BM smallmen

1. Spec
You can go piercing as well as blades. Spec is same. 50CD/42shield and then 39 blades or piercing.
You can reduce 1h weaponline as you gain rr.
If you go piercing, just make it composite 52 and put leftovers on parry. (ie, at rr5, piercing to 37+15 and rest to parry)
If you go blades, you have 2 options. One is too reduce blades just as same as piercing.
Second is to hold 39 blades regardless of rr, to keep 39 blades anytime 30% haste debuff chain.
It's up to you.

Piercing has an advantage against chain armor targets such as primary healers(cleric/healer) and speed classes(minstrel/skalds), etc.
Blades is neutral to all alb players and you have an advantage against mid stealthers and light tanks.
It's really up to you, but I think piercing could be pretty nice choice on smallman,
cuz most of the smallman enemies you'll encounter will include at least one speed classes(minstrel/skald).
Just my 2 cents thou.

2. charges
You don't need s/c, d/q charges on Phoenix. Just use composite forces barrels and it'll cover all your stats.
Instead, you should prepare abla charge. Buy an accessory that has 150/50% delve from feather merchant.
You should also buy Heart of Legion that has charge of 230 heal value.

3. Potions and Items
- composite forces barrel : bard can't cover spec s/c, d/q and haste
- endu pot(endu3/10min) : for perma sprint
- endu pot(80% gain) : sometimes this will be your lifesaver
- Instant heal pot(180 value) or normal heal pot(230 value): charge and pot do not share reuse time, so you should prepare both, pot and charge.
- stealth lore pot : you will need this for searching ssin targets that used vanish

4. Weapons
This will depend on your spec, but basic idea of this is to use slowest mainhand and fastest offhand weapon.
Reaching speed cap(1.5sec) will be nice, of course, but I personally think that's what you try with RAs(MoA, AugQui, etc...)
So, if you use blades, use 4.2/2.5 and if pierce use 3.9/2.2(or 2.4 is also ok).
Prepare a pair(mh/oh) of at least 99% qual ROG weapons with lifetap.
ROGs are better than crafted gears cuz LT is always better than DD in terms of proc.

And then you "can" prepare more feather weapons that has s/c or d/q procs, and swap mainhand while fighting.
(actually the sequence should be 1.wield debuff weapons and then 2.switch to LT weapons when it procs)
Blades has d/q debuff weapon and piercing has s/c debuff weapon.
But... will this be manageable in the chaos of fights?
Your primary things to focus on should be switching shield/offhand and using the right style to the right target.

You can also prepare weapons that has DoT procs, but remember bleeds/dots can break snare and CC.
I wouldn't use dot proc weapons unless I solo.

So... In conclusion,
switching weapons, up to 4(stat debuff, feather dot, crafted dot, LT), will be very crucial when you solo,
but just preparing a pair of mh/oh with LT would be enough for grp play imo,
Maybe more experienced BMs would think differently thou XD

5. Shield
Your main shield will be crafted small shield that has 2.8 speed. Apply a 11.3 dmg add proc on it.
If you have enough feathers, preparing dragon medium shield with 3.0 speed and swapping with small shield sometimes can help.
Medium shield has advantages on guarding your grpmate against melee assist, and against ranged attacks(bow).
But if you duo with bard all the time, you can just neglect medium shield i guess.


hm... what did i miss?
Not sure.. Maybe other BMs could also give more useful information!
GL!