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I was told Crit Hit was important for an Archer/Bard (I kinda knew this too seeing as in other MMO's it's also very important) but I am level 28 at the moment and most of my gear has crit hit on it but I see that all the higher lvl 28 or so gear has no crit hit so I am sceptical of changing it. Is it a good idea to change my gear for higher levels or just wait until I find gear that also has crit chance so I dont lose a bunch of it.
You should upgrade your gear to the next currently available set. I think people are talking about Endgame when they say you want to stack Crit, So dont worry to much about it. Most if not all of your Endgame gear will have a very good amount of Crit on them. Such as the Myth Gear and Allagan Gear.
Thank you. I will start upgrading now haha
Weapon Damage > DEX > Whatever secondary stats.
When you get to end game, you can worry about which secondary stats are best. Weapon Damage has the biggest impact on damage and healing potency, followed by the relevant primary stat for the the abilities in question (INT for magic damage, MND for healing, DEX for ARC/BRD, STR for melee), then followed by secondary stats in varying weights.
Equipment as you're leveling up tends to alternate between different secondary stats, so for instance one set may have a Crit bonus and the next an Accuracy bonus, or more Det. But if the damage (weapon) or Defense (armour) goes up, or if your primary stat (DEX in the case of Archer/Bard) goes up, then it's an improvement over the previous item. Only where the Damage/Defense stats and the DEX bonus are the same would you choose an item based on those secondary stats.
Sometimes you'll get a case where a High Quality version of equipment at one tier has similar stats as the Normal Quality item of the next tier up. Or you might get two Aetherial versions of the same item that have the same main stats but boost different secondary ones. In those cases you can choose based on secondary stats. It's also a consideration if you're going to add materia to an item and need to decide which type to add. But for the most part, you can consider those secondary stats more as a tiebreaker when all else is equal.
When transitioning from a Archer > Bard is it a good idea to do it as soon as it hit level 30 Archer?
There is no class/job in the game where it's a bad idea to switch right away. You won't suddenly start sucking and be unable to progress.
There are some classes that can get away without a job stone for a little while longer than others, because the level 30 job ability is a bit lackluster and/or the big stat increase that comes with the job stone doesn't quite make up for the loss of a cross-class skill or two. For soloing especially, you can get away with it, since you might want protect/cure/stoneskin/etc. for a class when a job wouldn't have access to them.
Personally, for party play, I think it's a lot of effort for little reward to try to suss out which is the best route on a class by class basis; it's much simpler to just switch to the job at 30 across the board and never look back.
Bard, specifically, gets Mage's Ballad as its first job ability, which is pretty dang nice.
BRD was the first job I unlocked. I remember thinking prior to doing so that I would solo as ARC for the cross class skills but PT as BRD. However, the Crystal stats were so good and I was obliterating mobs so easily as BRD that it was worth it to always use the Crystal, even with soloing.
How would transitioning to a bard straight away at 30 benefit me while soloing quests to level 50?
New abilities and better stats, mostly.