Bard CHR/macc/skill

[barber2006]

WotG has intruduced quite a bit of macc gear for bard. For the first time, bard can equip a resonable amount of magic accuracy gear but I have yet to see any reports on what should be a priority out of macc/chr/skill. I realize this will no doubt change in different situations based on the level and attributes of the mob being fought. However, concerning debuffs their has to be a 'best' setup and I'd really like to work my way toward finding it. I've found just a few pieces of information so far, but it hasn't helped all that much and with so much macc gear for bard coming from einherjar I simply don't have access to it atm. Right now I'm just assuming that it follows the same rules as accuracy gear does for melee, but may be way off base.


Here are a few pieces of contention as far as gear sets go just to put them all in one place. This may not format right since I'm an old man and computers are foreign to me........



Head:

Shadow Hat RareExclusive
[Head] All Races
DEF: 18 MP +35
Magic Accuracy +5 Enmity -3
Physical Damage Taken +3%

vs.

Bard's Roundlet RareExclusive
[Head] All Races
DEF: 19 HP +13 CHR +5
Singing skill +5 Enmity -3

or

Marduk's Tiara RareExclusive
[Head] All Races
DEF: 17 MP +4% MND +3 CHR +3
Divine magic skill +7 Singing skill +7
Summoning magic skill +7 Enmity -3




Rings:


Balrahn's Ring RareExclusive
[Ring] All Races
Magic Accuracy +4
Assault:
INT +4 MND +4 CHR +4
Adds "Refresh" effect

or

Omega Ring RareExclusive
[Ring] All Races
INT +3 MND +3 CHR +3 Magic Accuracy +3


vs.


Nereid ring
[Ring] All Races
Wind instrument skill +3




Body:

Shadow coat RareExclusive
[Body] All Races
DEF: 38 Magic Accuracy +10 Enmity -4
Physical damage taken +6%
Magic damage taken -3%


vs.


Marduk's Jubbah RareExclusive
[Body] All Races
DEF: 40 HP +3% MP +3% MND +12 CHR +12
Enhances Fast Cast effect
Adds Refresh effect
Set: Enhances Fast Cast effect




Light Grip
(Grip) All Races
Converts 20 HP to MP
Light Elemental Magic Accuracy +2


vs.


Bugard Strap +1
All Races
MP +10 INT +1 MND +1 CHR +1



Feet:


Goliard Clogs RareExclusive
[Feet] All Races
DEF: 19 DEX +4 INT +4 MND +4
CHR +4 Evasion +5
MP recovered while healing +3
Magic Accuracy +2
Set: "Magic Def. Bonus"


vs.


Oracle's Pigaches RareExclusive
[Feet] All Races
DEF: 13 HP +15 MP +25
Wind Instrument Skill +5
MP Recovered While Healing +2




I'm not really concerned with what is the 'better' piece overall (i.e. the bonus marduk body gives to mp pool and fast cast) because each of those pieces can be situationally placed to gain the greatest benefit from them. What I would like to know (and either a lot of people are in the same boat with me or everyone knows the answer and it goes without saying) is which of these setups is absolutely best for debuffs. Along those lines, if anyone has run across any testing on CHR or skill floors that would be nice to see (for example, if someone found if you only have 85 CHR you would have a base resist rate of 20% on VT+ no matter the amount of skill gear you piled on).


I know that once my bard was merited and well geared it seemed like debuffs would either stick nearly all the time (merit mobs) or it was a crapshoot. But it would be nice to hear some testimonials from people who have some of the macc gear to its effectiveness.........

[fishstix]

For bard, unless this will be your only main job that you focus on, I wouldn't worry too much. That being said, if you wanted to anyways, I'd merit wind/singing skill to 8, CHR to 5, and then get every piece that I could I'm not sure what your LS is like, but for me, it'd be difficult to get any shadow gear from einherjar. Magic accuracy in general is hard to quantify and test imo.

You're right though, usually either debuffs land or they dont. I don't do HNMs, in merit parties, you should be okay with average gear sleeping mobs. If you have trouble sleeping things, I would definitely go for the Light grip. In salvage, it's hard to gauge which is best without just doing it yourself because each situation is different. Do you have CHR unlocked, weapons, which armor slots. Today, I landed requiem on the 3F east rampart of SSR and I was like, hey cool. I recently got Goliard Cuffs and wanted to test them out (which you didnt mention ^^) m.acc4 vs Chr. Cuffs CHR+7 Singing skill+10. I don't know if the m.acc helped let it land vs the af hands, or if it was just luck, or if it's easy to land because I don't try to land it often.

Honestly, use what you can get because they come from different aspects of the game. If you can get both pieces, try to land a debuff in m.acc gear with skill gear in other slots that you can. If it misses and you should be able to land it, swap it out for the alternative and cast again in 15 seconds, no biggie You'll want all the +skill gear anyways to cap the haste % of march.

My debuff setup for stuff that's tricky to land is:
weapon: apollo/terra
sub: bugard+1
head: bard's roundlet +1
neck: star necklace (should be a wind torque >.>)
earring: loq. earring/melody +1 (should be a musical earring)
body: yigit body/errant for chr (dont have marduk/sha'ir)
hands: choral cuffs +1 (have goliard cuffs but havent tested much yet)
rings: Balrahns/nereid (i could've gotten an omega's ring, but i picked gleeman's cape for my blm instead)
back: jester's cape +1
waist: gleeman's belt
legs: choral cannions +1
feet: goliard clogs (don't have oracle's)

This is looking at (if i counted right, is 3am..) :
singing skill +15
wind skill +11
chr +43
m.acc +6

All of this is relatively free or cheap, depending on your LS, well limbus fees... but like I said, use what you can get your hands on and don't worry too much. If they REALLY need you to stick something, you'd probably sub blm, otherwise, you don't need much gear to sing ballad xD (a joke, dont kill me)

[Eldelphia]

If I had the gear I wanted I'd prolly go

Marduk's Tiara, jubbah, omega + Nereid ring and then both feet depending on what you were doing... and your other gear nd merits. I love my goliard but I should probably work on oracles.

I currently own bard's roundlet/osode/Nereid ring/balrahn's/wind torque/musical+loq earrings/gleeman's belt/jesters +1/af+1 hands and legs. I now have a tonne of chr so want to replace my cape with the sea cape. But BRD is my second job - much as I love it.

[barber2006]

Well, partially why I'm asking before rounding up all the gear is that while I'm willing to put in the 100-200 hours soloing/dual-boxing at ix'drg, I really don't want to if it won't be beneficial. I'm already using less CHR gear than in the past. Heaven's rings have been traded in for nereids, shair feet for oracles, etc. If I were to go one step further and lose another 10 CHR from errant body/osode for a shadow body (which I can have access to since our ls does straight points so long as you can equip), then thats 24 CHR I'll be losing from my setup.

But more than just trying to tweak my personal setup, I'm really just curious. I'll run some tests when I get a few more macc pieces, but in the meantime its just something I'd like to know.

[fishstix]

People say in general, to have 110 total CHR, I think. I used to have a Sha'ir manteel, downgrading to the yigit body, I didn't take a huge hit in performance, but I do notice occasionally, the loss of 7 CHR. Although, like I said, if you wanted to be the best bard, you'll want the Astute cape and nereids ring 2x regardless of if it's the best for debuffs, due to wind/singing skill capping out march haste%.

[Curcio]

People say in general, to have 110 total CHR, I think. I used to have a Sha'ir manteel, downgrading to the yigit body, I didn't take a huge hit in performance, but I do notice occasionally, the loss of 7 CHR. Although, like I said, if you wanted to be the best bard, you'll want the Astute cape and nereids ring 2x regardless of if it's the best for debuffs, due to wind/singing skill capping out march haste%.

Well, what I've always figured is in a pulling macro for BRD, when applicable, you generally want two pieces of body gear:

One for Song Casting -% at the beginning of the cast.
The second macro'd in sometime after the cast is started that applies +CHR or +Skill to help land the debuff.

This would generally lead to having Yigit/Shair/Marduks at the start of the cast, and following up with whatever debuff body you use, be it Errant/Minstrel's/Choral.

Of course, something like Sha'ir can be used maintime because of both casting time and CHR properties, though it'd still probably be in your best interest to macro in a better piece for the debuffs.

And back on topic of Skill vs. CHR vs. MAcc, it's still being tested and debated. MAcc is a an iffy thing to test, but on the topic of CHR vs. Skill (Like in the event of a Goliard Clogs vs. Oracle's) it's all about ballance. Can you effectively replace CHR+4, MAcc+2, and Eva+5 Def:19 for Wind Skill+5 Mp+25? It seems to me like Goliard Clogs are an all around better piece, but if you can replace that CHR/MAcc in another spot then by all means do so. Remember you can always Etude yourself to make up for lost CHR.

This is still a brand new concept to me, and all my ideas are just specuation on my part, so take it for what it's worth.

[Jones]

People say in general, to have 110 total CHR, I think. I used to have a Sha'ir manteel, downgrading to the yigit body, I didn't take a huge hit in performance, but I do notice occasionally, the loss of 7 CHR. Although, like I said, if you wanted to be the best bard, you'll want the Astute cape and nereids ring 2x regardless of if it's the best for debuffs, due to wind/singing skill capping out march haste%.

IMO I've always had best results with this. Get 110-120 CHR, then pile on as much Skill/Acc. as you can. I currently count them as equal, so Nereid's = Omega (unless you are using the 3 CHR on Omega to get to 110+) in my book, but I think it's up to each BRD to play around and figure out what's best for them.

I know for my gear I try to get the best "all-around" gear or "multi-purpose" gear that I can. So Marduk's Shalwar > Choral Cannions+1 b/c the 10 CHR and 5 skill are more useful than just the 8 skill to me. I can use the pants to both reach my CHR bound and still have some decent skill on them. I also can use them in my curing/buffing set for the -Enmity, not to mention the tiny MP they also give. (Although I do still keep my Choral Cannions+1 around b/c they let me break another March tier without having to keep that silly Minstrel's Coat around.) In the end, it's really all about consolation of my various gear sets while maintaining solid performance.

If you want the absolute best piece for every scenario, just get them all and come back and tell us what's best.

[Sylphet]

Generally speaking (that means this is "what people say" and there has not been any conclusive testing done on this) 2(attribute)= 1 skill = 1macc.

The reason people say this is because of how attributes correlate with skill in for other jobs (e.g. 2STR = 1 att, 2AGI = 1 racc etc) so we assume it works similarly for BRD. Magic accuracy is much more of a pain in the ass to test than melee or ranged accuracy so people don't tend to take the initiative to do it. Also, I'm not 100% convinced of the 1skill = 1macc thing for BRD since BRD songs use both singing and wind/string skill so is it equivalent to 1 point in each skill? (effectively adding 2 skill to total) or is it just one?

Here are some general guidelines though, some based in things that are known and some based on my personal experience/opinion.

First, you should always be using a combination of wind/string and singing skill for buffs unless you have already reached cap (e.g. Minuet cap is easily reached w/o much additional skil) or unless it doesn't matter (e.g. Ballads).

For debuffing mobs I use a combination of different gear sets depending on the situation. In merits I usually pull in full haste/fast cast gear with a debuffing song (elegy/finale/threnody) and lets face it, it's not the end of the world if you get resisted on one of those in merits (lullaby is a different story). For HNMs however I use a special gear set that is very heavy on macc.

Assuming that it is true that 2 CHR = 1 skill = 1 macc, then for the gear choices you have listed the choice for landing debuffs would be:

Head: Marduk's tiara over AF2 (by a hair)

Rings: Omega is fantastic for BRD and I use it full time unless I need the wind skill from Nereid's. Balrahn's Ring is an excellent 2nd ring for debuffing (I don't personally have one but if I did I would equip it for debuffing - it also has the advantage of working with stringed instruments as well as wind).

Body: Shadow Coat is in my opinion the best BRD body in the game for casting debuffs. I have recently obtained one and I will be using it for debuffs in HNM situations over Marduk body. Marduk is a fantastic alternative though.

Grips: 2macc > 1 CHR. BRD has it pretty easy with these. We only really need earth and light grips.

Feet: You forgot shadow feet! I am lucky enough to have the HQ for that which gives 6 CHR and 3 macc (5 CHR and 2 macc on NQ). Oracles are fantastic however as the only feet with wind skill. I don't have oracle's yet but eventually I'll get them. I will for sure use them for buffs and I will probably stick with Valkyrie for debuffs.

Testing:

This has actually gotten me thinking about trying to do a definitive test on macc vs skill. I have almost every piece of macc and skill gear that BRD can equip so would be able to pile them both on. When taking pictures for Zeni I've noticed my sleeps get resisted a fair amount without an instrument. In this situation the ability to sleep is based solely on singing skill. Sleeping the same mob repeatedly in different gear sets and determining how often you miss sleep in different sets should be able to give you a reasonable relationship between CHR/skill/macc. It's something I'd be interested in figuring out however I'm always short on time and this kind of thing requires a lot of time

[akireki]

I was just wondering what exactly are the different caps of skill for each song or where would I look to know?

(*ps. Nuby question I know heh)

[Leeto]

If you wanted to be REALLY nit picky about it...


IMO:
Terra/Apollo, Light/Earth strap
Tiara WindTorque Musical WindEarring
ShadowCoat AF2+1 Balrahns Omega
Jester+1 Gleeman's Shalwar Oracle's

A few notes:

I don't know if Jubbah is better than Coat, but I've noticed can land elegy in considerably fewer tries on tough mobs with Coat than I could with Hpl. (mostly FL assaults). I don't think 2 CHR would change that but obviously I can't quantify it.

Jester's +1 >>>>>>> Astute. Seriously, don't elegy or lullaby in Astute. I have both, I started using Astute in my exp setup when I got it and I seriously noticed a lot of resists, and it was the only change in gear I had made in a long time (when I switched I went from ~120 to ~110 CHR). If you're going to drop CHR, don't drop such a ginormous chunk of it unless the gain is equally ginormous.

I don't have AF2+1 gloves but I'd imagine if you dropped the CHR from AF1+1 that you'd need to make it up somewhere else, since you'd end up being dangerously close to 100. So I dunno about that slot really.

[Sylphet]

I was just wondering what exactly are the different caps of skill for each song or where would I look to know?

(*ps. Nuby question I know heh)

Wiki has pretty good pages for some of the songs showing the correlation between skill (combined skill) and caps.

Example: for Valor Minuet IV (from: http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Valor_Minuet_IV )
* +54 Attack at 450 combined skill (natural skill cap for BRD75)
* +54 Attack at 454 combined skill
* +55 Attack at 457
* +55 Attack at 461
* +56 Attack at 462 (+12 skill)
* +56 Attack at 488
* +56 Attack at 529 (+79 skill)— so it seems that +56 is the cap.
* Cornette +1 adds +5 Attack.
* Each Merit upgrade of Minuet effect adds +1 Attack.
* +66 Attack, is the hard cap.

However one of the most important songs is Victory March and Kirschy has spent a lot of time and effort into analyzing haste in FFXI and determined that it does not have a hard cap in the same way as Minuet does. For some reason the link to the post with the chart showing the march tiers in it in it isn't working right now but here's a link to one that came before that (I think) http://bluegartr.com/forum/showthread.php?t=52417 . There's more out there on haste, you just need to dig around for it. The important point to remember is that it's the combined skill (i.e. singing + wind) that will determine cap and there are tiers to it but there has not been a hard cap found because at that point we reach a cap in possible gear. It's not going to be a huge game-breaking difference because the end result is adding a few more swings in a melee party but for those of us who choose to play to the maximum potential it matters.

P.S. I didn't notice any change in my performance when changing from Jester's +1 to Astute. If it's true that 2CHR = 1 skill, they should in theory be equal but once again that requires testing to prove that.

[Bakthi]

I have Bard's Cuffs +1, but I'm not sure why you'd want to use them over Choral Cuffs +1 for uh...anything. I guess macroing them in for the -4 enmity could help, although now I just use Marduk for that.

[Skjie]

Bard's Cuffs +1 are great for -enmity and not looking horrible when you're idling.

[akireki]

Wiki has pretty good pages for some of the songs showing the correlation between skill (combined skill) and caps.

Example: for Valor Minuet IV (from: http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Valor_Minuet_IV )
* +54 Attack at 450 combined skill (natural skill cap for BRD75)
* +54 Attack at 454 combined skill
* +55 Attack at 457
* +55 Attack at 461
* +56 Attack at 462 (+12 skill)
* +56 Attack at 488
* +56 Attack at 529 (+79 skill)— so it seems that +56 is the cap.
* Cornette +1 adds +5 Attack.
* Each Merit upgrade of Minuet effect adds +1 Attack.
* +66 Attack, is the hard cap.

However one of the most important songs is Victory March and Kirschy has spent a lot of time and effort into analyzing haste in FFXI and determined that it does not have a hard cap in the same way as Minuet does. For some reason the link to the post with the chart showing the march tiers in it in it isn't working right now but here's a link to one that came before that (I think) http://bluegartr.com/forum/showthread.php?t=52417 . There's more out there on haste, you just need to dig around for it. The important point to remember is that it's the combined skill (i.e. singing + wind) that will determine cap and there are tiers to it but there has not been a hard cap found because at that point we reach a cap in possible gear. It's not going to be a huge game-breaking difference because the end result is adding a few more swings in a melee party but for those of us who choose to play to the maximum potential it matters.

P.S. I didn't notice any change in my performance when changing from Jester's +1 to Astute. If it's true that 2CHR = 1 skill, they should in theory be equal but once again that requires testing to prove that.

Thanks a bunch!