[Sabaron]

Originally Posted by Aksannyi

Really the only thing I use Paeon for is skilling up string, since there's a cheap harp that's like level 1 with Paeon + on it, and I've used that. Though it's easier nowadays to go to sea and sing to the fishies.

Skilling up string with a buff song is hard and almost pointless. I just sang Elegies to dolphins in sea...

90% of the time, you will not be using Paeon in a fight except during emergency circumstances (i.e. dead WHM). Remember, too, that taking March off of a shadow tank is dangerous.

[Aksannyi]

Yeah, I'm just saying that's the only reason I bought the harp in the first place. Random skill ups, which were caught up later on goldfish. I'd spam Threnodies. Also kind of use that as something to do while waiting for replacements or whatever, just whip out the Paeon macro and spam the hell out of it.

[Solymir]

Originally Posted by Murphie

This is my concern. I am planning on taking BRD to 75 as soon as I get DRG up a bit higher, and the instrument selection on Seraph's AH is disheartening. I blame either too many people leveling BRD, or lazy Bards not bothering to swap out instruments.

Or hell, maybe crafters just don't feel like making them.

Generally speaking instruments don't have a lot of Return On Investment, some don't even break even for the NQ synths.

Edit: And they sell slowly, which sucks when you only have a max of 7 items you can put on the AH. I just went to FFXIAH (For Fenrir) and looked up the Instrument category. Only 5 of them have a Sell Rate of "Average", all others are "Slow, Very Slow or Dead Slow".

[Rothy]

Originally Posted by Aksannyi

but it has been REALLY helpful for me to have distance plugin for the explicit purpose

Very very useful, until the PLD moves to the right like he did all last night.

---------- Post added at 10:20 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:19 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Aksannyi

You will want a Light/Apollo's Staff and an Earth/Terra's staff when you get to that point. You have BLM 75 so you should probably have those already. Light is for (correct me if I'm wrong) Lullaby and Requiem, and Earth is for Elegy and basic idle (DMG reduction is hot stuff). You might want to consider getting a Water/Neptune's staff for casting Stoneskin (4 MND NQ, 5 MND HQ), but BRD has access to a good bit of MND gear so it may not be necessary.

At the moment, the only HQ Staff I have is the Ice one. (Got it for 100k!) But I'll look at getting an Apollo and Terra as soon as I can afford it.. currently spamming Shadows of the Mind on my BLM.

[IfritnoItazura]

Originally Posted by Solymir

Generally speaking instruments don't have a lot of Return On Investment, some don't even break even for the NQ synths.

Edit: And they sell slowly, which sucks when you only have a max of 7 items you can put on the AH. I just went to FFXIAH (For Fenrir) and looked up the Instrument category. Only 5 of them have a Sell Rate of "Average", all others are "Slow, Very Slow or Dead Slow".

The way I look at it, it's not worth a crafter's time to keep the AH stocked. A. The demands are low; few people want to play Bard, and fewer want all the instruments, especially for the lesser used songs. B. The supplies are high compared to the demands; lots of Bard want to quit the job (or FFXI altogether), so they try to get rid of their collection--and become competitor to the crafters. Lower level instruments which get replaced during the level up process fare even worse.

This is a problem common to non-consumable crafting; every time someone buys an item from a crafter, a few weeks/months down the road he became a potential competitor to the same crafter. That's the real reason SE introduced Augment; the process opens up the crafting market a bit by moving some items off market permanently (and increase the demand slightly).*

So, start spreading rumors that some people got wonderful--simply marvelous--augments trading in Bard instruments for Field Parchment NM fights. The prices for them should go up, and then the crafters may become interested in making more.

* Personally, I think SE will be a lot of successful in widening the market for crafters if Augment isn't so completely random. Let players pick one (small) improvement effect, and add a random (beneficial) effect which can be stronger, and you'll start to see crafted equipement flying off the AH.

[Raydeus]

Well if you had say up to 4 augment slots (for equip without any natural +stats on it) and could choose 2 lesser augments while gambling the other two; then stat-less gear would become hotter than sch hume girls.

Like my good old Gambison set.

[Solymir]

There is another way SE could improve the stock of certain items on the AH. If they rotated in more of those items to the Guild point item list odds are you would see more of them. Or at least the HQ versions. Generally speaking if I HQ an item while crafting guild point items I will put those on the AH hoping to get some of my material investment back.