BRD Gear

Just wondering on peoples opinions or well which would be better pre~75

So I was camping Novv the Whitehearted and got minstrel's coat 1/2. What would be better for bard before 75 a gaudy harness or minstrel's coat or do they serve better for different songs/situations?

Coat ftw. It's a great piece, use it.

EDIT: I still take my gaudy harness with me when /whm in case my MP gets really low... and if lullaby is taking a hit and you need chr that bad, which I don't see why you would with all the other chr gear, you could macro it back in for debuffs.

In all honesty, even at 75 Minstrel's Coat is one of the best bodies you can get. It's the only body that actually modifies your buff songs. Only time you'd want to use anything else is Yigit or Sha'Ir for merits and Errant for Lullaby/Threnody/Elegy/Requiem.

+3 Wind skill is only really going to matter if you lack wind skill elsewhere for capping Minuet. Madrigal is difficult to cap, so you'll use it again there. +3 String might put you into the next range if you're doing string ballads for a black mage (or other all-mage) party. Other than those two songs, you should use Errant. For Idle, you should use Vermillion Cloak.

Once/if you own a Yigit Gomlek/Sha'ir Manteel you should only macro them in for the start of a song, then macro-over Errant or Minstrel's Coat depending.

If you have the access work on getting a gaudy for when you hit 50. You can pretty much full time it until you're able to equip Minstrels' coat.
Once you ding 62 full time your coat and macro in gaudy for when you are under 49 mp.
Once you're able to, equip errant houppe and use that for debuffs and macro in your minstrel's for buffs. Lv 75 brd you should be making a skill+ macro for Victory march which will include your coat.

Every bard should have a minstrel's coat, it's free, relatively easy to get and the only +skill body available. Gaudy is and can be used @75 to swap in for "oshi- no mp" situations.

You can just buy a Vermillion Cloak <.<;; every BRD should use their MP. You can equip it by 59 :s

This is truth. But Gaudy is free if you don't want to dish out gil for vermy or even an ixion.

While skill+ is great, it only does so much for buffs. It goes by tiers of 20(so sticking on a nereid ring at 501 skill isn't going to help your buffs, for example), and the general rule is to get to 500 (your wind+singing skill). With a good amount of gear and merits, 520 is entirely reachable too. But, for pre75 leveling brd, just stack on as much skill+ where you can and CHR where you can't. :3

I'm going to say that Gaudy is a pain in the butt item to get, and you could probably farm money in the meantime to get Vermy, which is more worthwhile in the longrun. And the items to show to Bridget are either rare or semi-pricy and don't sell back easily. Anyway, I'd put my effort into a Vermy regardless unless you happened to get a Gaudy.

I duo'd the mobs for my harness so the "pain in the butt to get" argument is pretty much null and void. It doesn't take very much effort unless BRD is your first job to 75.