The Final Debate: Apollos/Terras...or...Alkalurops

[Xzerper]

Having a fight with a friend, this subject needs to be settled because quite simply unless its on a forum, or some equation is shown, I am "Not right".

Apollos Staff, and Terra's Staff, will give you Estimated +15% Magical Accuracy/Less resists. Correct?

Vs: Alkalurops

Alkalurops Rare
(Staff) All Races
DMG: 49 Delay: 366 HP -10
INT +10 MND +10 CHR +10
Magic Accuracy +20
Lv. 73 WHM / BLM / RDM / BRD

+20 Magical Acc, and +10 CHR relating to...+3?.5 Magical Acc.

Mithra BRD, 75, no equipment. Base CHR = ?

What item, has the best magical Acc increase. Because this isnt being settled because the person in question thinks Magical Acc+20 is 'sooooo good and +CHR for Mithra alone is worth it."

Endgame, anything. What will perform better, and why. I want equations too please, as I am incapable of providing them myself. But I know this staff is shit less it's for RDM's and their Para and Slow modifiers on stuff they generally do not have resists too without staffs.

Thanks in Advance.

 

[Uzor]

Not a BRD, but I am somewhat sure that Apollo's/Terra's is better for BRD, purely for the increased m. acc.

And its not actually +15%, it is somewhere in the lines of +35 m. acc.

 

[Zyndara]

Some people have been discussing this here:

http://www.qcdn.org/ffxi/showthread.php?t=64039

Hope it helps.

 

[pchan]

Assuming it works like Elemental magic & enfeebling magic. Alkalurops=HQ staff, accuracy wise, if you INT is below the mob's INT+10. If the INT is > target +10, it's worse since stacking INT doesn't add much accuracy.

You will not find a single test that shows HQ staff to be greatly superior. It's 5 mac at best, which is nothing and can only be tested with 4-5k spells minimum.

 

[Jojojo]

You can reach the CHR threshold where it stops being very useful on mithra without alkalurops.

That being said, all you are left with is the 20 macc. If you believe what pchan says, that it's only a +5 macc increase, then alkalurops is worlds better. I think the MACC bonus on staves is higher myself, but i can't prove it. I would wear Terra's if I cared enough about bard.

 

[Orinna]

The thing is.. It doesn't matter. No matter what, I have never had a problem landing anything (besides Requiem obviously), with my hq staves. In merits, the only time I have a problem landing elegy or lullaby is when my tacos wear off.

End game wise, you'll likely be able to land elegy/lullaby/finale without food unless it's not landable without Elemental Seal. At that point you could be wearing absolutely nothing.

I've never seen a bard wearing the exact same gear as another bard, and I likely never will. With Chr being so touchy, and the races having such a wide range of chr, you can gear completely differently. If you like Alkalurops, go ahead and use it. If you like hq staves, use them too. As long as you're not resisting like crazy all the time, if won't matter. Just make sure to gear for the least amount of resists possible, and you'll do fine.

 

[Wakmidget1]

The thing is.. It doesn't matter. No matter what, I have never had a problem landing anything (besides Requiem obviously), with my hq staves. In merits, the only time I have a problem landing elegy or lullaby is when my tacos wear off.

End game wise, you'll likely be able to land elegy/lullaby/finale without food unless it's not landable without Elemental Seal. At that point you could be wearing absolutely nothing.

What? What? Are you saying you have a harder time landing songs on merit mobs than end-game mobs? ie: Gods/jailers/kings?

I've never seen a bard wearing the exact same gear as another bard, and I likely never will. With Chr being so touchy, and the races having such a wide range of chr, you can gear completely differently. If you like Alkalurops, go ahead and use it. If you like hq staves, use them too. As long as you're not resisting like crazy all the time, if won't matter. Just make sure to gear for the least amount of resists possible, and you'll do fine.

Best thing to do with gear is build up a solid average of about 110~120 CHR, at 110 the effect of CHR starts to have diminishing returns and at 120 CHR it's pretty much pointless.

Once you have 110~120 CHR start stacking Skill/ Magic Accuracy on another slots. I haven't used food on BRD in years as it doesn't make a difference either way. My resists are minimal at best with/without food.

 

[Bladewind]

What? What? Are you saying you have a harder time landing songs on merit mobs than end-game mobs? ie: Gods/jailers/kings?



Best thing to do with gear is build up a solid average of about 110~120 CHR, at 110 the effect of CHR starts to have diminishing returns and at 120 CHR it's pretty much pointless.

I've never focused on CHR, because i find it to be useless, I'd take skill/Macc over CHR every time (having said that I don't have the sea cape so use Jester's+1). I don't use food on BRD, and I have no trouble landing elegy on kings/jailers, while gods do tend to resist more, maybe i've just had bad luck on those.

As long as you're not resisting like crazy all the time, if won't matter. Just make sure to gear for the least amount of resists possible, and you'll do fine.

Quoting this because it's the most important thing here, if it 'aint broke don't fix it.

IMO Alkopop is pretty useless, HQ staves are better for BRD, and Terra/Apollo combined are still 1/10th the price.

 

[Wakmidget1]

The only thing you need to stack butt-fuck-tons of skill for on BRD is for March Tiers. Madrigal and Minuet actually have hard caps. And the tiers on march are minimal at best. Even with every skill piece in the game equipped + Gjallarhorn + merits your looking at like 11.91% haste Instead of the normal 11%(Victory March).

I like to keep my BRD gear simple and balanced. And it has worked well for me for 6 years.

 

[Orinna]

What? What? Are you saying you have a harder time landing songs on merit mobs than end-game mobs? ie: Gods/jailers/kings?

Well..not really. More or less I have little to no resists when I use food. And when it wears off, if I don't actually see my food wear, I can tell within 5-6 mobs, b/c then I DO resist.. Say I'm using tacos, I'll be pulling and see elegy resist, then a few mobs later I'll get a lullaby resist..then it dawns on me that my food wore. But tbh that's literally the only time I see a resist.

For HNM I pop a Tuna Sushi, and I have an extensive Chr build, so I barely ever resist, unless it's something I need Elemental Seal for. But I've heard the same thing from Alkalurops bards.. Hell, I've heard the same thing from NQ stave bards.. So it doesn't seem to matter, as long as you can put the extra gil into a serious Chr build.

 

[Psylentcuda]

Staves are 15% MAcc so they get better the better your gear is. Also Staves have +15% potency for stuff like Elegy. Alk is a standard +20Macc and 10CHR which would serve a poorly geared BRD better than HQ Staves.

 

[pchan]

Staves are 15% MAcc

No.

Also Staves have +15% potency for stuff like Elegy.

No.

 

[Bladewind]

The only thing you need to stack butt-fuck-tons of skill for on BRD is for March Tiers. Madrigal and Minuet actually have hard caps. And the tiers on march are minimal at best. Even with every skill piece in the game equipped + Gjallarhorn + merits your looking at like 11.91% haste Instead of the normal 11%(Victory March).

I like to keep my BRD gear simple and balanced. And it has worked well for me for 6 years.

I was talking about debuffs, Elegy specifically. Party buffs can't be resisted and the higher tiers for minuet is something like +11 skill over natural cap iirc, CHR has 0 effect on these buffs btw, so stack fast cast/haste or w/e else you prefere.

Also Staves have +15% potency for stuff like Elegy.

Wut?...

 

[Bavaria]

Elegy potency is static. The only way you modify it is with the instrument. I think it's +1% per +1 on the instrument? So with Horn +1, you get 52% slow. No more, no less.

I think.

 

[Orinna]

Elegy potency is static. The only way you modify it is with the instrument. I think it's +1% per +1 on the instrument? So with Horn +1, you get 52% slow. No more, no less.

I think.

He's right. The only thing that changed is the resist rate. The potency is the same no matter what you do.

 

[Bladewind]

Elegy potency is static. The only way you modify it is with the instrument. I think it's +1% per +1 on the instrument? So with Horn +1, you get 52% slow. No more, no less.

I think.

I'm not sure if Elegy works the same as Lullaby, but if that's the case the instruments add +2 seconds to the max duration (Mary Horn adds +2 seconds Nursemaids Harp +4). They have no effect on the accuracy of the song.

 

[Uzor]

Staves are 15% MAcc so they get better the better your gear is. Also Staves have +15% potency for stuff like Elegy. Alk is a standard +20Macc and 10CHR which would serve a poorly geared BRD better than HQ Staves.

A lot of people have done tests seperately of each other which show that ele staves do not give +10% (15% H.Q) m. acc. but a straight static +m. acc. First test I saw done was by Pchan, and if I remember right it was something like +30 m. acc?

 

[Rappa]

I'm not sure if Elegy works the same as Lullaby, but if that's the case the instruments add +2 seconds to the max duration (Mary Horn adds +2 seconds Nursemaids Harp +4). They have no effect on the accuracy of the song.

Elegy doesn't work the same as Lullaby. Carnage Elegy is a 50% slow effect and you add +1% for each +1 skill you get from an instrument. So it's 51% slow with a Horn and 52% slow with Horn+1/Gjallarhorn. Testing has shown that Soul Voice only increases m.acc on Elegy and does nothing effect-wise.

Also as a minor bit of an aside, each +1 skill adds ~3 seconds to Lullaby, not 2, so that's 3 seconds from Mary's and 6 seconds from Nursemaid/Gjallarhorn. Likewise, SV only adds m.acc for Lullaby.

Note: These figures aren't from my own personal tests. I'm too lazy to dig up where I found them from, lol.

 

[Bladewind]

Elegy doesn't work the same as Lullaby. Carnage Elegy is a 50% slow effect and you add +1% for each +1 skill you get from an instrument. So it's 51% slow with a Horn and 52% slow with Horn+1/Gjallarhorn. Testing has shown that Soul Voice only increases m.acc on Elegy and does nothing effect-wise.

Also as a minor bit of an aside, each +1 skill adds ~3 seconds to Lullaby, not 2, so that's 3 seconds from Mary's and 6 seconds from Nursemaid/Gjallarhorn. Likewise, SV only adds m.acc for Lullaby.

Note: These figures aren't from my own personal tests. I'm too lazy to dig up where I found them from, lol.

Yeah that sounds familiar, couldn't be bothered to look it up earlier tbh.

+2 seconds, +3 seconds, who cares? Lullaby still sucks, lol.

 

[Vilurum]

Each +1 on an instrument is, incidentally, +10% on the base duration. The numbers will, naturally, vary depending on the song in question. Lullaby has base 30 sec duration, so +1 is +3 sec and +2 is +6 sec. Elegy is, if memory serves, 3 minutes, so you get +18 and +36 sec duration respectively.