Bard Ballad Set vs DL

So I am about to gear up my bard and I notice the Ballad set pretty much has no Crit Hit Rate on any of the gear.

It does have a lot more Determination however.


Any experienced bards have some opinions on these sets and maximizing damage?

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Originally Posted by Soulburn32

Any experienced bards

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That I am not, BUT for other jobs (I'm assuming it's the same) having lots of DET is good. It's arguably better to have higher damage at all times than it is to crit more often.

If you think about it, it's pretty much why MNK is best single-target DPS; more damage over time > burst. I say that and I main DRG, haha.

Crit is useful to have for River of Blood. It's a major proc for us, that's why Crit is important. At that juncture of the game, just focus on getting what pieces you can at this point. A point of dexterity is always going to have more value than secondary stats for the most part (there is a few and far between exceptions). If you are looking to jump into BC, you'll be fine in DL or Ballad but probably a mixture of both. The first two turns are really about timing and not about maximized dps. Stay more focused on getting your myth pieces and Allagan. Think of DL and Ballad as fillers for the time being.

to min/max ur stats you are gonna have a mix of alagan and af2 thats just how it is.

I understand the i90 min max

I just wanted to strictly compare these 2 sets.

Higher iLevel is ALWAYS better because it will have more of your main stat, UNLESS you need a bit more accuracy for a certain fight. Main stat always outweighs secondary stats. So yeah, Ballad > Darklight because it has more DEX.

Edit:
It would be wiser to just get full DL and then compare contrast your options of getting Ballad/myth gear since both are heavily limited in the weekly accumulation department.

Your upgrade route is going to be as follows, just due to how easy it is to attain the various equipment: Dark Light->Ballad<->Mythl. This is mainly based on the fact you can continuously get Phil tomes, Myth tomes cap at 450/week (with gear costing 495-825/piece) and Ballad is limited to 1/week. I would say this however: Pick and choose how you upgrade DL to Ballad by locking into a specific piece per week and comparing that to Myth options based on your Tome total for the week. You don't want to be in a spot where you can purchase Myth body once capped for the week, but you are going for Ballad body also until you do cap. It would be more beneficial to say I almost have enough to purchase Myth Legs, so I'll go for Ballad body or I have Ballad body and myth legs already, but I can almost get Myth head so I'll go for Ballad hands.

Comparing the 70 and 80 sets is pointless cause of the primary stat increase. What is more pertinent is that you are limited on getting bard/ballad sets meaning it is wiser to pick and choose how you're going to upgrade those slots instead.

You lose 45 crit and 18 accuracy, but you gain 21 Dex, 25 Det, 56 Skillspeed (and 22 Vit).

The 21 Dex more than makes up for the loss in crit.
Then you're also up a good amount in Det and Vit as well.

As JetBrooks said:
It's certainly not an ideal spread of secondary stats, but main stat is so much more potent in this game than secondary stats; secondaries really only matter if you're comparing gear of equal iLvL.

Hands are good, rest is pretty bad.

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Originally Posted by SeraviEdalborez

Hands are good, rest is pretty bad.

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In all cases of iLvl80, it's stuff that you'll soon replace with iLvl90. But it's worth it to pick up for the main stat increase in the meantime, if you can.