Current BIS for Bard

[Mergadeth]

I just unlocked second coil and I was wondering how to start gearing up from here. It seems all upgrades kinda suck. Is the loss of crit ok over more vit and dex? How do i start optimizing acc with my other stats?

[Ooshima]

I just unlocked second coil and I was wondering how to start gearing up from here. It seems all upgrades kinda suck. Is the loss of crit ok over more vit and dex? How do i start optimizing acc with my other stats?

Unfortunately compared to 2.0-2.1 BRD, tome gears are largely junk in 2.2.

As a BRD, I'll recommend you to go for the chest piece first as upgrade. The Auroral Tabard is our BiS chest and you don't have an alternative option until you beat Turn 9, which is where the High Allagan chest drops (not our BiS anyways).

The Auroral Belt is our BiS provided it is "unweathered". I kinda regretted buying it during week 1 of 2.2 because Turn 6 dropped the High Allagan belt immediately after I bought the tome belt :/ I would recommend you not buy the belt until at a very late stage where you really have spare sands of time or you really have nothing to buy with tomes and yet, doesn't have the High Allagan belt.

The Auroral Pants is debatable. Our BiS pants is the High Allagan pants which drops on T8, which you would probably have a significant time before reaching there to have a chance to see it drop and roll for it. It is barely better than our myth pants in terms of stat weightage and in most cases, you might be better off wearing the i90 Allagan one, or a pentamelded i90 crafted one for accuracy, if you happen to run into accuracy issues. You can consider this purchase if you have nothing else to buy, and still way from clearing T8, and provided you do not have accuracy issues.

Accessories wise you should buy the Auroral Ring since you will definitely need one anyways (one tome one high allagan). Other than that, you could just use the High Allagan drops. Technically, the Auroral Earring (i110) is our BiS earring but again, you will need an oil of time to make it happen. You should probably purchase it at a later stage where you have spare Oil of Time.

BiS on necklace is debatable between the i110 Auroral one and High Allagan one, but most people would just take the High Allagan to omit the need for another Oil of Time.


All in all, your purchase order should look like:

1) Weathered Auroral Tabard
2) Weathered Auroral Ring

After the above 2, it shall be your decision and your raid's decision on the UAT and Sands of time assignment. You should check if you have accuracy issues at this point of time and when you will receive your UAT.

If you have accuracy issues right now (after taking into account of your first 2 purchases as pointed above), your priority is to fix it. Your possible options are: swap out your Hero's Earring of Aiming to Tremor Earring of Aiming for the extra 5 accuracy and swap out your Hero's Ring of Aiming for Allagan Ring of Aiming for another +16 accuracy. You should also obtain the Allagan Visor of Aiming from Turn 2 to swap out the Bard's headgear for another +5 accuracy boost. These tweaks should solve any immediate accuracy problems.

Once you done with accuracy, plan your weapon upgrade path. Weathered Rosenbogen is without accuracy, and I'm pretty sure most BRDs will face challenges here. You should be wearing an accuracy pants when you are using the Rosenbogen - which means either the Allagan pants from T5 or pentamelded i90 crafted. Make sure you do not fall below the required accuracy if you use the Rosenbogen. If you will, plan ahead with accuracy upgrades/foods before making the purchase.

Once you get the soldier chest, ring and weapon, the rest is up to you, depending on what drops you have obtained from chests so far. Typically you can consider buying the accessories which gives you accuracy (if you don't have the high allagan ones yet), because your pants upgrade, be it the soldier tome pants or the High Allagan one, are without accuracy

[Mergadeth]

Thanks alot. I've already purchased most of the better sol pieces though. Current set-up:
Wave or atma bow (three weeks from animus and mirrors are myths)
Allagan visor
bard shirt
weathered sash
ringbands
bard tights
allagan shoes
weathered neck, ear, wrist, ring
hero's ring
Stats: Dex515/Vit385/Acc480/Crit562/Det263/Ss358
Apkallu omlets HQ are my Food

I want the t5 pants but we only just beat it so it's not quite on farm yet. I also have the weathered tabard but i CAN"T wear it with my current set up as my acc would fall below the t5 acc cap even with food. Would it be best to get the weathered boots until i can either get the allagan pants or new coil drops???

[Ooshima]

High Allagan Boots is a Turn 6 drop, I won't really bother buying the soldier one, and it really sucks.

You can use the Weathered Tabard if you use Allagan Visor (I checked your Lodestone, 480 Acc is with Bard's Hat, not the Visor. You only glamoured the Visor) and use HQ Lava Toad Legs, which will bring your Acc to 485.

Keep farming T5 for the pants and allagan ring (+16 accuracy).

[Mergadeth]

Well yeah i have the bard hat on atm. Was going to switch over to visor once i updated to the sol chest. Thanks for the advice.

Here is what i will have when i switch some gear around and get some proper Acc food
http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/MKLI

Once i get into second coil i will improve my gear with drops from there. Something like this?
http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/MKKZ

[Maero]

I actually got the weathered boots and regret it.
Currently have 3 pieces of weathered, chest, boots and hat, the rest is myth except for the allagan gloves and still using the gryphon skin ring
Only issue i have with the weathered gear is why do we loose so much accuracy over say the myth gear?
Same issue for my blm, you loose acc if you get weathered gear

[Ooshima]

Well yeah i have the bard hat on atm. Was going to switch over to visor once i updated to the sol chest. Thanks for the advice.

Here is what i will have when i switch some gear around and get some proper Acc food
http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/MKLI

Once i get into second coil i will improve my gear with drops from there. Something like this?
http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/MKKZ

Your existing config is good to go for second coil.

However your future config is weird - why stop at i100 Tidal Bow (and rather ridiculous to get considering extreme poor drop rate of mirror)? You should be looking at owning a Rosenbogen. And owning both the i110 Auroral chest and belt is unrealistic at this point in time because until you beat T9, you will only have 1 piece of Sands of Time per week (provided you can beat T8) which will be first allocated to upgrading of DPS weapons, usually.

A more realistic look at gear configuration without T9 loot, and assuming you will receive 1x UAT, 1x Sands of Time and 1x Oil of Time, you should be looking at:

Rosenbogen

HA Mask
Weathered Auroral Tabard
HA Glove
HA Belt
HA Pants
HA Boots

HA Choker (you can use the Weathered Choker too, if so change food to Apkallu Omelette HQ)
Weathered Earring
Weathered Wrist
HA Ring
Auroral Ring

Lava Toad Legs HQ

http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/MKTY

You will need quite some luck to achieve them thou, I'm no where near this when I gained access to T9. Still lacking Head, Pants, Boots, Ear and Wrist (Ear and Wrist will be next reset's purchase). Generally the idea is to work around whatever loot you can get from coil, while maintaining possibly at least 505-510 accuracy for T9 as there are some phases you might have to attack the boss or golems from the front.

I actually got the weathered boots and regret it.
Currently have 3 pieces of weathered, chest, boots and hat, the rest is myth except for the allagan gloves and still using the gryphon skin ring
Only issue i have with the weathered gear is why do we loose so much accuracy over say the myth gear?
Same issue for my blm, you loose acc if you get weathered gear

Weathered gear actually gives crap load of accuracy. Probably only chest and pants are no-acc parts.

[Maero]

That could very well be i may look up the pants and that but sorta gearing up my blm as well, lol
The Atma bow while not bis does give more acc as well (granted you have 2 books done)
Thanks for making the list, very helpful to myself and i am sure others as well

[Mergadeth]

Sands of time drops from turn 8 as well as turn 9 so makes it a bit more realistic to upgrade some armor.

[Kajidourden]

I haven't been able to do coil, as I never had a static and thus never got past t4. So for me i'm just piling on the Soldiery gear until I get into a decent group -__-