Apollo or Light Staff

[Visper]

Now I know from BLM that the HQ staves make a little bit of a difference on nuke damage, resistance, etc. I have used a monster signa till 51, now I am just using my Light staff that I had from my full set of staffs for BLM. Will it make that much of a difference between light/apollo staff and are these actually better than the monster signa?


Also btw this is only for my charm setup

I have a melee and MP setup also - good thing for macros.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

I charmed a IT++ with Light Staff last week just to save someone's butt, I'm sure that was a gamble on my part, but if I can do that with the NQ, I can't see how HQ would be that much better. HQ Staves, in general, are superfluous purchases that don't add much beyond the NQ unless you are a BLM or RDM.

[Olorin401]

HQ Staves also add a nice boost to the elemental nature of Bard Songs, especially Elegy (Terra's) and Lullaby (Apollo's). I haven't tried them yet with Requiem or Threnody, though I imagine it'd make a difference with those as well.

[Visper]

I charmed a IT++ with Light Staff last week just to save someone's butt, I'm sure that was a gamble on my part, but if I can do that with the NQ, I can't see how HQ would be that much better. HQ Staves, in general, are superfluous purchases that don't add much beyond the NQ unless you are a BLM or RDM.

ok so you would think that light staff would be sufficient, that is what I thought (also hoped cause I didn't want to put out 1.1mil lol) I know with BLM I only have 2 HQ staffs Ice and Thunder, and I grew the ore myself and had a friend craft them. Only reason I did these two HQs was cause those are the 2 "major" damage spells that BLM have. I guess with me being an elvaan I wanted to make sure I wasn't gimp, atleast with those spells.

So you think the light staff also outweighs the Monster Signa also? I know Charm is light based - thats why you use a light staff. So is the +chr kinda like +int for blm after awhile your better off going with the element/mab other than +int?

[kiffkin]

I use an Apollo's Staff. I don't use it most if the time, as my regular Charming kit works fine. However, when for the times when I absolutely need Charm to stick, I want to make sure I've got the best chance possible. That said, a Light Staff works just fine for most things, and no-one's going to complain if you use it rather than Apollo's.

Monster Signa works almost but not quite as well as a Light Staff in my experience (which is limited to level-cap areas so I can't do a direct comparison). If I'm using Tuna Sushi, it's fine but if I'm not, I find it a bit lacking. This is possibly due to my Mithran charisma though.

I may be wrong with this, and please correct me if I am, but I think that Light/Apollo's overcomes the problem of diminishing returns with charisma. If you have high +chr already then the bonus from Signa isn't actually going to help that much, whereas +Charm would be more effective. At lower levels though, the Signa bonus would be better.

[Visper]

ok so you think it work just like BLM gets diminishing returns from +int gear, which would make sense. So far I haven't had any charm issues just using the light staff, but I'll hold on to my Monster signa for capped activities.

I know I may not need to use the light staff at all (as omgwtf said) - but I really hate mischarms (always happens to me when I really need it not to!) and would rather just swap it in just in case!

[LyonheartLakshmi]

The consensus is that Light Staff beats Monster Signa easily. The numbers that are usually used with Light Staff is +10% charm success rate, with Apollo Staff giving +15% charm success rate.

Whether you think the extra gil is worth the extra +5% is up to you.

[Jugil]

Will it make that much of a difference between light/apollo staff and are these actually better than the monster signa?

If there is one HQ item I recommend for BST, it is the Apollo's Staff. I originally got the Apollo's to replace my Light when I was leveling BRD, and it made a world of difference on lullaby resists. Extrapolating this to Charm, I have gone on the assumption that Apollo's >> Light. Additionally, with my Apollo's, mischarms on EM/DC slimes in the Oubliette at 54 were very infrequent.

And yes, I believe these are much better than the Monster Signa. The only Charm benefit from the Signa is the +CHR boost. However, there is a point of diminishing returns (where more CHR isn't really that noticeable) that other Charm gear can cover, but the Apollo's/Light gives you a +15/10% increase (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/Apollo%27s_Staff) to your charm success rate.

[TaruBST]

I used light staff until level 72.
Then I changed to apolo because charm started to get resisted more often than lv 60's.
It was noticeablly better.

Let's say if you charm every 5 minutes.
You mischarm once every hour.
That's 91.7% chance to successfully charm.
With extra 5%, it's 96.7%, which makes it mischarm once every 2 1/2 hours.
And this actually is just about how much I used to mischarm with light staff and how much I mischarm now with apolo staff.

[Visper]

hmmm, ok guys thank you very much for your input, guess I may have to farm up some gil to get this then - at least its not "needed" at my current level but it can't hurt to get it as soon as I can. I was hoping to stay with just light staff but as I stated, mis-charms, no thanks...lol - they always, always happen at the worst times too!!

[Liquidedust]

I used light staff until level 72.
Then I changed to apolo because charm started to get resisted more often than lv 60's.
It was noticeablly better.

Let's say if you charm every 5 minutes.
You mischarm once every hour.
That's 91.7% chance to successfully charm.
With extra 5%, it's 96.7%, which makes it mischarm once every 2 1/2 hours.
And this actually is just about how much I used to mischarm with light staff and how much I mischarm now with apolo staff.

If we go by your example of 91.7% charm rate with Light staff, the base charm rate is only 83.36% to start with, the charm rate with Apollo becomes 95.86% not 96.7 ;).

Either way 95.86 over 91.7 is still "only" a 4.53% increase, so in this case I would see Apollo as a luxury for BST, nice but not needed so to speak :).

The Light staff in itself is a bonus so in order to calculate Apollo's bonus you must first deduct the bonus from the Light Staff before you can apply the Apollo bonus (since percentages aren't addative unless you actually use 1/100 as a base).

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Either way 95.86 over 91.7 is still "only" a 4.53% increase, so in this case I would see Apollo as a luxury for BST, nice but not needed so to speak :).
Monster Signa, Light Staff, Apollo's Staff. All 3 items are luxury items, and not "needed". The real question is, what level of luxury can you afford / want to experience while exp'ing?

[Liquidedust]

Monster Signa, Light Staff, Apollo's Staff. All 3 items are luxury items, and not "needed". The real question is, what level of luxury can you afford / want to experience while exp'ing?

Light Staff i NOT a luxury, I would rank Light Staff as a bare minimum for any BSTs charm set since it will do more in a single slot for charming that basically any amount of Charisma will ever do for you in a single slot of gear.

Monster Signa is far from needed and Apollo is just a little more potency then Light Staff, but a Light Staff is not expensive or hard to find so shouldnot be seen as a luxury but rather as a bare minimum for when it comes to Charm gear (since you can basically charm stuff naked as long as you just have a Light/Apollo).

[TaruBST]

If we go by your example of 91.7% charm rate with Light staff, the base charm rate is only 83.36% to start with, the charm rate with Apollo becomes 95.86% not 96.7 ;).

Either way 95.86 over 91.7 is still "only" a 4.53% increase, so in this case I would see Apollo as a luxury for BST, nice but not needed so to speak :).

The Light staff in itself is a bonus so in order to calculate Apollo's bonus you must first deduct the bonus from the Light Staff before you can apply the Apollo bonus (since percentages aren't addative unless you actually use 1/100 as a base).

Yes, you're right about the calculation. I did it incorrectly :cry:
I also agree that Apollo is a luxury for BST.
I couldn't afford it at lv51 and hardly could afford at lv72.
It's nice to have but definitely not needed.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Light Staff totally has a place, but Signa is pure junk and I think people only like to say its good because (1) They obsess about CHR of Galka or Mithra and (2) to feel better about the purchase.

[RunningDemon]

CHR is about the most overrated thing BST has related to it. I don't notice a difference in charm sucess from +15ish to +40, it just isn't important. The staves on the other had, you notice it immediately.

[TaruBST]

More than a year ago, my friends and I went to BCNM20 for astral ring.
We went as BST, BST, WHM.
I had 10 more CHR than the other BST and 8 of them were from monster signa.
My charm lasted longer every time.

... But I don't see any reason why charm needs to last longer while exping because we use [leave] way before the charm time runs out.

[TaruBST]

It's up to you to believe this or not, but I got this info from http://wikiwiki.jp/bst/.
The percentage is really low to me (maybe he used no other CHR boost), but this is what he got from charming 200 times each without staff, with light, and with apolo. My BST has apolo staff + 40 CHR boost and I get a lot better successful rate than these.

Against lv75 crab
Without 52.0%
Light 63.5%
Apolo 72.5%

Against lv75 slime
Without 18.5%
Light 33.0%
Apolo 41.5%

[Idun_Midgardsormr]

OK, 200 charms each ... that's 1200 charms. 10 second recast timer, and assuming someone else was taking care of the fails for no aggro, that would be ... ummm ... 3 hours 20 minutes just to gather those stats!!!

Now that's what I call dedication!

I'm guessing he stripped down for it to eliminate anything else that could affect the charm rate - to repeat the experiment with say tuna sushi would take another 3.33 hours, then repeat again for each type of equipment - you could level another job to 75 in the time it would take to go through all the combinations!

[TaruBST]

Oh, wow. I didn't think of that.
And that's not everything he did.
He tried regular day VS light day VS dark day.

It totals to 2400 charms.
Testing charm 2400 times is harder to believe than these percentages... lol