ect)

So now I'm wondering what does and doesn't affect.

I'm guessing songs that add procs, will gain no benefit from mods.
So Arcane Melody, Songs of Suffering are out

Maybe songs that add a base value to spell damage benefit?
Like Horthin's Psalm of Potency or Nilsara's Aria?

Songs that "Just do something" probably don't get any better, right?
Like Pests of the Piper, Voice of Silisia, Silence of Silisia, Wave of Torpor.

Songs that have Numbers... I'm pretty sure they get modded.
The "Chants" "Insults", Psalm of the forsaken.
While we're talking numbers. I remember reading somewhere that the Mana regen component from songs like Sionache will show up in your stats tab as the modded value, but actaully just give you the base value.

Songs I'm pretty sure can't be focused because their base values seem to be where they should be at...
Like War March of Jocelyn, Allaying Accelerando, Aria of Maetanus,

So after all that, there's a few I'm stuck on
What about the Crescendo Effect from Silisias Lively Crescendo
The AC Value on Fjilnauk's Spiteful Lyric?
Why do people say to use Pulse of Sionache, Lucy says the healing benefit doesn't stack with worn focus? Does this get modded?

Thanks for reading!

TL;DR is that each spell effect (SPA) on a song follows it's own rule for whether or not it's modded and these rules are followed for all songs in the game. At the end there is a list of what effects I've tested as being moddable and what aren't (and unknowns).

You're correct but for fun I'll explain in a little more detail.

On raidloot.com you'll see the following is pretty common for bard songs:

[44046/1608] Chorus of Sionachie

Classes: BRD/103

Skill: Stringed, Cap: 320

1: Increase Current HP by 133 per tick

2: Increase Current Mana by 111 per tick

3: Increase Current Endurance by 9 per tick

[44047/1608] Chorus of Sionachie Rk. II

Classes: BRD/103

Skill: Stringed, Cap: 340

1: Increase Current HP by 140 per tick

2: Increase Current Mana by 117 per tick

3: Increase Current Endurance by 10 per tick

[44048/1608] Chorus of Sionachie Rk. III

Classes: BRD/103

Skill: Stringed, Cap: 360

1: Increase Current HP by 147 per tick

2: Increase Current Mana by 123 per tick

3: Increase Current Endurance by 11 per tick

With group gear you'll have _____ Resonance 26.
With Singing/Instrument Mastery 4 you gain an 80% mod.

This works together like so -
1.0 (Base Song Mod) + 0.8 (Instrument Mastery 4) + 2.6 (____ Resonance 26) = 4.4 = 440% of base

When you read raidloot's spell parser I would think of it as capping instrument modifiers at 320%, 340% or 360% (standard).

Interestingly, Arcane Melody is affected by instrument mods but only for the bard.

[44082/1627] Arcane Melody

Classes: BRD/105

Skill: Wind, Cap: 320

1: Cast: Arcane Melody Effect on Spell Use (100% Chance)

10: Add Melee Proc: Arcane Melody Strike with 400% Rate Mod

[44083/1627] Arcane Melody Rk. II

Classes: BRD/105

Skill: Wind, Cap: 340

1: Cast: Arcane Melody Effect II on Spell Use (100% Chance)

10: Add Melee Proc: Arcane Melody Strike II with 400% Rate Mod

[44084/1627] Arcane Melody Rk. III

Classes: BRD/105

Skill: Wind, Cap: 360

1: Cast: Arcane Melody Effect III on Spell Use (100% Chance)

10: Add Melee Proc: Arcane Melody Strike III with 400% Rate Mod

When my bard procs with Arcane Melody Rk. II, I do 533 * 4.4 = 2345 damage. Other group members do not get this bonus - only the bard.

This is not the case for most bard proc songs. For example:

[44067/1647] Fjilnauk's Song of Suffering

Classes: BRD/104

Skill: Singing

1: Add Skill Proc: Fjilnauk's Strike with 250% Rate Mod

[44068/1647] Fjilnauk's Song of Suffering Rk. II

Classes: BRD/104

Skill: Singing

1: Add Skill Proc: Fjilnauk's Strike II with 250% Rate Mod

[44069/1647] Fjilnauk's Song of Suffering Rk. III

Classes: BRD/104

Skill: Singing

1: Add Skill Proc: Fjilnauk's Strike III with 250% Rate Mod

This song uses Singing skill but has no mod cap; it's not modded.

These songs sadly are not affected by bard mods - they only do the base damage on the song. Even though Nilsara's Aria has a 320, 340, 360 modifier cap, they only do their base damage. They also are not focused by anything, but they can crit. These are unfortunately some of the lowest ADPS songs we have.

You're correct - these songs are not focused by instrument mods. The only difference is the general effect of rank 1 vs 3 - usually a better resist mod, or higher damage pets.

Pulse of Sionachie's focus does stack with worn focuses - you can have one worn, one AA and one spell focus. So a cleric with Pulse of Sionachie (+13% healing focus) that casts Flurry of Life (+35% healing focus) only gets the effect of Flurry of Life if both are up - otherwise they just get the +13% from Pulse. (and it's not modded)

I'm going to skip ahead and show you



There's also a list (that is the same results):

Bard Moddable Effects:

• Increase ____ Resist
• Decrease ____ Resist
• Increase AC (or ACv2) by #
• Decrease AC by #
• Increase Current HP by # per tick
• Decrease Current HP by # per tick
• Increase Current HP/M/End by # (considered a heal, not regen. This is a high level song)
• Increase STR/ATK/DS by #
• Increase Chance to Triple Attack by %
• Increase Chance to Flurry by %
• Increase Hit Damage by %
• Increase Movement Speed by %

NOT Bard Moddable:

• Increase Melee Haste (or v2 or v3) by %
• Increase Current Mana/Endurance by # per tick
• Increase Spell Damage Bonus by #
• Increase Spell Damage by %
• Increase Spell Damage Taken by #
• Add Skill Proc: ____
• Reduce Timer by #
• Cast: Arcane ___ or Add Proc*: Arcane ____
• Mesmerize
• Auras: the regen aura and overhaste aura are not modded, while their song counterparts are (partially)

Unknown (to me):

• Increase Pet Chance to Flurry by %
• Increase Min Hit Damage by %
• Decrease Movement Speed (snare)
• Decrease Melee Haste (slow)
• Absorb Spell Damage
• Memory Blur
• Decrease Damage Shield Taken by #
• Increase Chance to Resist Spell by %
• Stun NPC for # seconds
• Decrease Social Radius

A couple weird things are in this - Crescendo is not exactly modded - I don't know what effects it but it's not quite 4.2x base. Vainglorious Shout is similar in that it is modded but it's not fully modded.. how it's focused is unknown to me.

I should also point out that I did this a while ago and can't claim they are still current (not that developers like to play with bard code frequently). I'm suspicious that Triple Attack % and Flurry % may no longer be modded because of some parses on the last beta, but I haven't gotten around to testing them yet.

I played around with this a bit... I'm consistently getting 4.5 * Base + Heal Amount / 4 for Rank 3 and 4.4 * Base + Heal Amount / 4 for Rank 2. Round down on multiplication and division. Not sure if that lines up with the values you're seeing.

Vainglorious Shout debuff seems to be Base * 1.8 - 1. Not sure why...

Vainglorious Shout III = 65 * 1.8 - 1 = 116
Vainglorious Shout V = 110 * 1.8 - 1 = 197

Interestingly, 4.6 * Base + Heal Amount / 4 works for Gruber's Rank 3 instead of 4.5.

Thanks so much for that in depth answer. I could only manage to come up with one more follow up Question. (Usually I'm full of them )

People use aria and aura of Maetanrus because they stack.

What part of them stacks?

Also I guess raidloot is the go to spell data place now, eh. Lucy's values on some of the songs (most notably the ac. On spiteful) is different

About a year ago I parsed this, here are the results:

The important part is the Triple, Flurry and Double Flurry part near the bottom - it shows that Aura increases your Triple by 4%, Flurry by ~12% and Double Flurry by ~26%. When you play Aria and Aura together, Triple increases by 21%, Flurry by at least 15% and Double Flurry by at least 55% (total values uncertain because our Flurry % reached 100%). These values roughly line up with the song and aura stacking.

I am not sure this is the case any more because on beta I parsed the new Quick Time, and noticed our Triple % was much lower, and Flurry is as well. It may be that Flurry and Triple attack are no longer modded, or that the aura and song no longer stack - I'll parse it again when I have time.

circa 2022, Increase Min Hit Damage by % is instrument-modified.