Arc/Brd gear thread

[Meatdawg]

Why so eager to meld str/dex onto your pants? You can meld Piety onto some Felt Kecks or Raptorskin Subligar. Probably cheaper as well.

[Onisake]

Why so eager to meld str/dex onto your pants? You can meld Piety onto some Felt Kecks or Raptorskin Subligar. Probably cheaper as well.

I'm already at Pie cap. My build was centered around the LT bow, and activating the bonus. 30AP is huge.

now that I can change my accesseries a bit, i can get a pie bracelet. Dex pants are the only thing i'm really missing to hit dex cap for WS, as i'm already very close to the cap for auto attacks/light shot.

I parse higher with Garuda's spine, but your damage for the fight is on the low end so it may be easier to manage plumes with a higher base damage weapon. Garuda's is nice, but I had a lot of trouble with it at first because it takes more shots to kill plumes.

we're managing relic-runs with our group. while I'd love to push my damage higher to improve our tolerance for error, i'm not positive its needed. our other bard was doing in the 8-13k range. I was usually 1.5x their damage. i'm still learning optimal positioning and rotations for the fight. for the most part right now i'm just spamming light shot and only using maybe 4 combos every fight. I bring out a blood letter combo before the first jump. and then use RoD combo right after to get some damage out of quick knock. it's usually off CD a little after AB happens so i can use it again while i'm dodging tornados.

i think the only thing i need to do in the fight now is to try to use wide-volley combo to get a little more damage on Garuda. but I was typically one shotting plumes with RoD uncombod, and Wide volley does less damage so i'm a little concerned. if i've only got 2 or 3 plumes I might be able to pull it off and pick them off after WV. but i'll need to play around with my combos. and again i'm not convinced it's needed. i'd rather just one-shot them with RoD.

base damage i know affects light shot, but does it also affect RoD/Wide Volley?

my understanding was higher base damage was good for light shot, barrage, heavy shot. but for WS (quick knock, RoD, wide volley, etc.) DPS score was more important. is this true?

[Meatdawg]

I'm already at Pie cap. My build was centered around the LT bow, and activating the bonus. 30AP is huge.

As was pointed out above, no you're not.

[Onisake]

As was pointed out above, no you're not.

I stand corrected. However if i'm going to meld pants, it will be STR/DEX. between accessories and forward thinking (I will eventually get paragon's crown) my BiS for legs will be STR/DEX. Piety will be largely wasted here. However, my recommendation to other bards that do not have a similar gear set to me is that piety should be your first focus. this is based on my own experience and eyeballing damage.

------------------------

I did further testing last night on Garuda.

With Spine (smoked raptor and min):
AP:593
Acc:446
Pie:344
Dex:263

Over 7 Garuda runs I averaged about 17k damage. From what church has implied my damage is on the low end. I'm chalking this up to inexperience and being drastically below the dex cap.

95% acc average on these 7 fights with the spine.


I did another 3 runs with my old set. combined with my data from last night

630AP
441acc
273dex
328pie

I was averaging 16k damage. with 98% accuracy. I find this last bit particularly interesting. i'm guessing there is some sort of dex check to determine accuracy threshold.

A couple of notes:

Using spine i was able to get more combos off. a larger percentage of my damage came from WS damage. This was not a significantly larger percentage, however. especially during the final phase of the fight. i was getting 3 or 4 combos off instead of only 1 or 2.

Rain of death more consistently destroyed plumes with spine. i don't have any data to say exactly how much more damage I was doing per RoD. but I had almost no stragglers. Eyeballing I would say it was around 5% increase in damage per WS.

Furthermore, total damage from lightshot was about the same between spine and storm LT bow. the margin between these two is small enough that i feel they are equivalent. However I'm aware that i'm not quite at dex cap for lightshot with spine. this could make all the difference. However at this time i'm not sure I want to invest into more dex, as I would need a very solid pair of dex pants. I'll also need to make up 7 PTY somewhere. (most likely by getting a paragon's crown, or triple melded body)

If you're a new bard and you're gearing for endgame your LT bow will be a solid choice.

If you're on a budget and you're maelstrom, I would highly recommend investing ~4-5m into a solid pair of att gloves and a pie body. and getting the set bonus. this will make a world of difference. 30AP is fantastic.

On a fight where you can combo freely, the spine will largely outperform the LT bow. the increase in DPS=>WS damage is great.

In fights where the vast majority of your damage is from light shot (Moogle, Garuda) the LT bow will be nearly equivalent to spine due to the higher base damage.

[Churchill]

This is because Ifrit's Bow DPS is something like 36.74 compared to Ifrit's Harpoon which is 39.73 (Both guesses but should be close).

3DPS difference=different stat caps for the original testing.

My Garuda rotation is a few posts later in that thread as well. Depending on how the plumes come out, and if we get South Winds or not, I am in the 19-29k range each fight. Most fights it's ~25k.

[Onisake]

Ahhhh. I see. that makes sense now

I can easily put in more PIE now that i have my spine. my bracelet and belt slot just opened up. and i can put my choral sandals back on for another 10 PIE. so i can probably squeeze at least another 17 pie, but at the cost of 10 dex, 3AP and 7str. I'm two jobs away from paragon's crown. so if i get time i'll probably work on that to bring me up to 351 PIE. but my dex will be low at 260. I'll be taking away 10dex for 10pie on boots.

I think my only other option would be a triple meld on body.

Thanks Church. i'll play around with it a little and decide if i think it's worth any more investment before ARR

[Taika]

Your damage for Garuda does seem quite low. How fast are you killing her (do you kill the clones at all and if you do, how many times)?

I remember parsing 30k on our last run yesterday, tried to find some parses to see is this a usual number but couldn't find any for now (will check on our next run which should be on Monday, I think). Then again, we tend to go a bit slow on this fight, killing the clones even 3 times sometimes, and that affects total dmg a lot.

I'm using Flame Lieutenant's Bow. My stats are PIE 344, DEX 298, ATT 532, ACC 390. With this ACC I always get close to 100% ACC (never lower than 95%) eating Jerked Beef, so I would say you really don't need any more than 400 ACC for this on BRD.

You mentioned you aren't able to combo in this fight, why is that?

[Onisake]

Your damage for Garuda does seem quite low. How fast are you killing her (do you kill the clones at all and if you do, how many times)?

I remember parsing 30k on our last run yesterday, tried to find some parses to see is this a usual number but couldn't find any for now (will check on our next run which should be on Monday, I think). Then again, we tend to go a bit slow on this fight, killing the clones even 3 times sometimes, and that affects total dmg a lot.

I'm using Flame Lieutenant's Bow. My stats are PIE 344, DEX 298, ATT 532, ACC 390. With this ACC I always get close to 100% ACC (never lower than 95%) eating Jerked Beef, so I would say you really don't need any more than 400 ACC for this on BRD.

You mentioned you aren't able to combo in this fight, why is that?

We're doing ~6min burn runs. we're essentially doing relic runs.

the damage i'm posting is garuda ONLY. not total damage throughout the fight. if i post total damage it's probably much higher.

we do not kill sisters. we just beat her face in.

As BRD my main role is to protect one pillar and kill plumes with RoD. i can combo before first jump. and get one combo off after first jump. after that i just build 3k TP and blow RoD every 30 seconds or so. usually do this 3 or 4 times before she does AB.

After AB I can combo freely.

[Churchill]

You should post the total damage, no one cares what a BRD does solely to Garuda. Your job is to make sure the party is alive when she does Aerial blast.

e-though considering you're doing the method you're doing, it's probably not as reliable a source of information as most people would base your total output on a more standard party setup.

[Taika]

Yeah if you're doing the BLM burn thing and don't even kill the clones the damage sounds just fine. Before AB I usually do only one RoD combo if even that - I just gather 3000 tp (using throwing weapons too) and do RoD.