Is It Worth It..

I'm looking to buy a Sha'ir Manteel.

I'm not a "Bard Main", in the same sense I'm not a "Black Mage Main". I play pretty much all my jobs equally, with the exception of Warrior.

Any LS Events I go to, 90% of the time I'm BRD or BLM, so I'm focusing on upgrades for each of those before anything else.

The only things I'm really looking to upgrade on BLM is Wind Staff -> Auster's and maybe Spider Torque -> Enfeebling Torque. Considering rings, but they aren't really a big deal to me atm.

I'm way too lazy to do Assault, and no-one ever wants to do Periqia assault when I do feel the urge to do them >.> So Gomlek would probably take me longer to get than Manteel.

I'm also looking to get a Minstrel's Ring while I have the gear to be able to force the latent on it.

Any ideas? Suggestions? General observations that aren't mindless attempts to completely disregard all logic? >.>

But seriously, any advice I can grab would be awesome =P

(I also want pimp status >.> So.. Manteel > Gomlek! for that /forsure)

Ninja Edit!: The main reason for this was to find out opinions on whether I should buy a Manteel and Minstrel's ring, or whether the benefits wouldn't be worth the costs.

Manteel's nice for meriting. -1 second helps keep things moving. Other times though you'll mostly use, for example, Minstrel's Coat for the +skill.

Same for the ring. Great for meriting, -2 seconds with latent active. I wouldnt bother using it outside of that though. +skill/Chr/Magic acc would be better choices in that case, giving more of a benefit in, say, HNM settings where you want the ***to land.

To answer your question though, Yes, its worth getting if you plan on meriting a lot on brd.

Im sure I'll have people disagreeing with my thoughts on this though.

my brd is only 63 and I can't be assed taking it further, but I'd have to agree with Jiko, manteel and ring are really only for fast paced merit parties you know all your songs are going to land anyway. For stuff that actually matters, the casting time isn't going to matter so much, meaning you'll have spent 5 mil just so you can merit better. Having said that, is it needed for meripo or can you do fine without it if you're good enough?

On the other hand, 500k isn't so expensive, and when you ever get yigit gomlek you can sell your manteel because there's really not 4.5mil worth of difference between the two.

They are worth it, IF you really have nothing else to spend your gil on.

Ring - The merit applications are very clear and if you merit on brd often this is a must have piece. This also has a place in a brd's repertoire for events as well, if you have the inv for it. Clearly you wouldn't use this ring to try and land any debuffs on very high lvl mobs, but it can be very useful for every buff song (outside of Victory March). If you have more responsibility than just keeping songs up, i.e. healing / Na spells / pulling in the event, the -25% time would really help out.

Manteel - Really, just get a Gomlek. Assault is just too easy to justify the huge price tag of this thing when you can get the same thing for free. Manteel may be slightly more 1337, but if your a male model its ugly as sin. Its uses are basicly the exact same as Min ring. Errant body is better for debuffs and curing with the higher CHR and -enm. You would want to use Minst Coat for Victory March for the +skill. If you get this free from your ls from some Bv2 or something then hell ya its sweet, but if you have other upgrades you can make on your blm or brd that require gil then this would be a silly choice to drop that kind of jack on, imo. Just /sh in WG to make some pickup pt for assault and you can get the free version of this easy peasy.

Ring - If you play bard a lot and have the gil to spend, definitely get. HP down set isn't really required but very nice.

Manteel - I'll be honest, the biggest reason to get this unless bard is your main job is to "look pimp." It really is a fairly mediocre increase. If you're in merits and your party can't "cap" exp by killing too fast, this is probably something that won't even marginally help you over gomlek. If you are in one of those "kills blazingly fast" parties, it may help a little bit but if you're a very good puller, it's likely that manteel won't help very much if at all (unless you're having to sing full-time double ballads as well). And if you're at bird camp and you're having trouble keeping up, the best thing to do (and I highly recommend this) is to buy a Trollbane from IS npc (or lamiabane or mamoolbane). With the extra 5' distance on pulls and without having birds casting on you, a manteel over gomlek won't help you pull faster at all unless you're just pulling really bad. Being a very marginal increase over both gomlek and yigit, I suppose it's best increase is speeding up your debuffs. Meh.

It's paying 4-5m to let everyone see your belly button.

I c wut u did thar!!

/derail

Sham, I freaking love your avatar. That is all.

4~mil isn't really worth the difference between a gomlek and a manteel. You could just Osode/Errant it up with a minstrel's ring for merit PTs if you really want that -% casting difference, and for events you're not usually going to need omgzsupar fast casting imo besides buffing. You're generally not even going to need to stack on the -% songcasting gear to be efficient. 500k > 4~mil and free>4~mil.

The only thing you'll be missing out on from manteel to gomlek would be that 7CHR, -2% Songcastime time, and 2% haste. Like Shamaya said, do one or two pickup assaults a day and you'll have it sooner than you'd expect. But if you have 4mil lying around, manteel is hawt.

Yusssss.

I tried shouting for a Periqia PUG for 2 hours, 3 days in a row >.> No luck, so I gave up. Tbh, I'm not a big fan of doing more than 1 assault at a time because it bores me so badly.

I did originally have an assault static for doing NQ assaults that we only needed 3~4 people for, but they decided they couldn't be bothered after a couple of weeks, so I'm still @11k or something like that.

only 9k to go, easy!

You don't have a few friends that need it? I think the Superior Private one is easily done with very few people... correct me if I'm wrong.

Yeah, it was the Superior Private one that we were doing until they decided they either didn't want/didn't need/couldn't do it.. ><

I knew 1 person that "needed" other than me, and they took a new job and couldn't play for 3 months >.> The other person we did it with didn't need anything from there, so he took up Ilrusi Atoll with 3 others.

Bleh ;_; That sucks. Hmm...
If you have 4-5mil lying around get the manteel. I love mine, but if I didn't have one I'd probably use Osode/Minstrel. I do Nyzul so I don't have the assault tags to spend/have no one to do it with anyway, lol.

This^

I have never owned a Manteel but have had Gomlek in most of my buff macros for long enough to notice it's benefits. While not being all that substantial an extra second or so shaved off 8 second casting times each song you use adds up. Whether it's to get out and grab your exp that much quicker and keeping up chains or waiting for your ballads to go off to lullaby that stray mob walkin around smacking everyone Gomlek/Manteel is a great addition to any bard's setup.

Gomlek/Manteel + Minstrels ring i would recommend if you plan on meriting a lot with your brd. Outside of that I don't know if i would bother unless your dead set on getting songs off as fast as you can (or if you are often finding yourself in a situation that absolutely needs it). The price tag on the ring is not all that bad on shiva but I personally would have qualms about dropping 4-5M on a Manteel when you're only 9k points from the Gomlek.

Is it worth it...if you have the gil lying around burning holes in your pockets I would say yes, otherwise keep on trying for those periqia assaults^^ Building bridges (corporal) is particularly easy to get the hang of and can be done with 3 people.
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Building_Bridges

Good point, if you don't mind blinking more than a... something that blinks a lot... don't forget that gomlek/ring only have to be equipped at the start of the song to effect the casting time, meaning that you can swap to Osode/Omega Ring (or w/e) halfway through the song and get the best of both worlds. Works the same with rdm and fastcast gear, the only difference being that fastcast also effects recast if it's equipped at the END of your spell cast. (same with haste)

An eye?