Galkans make the best bards...

[navpops]

[EMOlite]

LMAO!!!!!!

That rocks lol, Galka don't make the best Bards by the way, TaruTaru, Elvaan and Hume's do for their higher charisma Not to mention lowest MP for a good sub with BRD, and well....they are Galka...not cute:sweat:

n00b response end here

[Seeker_Onos]

In some cases, CHR+ is not always the deciding factor... although according to a few high level BRDs that regularly hunt HNMs - it is certainly important irregardless of the situation.

Perhaps some tradeoffs can be made, depending upon the elemental day and type of monster involved.

Post level 51 - the use of a Light Staff makes a great difference for landing the Light-based songs (Elegy, Requiem and Lullaby)

I tested this out in Cape Terrigan afew nights ago, borrowing a friend's Light Staff.

The best results vs. Terror Pugils and Robber Crabs (a perennial favorite ) were found on Darksday, equipping the Light Staff, and singing or casting the following:

Light Threnody
- Banishga (no other nearby mobs to AE)
- Diaga
- Battlefield Elegy (still farming/BCNMing the 100-ish K for Carnage Elegy)
- Requiem V

Consistently, I had 1 resist out of every 6-8 attempts.

I used the same setup on Lightsday, had 1 resist out every 4-5 attempts.

On other elemental days, I would equip my max CHR+ gear:

- Enchanting Etude (give my base 60CHR +35CHR with the gear)
- Sing the day's opposing Threnody (if Lightningsday, I sing Earth Threnody, 90+ % chance of landing on IT mob) -- (hopefully BLM or RDM is watching and lands the appropriate elemental nuke) --
- I then equipped the Light Staff and cast the spells/songs as mentioned above for Darksday with noticeably fewer resists (1 resist every 3-4 attempts)

My control test case was my +CHR gear (+31CHR) singing just Elegy and Requiem V (resisted 2 attempts out of 3) with marginally better results on Lightsday. Light Threnody tended to get resisted on any day except Lightsday or Darksday (best success on Darksday since Light Threnody is Darkness based).

I haven't tried this vs. XP level plantoid monsters (strong to light) or Insectoid/Funguars (strong to darkness) and I should see if it is more effective or not against the mobs and thier particuler elemental weaknesses.

[UnnamedGalka]

/em looks at navpop's post and sighs

And to think we were actually having an intelligent conversation...

You could've at least shrunk the pic so that it wouldn't have run everything off the screen and made things harder to read.

Anyway:

Galka don't make the best Bards by the way, TaruTaru, Elvaan and Hume's do for their higher charisma Not to mention lowest MP for a good sub with BRD

These issues have already been addressed. I would invite you to go back and read several of the previous posts.

BTW, there's much more to being a good Bard than just having high base CHR and high MP. Party positioning, which instruments to use and when, what accessories to equip, knowing which songs to use and when, the appropriate times to use white magic, etc.

Being a good Bard is much different than, say, being an extraneous melee, who can just hit his attack macro then go AFK for a little while. A good Bard is always on his toes, always working.

I'll tell you this right now: All the CHR and MP in the world won't do you a bit of good if you're a lazy Bard.

and well....they are Galka...not cute

OK...I've heard this a million times and it annoys me to no end. I'm sorry, but saying that Galkas aren't good at something because they aren't "cute" is completely shallow and inane. Cuteness is something that's in the eye of the beholder anyway.

[navpops]

well, i must ask, what did you expect? it was a thread about "The Best Race for XXX Job"

it's not the first time. it's not the last. like you said, skill makes a bard. if there were 1 bard seeking of every race, i would look at the comment, rank, and name. and invite the best one. i wouldnt judge on race. (1)30 more MP a taru has is not making him a more valuable part of my party

[Vilurum]

The best results vs. Terror Pugils and Robber Crabs (a perennial favorite ) were found on Darksday, equipping the Light Staff, and singing or casting the following:

Light Threnody
- Banishga (no other nearby mobs to AE)
- Diaga
- Battlefield Elegy (still farming/BCNMing the 100-ish K for Carnage Elegy)
- Requiem V

Consistently, I had 1 resist out of every 6-8 attempts.

I used the same setup on Lightsday, had 1 resist out every 4-5 attempts.

So when counting your resists when using a Light Staff, were you counting anything besides the Requiem V?

Light Threnody is dark elemental - the Light Staff would, if anything, make that *harder* to land. Banishga is a half-level skill so of course it's gonna have significant resistance, so that shouldn't be included in the test case.

Diaga is not, as far as I know, *possible* to resist, unless it's blinked away or a stronger Dia or Bio is already in place. Elegy is earth elemental (look at its little brown musical note rather than a white one; Slow is earth too), so again, no relevance to the Light Staff.

Which just leaves Requiem V.

- Sing the day's opposing Threnody (if Lightningsday, I sing Earth Threnody, 90+ % chance of landing on IT mob) -- (hopefully BLM or RDM is watching and lands the appropriate elemental nuke) --

Never heard of picking your threnodies based on the day of the week rather than enemy weaknesses, skillchain, most powerful nuke, or debuffs that need to land. Do you use Water Threnody on the crabs and pugils because it's the right day? Even with Water Threnody, water nukes just plain aren't gonna work well ...

[Xccoortri]

Yeah, isn't it counter intuitive to cast a threnody just because it is going to land better? The whole choice of threnody is to choose what the monster is weak too, not just what will land...why land a water threnody on a mob that is strong to water?

[Miriamel]

I'm just gonna come out and say it:

Race doesn't matter for a bard. The only time it matters is during HNM fights, where you'll want to have the best CHR equipment possible to land your debuffs. +8 base CHR WILL come in handy here. For EXP, BC Fights, etc, race really does not matter. Not one bit, at all.

My elegy on IT++ mobs gets resisted about 5% of all times, and when that happens, I quickly sing min+mad, then recast elegy, together with the other debuffs. Problem fixed. My CHR is +29 only, I haven't even invested in the countless +1 versions you can get for more CHR and even less resists.

MP? I keep mine in the 150ish range. To keep a bar-elemental spell up and to throw the occasional Cure III. Basically that means I go +CHR equipment and wear RSE boots and 1 Electrum Ring. You really don't need more! You don't need 300MP to be a ghetto WHM, you'll be far too busy with singing.

Generally though, every race can play any job. Heck, I know a Galka WHM that has more MP than most Taru WHMs you'll ever come across. He's my hero. Can you say pimp?

[Rekiem]

Race doesn't matter for a bard. The only time it matters is during HNM fights, where you'll want to have the best CHR equipment possible to land your debuffs. +8 base CHR WILL come in handy here. For EXP, BC Fights, etc, race really does not matter. Not one bit, at all.

CHR is a very important stat for BRD. That +8 Base CHR is very handy because its the same has having a Monster Signa on you but it doesn't take any equipment slot, its free and you have it all the time. If youre able to land Lullaby on a monster with around 95% chances of not getting resisted, then I think your have enough CHR. You can now equip a Light or Dark Staff and be a more effective caster. That +8 base CHR is far from being useless because it allow me to more effective in other area.

I also started subbing BST now when hunting. Its very usefull and I must say that to be able to make this SJ effective with BRD, you need every single bit of CHR you can possibly get and that +8 CHR is quite handy I must say.

[UnnamedGalka]

CHR is a very important stat for BRD. That +8 Base CHR is very handy because its the same has having a Monster Signa on you but it doesn't take any equipment slot, its free and you have it all the time. If youre able to land Lullaby on a monster with around 95% chances of not getting resisted, then I think your have enough CHR. You can now equip a Light or Dark Staff and be a more effective caster. That +8 base CHR is far from being useless because it allow me to more effective in other area.

Sorry, but I'm gonna have to agree wholeheartedly with Miriamel on this one. Other than for HNM fights, that 8 CHR base difference really is pretty meaningless. Whether I have my Monster Signa or Apollo's Staff equipped for an EXP PT or BCNM, I can't tell the difference at all. Either way my debuffs and Lullabies still have an excellent % of successful lands on even IT++ mobs.

[Thingol]

Not to be a jerk and bring it back to the subject (and I agree with pretty much all that has been said here) but the issue at hand is the potentil for the *best* bard. In that case the 8 chr does matter. We are talking about potential. To draw a parallel from EQ (sorry to do this) but a dwarf paly simply has a better chance at being the "best paly" than an Elf. Of course player skill, equipment and other factors come into play but when I think of the best possible race for a class, I start looking at where they will finnish up in the end game and how each race would stack up wearing the same equipment (try to compare oranges to oranges, as it were).
One of the great things about FFXI is that any race can play any job and equipment can cover some of the race gap... but when you get to the end game and the equipment field starts to level out, your base stats will start to matter when looking for the best of each class.
Just my .02

[Miriamel]

Well, if you are going to insist on the *best* race, that is equally shared by Taru, Hume and Elvaan. Why? The only important stat for a bard is CHR.

MP? HP? Who is to decide if MP benefits a bard better than HP, especially since the job itself, bard, doesn't give you *any* MP whatsoever. Your mage-sub does. Hence, it doesn't exactly play into the "best race for bard" discussion. Sure, you are an enhancer, and therefore it is suitable to sub an enhancing class. But that is a nice bonus, not much more.

People primarily want you to keep your songs up, 99% couldn't care less if that Cure III that just hit them came from the WHM/RDM/BLM/PLD or BRD.

To cut it short, MP is not part of a "best bard" discussion. CHR, singing/string/wind skill are what matters. Potentially, if a Hume/Taru/Elvaan acquires all the boosting gear they can, they would be "better" than a Galka/Mithra with all boosting gear. However, never in my Vana'diel life have I seen someone with all boosting gear there is for BRD.

Eventually, it's up to the individual to be good or "best". Skill matters, so does equipment. There's more CHR to be had in this game than you'll ever need however, that's my point.

[CarbonFibre]

If only Bards could use the Koenig armor set. They'd get huge CHR boost and be able to take hits better. :p

[UnnamedGalka]

Bravo, Miriamel. I couldn't have put it better myself. You speak words of wisdom.

[Thingol]

Originally posted by UnnamedGalka
Bravo, Miriamel. I couldn't have put it better myself. You speak words of wisdom.

Indeed, I agree compleatly... It does all come down to player skill in the final anylyis.. again I can only draw a personal analogy from the endgame of EQ (I took a 4 month break to live in the Dominican Republic so I'm only a 48 bard while all my friends are now closingin on rank 10 75 ;- but I was an 65 elvan paly and had very good but certainly not the best gear on my server (E. Marr). Still I had many friends and just plain associates that would only raid with me tanking because I knew what the heck I was doing while others that had better charicters on paper got their riads killed... My only point was that, in the afore mentioned analogy, if I had been playing their charicter it would have been more "uber l33t" (just kidding )