| Re: Bard Gear Question... Frankly, I found that stacking tons of CHR at level 39 or below on Bard to be mostly placebo effect. Not that you should ignore the stat, but there's a limit beyond which it simply doesn't help you. I'd say a good rule of thumb is shoot for perhaps 1/3 of your current job level in bonus CHR, perhaps a shade more if you're a Galka or Mithra.
Even if you can't make it to that point, I wouldn't sweat it. The biggest influences to song potency are:
Instrument/Singing skill
Instrument quality (normal vs. +1)
Wind versus String (wind instruments tend to be more accurate for offensive songs - strings are just fine for buffs)
Elemental staves at level 51+ for offensive songs (explicitly Apollo Staff and Terra Staff for Lullaby, Finale, and Elegy).
Everything else aside from these factors is negligible, and for the first 50 levels, you basically have little to no way of influencing any of the above, aside from the relatively minor CHR factor and the odd instrument.
Speaking of which, the only instruments that really make all that much difference in the low/mid levels are the Traversiere +1, Cornette +1, Faerie Piccolo, and Mary's Horn. You can safely skip just about everything else nearly all the way to level 75 - the performance adds from the other instruments won't see much use since you won't be using the other songs nearly as often until/unless you do endgame.
Icemage |