BRD gear, Abyssea edition
Posted by Huy Dinh
May 25
Gearing up Bard has become easier than ever before. Among the songs that matter, 671 combined skill apparently is enough (for Valor Minuet V) to cap every one of those. Since you have 620 combined base skill already at BRD90, getting the last +51 is not even remotely difficult, if you have put some effort into BRD before.
Plus!
The real things (and most significant upgrades) about BRD gear in Abyssea are the +3 instruments though.
And then, BRD finally gets an unconditional Ballad+ instrument:
Looking at those instruments, you will notice that a good deal of them are Stringed Instruments. As such, you do not only have to skill up your String skill, but you also have to pay attention to the effective song range, because it is not a fixed 10 yalms.
For the sake of completeness, these two shall be mentioned:
Being able to keep a third song running is a novelty Daurdabla comes with. The lack of any song+ effect can be a problem sometimes, because of the lack of extended duration: You might be overwriting the third song instead of the first one.
Yet another novelty is gear featuring song+ effects:
Song Spellcasting Time
SE also have realized (and acknowledged) that singing maybe does take a little bit too long, and in came, in addition to Aoidos' Calot +1/+2, five more pieces to help out.
These five pieces reduce song spellcasting time by 19%. Since Atma of the Deep Devourer reduces that by another 20%, Sha'ir Manteel is sufficient to floor singing time with those five items inside Abyssea. Even without Atma, you can get as close to -43% with Sha'ir Manteel and Aoidos' Calot +2. Another -1% can be found for lots of money in Sheikh Manteel though. Pretty close to floor. Without all the hassle dealing with Minstrel's Ring! \o/
Skill
So BRD received some song+ love, as well as singing time reduction love. What they did not really get is gear that raised their skill levels. The only item that is worth mentioning and has not been mentioned before does not even give that much of a bonus:
Therefore, those missing +51 points of combined skill -- assuming capped skills at BRD90 -- for capping Valor Minuet V have to be acquired using pre-Abyssea gear and/or Empyreal Armor +1/+2. You can hit that cap with Empyreal Armor +2 and merits solely, even: 620 base skill, +46 from AF3+2 and at least +6 from merits in either Singing or Wind Instrument (3/8).
