Support Bard best 5th engraving?

[KinKin25]

I got vital point hit for 5th but I'm debating if it's that worth it?

I'm thinking of switching it to Drops of Ether so party can MAYBE...pick it up? I dunno, at the same time I don't especially care too much for this either.

Any other suggestions? Maybe something that'll help me stay alive even more?

[Detergent]

tbh I think Drops of Ether should have been 4th on your priority list.
What is your 4th engraving?

The buffs you give from Drops of Ether are just too powerful. Strength and Flash orbs are basically max rank Cursed Doll and Precise Dagger buffs without the downsides. Defense and speed orbs are decent and the mana orbs I take for myself since I often have mana problems on my pally.

Its also a lot of fun watching my raid group fight over the orbs.

[_(´ཀ`」∠)_Unity1]

If you don't have, Magick Stream is pretty cool, gives you 10% cooldown reduction and MP Regen up to +60% every 3s also books are pretty cheap at the market.

[Quarantine]

4th and 5th don't have any factor in people inviting you ever haha.

[Boink]

Vital Hit Point
MP values if you are not running legendary conviction / judgement runes
Drops Of Ether if you are into RNG.

If you want to survive more
DIvine Protection for absolute Rhapsody Of Light memes.

[Just Life]

Lightning Fury to add extra DPS on the boss. Jokes aside, Drop of Either and Vital Point are good to have but not consistent enough for the effort to get but helps out when it finally gets a chance to shine.

If you have a normal group that you raid with, Drop of Either. With randoms, Vital Point could save the party from a Stagger mech wipe.

[L:D]

Depends on what you using rn. Usually people go Vital Point because you'll be able to help your team better than Ether.
And if you think Ether can be good, get Ether lv 1 and go Valtan or Vykas and see how the dps will ignore all the orbs in the ground. People are not used to it, and a lot of people are too focused in the fight not actually notice it.

And no, Ether is not priority in any engravings. You can change heavy armor to ether tho, but not really recommended. The priorities are, Desperate, Awakening, Expert, HA and Vital Point.
And just to clarify. Flash Orb give 15% Crit Rate, which is useless because your buffs also give crit rate and people are already running with "maxed" crit rate for raids.
Strength Orb is 10% Atk Power, Guardian tune with no additional tripods is already 30% and if you combo with Heavenly Tune it goes to 45%, and when they're in CD your other buff provides 15%. So, why people would care to go after this orb?
Wind and defense are bad, doesn't even needed to be mentioned. And MP, every class that needs MP are already using Judgment+Conviction and, of course, your own buff already helps with mana regen anyway.

Anyway, go give the extra help to your team with better stagger and get good CD gems to let you use your skills more.

[Lord Commander Dante]

Spirit Absorption. That's what 85% of all
the 1590 bards run in Korea.
And before you gonna moan about the movement cap (which still need you to hit a target in order to trigger the set) it's the extra 10% attack speed that makes all casting animations so much faster and smoother.

[KinKin25]

The issue with Vital Point is that, even at max, it's 36% extra but for a bard, she doesn't do much stagger anyway. Isn't that a bit of a waste? I don't think that little extra is gonna break or make a stagger check to make Vital Point worth it, no?

I'm slightly leaning to Drops of Ether so I can collect the mana drops for when I'm low on mana and the team can collect or not up to them.

Spirit Absorption probably not as I'm going full swift tho I was thinking of going hybrid with a ring or earrings with specialization along with spirit absorption.

I dunno...more thoughts plz?

[Boink]

Originally posted by KinKin25:

The issue with Vital Point is that, even at max, it's 36% extra but for a bard, she doesn't do much stagger anyway. Isn't that a bit of a waste? I don't think that little extra is gonna break or make a stagger check to make Vital Point worth it, no?

I'm slightly leaning to Drops of Ether so I can collect the mana drops for when I'm low on mana and the team can collect or not up to them.

Spirit Absorption probably not as I'm going full swift tho I was thinking of going hybrid with a ring or earrings with specialization along with spirit absorption.

I dunno...more thoughts plz?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdpuvTBngnI

This is a good explanation of VHP of course if you are in a static with good stagger (or using consumables) then this value is not a "requirement".

Then we can argue that there is not really much of a requirement after 3/3 for Bards.

[Commissar]

Originally posted by KinKin25:

The issue with Vital Point is that, even at max, it's 36% extra but for a bard, she doesn't do much stagger anyway.

Bard has consistently high stagger and makes very good use of Vital Point Hit.

Assuming you have Expert/DS/Awakening/HA then you can just pick between VHP or DoE depending on what your raid group looks like. If you need stagger, then VHP. If your party does fine on stagger checks then DoE will be better overall, as it can give powerful buffs and MP regen.

As someone said earlier, don't sleep on Spirit Absorption either, might be a cheaper option and the extra cast speed is really good.

[Dragonmaster]

Pretty much as said above for 5th.

Drops of Ether
Vital Point Hit
Spirit Absorption
MP Extension (Swift bards do have mp troubles even with Conv/Judge)

For the 5x +1, the +1 I highly recommend crisis evasion. As a level 1 skill it does wonders for those "oopies" you make plus you can bypass a lot of boss abilities with it as well.