Tag: gear | Huy's blag

BRD gear, Abyssea edition

Posted by Huy Dinh Wed, 25 May 2011 17:28:00 GMT

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.

Vihuela Cantabank's Horn Syrinx Apollo's Flute

And then, BRD finally gets an unconditional Ballad+ instrument:

Crooner's_Cithara

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:

Gjallarhorn Daurdabla

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:

Aoidos' Calot +2 Aoidos' Hongreline +2 Aoidos' Manchettes +2 Aoidos' Rhingrave +2 Aoidos' Cothurnes +2

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.

Aoidos' Belt Aoidos' Earring Aoidos' Matinee Felibre's Dague Schellenband

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:

Quire Grip

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).

Posted in Final Fantasy XI | Tags abyssea, bard, gear | no comments | no trackbacks

SCH gear, Abyssea edition

Posted by Huy Dinh Tue, 10 May 2011 10:00:00 GMT

May 10

Phew. I am probably not telling you any news by saying: "Abyssea has changed a majority of the game." Not only because of the possibility of really fast exp for everyone, but also because of the benefits one can get from three Atma (Atmae?) at once.

Choose your Atma

Before delving into gear choices, the crucial question that needs an answer is: Which Atma to pick?

The first one is pretty obvious: Atma of the Minikin Monstrosity. 10 MP/tick Refresh is very much appreciated and it comes with INT+50 and some enmity-. Beyond that one, it pretty much depends on which role you expect to take during that session.

If you are going to be a supporting SCH, Atma of the Rescuer is a safe pick, because of its addition to Fast Cast and Cure potency +10%, which lets you get very close to the respective caps of 50% each. The third Atma then can be Atma of Harmony to cap Cure potency+ with Surya's Staff (+22%), Selenian Cap (+3%) and Tatsumaki Sitagoromo (+5%). No Aurorastorm + Korin Obi needed with this setup, even. If you however feel that you need more Refresh to keep up, by all means get that Refresh with the third Atma!

A different (and more offensive) approach to the supporting role would be to pick an INT+ Atma like Atma of the Kirin, which makes Helices viable while still capping Cure potency+ with Aurorastorm + Korin Obi.

Taking an even more offensive stance however requires a different set of Atma. If you can afford the MP- part of Atma of the Ultimate, it's probably the biggest bang for your bucks. From there, I would personally go with Atma of the Kirin. Another MAB+ Atma (like Atma of Hell's Guardian) is fine, as well, but I am a believer of the Church of Helices. With Atma of the Kirin, there is a very good chance I can balance out the lack of explicit damage on tier IV/V nukes through Helix damage (whether you get there depends on the mob). Furthermore, both the explicit MACC+ and the implicit MACC+ (through INT+40) can make a difference in your gear choices, as you can gear up in favor of damage instead of magic accuracy.

Some might argue that MP-25% is bad, but when you are out there dealing damage, you have an innate 10~21 MP/tick Refresh effect running. As long as you are not losing net MP per tick (or not enough to be emptied before the end of the fight), your actual max MP level does not matter. With Parsimony at a 50 second timer, that is 170~357 MP regained during one Parsimony cycle, which should be more than you need over time.

tl;dr: Atma of the Minikin Monstrosity, Atma of the Kirin and Atma of the Rescuer for me when supporting (INT+90, Fast Cast +8~10, Cure potency +10%, Enmity-20, MACC+?, 10 MP/tick Refresh). Atma of the Minikin Monstrosity, Atma of the Kirin and Atma of the Ultimate (INT+90, MAB+50, MACC+50+?, Enmity-20, 10 MP/tick Refresh, MP-25%) when I plan to be dealing damage most of the time.

Purplez!

Now that we've settled on the Atma (and more importantly, the bonuses we are going to be affected by), talking about actual gear choices is much more comprehensible. The main focus during support should be having capped Cure potency+ (or at least as much as possible, when not capped) while maintaining low enmity levels and having a healthy MP buffer to live on. When dealing damage, both enmity-efficiency and MP-efficiency (with regard to damage dealt) are of relevance, because they each limit the amount of damage you can deal before you are a disturbance to the fight.

With this in my mind, here's stuff I consider worth getting ever since the 75+ patch has happened. Some of the pieces are very minuscule upgrades and might not be worth your time, though.

If you think something is missing, please say so in the comments. Chances are I missed something, and if I have not, I'll try to reason why it has not been listed.