Stoneskin on /whm

[Tradition]

Hey all, more stupid BRD questions from me. What's the "best" Stoneskin setup on BRD/WHM? I've recently capped Enhancing on my 37WHM and now I'm dicking around looking for a way to not get two-shotted when everyone decides to take part in Resist Lynn's Lullabies Day. So far I've got the following:

Water Staff
Errant everywhere else.

>_>;

Obvious thing that comes to mind is Suzy Q's shoes, but other than that I'm stumped. Also, should I try to wrangle an Enhancing Torque? They're pretty cheap, but I haven't the slightest as to whether +7 Enhancing is like... worth 30k.

[Thorny]

In a reasonable setup, you hit 3rd way of calculating SS:
[Enhancing skill + 3x MND] - 190 = actual stoneskin, capping at 350. A justice badge adds more to stoneskin than torque, and promise badge adds even more. Pride staff is 7 mnd, and costs 15k if you can find one up.. errant body/legs are good as well. Most of the stuff is pretty cheap, just stack MND everywhere you can.

[Olo401]

Chanter's Staff gives you MND+6 - 2 more than Water Staff - plus the extra singing skill for your buffs.

Enhancing Torque is a nice piece to have and is probably useful if you have plenty of MND+ gear, thought I'm not sure of the exact amount of damage mitigation using it would add (I'm terrible with the formulas in this game heh).

[Yojoyochenjo]

Edit: Odd, only posted about 1/3 of my post, but upon edit time I see this has been answered.

[Valyana]

Hume BRD/WHM needs 67+78 MND to cap Stoneskin. My current SS macro is 11 MND short, so I usually sing myself a Logical Etude first.

[Fredjan]

To give you an idea, you need MND in pretty much every slot to cap it.

I'm a hume BRD/WHM as well and I have capped stoneskin. MND+ in every slot will have a bigger impact than enhancing skill gear would, especially in my case below.

My setup has:

Pride Staff (+7)
Raptor Strap +1 (+2)
Yigit Turban (+4)
Promise Badge (+5)
Geist Earring (Don't have any MND+2 earrings yet. I never bothered, but I will once I have RDM up. I own a couple of these from my WHM's lower level capped gear.) + Loquacious Earring
Mahatma Houppelande (+11)
Devotte's Mitts +1 (+6)
Aqua Ring (+5)
Tamas Ring (+5)
Prism Cape (+4)
Penitent's Rope (+5)
Bard's Cannions (+8 )
Suzaku's Sune-Ate (+15)

There's some tweaks I want to make to it, such as getting an Aslan Cape from Einherjar and then using Kirin's Osode on my body slot for extra MP (I like having a decent amount of MP /WHM), while retaining the capped stoneskin.

It's difficult to fit that in with normal BRD gear, even with 70 slots, but it gets the job done.

[Midnightjade]

Good thread, I'm going to go out and get some of these pieces. Inventory space might be kind of an issue though.

Quick question - if you're wearing a lot of Errant when casting SS, doesn't the -VIT make you kind of fragile? You're looking at -12 for the body and legs.

I worry about trying to get SS back up in a tight spot wearing that kind of gear. I used to love my osode since it made me that much harder to take down as a BRD in a crowd control situation (osode + terra's + tacos ftw ^^).

Thanks.

[Tsuko_Asura]

Short answer; Nothing that's hitting you in a tight situation needs 12 VIT's help to hit you hard enough to worry.

[Rama]

Good thread, I'm going to go out and get some of these pieces. Inventory space might be kind of an issue though.

Quick question - if you're wearing a lot of Errant when casting SS, doesn't the -VIT make you kind of fragile? You're looking at -12 for the body and legs.

I worry about trying to get SS back up in a tight spot wearing that kind of gear. I used to love my osode since it made me that much harder to take down as a BRD in a crowd control situation (osode + terra's + tacos ftw ^^).

Thanks.

My advice: get what you can, make an effort to get the big chunks. If inventory is strained leave out things like earrings and grips. OMGCAPPED is nice, but as long as you make a reasonable effort, you'll easily clear 300+ in stoneskin mitigation. If you have access to Stone gorget from the promy NM, it is by far the best neck for stoneskin, but a pain in the ass to obtain. Also of note, If it's a slot where you're not carrying a MND+ piece, throw in some haste or fastcast gear to lower your recast.

As important as reaching a high (or capped) stoneskin figure is taking hits for less damage, to make it (and you) last longer. Idle in your terra's staff, and make a macro with some high defense/vit/-dmg% gear for when you expect to take some licks. Also eat a taco if you expect to take alot of physical dmg. Jelly ring and Cheviot/Umbra cape are an excellent start to -% dmg. Beyond those I personally go full-on vit/defense with the god gear set, substituting AF+1 hands instead of Seiryu's Kote. Another option is to go full-on -% dmg, using the Darksteel+1 set to complement jelly/umbra.

Because I have this gear pieced together, along with a strong stoneskin, I find myself hitting masses of sleepga'd mobs with a couple extra horde lullabies from a harp. This gives me more hate than the BLMs who slept them, and I can more easily shrug off the hits while they are re-slept, where a BLM in enfeebling gear would certainly be interrupted if not killed.

that got longer than expected, sorry.

[Bakthi]

A few more options I haven't seen mentioned:

Alkalurops (the best SS weapon, kind of hard to get unless you <3 the Pokemans...I'm working on it)
Morgana's Choker (2k away!)
Marduk's Dastanas (nice to swap in for looks or for regen too; I also use them on WHM to help counter Sublimation.)
Marduk's Jubbah (Yeah, I know. Clearly I spend too much on BRD.)
Goliard_Chapeau (less useless than BRD AF+1 head! I still use Yigit, as we're farming 80.)

My spreadsheet is...elsewhere, but I'm closing in on the cap, even as a Mithra. From what I recall, a MND necklace is definitely better than a +skill torque.

[Fredjan]

For each 1 point of MND you're roughly adding 3 points absorbed. For each 1 point of skill, it's like adding one absorbed point of damage.

Therefore, a MND necklace is definitely better than an enhancing torque.

EDIT: Casting stoneskin in -VIT gear shouldn't be a concern. That gear should be off after you cast Stoneskin anyways, with whatever gear you need for your next action on. If nothing, swap in -dmg% gear or high defense gear (like an earlier poster said, sky god gear has nice defense and HP on it).