Ah, I must've gotten confused between relic and AF for hands. I was thinking AF+1 legs, but I just need to focus on getting into a Limbus shell for that since I can't simply by ancient beastcoins like I can for the two earrings.
Also, I didn't think the AF+1 body was really any good? Well, let me rephrase that: comparative to Sha'Ir body, Yigit's body, and Kirin's Osode, it just doesn't really equate to me. I suppose it doesn't hurt to get though.
Sha'ir and Yigit are comparable for their one significant stat: decreased song casting time. (This makes them a macro piece anyway: have an equip line before the line where you start casting. Then after a wait of at least 1, another equip line to put some other body piece on. Casting speed items are unique in that their effects are applied when you *start* casting, not when you *finish* casting.) Between the two, Sha'ir is technically better, but Yigit is *vastly* more practical in terms of availability.
As for debuffing, you have three options with 10 CHR: Errant, Osode, AF+1.
For pulling, you have two options with 10 VIT and respectable def: Osode, AF+1.
For pure -enmity, you'd wear Crow/Raven anyway. However, for -enmity along with other useful stats (i.e. -enmity on a debuffing piece), you have two options: Errant, AF+1.
Basically AF+1 is the best aspects of Errant and Osode rolled together. Top-notch debuffing, you can take a punch, and -enmity so you're less likely to be taking a punch in an endgame situation. It doesn't have Errant's hMP (which is a point in favor of using Yigit over Sha'ir, I might add, since Yigit doubles as hMP gear). It also doesn't let you melee as well as Osode, but who cares about that on a BRD? It doesn't, however, leave you as squishy as Errant, nor does it leave you as likely to pull hate as Osode.
(Incidentally, whenever I see bards at HNM camps flaunting Osode, Zenith, and other such things with no -enmity, I just have to laugh to myself. Buffing every 2 minutes builds up quite hefty hate over a long fight, you barely have any hate buffer in which to help cure without -enmity.)
Is AF+1 body as good as legs or hands? No. It's a convenience of rolling together two good items into one good item, but it doesn't extend your capabilities. You can have an Osode for meriting and an Errant for endgame. Legs and hands, however, are flatly *upgrades*, and rather good ones too. So they're definitely higher priority. But body is very much worth getting after that. (Especially if bard's the only job you have that can use Osode, because AF+1 translates to Osode sale proceeds!)
(And by the by, for someone to write it off merely on the basis of having string skill shows a certain amount of tunnel vision and lack of overall perspective.
)
. Assault yes prz.
