Relic Augments

[Sho]

This is a common misconception I keep seeing. The Empyrean Harp atm is near crap. It allows a third song which will be lacking the potency of using a +2/+3 instrument. (ie; A victory march that's missing ~4.5% haste. A Valor Minuet V which is worse than Valor Minuet IV using a correct instrument, etc...) Yea an extra song is always nice, but it ends up being an extra 50 attack for melee (after they get 2 marches from a real instrument), and an extra 1MP/tic using Mage's Ballad I (after they get 2 ballads from a real instrument.) The harp is unique and has some cool uses, but anyone who would spend their time getting one over a Gjallar is just silly. Also, with Gjallar having the only source of +3 to Marches, it's by far and large the best instrument in the game. Thats an extra 3% on 2x marches, which I'm sure most can tell you is one hell of an improvement. (Way more than an extra 2mp/tic on your ballads.)

Well in dudes defense, we could still wait and see if the harp will have a hidden +2 or +3 song effect to all songs that's not visible to the main stats.

[Fievel]

Theoretically, couldn't you just swap out Harp for the first two songs, then swap in Harp for the third?

She's saying that the 3rd song will suck because it wont have the +2/3 from instrument

[Aristio]

She's saying that the 3rd song will suck because it wont have the +2/3 from instrument

Of course, but it's still a third song.

[Fievel]

Of course, but it's still a third song.

Which is why she didn't say it's complete crap, but she was saying that anyone who would do harp over gjallarhorn is an idiot.

Did you read the post?

[Khajit]

Schertzo for 3rd song. there . all is fixed.

[Fievel]

Brilliant!

[Eleven19]

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__jFgOqdirR...ant_medium.jpg

[Zag]

Having 3 songs on you instead of 2 is always gonna be better. Don't be silly

[zagarikano]

BRDs do not really use accuracy songs anymore and with Soul Voice, your attack and haste are probably capped already in Abyssea. You can afford that 3rd song to be a march song without +3 effect while you cap haste with them if Soul Voice is up. One of those songs is an attack song which is probably enough to cap attack on the DDs if they have food.
Say there is only 1 BRD in the party. You were probably gonna get 2 marches and no attack songs, but with the new harp you got that attack song that you were never gonna get.

In the case of the ballad which I was not thinking of before though (smack head)
With Ghorn you would get 3+3, 2+3 = 11MP/tic refresh with ballad II and ballad III.
With empyrean harp you would get 3+1, 2+1, 1+1 with Ballad 1, ballad II and ballad 3 assuming you can use a ballad+1 instrument on the first 2 which would only give you 9/tic refresh.

However if the first case applies, then you can use Ghorn for the first 2 songs and Empyrean harp for your 3rd song :0
Which if that works would come out to 1+3, 2+3, 3+1 which would be 13/tic ballad.

Couldn't edit my other post. Ghorn is still better for ballad and other harp could be good for Soul Voice situations. But if they BOTH stack and 1 BRD can use both instruments, then we have a winner regardless.

Merry Christmas

EDIT: Wrong screen name, no wonder I couldn't edit lol.

[Alistrianna]

Not sure if this has been answered yet, but is there even any way to know wether or not all 3 songs have to be sung with the Harp to get the 3rd song? If so, this makes it terrible, period.

[Kirschy]

I'm not arguing that there's no increase with the Harp. I'm arguing that the increase on Harp in marginal and near crap, and that Gjallar provides a better increase. Yes, with SV active Gjallar losses it's main appeal, since any BRD with +2 instrument and AF3+2 hands will cap magic haste with just 1 Victory March + Haste Spell. If you build lights during every Abyssea session and give your BRD the restore chests to keep SV active, and re-farm another restore chest in the 60s before the ??? for NM repops, then you minimize Gjallar's usefulness, and Empyrean Harp comes out ahead. I just don't think many people go through the effort to bother, or give BRD first dibs on restore chest. Also the main content in Abyssea is probably finished, and there's a good chance that future content will be outside Abyssea. But I'd rather not rely on speculation to prove my point, so I'll keep that separate.

Also,you unfairly stated Gjallar's Ballad increase using the Lv75 Gjllar vs a Lv90 Empyrean Emp Harp. I'm sure there will be many Lv90 Gjallars in ~1-2 months, but very few if any Lv 90 Empyrean Harps.

High-end BRD /w Emp Harp:
3+2, 2+2, 1+1 = 11mp/tic

Lv 90 Gjallar:
3+4, 2+4 = 13mp/tic

More importantly, I'd like to restate the difference the difference between a high-end Emp BRD vs a high-end Gjallar BRD.

High-end Emp:
Victory March(+2 Instrument, +1 Hands), Advancing March(+2 Instrument, +1 Hands), Valor Minuet V(+0 Instrument, +1 Body)
Victory March (144/1024), Advancing March(112/1024), Valor Minuet V(70 Attack)
25% Haste + 70 Attack

High-end Gjallar:
Victory March(+3 Instrument, +1 Hands), Advancing March(+3 Instrument, +1 Hands)
Victory March(160/1024), Advancing March(128/1024)
28.125% Haste

3.125% Haste vs 70 Attack

So when it comes down it, Gjallar will win in most situations. Provides better standard melee buffs and better ballads, but falls behind on melee songs during SV songs. While having both is obviously the ideal, I feel any BRD without either should be looking to upgrade a Gjallarhorn first, unless they feel they'll be in SV mode majority of the time~

[Kirschy]

Not sure if this has been answered yet, but is there even any way to know wether or not all 3 songs have to be sung with the Harp to get the 3rd song? If so, this makes it terrible, period.

You can run a fairly simple, and silly test which infers you can sing just the third song with Emp Harp. Try singing two songs with no instrument. They will overwrite, as you can only have 1 song active while using no instrument. If you sing the first song with no instrument, and sing the second with an instrument you will be granted both songs. It seems to follow that only the third song will require Harp~

[Byrthnoth]

I thought the reason EmpWS's spiked up to 5-6k was because of ODD procing on ws...they really naturally deal 5-6k at times on their own? >.>

Yeah. It's not really so hard to believe, considering how high "normal" crit weaponskills like Evisceration and Raging Rush can go. That's why a some of the WoE weapons are second place to Empyreals as the best DD options (ahead of relics).

[FailureMidgard]

High-end Emp:
Victory March(+2 Instrument, +1 Hands), Advancing March(+2 Instrument, +1 Hands), Valor Minuet V(+0 Instrument, +1 Body)
Victory March (144/1024), Advancing March(112/1024), Valor Minuet V(70 Attack)
25% Haste + 70 Attack

High-end Gjallar:
Victory March(+3 Instrument, +1 Hands), Advancing March(+3 Instrument, +1 Hands)
Victory March(160/1024), Advancing March(128/1024)
28.125% Haste

3.125% Haste vs 70 Attack

You're missing a lot here though. First off, I'm going to make the assumption that if you have 2x march, you also have haste, and really should be haste capped on gear. Since I'm not at home at the moment (and stuck on a terrible apple computer), I'm not going to use exact /1024 values,but...

25% gear haste + 15% haste + 28% marches = 68% haste (it's actually more than this like you said, but we'll ignore that for now, as it would just exaggerate my point.
(1-.68 )*(1-delayreduc)=.2
.32*x=.2
x=.2/.32=.625
Meaning the most delay reduc you can benefit from is 37.5%.

DW5 is 35%...meaning anything past Iga Earring is overkill, which may be nice for some people, but if you're truly optimizing, getting the added attack and using something with +critrate or storetp with slightly less haste on marches will be better.
For mnk, it's not as bad, but using a +51 delay weapon, you're already starting to waste haste/delayreduc. Adding af3 body at this point is -only- negative haste.

Past all this, in any group situation, there really should be one person /dnc w/ haste samba up, which I'm entirely ignoring. Personally, I think even with 2 DDs it's worth it, but I'm not going to do any math on that until I get home, at least. In any case, your ghorn has completely nullified any benefit for nin or mnk from haste samba.

Moving on, 28.125+15=43.125, so you've also nullified any benefit from Sams using AF3 legs, and since you wanted to bring up outside of Abyssea, I'm still certain Masamune sam is the top DD bar none when RR is taken out of the picture, so any time Hasso is acceptable, Ghorn is doing nothing, again.

Continuing on, dancer obviously has a 10% haste haste samba, and a solid DW trait, I'm not going to do the math, but I hope you'll trust me that they get no benefit from the added haste (except maybe of course dropping Suppa,but really, 70 attack is better than dropping Suppa).

Looking at other DWers now, assuming Suppa, we have 25% from traits and 5% from suppa for 30% total dw.
.7*x=.2
x=.285
Max Haste = 71.5
25(gear)+5(samba)+28.125(march)+15(haste)=73.125, wasting right about 2.5%, when the total benefit from Ghorn is just over 3%?

So when it comes down it, Gjallar will win in most situations. Provides better standard melee buffs and better ballads, but falls behind on melee songs during SV songs. While having both is obviously the ideal, I feel any BRD without either should be looking to upgrade a Gjallarhorn first, unless they feel they'll be in SV mode majority of the time~

Ghorn is better for Drks, Gaxe Wars, Sams that can't use Hasso, DWers without suppa, and -maybe- solo-DDing when you dont have even a /dnc for haste samba (which I'll argue is wrong to begin with...get a cor/dnc, brd/dnc, or even a dd/dnc as long as you have 2 dds). Past all of this, we've completely ignored the margin of 70 attack vs 3% haste, and while I agree 3% haste wins, IIRC, 70 attack is roughly equal to 2% haste entirely ignoring the fact attack increases WS dmg...so I think you're overplaying this as well.
Past all that, I think starting from scratch, a 90 harp is far far far easier to get than a ghorn.

Edit: Also, as far as ballads go, I expect a +2 instrument next patch, personally, and Ghorn may stay at +3, so they'd be even there, with Harp having more versatility of doing something like ballad/ballad/carol or ballad/ballad/intsongwhentheymakeajatoaoesongs or ballad/ballad/newmagicburstdamagesong, etc. Ghorn is dropping half of it's refresh to replace a song, harp is dropping basically nothing. And of course, harp shares this versatility in melee songs...any time you aren't acc capped, harp wins hands down by a HUGE margin, without even doing the math, or any time you need carol or scherzo (or if pdif drops a ton), or when paladins make a comeback and want 2xmarch+ballad...haha wait, plds wont make a comeback.

[NynJa]

Yeah. It's not really so hard to believe, considering how high "normal" crit weaponskills like Evisceration and Raging Rush can go. That's why a some of the WoE weapons are second place to Empyreals as the best DD options (ahead of relics).

Spoiler: show

http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/3...1225145209.png

doin it right with the weapons? lol

[Nightmarelord]

Spoiler: show

http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/3...1225145209.png

doin it right with the weapons? lol

Looking good, But mind if i ask why you didnt go for the power ranger looking one? DNW megazord calling powers? lol.
(edit i meant the empy, not the lolmythic) had to add that for clarification since i just looked at how the mythic one looks.. looks like some shit for power rangers too >_>

[NynJa]

tbh really not in the mood to farm up another shitton of Glavoid pops, and we also have an Ukon which is the same path.

[Alistrianna]

You can run a fairly simple, and silly test which infers you can sing just the third song with Emp Harp. Try singing two songs with no instrument. They will overwrite, as you can only have 1 song active while using no instrument. If you sing the first song with no instrument, and sing the second with an instrument you will be granted both songs. It seems to follow that only the third song will require Harp~

I had never trie dthat before on BRD personally, so I wasn't aware songs worked like that.

[Nightmarelord]

tbh really not in the mood to farm up another shitton of Glavoid pops, and we also have an Ukon which is the same path.

oh ok i see. what lvl is ur mandau? you probably plan on maxing it out anywho just curious.. do you get the ws from the +2 off hand? if you did that would be so broken.. you probably dont but im just curious. idk much about the dw shit other then se decided to make offhanding most shit thats powerful kinda moot.

[Kirschy]

Between SV and Delay cap situations, I guess there are a few factors I didn't consider, so I concede Harp is not as complete crap as I made it out to be. But I will argue against the Gjallar being harder to obtain. As far as I'm aware, Emp Harp takes 50 Iron Scales, 50 Souls, and 75 Horns. Scales have a drop rate of ~25% /w TH6 meleeing, but is fairly easy to spam. Souls require a T3 VNM which realli can't be spammed with ease. T1->T2 rate is already fairly horrible. While T2->T3 isn't as bad, it's still rough, and I don't know the drop rate on souls from T3. 3rd item is horns from the Vrtra NM which while fairly easy to pop as it only requires 1 KI from a timed NM, has a shit drop rate on Horns. Granted dynamis is outdated, I still feel it's easier/less hours to obtain a GHorn (factoring in a large part of it can bought for gil) and get do the Dynamis Trials to hit LV90 version than obtain the Harp.