BRD 75 Gear For Endgame.

Depending on what I'm doing yes. If it's an LS event I generally find I can support the party better with the MP gear than if I was using skill. In merits I'm generally /NIN so there's no point with the MP gear.

just seems pretty odd to trade 3 skill for 30mp in ear slot by not using loq. earring, then forgo the +skill from af legs/feet for MP. <_> waist i get since there's no skill there, you could also use a mp back if you're not doing elegy/lullaby/threnody.

Since we're all playing with the item sets, I thought I'd post mine. :3

Debuffs: Obviously, changing the Apollo's/Terra's staff + Light/Earth grip as needed. Still need to upgrade Shadow Clogs (Or HQ if I can find a crafter and get SUPER LUCKY; they won't seem to drop for me in Einherjar), Marduk's Jubbah (7/12 Imperial Wootz Ingots, almost there ._.), and finally, Piper's Torque.

Party Buffs: Still need Singing Earring, and Spectral Belt (Or Theta Sash, if Red vs Blue would ever put out.)

Im pretty happy with both sets, minus some minor tweaks. 7.7m away, counting the Salvage Mats, from having my bard to exactly where I want it. Well, of course, I want mythic/relic but... that's totally a pipedream. ._.

For debuffs Chr 120-130 total then skill after that
For Buffs other than March , stack skill until you hit the cap then fast cast / enm -
For March2 max skill all the way
For Buffs that aren't affected by skill all Fast Cast / enm -

I get what you mean and I think I have thought about that, as I did just then when I scratched my head and wondered why don't I do that. I do have loq but I just don't use it. I would put it down to the amount of mp it gives me compared to the skill bonus that I get and that in a way I'm attached to my current setup. I only got loq recently for my PLD so in a way I don't consider it a part of my BRD gear as weird as that sounds. Also being Elvaan the MP benefit of those other pieces is quite large so they're the first pieces I will equip to get an MP increase.

i full time loq, or at least share the slot with novia. singing earring wouldn't bring me up a march tier so i'm not buying one till i get astute cape. if you have af+1 hands or legs, i would strongly consider swapping the mp pieces in there out.

I'm pretty gimp, but I have little trouble landing songs. I dont know how to do those gear linky things, but I can tell you my gear is nowhere near as good as most of yours. my mp set consists of basically 3-40k peices, and I get 290 mp for basic stuff as I get used as a whm quite often and it does fine. for skill... I have your basic ***, minstrels/torque/afhands and feet and when I'm too lazy to be using all my macros, I dont often ever resist, maybe 20% on birds? and even less on mamool. with only 3 wind and 2 singing merits aswell i can land elegy on gods as where in my chr setup, even with both etudes up at +134 I dont land unless light threnrody is on.

Was taking a look at this link after you got me thinking:
http://www.bluegartrls.com/forum/ffxi-advanced-player-discussion/52417-yey-another-haste-topic.html
If I take that as being correct then there's quite a bit of shifting of some of my gear around anyway. Until I get Astute Cape I'll probably stay as I am, then sell off my string/wind earring and get Nereid rings, Singing Earring and Chanter's Staff. Good to know for the future.

It looks like a pretty good balanced set for all-purpose use, but whether it's good or not varies a lot on what you are doing. If you plan to use BRD a lot, you'll want gear sets that maximize your efficiency as far as:

CHR, MP, +Skill, MdB/Ele Resist, HP, Casting Time Reduction (not necessarily in order of importance)

For endgame, casting time reduction is not anywhere near as important as it is for merit parties, but it still has a purpose. Most of the time in endgame you'll likely be /WHM or /RDM, so being able to maxmize your MP is always good, but again, it's variable by fight and setup.

Examples when you might want a given setup:

Max MP:

Fights like Omega, where you'll probably be doing a lot of backup curing and casting -na spells. However, you'll need other setups for this fight, too.

Max CHR:

This should probably never be your standing set, but should be stuff that you have available to you to swap into. Typically for landing Elegy reliably on big nasties, you'll need all the CHR and Magic Accuracy you can get (Including a self-boost with 2x Etude), as well as HQ staves. /NIN gimps your CHR compared to /WHM also (by 4 as Hume). Trust me, if you land and maintain Elegy on Byakko, your tanks and healers will both love you, but it takes a lot to do it.

MdB / Ele. Resist / Magic Damage Redux:

There's almost guaranteed to be a Bard in the tank party for both Ultima and Jailer of Love, and these are definitely cases where you'll need to equip yourself properly. Being able to max out Carols with Crumhorn +1/+2 and stay alive are pretty important. Also, if anyone tells you that you need to /RDM for MdB, know that as a subjob, /WHM gives you more MdB than /RDM (by 2). Lamia Mantle +1 is a must for this setup.

Max HP:

I don't sweat this most of the time, but there are times where you simply can't afford to go down. One of them is a TP-Burn on Kirin, because you're right there in the mix. I can push almost 1600 HP with this set and Carbonara, which puts me above most of the DDs also. In fact, I have a "no WHM with less than 1k HP" policy for Kirin Burns for the same reason. A Taru with 600 HP and 1300 MP is no good to anyone if they are face down on the floor. Neither is a Soul Voice Bard doing party rotations.

Casting Time Reduction:

For merit parties this is a biggie for outpulling others and for sleeping mobs before you get hit. Most of the time in endgame you don't want to dump HP to 75% for Minstrel's Ring because of the nature of the fights, but that's a personal choice. Just remember, a dead bard doesn't help anyone. Sha'ir Manteel is great, Yigit Gomlek is almost as good and much easier to get, and Minstrel's Ring is something that once you use, you'll never want to sell.

As someone mentioned already, the -recast on the Sha'ir hands is really nice for merits, but there's really only one endgame situation where I can think they'd be trump over AF+1, and that's for Einherjar. In there, I'm primary crowd control, and between Lullaby Recast merits and Sha'ir hands, I can almost spam Lullaby at will (If someone tosses me a haste I can).

Still, if you have both, test drive them and see what works for you.

You'll notice I'm not saying "wear this" or "wear that" for the most part. You should be able to work out your own gear with the guidance of what type of focuses you'll need for different situations.

I know that for my HP setup, I'll wear either Genbu's Kabuto or Opo-opo Crown depending on the situation. For Einherjar I usually use Opo-opo for the HP and CHR, but for Kirin Burn I'd use the Kabuto because that allows me to use food other than Pamamas. It's not something anyone told me, it's that I tried out various stuff and went with what worked.

Of course, full Marduk is probably the best all-around BRD set, but that's not exactly a short-term goal and very expensive.

For Rings, you probably can't beat Balrahn's and Omega for landing debuffs. 7 Magic Accuracy is a lot, and you still get 3 CHR from the Omega.

Elegy/Threnody set http://www.ffxiah.com/item_sets.php?id=42832

Lullaby set http://www.ffxiah.com/item_sets.php?id=42937

My brd gear is far from perfect but the 2 aforementioned sets do me wonders for debuffs in merit pts. Virtually no resists on pesky colibri (wind/sing merits maxed).
Obvious upgrades that can push those sets to an even higher level and pieces i am currently working towards; Musical + singing earring, Omega ring, Af hands +1, and Bard cannions.

Aramina (post above) covers pretty much all facets of good BRD gear sets and ideals. <3

Happy Barding!!

Well i wont give much info just what i use for events:

http://www.ffxiah.com/item_sets.php?id=51607

This set gives me a great ammount of CHR and Skill. I'm at one piece of getting Choral Cannions +1

And for meripos i just change Kirin's Osode for Sha'ir Manteel

My next goal is Marduk's Jubbah and Marduk's Shalwar

n_n/ thanks for reading.

Forgot to mention + Skill gear...

Wind skill stuff is great, but most of it is very pricy, so probably not something that you'll have right away unless you have deep pockets. However, you can get 16 skill in merits and should consider maxing them out before you worry about spending 1M+ for another 10.

Most people trash talk Stringed Instruments, and yes, my own gut feeling is that there is a little bit more accuracy in landing enfeebles with Wind Instruments.

However, String Torque and String Earring are usually both super cheap, and if you add those to Minstrel's Coat and a mixture of AF/AF2/AF+1, you can boost your String Skill a lot.

Almost no times at all would this matter for me, except in Einherjar.

As mentioned above, I do Einherjar on BRD and I use my Nursemaid's Harp a LOT. I use it almost exclusively for Horde Lullaby in there, because with stacked up String Skill and the Harp, you get a very large AoE spread on your Horde and I typically have no issues with resists. Also, Einherjar pulls can be messy, so it's really not uncommon to have 6+ mobs on a pull, and often only Light-sleepable mobs.

On top of that, I'm usually in the Tank party at the same time, so I want max spread for Ballads. Unlike with winds, the AoE on string songs increases based on your skill level and the level of the song. For example, Ballad I with a heavy string skill setup and a harp will give a massive AoE range. Ballad II range will be smaller because of the level correction, but it will still be noticeably larger than with a horn.

Unless you have Gjallarhorn or Storm Fife (Assault/Salvage/Nyzul/ToAU Missions), if you are in a party where you will be giving everyone Ballad, a harp is the way to go to make sure you are less likely to miss anyone.

Landing any enfeeble on a sky god- including elegy- is an incredible crap shoot. It's less to do with chr and more to do with a huge innate resistance.

Word. BLM PT+Harp=Win^^ Possibly the easiest role a bard can play and fun as hell to boot. A combination of Troubadour max merits and a harp makes for 4 minute ballads every 10 with great range and even more so if you swap in +string skill.
String instruments I think are widely overlooked by most unfortunately but I have found they can come in very handy in certain situations.

Not true at all. My wife is a very well geared bard and has little to no trouble every landing elegy/threnody on sky gods. Req seems to be by far the most difficult.

@ Jimmy

I'm convinced that String gets the bad rap because both of the poor selection of harps, and because too many Bards totally neglect for too long. At least with Sea access, you can ungimp it pretty fast.

@ Kelia

Yeah, it's hard to land Elegy on Gods/HNM reliably, but I have found that when I stack CHR to ridiculous amounts (170+) , I can usually land it on most of them, and if I'm in the BLM party, I'll keep trying after a round of ballads to double Etude and drop it. Faust, by the way, is immune. Ullikummi resists like heck, but you can land it. Not like he's hard anyway.

I even managed to stick Foe Requiem VI on Omega once that way under SV, which unfortunately was right after Pile Pitch and it ran over and pwn'd me.

as far as stats like CHR go, you must realise that skill (wind skill, singing skill) are going to be better most of the time. The equation of stats is easy. 2 of any stat gives 1 bonus in to the according category. that means 2 STR will give 1 atk (except with 2 handed weapons, 2 str now acts as a 1.75 modifier). 2 DEX gives 1 acc (1.75 on 2 handed; it also improves crit, but crit is a percentage based on your dex compared to mobs AGI) . 2 VIT gives 1 def. 2 AGI gives 1 eva 1 parry 1 shield skill 1 range acc. 2 INT gives 1 magic atk and 1 to black magic spell acc. 2 MND gives 1 magic resist and 1 to white magic spell acc. and of coure 2 CHR will give you 1 song acc and 1 to those amazingly usless killer traits...
so, do the simple math and figure out whether the items available to you is better to go with skill item or stat item.

Yup, just easier to get a truckload of CHR than Skill, especially if you're just getting there and on a budget.

Jester's Cape +1 and Gleeman's Belt = 16 CHR cheap in 2 slots where you most likely won't have + Skill. On the other hand...

Piper's Torque vs. Wind Torque might be a tougher call... Discuss.

i dont have time to double etude myself on sky gods... just throw out the odd elegy in between changing parties.

Who cares about BRDS? NOT ME

2 MND = 1 Divine Magic Atk too rite?
(sry for the off-topic)

ugh, int and MAB are not the same, the rest is astoundingly guess-y

Yigit Gomlek or Sha'ir Manteel?

The manteel is (marginally) better than the Gomlek, but you have to decide if the 2% Fast Cast and 2% is worth 4m plus.

The CHR is a nice bonus but really, if you're that pressed for CHR, use an Errant for Debuffs.

Me, I just settled for a Gomlek. 20k assault points is much more obtainable for me than 5m and I've never had any issues pulling in merit parties. The manteel certainly is pretty and definitely a nice piece for any bard but, imo, the Gomlek performs well enough to get the job done and I have no shame in using it.

If you're interested, theres a great blog entry regarding Manteel vs Gomlek to be found Here

Edit: cant make links tonight D:

yeah, i really like how the Manteel looks lol but i cant afford it yet XD i was just wondering if is worth farming all that gil for it, or if it's better doing assault n' getting Gomlek lol

Gomlek unless you get manteel for free. In that case Free is easier to get than 20k AP :D

This is my all-around brd set pretty much, using it for merit/sky/dyna and what not. Gonna upgrade earrings to Melody earring +1 and musical earring.

Item set Bard