100% Naked Bard almost as good as Decked out Bard?

[CarbonFibre]

It's just like the Shura armor, Koenig armor, Crimson armor, etc. A very high level piece is sythesized and then you need to uncurse it. The items needed to uncurse them (they're called abjurations) drop off top tier HNMs. When I saw the set, just as with the shura set, I was not all that impressed. It is nice armor for a lot of mages, but IMO a tarutaru will be better off with Errant gear. With all this stat capping talk I may be wrong though. Lol full zenith on a taru he'll end up with 100 hp :p

[Vilurum]

Every set of abjuration equipment - except Crimson - has a downside. Assuming no HQ, here are the total stats for each set:

Hecatomb (WAR/THF/PLD/DRK/BST/BRD/DRG):

172 Defense

Pro:
HP +58
STR +36
DEX +12
Accuracy +10
Attack +20

Con:
Slow +43

Koenig (WAR/PLD):

205 Defense

Pro:
HP +170
VIT +60
CHR +60
Shield +5
Evasion +10
Enhances "Resist Sleep" effect
Enhances "Resist Paralyze" effect

Con:
STR -30
DEX -30

Adaman (WAR/DRK/BST):

160 Defense

Pro:
STR +10
DEX +10
Accuracy +33
Attack +44

Con:
HP -20
MP -20
VIT -10
INT -10
MND -10
Evasion -31

Shura (MNK/SAM/NIN):

122 Defense

Pro:
STR +10
Accuracy +30
Attack +20
Enhances "Resist Paralyze" effect
Enhances "Resist Gravity" effect

Con:
HP -150

Zenith (WHM/BLM/RDM/BRD/SMN):

158 Defense

Pro:
MP +250
INT +5
MND +7
CHR +6
Magic Attack Bonus +5
Magic Defense Bonus +5
Adds "Refresh" effect
Enhances "Resist Silence" effect
Enhances "Resist Paralyze" effect

Con:
HP -250
Evasion -3

Crimson (RDM/PLD/DRK/RNG/DRG):

179 Defense

Pro:
HP +120
MP +120
DEX +3
AGI +3
INT +10
MND +10
All elemental resistance +20
Ranged Accuracy +10
Ranged Attack +10
Dark magic +10
Enfeebling magic +10
Breath damage taken -10%
Movement speed +12%
Adds "Regen" effect

Con:
Nothing

Abjuration equipment by job:
WAR: Hecatomb, Koenig, Adaman
MNK: Shura
WHM: Zenith
BLM: Zenith
RDM: Zenith, Crimson
THF: Hecatomb
PLD: Hecatomb, Koenig, Crimson
DRK: Hecatomb, Adaman, Crimson
BST: Hecatomb, Adaman
BRD: Hecatomb, Zenith
RNG: Crimson
SAM: Shura
NIN: Shura
DRG: Hecatomb, Crimson
SMN: Zenith

[2.0]

Crimson Armor turns you into a "dragon" so to speak. You can get intimidated by dragoons. That's a con sort of I guess.

[Asao]

On xp mobs @ 75 ( Aura statues are prolly the highest lvl IT+++), I've noticed that I do not get resisted all that much, except for requiem which seems to always get resisted on the Aura Statues. But when fighting Gods I am lucky to get 1 elegy or 1 finale landed in the 30 minute fight, even with both CHR+ songs on me ><. I have never successfully landed a threnody on Genbu or Suzaku either.

Are there any bards that can reliably land songs on the gods, especially threnodies? If so, what equipment are you using? However I did notice that when I used my 2 hr once on Genbu, elegy and finale were not resisted... was too busy with ballad to use other songs ; ;

Oh yeah, in my LS even tho brds all the last on the list to get Zenith abjurations, our LS provides the funds to purchase the cursed armor^^

[grunion]

in general i think the first post is correct. a naked bard is almsot as good as the most decked out bard.

i can think of 3 exceptions:

+2 instruments are a must

when fighting something very IT+++ such as gods or HNM, you'll want that +70 or more CHR, and you can help a lot by staying alive w/ +hp, casting more cure w/ +mp, and getting tp to do spirits within with a fast sword

when farming (obviously)

other than that, really all you need is the instruments.

[Faranim]

Since this was bumped, I'll comment after I've had a bit more end-game experience.

This is what you need CHR for:
Kirin (even with +70 CHR he's a bitch to hit with anything)
Genbu, Suzaku, Seiryuu, Byakko. CHR definately helps, but it still takes multiple casts of anything to get it to land.
High Level HNMs (King Behemoth, Fafnir, Nidhogg, Aspidochelone). With +50 CHR landing songs on these guys is pretty easy. It's nice when I can keep Water Threnody on Nidhogg for virtually the entire fight.

Once you hit 75, CHR doesn't help you against any other monster in the game. It will make a very very very slight effect on high level EXP mobs (such as Aura Statue), but you would be much better off with more HP or MP instead of the CHR.

If Inventory space wasn't an Issue, I'd have a set of gear that gives all out CHR (+70 CHR is pretty easy to get), and a 2nd set with tons of +MP. Of course, on top of the 12 instruments I carry, having 24 pieces of equipment and 5 weapons, doesn't leave much room for anything else after consumables (Pamama, Echo, Oils, Powders).

As far as lower levels go, CHR is still useful because it will help your success rates on EXP mobs. Being able to land Elegy, Threnody, and Lullaby reliably is well worth the price of the equiment.

[Peanut_Midgard]

I will have to echo the statement about CHR useful on even xp mobs. I have always believed the common saying that the "soft cap" for CHR is around 30ish. So I always have around CHR+35 equip on me and I rarely have problems on xp mobs. However, last our party decided to go against someting a little out of our league. You know, things that take a long time to kill and only give 200 xp I was having a hell of a time landing things. So I busted out my Rose Harp +1 and sang Bewitching Etude on myself. Voila with +8 from it I get resisted 1 out of 5 times instead of 3 out of 5 times. It was a really noticable difference.

Lesson learned is the "soft cap" is really level dependent. The bigger the gap is between you and the mob, the more CHR you need before you will reach that "soft cap". And that essentially is why you need a lot of CHR when you are fighting the ubah HNM. They are much higher level than you ^^

[sudo]

don't forget, a naked smn is almost as good as a fully decked out smn too.

I've tried playing naked before as smn and it's just about the same damn thing.

The only difference was cures were better with light staff and dark staff helped sitting mp regen.

The -5 seconds on bp timer was not all that noticable during 5hrs of exping. Conserve MP didn't kick in very often on JSE 50.

I never get to full mp before the puller grabs the next mob so my max mp eq was wastful as well.

The +1 mp on seer's cloak didn't make much difference by itself. If I had maybe more eq that stacked mp regen this might work better.

All my blood pacts worked exactly the same no matter what I had equipped.

I rarely got agro anyway and when I did, aerial armor and stone skin sucked it up or I was dead in less than 5 hits anyway.

Even with clothes on, I'd only last about 4 hits before I die. With armor I'd live an extra hit maybe.

I'm sure a vermillion cloak would add more noticable difference in my performance but as it was, the blm often ran out of mp way before me so I'd just sit there and wait for him to regen mp.

Having refresh on for myself would just make me get more mp faster but this was also rather pointless since I never really run down to 0 mp anyway. And as long as I had mp to cast, it made little difference for exping if I had more max or faster gain.

Other people can be the limiting factors, or out of mobs to pull, or they'd need me to carby pull etc.

But having blood pacts have nothing much to do with smn equips is rather funny. Playing naked really is virtually unnoticable in supporting job roles.

smn, brd, whm, you can play most of these almost naked and they'd still work 80-90% as good as ones in 50 million gil gear.

Melees, tanks, and other DD require much more attention to detail on gear in my opinion. But then again, they usually farm better too.

Maybe it all balances out? support jobs can't farm so they don't need much gear?

[cloudedge]

Yeah, I'd agree that the soft cap on Chr is relative to ur lvl. I am usually in a perma so the lvl range of my PT is never higher than 1 lvl.. at max 2. And in these set up I rarely get resisted for my debuff in my chr+ gear (35+ chr) but if I forget to swap my mp gear out (26+) my lullaby are sometimes resisted even on weak IT mobs. (and I use earth staff and horn +1)

I had a chance recently to pt out of my static and i was 67 while the pld was 70. We were fighting IT to IT+ and I definately can feel I get resisted A LOT more even with (35+ chr) so I'd say, if the mob is 7-8lvl above u, u will have trouble landing debuff on the mob... and this where u're gear may prob. be able to make a difference.

But regarding Melody +1 earing.. it's going at 400-500k on Ifrit, while terra is 1.2 mil...and I definately thinke +5% decrease resistance on elegy is > +2 chr.