Forcing Minstrel's Ring

[KingOfZeal]

So, a while back I got a Minstrel's Ring, and I love it. Combined with my AMK hat (when the latent is active), I've seen my songs go off as soon as 45% or so.

However, the one thing that irritates me to no end, is when people ignore my requests to not heal me above 75% if it can be helped. An occasional over-cure, or two people who both heal me at the same time I can overlook, but more often than not, there's always SOMEONE who doesn't listen to me or agree with what I want.

To that end, I'm looking to build a set that I can switch in and out which will force me into yellow HP whenever I want it there. I'm curious if anybody has any suggestions on reasonably cheap gear that can help me achieve that. Mostly, I can't say I'm much for doing sky-ish things (like Zenith), and I need to knock off about 230 or so HP in total... a little more than that would be better, since I traditionally sub White Mage and Auto-regen. Would something like this even be possible without any Zenith pieces?

[Callisto]

Re: Forcing Minstrel's Ring

I used to do it without Zenith as Elvaan using a large amount of random Sky gear and PLD and COR stuff. My force macro was a 2-parter, one that unequipped all of my HP+ gear and equipped converts HP > MP and HP- gear in applicable slots, then equipped HP+ gear.

I think I used something along the lines of:

Star Necklace(-15)
Serket Ring(-50)
Scouter's Rope(-40)

then

Genbu's Kabuto(+50)
Seiryu's Kote(+50)
Bomb Queen Ring(+75)
Gigant Mantle(+80)
Trance Belt(+14)
Choral Cannions+1(+12)
Oracle's Pigaches(+25)

It's definitely possible without Zenith, but the large amounts of conversion on Zenith does make it much easier on the inventory.

Now I just use Morgana's Choker, Zenith Gloves, and Serket ring for the HP down, then the rest of the set above minus the Trance Belt. I'm pretty sure I could get away without one of the Kabuto/Kote at this point but I've been too lazy to check.

[ShepardG]

Re: Forcing Minstrel's Ring

My set looks like this

4/5 Zenith Gear
Ixion cloak
serket Ring
the charisma +3 neck piece with convert 15 hp to mp

I have 4 HP merits, so the serket ring basically eats that.

[Armando]

Re: Forcing Minstrel's Ring

Using FFXIAH's power search for BRD items with "HP-" or "Converts" in the description yields this:

Any elemental grip: -20
Errant Pigaches: -20
Errant Cuffs: -20
Electrum Rings x2: -40
Wivre Hairpin: -20
Jaridah Peti/Black Cotehardie: -25
Quick Belt/Astral Rope: -15
Blue Cape: -15
Star Necklace*: -15
Total: -190

There are other options but they either exceed 50k in cost, provide boosts smaller than -10 HP, or are Ex. Of course you could make up the other 40 by removing all -HP gear and casting in at least +40 HP (power search for +HP items; you'll get a shitload of results though so you'll want to filter by equip slot or level range). Alternatively, these suckers will shave off 40 HP over a time span of 2 minutes at a cost of 152 gil a pop (~1.8k/stack) but you won't get away with that if you're /WHM.

*Star Necklace comes from the Star Onion Brigade line of Windurst Quests. They're a reasonably lucrative line of quests so you won't mind doing them.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Forcing Minstrel's Ring

As nice as this ring is in theory, the annoyance of the bard running around on the brink of death vastly outweighs your annoyance at being cured back to full. You are hanging on to a gimmick that makes you a liability to an EXP/Merit situation and annoying in anything more important.

I totally listened to Minstrel Ring BRDs as a party healer, and laughed each and every time they got cut down after forcing themselves into the yellow. I'm here to keep you alive, but shaving off 25% of your HP for a meager improvement to your casting times is not doing the healer any favors.

I have never met a BRD that could keep track of his shadows and help me keep his HP at 75%, either. I can only gauge yellow HP so much and the closer it is to 50% the more of a liability you are.

That's not worth slightly faster buffs or Elegy claims. And in more hectic situations, people cannot be bothered to remember every last detail about your builds. If you want to maintain the latent so badly, personally, I wouldn't use /NIN and be a pulling BRD. I'd sub /WHM and let someone else do the pulling.

[KingOfZeal]

Re: Forcing Minstrel's Ring

I actually just completed the SOB questline this weekend, including getting the Star Necklace. Just looking over what's been given so far, perhaps Armando has one of the better solutions -- God drops (including abjurations like what's needed for Zenith) are more or less out of the question I think, and Ixion is both out of my price range and ability. But, I've been looking at the Bomb ring for a while.

Glad to know it's at least possible. I'd rather not try to rely on HP+ gear as that may interfere with my normal gear set. Granted as a bard I could do virtually everything with just a horn and nothing else equipped, but I'm not particularly keen on doing something like that.

And regarding food etc, I tend to try to leave Dia, Bio, and Poison type effects on when I can, especially if they're powerful enough to keep my hp yellow without killing me.

To kitten, I can see what you're saying for sure. Doing something like this isn't nearly as important in XP/Merit situations. I know people aren't going to respect me for this, but I don't have NIN unlocked; I go /WHM in meritpos, and I've still been able to pull 100+ chains. With that, pulling will generally keep me in yellow just by merit of being hit. I'm more concerned about Dynamis and Einherjar situations, where I'm not in as much of a threat.

[Callisto]

Re: Forcing Minstrel's Ring

As nice as this ring is in theory, the annoyance of the bard running around on the brink of death vastly outweighs your annoyance at being cured back to full. You are hanging on to a gimmick that makes you a liability to an EXP/Merit situation and annoying in anything more important.

I totally listened to Minstrel Ring BRDs as a party healer, and laughed each and every time they got cut down after forcing themselves into the yellow. I'm here to keep you alive, but shaving off 25% of your HP for a meager improvement to your casting times is not doing the healer any favors.

I have never met a BRD that could keep track of his shadows and help me keep his HP at 75%, either. I can only gauge yellow HP so much and the closer it is to 50% the more of a liability you are.

That's not worth slightly faster buffs or Elegy claims. And in more hectic situations, people cannot be bothered to remember every last detail about your builds. If you want to maintain the latent so badly, personally, I wouldn't use /NIN and be a pulling BRD. I'd sub /WHM and let someone else do the pulling.

I don't expect other people to remember to work around my builds which is why I have the yellow HP force macro(which is what KoZ is trying to do here)...I wouldn't call yellow the 'brink of death' either, my Minstrel's set has an upper limit of over 1100 HP while still being active.

It does make a large difference when pulling, not for the debuffs, but more for the buffs so that you can fire them off and get back to pulling. If someone can't manage to keep shadows up while pulling they have no business being on BRD to begin with, I use Lullaby only in the case of links and I rarely have any issue blink tanking the on-deck bird until the party is ready for it.

---------- Post added at 01:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:34 PM ----------

Glad to know it's at least possible. I'd rather not try to rely on HP+ gear as that may interfere with my normal gear set. Granted as a bard I could do virtually everything with just a horn and nothing else equipped, but I'm not particularly keen on doing something like that.

This shouldn't be an issue at all, you only need the HP/song casting time reduction gear on at the very start of the cast, then you switch into your normal song-casting gear.

[ShepardG]

Re: Forcing Minstrel's Ring

I actually have spellcast setup to swap my convertHP>MP gear on just before the start of every song, and then into skill+charisma as the song takes hold, then back into my idle set, which is a combination of -physical dmg taken + Regen/Refresh. With my previous gear I swap in the convert gear, the minstrel's ring, and my sha'ir manteel along with any slots for -song recast time, or haste (I.E. speed belt, angel lyre, etc.)

Once the song is done i'll be in yellow for about 2 tics, then i'm in the white again. Additionally i have a variable set so that I can turn that covert HP>MP gear off with a macro line, incase i'm in king ranperres tomb or caedavre mire, so I don't end up getting blood aggro. It works out pretty nice, and god does it help for bard roto's during Einherjar!

[Armando]

Re: Forcing Minstrel's Ring

@BBQ:
75% HP is very far from the brink of death
-25% cast time is not just "slightly" faster.
The fact that he's going to put together a gear swap solution removes "you can't expect people to play according to your build" from the list of arguments that can support "it's not worth it."

Unless you can make a convincing argument that being at 75% HP is a big risk in most situations, what he's doing is a good idea.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Forcing Minstrel's Ring

As nice as this ring is in theory, the annoyance of the bard running around on the brink of death vastly outweighs your annoyance at being cured back to full.

It's not a theory; been using the ring for quite a while now, and it makes quite a noticeable difference. (As in, I rarely check my HP--I know I've been over-cured when buffs songs play slower.)

I have never met a BRD that could keep track of his shadows and help me keep his HP at 75%, either. I can only gauge yellow HP so much and the closer it is to 50% the more of a liability you are.

I'm not one of those who can track Utsusemi perfectly for two hours straight, and sometimes I intentionally pull with only one shadow left to keep things moving along. To date, no healer has complained, yet. (Except you, I guess, but you don't play anymore so you don't count?)

Time, is a Bard puller's most valuable resource in a merit party. A 25% song casting time reduction is a HUGE deal for buff songs and their 8 second base cast time.

If you want to maintain the latent so badly, personally, I wouldn't use /NIN and be a pulling BRD. I'd sub /WHM and let someone else do the pulling.

Using a SJ with Auto Regen while wanting to activate 75% HP latent? That's not very smart.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Forcing Minstrel's Ring

Unless you can make a convincing argument that being at 75% HP is a big risk in most situations, what he's doing is a good idea.

The proof is, obviously, that shit is situational. That includes players.

Armando, you recall all those discussions we've had about twitch-based skill. Pulling is very much a twitch-based skill, getting a feel for recast times and shadows is also a skill, though some macro adjustments also aid more efficient play.

If KoZ here is just using this for endgame stuff where he's commonly out of harm's way, that's one thing,

But pulling, either you have it or you don't and knowing what I have read of KoZ's posts, that's not a direction he likes to go in, but it would be remiss to not point out the situation for others. If you don't have the skill to maintain this build, you're wasting the party's time.

Being a BRD is only a mild advantage to pulling, but the people that can anticipate and can work against competition will always win. So at that point, it doesn't matter how fast you're cranking out buffs of claims because if you don't have the skill, claiming is going to be of low frequency. I've outclaimed the Manteel/Minstrel Ring BRD time and time again, its not a matter of gear or job.

Now again, if we remove pulling and are placed in very controllable situations - like, perhaps, a limbus boss or a sky NM - the use of the minstrel ring build can be an effective strategy, but its not a good general purpose one and you can't expect everyone to remember your needs.

[Armando]

Re: Forcing Minstrel's Ring

@BBQ: He already said he can pull chain 100. So he's not a sucky puller. He already said he wants to use it more in Dynamis and Einherjar where he's in even less danger than merits. That completely goes against the claim that the ring is not good for general purpose barding, because he can use it in just about everything he does.

And again, pushing 2 macros to make your HP yellow is not hard, so I'm not entirely sure what you mean by having the "skill" to "maintain this build." No one needs to remember anything either. They can top him off all they want, he'll just push his macros and make his HP yellow all over again.

[KingOfZeal]

Re: Forcing Minstrel's Ring

Precisely. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the best puller, and honestly I do loathe pulling. But I've never had any complaints. I can outpull more than a fair number of people, and I can generally get the claim better than a few people. But, this is more in the interest of buffs. 2 seconds off an 8 second song means I can get back to pulling that much quicker. It is a very noticeable decrease, and I can easily tell when it's off or when it's on without looking at my HP.

With my latent active, my next limiting factor on pulling is recast time for carnage elegy (which I need to work on a little bit, now that I think about it). Meanwhile, I'm just trying to better myself so I have time to take care of other issues (like, for example, handling point bids for drops in Dynamis).

[Callisto]

Re: Forcing Minstrel's Ring

Just use Battlefield when Carnage is down, rather than waiting for the timer. I toyed around with a very large Haste/recast reduction build in an attempt to lower my Elegy timer for pulling, but I don't have room for music skill merits, and it just resulted in more resists than I wanted to deal with. Now I pull in my proper debuffing gear and just alternate Carnage/Battlefield, it works out much better.

[Icemage]

Re: Forcing Minstrel's Ring

The only race that really struggles to do equip-swap into <75% HP is Galka (need some pretty specialized EX gear to do so). Most other races can get by; the real question is whether you have enough inventory to support all that switching around. If you do, just calculate what your HP cutoff point is and inform your healer(s).

Honestly though, unless your endgame group is very focused and good, you're going to have people auto-panic and heal you on reflex in an alliance. For external parties, you can just prevent those by using /blockaid on (but you should be doing that anyhow in many cases).

WHM sub is really, really, really, really sub-optimal for this sort of strategy. Auto-Regen will constantly bubble your HP total up. If you're not wanting to level NIN, at least do something like /SCH so you aren't shooting yourself in the foot over what (in the end) is only a minimal, if noticeable, buff.


Icemage