The Repertoire in Final Fantasy XIV is a game mechanic available only to bards, and it works kind of like a buff to certain bard abilities. You can stack this Repertoire effect to a max of three times, and stacking (naturally) increases more of this “buff”.
To go into more detail: when a bard learns Mage’s Ballad it’ll get the Song Gauge. This Song Gauge is imperative to tracking Repertoire, because Repertoire is more like a buff that Bards can have, if they use their abilities correctly.
Essentially, if you use your Damage Over Time attacks as a Bard, there’s a chance you’ll be granted Repertoire.
Depending on which song you’re playing, Repertoire will provide different effects.
And the Song Gauge will show you how long until you lose Repertoire’s effect.
Army’s Paeon will also reduce weaponskill cast time and recast time.
You can have up to four stacks of repertoire, and each one will make the effects more potent.
If you use Wanderer’s Minuet instead, repertoire might grant you use of Pitch Perfect. This ability does more damage based on how many stacks of Repertoire you have.
Wanderer’s Minuet can only stack three Repertoires, though.
Later on, after your Bard has acquired the Soul Voice trait, you’ll unlock the Soul Voice Gauge.
This gauge increases in tandem with Repertoire – and you use it up by using Apex Arrow.
Long story short, what all of this means is that mastering the Repertoire buff is going to be instrumental (get it?) in being a powerful Bard.
It’s a lot to process, and will require a lot of practice with your Bard. But give it some time and you’ll be tracking your Repertoire (and how many stacks of it you have) with relative ease.
There are also a ton of other effects that Repertoire has that we don’t need to get into here. These are mostly statistical buffs to other abilities, and damage dealt based on how many stacks you have at any given time.
Unless you plan on seriously raiding, I wouldn’t sweat the math on those.
