Bard: Chr vs Skill vs Macc?

[TelosIllumini]

S I've been searching around as my bard is scaling its levels, and I'm getting kind of confused, as though many guides hint at that a combination of chr and singing skill + instrument skill affect your macc, I am drawing a blank on how much.

For the most part I've been assuming that roughly macc of songs is based on a similar system to macc of a black mages spells through int/skill, but bard's macc is a combination of two different skills...

Also, what other key differences are their between string and wind? I see often that guides generally recommend wind over strings because there is more wind skill gear aviaible? I'm not quite sure?

Also apparantly string instruments have logner range? How much is this? A noticable amount?

Ignoring the two pages of String QQing, I find this an interesting question.

I have been assuming the same thing, that for let's say, the macc for elegy is determined by the target's CHR vs your chr + singing + instrument skill (in this case, wind instrument since you're using Horn +1) and bonus macc from your staves.

In light of this, I have been maintaining a rough 110 CHR (similar to the BLM formula, not hard for elvaan brd) and rest on Singing + Instrument skill when landing debuffs. I'm only speaking from personal experience (which, I must admit, is fairly limited) but this setup has proved to work out the best for me in events such as Limbus, Dynamis,... On the very few HNM I have done (ToAU, lolJormungand, Vrtra and DI), I was always told to come /BLM for ES Troubadour Elegy so I can not give you any hard facts.

To respond to key differences vs wind and string, gear is one of those things. As has been pointed out, the range on your instrument differs depending on the type.
Then there is also the fact that there are more (actively used!) songs that benefit from wind instrument skill due to the associated instrument available, which is probably why the bias leans to wind over string.
Personally, I use Mary's Horn for single target sleep and Nursemaid's Harp for AoE sleep due to the range and I have little to no issues with resists (in Dynamis, Einherjar and Limbus) with a fairly standard set (no marduk). For other songs that don't have an instrument associated with (excluding G horn) such as Ballad, I use Angel Lyre instead, yummy haste and nice range <3

It would be nice to see some more testing regarding a BRD's macc, although it wouldn't surprise me if it was indeed similar to a BLM's. I'd be very interested to see a formula produced, I'd do it myself if I were a maths person .

In conclusion, I can only speak from personal experience and this is what currently works for me. I don't mind if my assumptions would be proven wrong, if that would be the case, I can only better myself from it.

Much love to all~ <3

[Mirya]

How is it that people feel String gear is so hard to come by? String Torque (7), Musical Earring (5), String Earring (3), Choral Justacorps+1 (6), Bard's Slippers (3), and Erato's Cape (4) are all fairly easy to come by from AH, Limbus, City Dynamis, and a T1 ZNM. That is 28 skill right there. (To be fair, I use Jester's+1 or Astute over Erato's though.) You can upgrade to Marduk's Crackows, but Dekka can be a bastard so I wouldn't consider that "easy to come by."

Compare that to the easily attainable Wind gear: Wind Torque (7), Musical Earring (5), Wind Earring (3), Minstrel's Coat (3), Bard's Cuffs (3), Nereid Rings x 2 (6), Choral Cannions+1 (8 ), Oracle's Pigaches (5). A total of 42 potential skill, but you likely wouldn't be using the Coat, Cuffs or Rings (and maybe not the feet) for debuffs, so realistically a standard Wind debuff set is more around 23-28 skill.

So, realistically the easily obtainable String gear is equal to the easily obtainable Wind gear you would actually use for debuffs. The argument that String gear is non-existent or hard to come by just doesn't hold up. The fact is, Nursemaid's harp is a useful tool for BRDs. Yes, you need with capped String skill and String gear, but if you consider yourself an end-game BRD and you don't have either, you are just lazy. (Certainly I can see why the meripo-only BRD or the I-leveled-BRD-for-Maat's-cap player would have inventory/time issues that would prohibit having capped skill and appropriate gear, but that isn't really who we are talking about, is it?)

Don't get me wrong, I don't use Nursemaid's for all my Lullaby casts. I have 3 macro's for Lullaby: Mary's horn/Foe, Mary's horn/Horde, and Nursemaid's/Horde. (Considering how melees tweak their acc in their TP and WS sets for different mobs or whether Feint is up, is having a few different macros for Lullaby unreasonable? I don't think so.) Considering I do a fair amount of Dynamis and am the mainpuller/crowd controller in our LS' Einherjar, the Nursemaid's/Horde combo is useful.

[Eldelphia]

Personally, I use Mary's Horn for single target sleep and Nursemaid's Harp for AoE sleep due to the range and I have little to no issues with resists (in Dynamis, Einherjar and Limbus) with a fairly standard set (no marduk).

Same. I use a horn for single target sleeps and for most other songs and a harp for horde. I have a weird collection of string skill gear including torque/ear/back/feet/af+1 body if needed. These days though I rarely go BRD to anything, cos everyone loves COR

[TelosIllumini]

@ Eldelphia: Everyone loves COR + BRD :3
@ Mirya: Yes, you're right, I forgot about the ZNM cape which is why I initially thought it was a bit harder to come by /blush. (I ninja'd my post now )

To the topic at hand, what are your thoughts regarding BRD macc or what kind of balance do you generally prefer to maintain for your debuffs? I know you've mentioned tiers, do you also apply them to other debuffs?

[Haroun]

You can save yourself an inventory spot by using Singing Earring over Wind/String Earrings. And assuming M.Acc works the same way for BRD as it does for BLM, Jester's Cape +1 will be equal to Astute Cape in M.Acc in the worst case scenario of dCHR > 10, and will have twice the M.Acc of Astute Cape when dCHR < 10.

[Rainewaters]

Same. I use a horn for single target sleeps and for most other songs and a harp for horde. I have a weird collection of string skill gear including torque/ear/back/feet/af+1 body if needed. These days though I rarely go BRD to anything, cos everyone loves COR

My ls thinks otherwise...I never get to go cor to anything...always brd this, brd that.
My opinion is, brd to zergs and melee/tank pt, cor for everything else.

[Asmoranomar]

It's quite clear YOU'RE a dumbass and a noob BRD.
First of all, Don't tell me how to play BRD, I could school you for days.

If your BRD skills is as good as your reading comprehension, there's not much you could teach. Your totally missing the point and blowing it way out of proportion. Thanks for playing though.

I like how you somehow managed to read things like "Meriting String Skill", "Never use Mary's" (despite the fact I specifically stated the contrary), "Using string for everything". I really enjoyed your lecture on your leap of faith choice to use Alk - which was originally my point - and switched my original statement to compare alk to string (wtf?).

You sure school'ed me.

There's so much more you took out of context, but I'll save the crosspoint talk for someone who actually understands what is being said. At the very least - do me a favor and read the bolded parts of what was written - That is the key points you should be focusing on.

[urat]

So basically it boils down to marys is just as valid as instrument to use as nursemaids, and if you do use mary's the slight loss of range really isn't enough to be considered even sub par.

As long as you have good gear, all your instruments, skills capped, proper chr and etc, no one can really say anything.

ANYWHO back to my OP, Im stil ltrying to find any proven or found ratio of macc from skills/chr... =/

Also another question, do we bards get "crit" casts like black mages do on our debuffs? There's just so little info on our spells out there so its hard to find these things out, sorry if it's a noob question D:

[Haroun]

If M.Acc works the same for songs as it does for Elemental/Enfeebling magic:

1 M.Acc = 1 Skill = 1 CHR when dCHR is less than 10
1 M.Acc = 1 Skill = 2 CHR when dCHR is greater than 10
dCHR = Caster CHR - Target CHR

EDIT: Also note that 1 M.Acc is not the same as 1% success rate.

[Skjie]

ANYWHO back to my OP, Im stil ltrying to find any proven or found ratio of macc from skills/chr... =/

The only thing "proven" is that wind/string and singing count equally for buffs. There has been little testing regarding macc/skill/chr.

[Haroun]

It's a safe assumption that M.Acc functions similarly for songs until someone provides evidence to the contrary, and there has been plenty of testing on M.Acc for Elemental/Enfeebling magic.

[diemos]

The way I've always looked at how the formula was something like:

(([String|Wind]+Singing)/.65) with a direct CHR check, and adding .9 skill per m.acc

Or something along those lines. I'm horrible at algebra and making formulas, I'm sure there's someone else out there that can probably do it better than I can.

[Haroun]

It's been proven that, for magic, 1 M.Acc = 1 Skill regardless the amount of total Skill. (The unbearable triteness of preening: Give me data or give me...)

[Asmoranomar]

..proven or found ratio of macc from skills/chr... =/

Basically it can be summed up the same way the magic accuracy is done for other jobs.

Approximately 120+ Stat, then Skill/M.ACC as needed.

To answer a previous question (not yours, but I'm too tired to find it now), 120 isn't a randomly pulled number. It's the high-stat cutoff for RoZ and CoP NM's (Gods, Kings, etc). Your target is going to determine how much of a specific stat you'll need. Regular mobs will require much less CHR, and it is assumed that ToAU/WotG NM require more than 120. If your familiar with the Magical Accuracy testing, this is the (in this case, for BLM its dINT) dCHR cap.

Basically, going over the cap unnecessarily is unfavorable if your sacrificing Skill/MACC to do so. But each mob is different, and it can be unrealistic to gear different values for different mobs. Instead, you can just stick with a baseline, and gear around that. It's up to you what to choose, but 120 is a pretty common number.

Ironically - this is one reason why early career (or pre-endgame) BRD's tend to stack tons of CHR. It's also the source of early misconceptions regarding skill for BRD.

Also another question, do we bards get "crit" casts like black mages do on our debuffs?

No. Songs do not randomly become more potent, nor does their duration suddenly increase. Accuracy wise - its back to the story of 'easy' or 'tough as nails'. Magic Critical type gear will not affect songs.

[diemos]

It's been proven that, for magic, 1 M.Acc = 1 Skill regardless the amount of total Skill. (The unbearable triteness of preening: Give me data or give me...)

Cool, now if only magic acc effected buffs.

[Haroun]

Cool, now if only magic acc effected buffs.

?

No one's advocating using M.Acc for buffs, I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

[diemos]

Not saying it does, I just wish it did.

[barber2006]

Basically it can be summed up the same way the magic accuracy is done for other jobs.

Approximately 120+ Stat, then Skill/M.ACC as needed.

To answer a previous question (not yours, but I'm too tired to find it now), 120 isn't a randomly pulled number. It's the high-stat cutoff for RoZ and CoP NM's (Gods, Kings, etc). Your target is going to determine how much of a specific stat you'll need. Regular mobs will require much less CHR, and it is assumed that ToAU/WotG NM require more than 120. If your familiar with the Magical Accuracy testing, this is the (in this case, for BLM its dINT) dCHR cap.

Basically, going over the cap unnecessarily is unfavorable if your sacrificing Skill/MACC to do so. But each mob is different, and it can be unrealistic to gear different values for different mobs. Instead, you can just stick with a baseline, and gear around that. It's up to you what to choose, but 120 is a pretty common number.

Ironically - this is one reason why early career (or pre-endgame) BRD's tend to stack tons of CHR. It's also the source of early misconceptions regarding skill for BRD.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

There are 4 factors that contribute to a debuff landing: Stats (Int, mnd, chr, etc), skill, macc, and staves. Raising ANY of those will lead to a graduated debuff rate.

Now according to the magic accuracy tests you referenced, there is a point where 1 INT starts giving .5 macc instead of 1 macc. But you still glean benefits from adding INT when it comes to resist rates after you cross the dINT>10 threshold. Assuming a similar formula is used for bard debuffs, CHR will ALWAYS increase your macc. It will just affect it less once you hit a dCHR point. 1 CHR should give 1 macc up until that point then give .5 macc thereafter.


The reason this is important is because there are some gear choices where a player should ALWAYS choose skill over gear regardless if they have 112 CHR, 188 CHR, or 76 CHR.

An example:


I have 100 CHR and am fighting byakko. Using your 'magic chr' number of 120, that means byakko should have 110 CHR in this case (as 120 CHR would be the point of >dchr 10). I have 2 leg choices: AF+1 (8 wind skill) or errant slops (7 CHR). The dogmatic 'stack chr till 120 then fill in with skill/macc' people would choose errant slops. After all, I'm still 20 CHR short of reaching the magic number.

However, if we use the magic accuracy tests you referenced we would see better results wearing af+1 EVEN THOUGH IT WOULD LEAVE US SHORT OF 120 CHR. 8 skill will always give more macc than 7 CHR. Sometimes a little (if dCHR is lacking), sometimes a lot (if dCHR is high). But this 'stack chr until a certain point then stack skill/macc' talk is misguided.


Now there are cases where knowing the CHR cutoff would be beneficial. Using byakko again, if I had 125 CHR and his CHR was 110 then I should use af+1 pants over marduk. However, if my CHR was 100 I should use marduk as the CHR on the pants would be providing 5 macc instead of 2.5 macc.


So basically stop saying to stack CHR first then 'fill in' the rest of your gear. Instead, use the BEST piece in each available slot.



***This is based on the assumption that brd debuff resists are calculated in a similar way to elemental/enfeebling resists.

***Kaeko posted some very interesting test results a while back that seemed to indicate singing skill was weighted more heavily than wind skill. If true, the macc values of things like af+1 pants would be skewed.

***It doesn't matter anyway as the only gear that really matters for brd is a staff and an instrument.

[Haroun]

For the example of Marduk's Shalwar vs Choral Cannions +1, for debuffs Marduk's Shalwar will always have more M.Acc than Choral Cannions +1. In the worst case scenario Marduk's Shalwar = 10 M.Acc, in the best case scenario Marduk's Shalwar = 15 M.Acc, where Choral Cannions +1 is a constant 8 M.Acc, granted these numbers only apply to Wind debuffs.

[barber2006]

yeah, i misrepresented marduk pants. Had them for a year and still i thought they had 5 chr instead of 10. brainfart. The point stands though.