Some BRD Mechanics Testing

[Teleniel]

I believe there are 5 *types* of damage you can do as far as the game registers them.
1: Slashing (melee only, debuff applied by warrior)
2: Blunt (melee only, debuff applied by monks)
3: Piercing (melee and ranged, debuff applied by Dragoon)
4: 'unaspected' (Shadow Flare, Freeze, Flaming Arrow, DOT-ticks but not initial damage hit)
5: Magical
-- White Mage : Stone, Stone II, Aero, Aero II, Holy
-- Black Mage : Fire, Fire II, Fire III, Blizzard, Blizzard II, Blizzard III, Thunder, Thunder II, Thunder III, Flare
-- Summoner : Ruin, Ruin II, Bio, Bio II, Miasma, Miasma II, Tri-Disaster

I make this assumption based on the active debuffs that can be applied, and turn 4 psudo-stoneskin mechanics.
1: Stoneskin (Physical) blocks bard-attacks including those with elemental descriptors
2: Stoneskin (Magical) does NOT block DoT-ticks
3: Neither Stoneskin (Magical) or (Physical) block ground-target damage
4: Basic Stoneskin DOES block all types of damage
5: Warrior, Monk and Dragoon all have resistance down to different physical attacks.


So starting with all that in mind, I believe that Foe's Requiem will affect "Magical" damage done by Conj/Whm, Acn/Smn/Sch and Thm/Blm, however it will not affect ground-target affects. This would put it on line with affecting the same spells which interact with Stoneskin (magical).

Mage's Ballad and Army's Peon both work as intended, they will return MP/TP to the bard while the song is being sung, and will reduce the bards damage by 20%.

Battle voice is working as intended on Ballad, Peon and Requiem. Battle voice does not affect the bard, but doubles the songs affects for other party members.

Swift song works as intended any member not currently in combat, where in combat is defined as having an enemy on the "enemies list" even if no action has been taken. (good example of this is when it falls off at the start of boss battles).