Endgame Bard Equipment

[dhearic]

brd/blm is not very efficient for hnm fight, unless you got a lot of people for the fight. Cerberus is probably the only one which make brd/blm good to have.

[barber2006]

From Pchan's test:

Casting stone I on qiqirn poulterer, paying attention to always chose the ones with 65 INT and of the same level (230xp) :

elemental 246
No staff, INT 59+6, 29.6% success (1000 times)
HQ staff, INT 59+6, 44.3% succes (800 times)
Alkalurops, INT 59+6 (total 59+16), 44.4% succes (800 times)




It certainly seems neck and neck. For a brd I would argue that you are going to always be more than 10 CHR over the target mobs chr where in these tests the casters INT is not more than 10 over (I assume). If they are equal under the qiqirn conditions I would assume hq staves would inch ahead on brd since the CHR wouldn't help quite as much for BRD as the INT did in these tests. If this is true then perhaps the price tag is justified for enfeebling for the extra potency, but since elegy is a constant number I don't know if alk is worth the pricetag unless you get it for free from your ls.

[Ahlah]

BRD/BLM helps tremendously in low man HNM fight, try dark ixion and TAU beastman kings.

[The Blackrose]

BRD/BLM helps tremendously in low man HNM fight, try dark ixion and TAU beastman kings.

Except Elegy (or any Slow effect, for that matter) does nothing to DI.

[Tsuko_Asura]

How do people not know this? I've only tanked the thing once, and I could tell you that Slow does nothing.

[Zosi]

How do people not know this? I've only tanked the thing once, and I could tell you that Slow does nothing.

Placebo effect, I've lost count of how many times tanks have bugged me for Elegy (on other mobs) when it's already on because they didn't see it land and "feel" that the mob's attacking too fast as a result.

As for BRD/BLM versus BRD/WHM, it's kinda situational depending on the size of your group, other jobs, etc... but I've mostly found that it helps a lot more to have your tank keeping shadows up more than having a few hundred points of MP to cure them when they get interrupted because Elegy isn't on. That's on Cerb and Khim, I'll be the first to admit that going /BLM to Ixion is silly, although I still do it most of the time because my LS is stubborn. Doesn't make much of a difference either way there for me, I'm usually too busy handing out Pianissimo buffs to running tanks or DDs to cure much. Low-manning is probably different.

[Diamicles]

I suppose I fail to see the utility in being able to land a ~2 min song (w/o using other song extending abilities) using a 10 minute ability, maybe if you have multiple brds (edit: and/or multiple brd/blm) it would be more effective...but if you're relying on ES to land elegy, does that 2 minutes really make that much of a difference in long drawn out fights? Does using elegy for that 20% of time really cause a make or break difference in the fight? Seems that -na spells and a few cures here and there while spamming elegy to get it to stick would be just as effective.

[Drex]

Ele seal+troubadour+elegy lasts about 7 mins, if you have two brd/blms you can keep it on pretty much full time. The point of the ele seal is to make sure that the troubadour'd one lands. And yeah, guaranteed 50% slow helps your tanks and healers a lot more than the occasional na spell that another mage could have cast anyway.

[Natara]

I have played bard in HNM shell for a while and normally I am able to land elegy on anything including Cerb and Hydra. I don't have Alkalurops and no bard magic merit skills. Here are what I have been using.

Elegy (Modified from Your M Acc set)

Main: Terra's staff
Secondary: Earth Grip
Head: Marduk's Tiara
Body: Marduk's Jubbah
Hands: Choral Cuffs+1
Legs: Marduk's Shalwar
Feet: Oracle's Pigaches (No Shadow Clogs yet)
Neck: Wind Torque
Back: Astute Cape
Waist: Gleeman's Belt
Ring1: Omega Ring
Ring2: Insect Ring
Earring1:Musical Earring
Earring2: Singing Earring

The only real difference compared to your set is Singing earring. I do not have numbers or tests to prove, but I have bought and sold wind earring and singing earring quite a few times. And it's quite noticeable how singing earring is far better, even though my singing is already much higher than wind skill.


Lullaby

I think it depends on what you cast on. I wouldn't go with all recast reduction time spell to find out I get resisted. I used almost the same gears I use for Elegy except ofc staff and grip and I have Sheikh Gages which has Spell Recast -4. This is the set I use for Dynamis and Einherjar. I found that this set up let me lullaby just fine even with Harp. If your lullaby is solid, you don't really need to recast it that often.

For EXP party, it's ok to get haste gear in e.g. Walahra, Yigit body/Shair if you have one, Swift/Velo Belt, Loquacious Earring, Byakko's Haidate, Rostrum Pumps. I personally don't use JSE ring on anything. I like white HP, at least on my brd. ^^


Buffs For buffs, you need 2 sets. One for March (Loads SKILL GEARS ON ANY SLOTS POSSIBLE), and another for all other buffs. Most of the buffs are capped at a relatively low place. I think for Minuet you only need +12 skills over based (Not 100% sure about the number and lazy to look it up at the moment. ;p). But for March, the higher combines skills (sing + wind), the better tier you get.

http://wiki.bluegartr.com/Victory_March

So here are my set ups for buffs:


March 12 out of 16 slots are skill gears! :D

Main: Chanter's staff
Secondary: Bugard Strap+1
Head: Marduk's Tiara
Body: Minstrel's coat
Hands: Choral Cuffs+1
Legs: Choral Cannions +1
Feet: Oracle's Pigaches
Neck: Wind Torque
Back: Astute Cape
Waist: Gleeman's Belt
Ring1: Nereid Ring
Ring2: Nereid Ring
Earring1:Musical Earring
Earring2: Singing Earring


For all other buffs, you can prolly use the same gear you used for Lullaby/Exp party set up, except Macro in Terra's staff instead. It's the ultimate idle piece, dmg reduction is helpful some time. Go with tons of haste gears as long as you can have +12 over based. The faster you can sing, the better for you to do your jobs. So you can run out of AOE range faster when you sing for melees (think Odin's AOE ;c) and you will also have much free time between songs to help with cure, -na, blink/stoneskin yourself etc.

Hope this help!

[Diamicles]

Ele seal+troubadour+elegy lasts about 7 mins, if you have two brd/blms you can keep it on pretty much full time. The point of the ele seal is to make sure that the troubadour'd one lands. And yeah, guaranteed 50% slow helps your tanks and healers a lot more than the occasional na spell that another mage could have cast anyway.

It lasts 6 minutes with Troubadour buff. ((180sec * 2)/60) Which you could do once every 15 minutes (or 10 minutes if you have max merits on this). Which really proves that it isn't that feasible to go brd/blm on stuff that resists elegy a lot if you don't have 2+ brd/blm in the ally.

Natara, I'd say that your gear is pretty well build (better than my debuffing gear), and if you aren't landing elegy with that on then the only way for it to be effective is to use ES to land it, which is where the debate over effectiveness of brd/blm for long fights comes in.

[Ahlah]

BRD and SMN are the 2 jobs that eat up most of the storage space in my mog house. I only keep enough skill/chr gear to land lullaby on mamool/colibri. Sub BLM if struggle to land elegy. Marduk Jubbah is pretty useless to a BRD/BLM and costs a lot more. I will still get it if I have the money to spend only because I can get rid of noble/osode and put Yigit Gomlek in storage.

[Natara]

BRD and SMN are the 2 jobs that eat up most of the storage space in my mog house. I only keep enough skill/chr gear to land lullaby on mamool/colibri. Sub BLM if struggle to land elegy. Marduk Jubbah is pretty useless to a BRD/BLM and costs a lot more. I will still get it if I have the money to spend only because I can get rid of noble/osode and put Yigit Gomlek in storage.

I hardly sub /blm on anything. I tried once at Hydra just for fun and we had like 15 poeple to kill it so I didn't think I need to back up -na, and cure. ;x (this was a while ago though, when people were still killing it ;P)... It's nice to be able to land with ES 100% guarantee, but I felt useless for the next 9:45 mins after. Not able to stoneskin or blink yourself is pretty bad as brd has to run in and sing songs to melees all the time.

P.S. I'm actually doing this random post to get myself 25 posts so I can post in advanced player section.

[Ahlah]

Actually my point is it's probably not worth going all out to get all the gear mentioned in this thread because any HNM that resist elegy enough to warrants those gear can be easily dealt with by subbing BLM. Hydra is a poor example tbh.

[FailureMidgard]

It lasts 6 minutes with Troubadour buff. ((180sec * 2)/60) Which you could do once every 15 minutes (or 10 minutes if you have max merits on this). Which really proves that it isn't that feasible to go brd/blm on stuff that resists elegy a lot if you don't have 2+ brd/blm in the ally.

Natara, I'd say that your gear is pretty well build (better than my debuffing gear), and if you aren't landing elegy with that on then the only way for it to be effective is to use ES to land it, which is where the debate over effectiveness of brd/blm for long fights comes in.

Thought it was 180sec +18sec per +1 on instrument...so with a Horn+1 it's actually 180+36=216, 216x2=432, which is 7minutes and 12 seconds.

Even with 1 bard and maxed out Troubador (which lines up ES and Troub's CD perfectly).../blm seems like it can be worth it...you lose a few random things, that as people said, others can cover, and gain a guaranteed 72% uptime on Elegy. Also, after ~5minutes have passed, you can start spamming Elegy (as long as the current duration is less than 216 seconds) and hope you get lucky, overwriting the remaining cooldown. Even with only 1 brd, /blm should help your elegy's uptime significantly (assuming 5/5 Troub).

[Tsuko_Asura]

If its that difficult to get two Bards at an event, you should really reevaluate your roster.

That said, no amount of -na, regen, or healing from a Bard is going to make the difference that full-time, no questioned asked Elegy is going to make.

[Diamicles]

HNMs are really a different beast...

In the events that I normally go to (instanced stuff primarily, not kings), my lame ass gear sticks elegy way more often than not.

[Bakthi]

I have better gear than I see on a lot of BRDs who have Gjallarhorn (which I don't), and I do kind of feel like it has been a waste gathering it all. I do notice the difference, but damn it takes up a lot of room, some days I wish I could trade in my Salvage body, and I'm not that interested in playing BRD anymore. Even if I want to buff people, COR is a much more interesting job to me now.

Full Marduk is cool and all, and I make use of it, but full Morrigan's would make a much bigger difference to my BLM. Too bad that a year and a half ago, I never envisioned myself leveling it, didn't think I'd be sick of BRD, didn't see Ixion Cloak coming, etc.

Just some pessimistic ramblings to darken your quest for better BRD gear; don't mind me.

[Natara]

Actually my point is it's probably not worth going all out to get all the gear mentioned in this thread because any HNM that resist elegy enough to warrants those gear can be easily dealt with by subbing BLM. Hydra is a poor example tbh.

You don't really need to spend that much effort really. It wasn't that hard to land elegy even without marduk tiara and jubbah as long as you have hands and legs af1 +1, torque, earring, and HQ staff. You can also Etude yourself some extra CHR, I find it very helpful.

[Linliel]

Full Marduk is cool and all, and I make use of it, but full Morrigan's would make a much bigger difference to my BLM. Too bad that a year and a half ago, I never envisioned myself leveling it, didn't think I'd be sick of BRD, didn't see Ixion Cloak coming, etc.

Just some pessimistic ramblings to darken your quest for better BRD gear; don't mind me.

Poor Bakthi ... at least my "I got tired of Bard" job (WHM) uses some of my BRD gear ^^;

Though I'm sufficiently behind the times these days to not have much of the basic BRD gear that was introduced in the last year >_>; go go break for study, heh.

[Ahlah]

You don't really need to spend that much effort really. It wasn't that hard to land elegy even without marduk tiara and jubbah as long as you have hands and legs af1 +1, torque, earring, and HQ staff. You can also Etude yourself some extra CHR, I find it very helpful.

I don't think you get my point lol.