Not to mention this has been the On going question for YEARS about bards. My simple answer to not piss off anyone is just stack what you want tbh who cares about bards anyways right ?
the formula that people have derived for crit chance, for bards and most classes looks like this. if your dexterity is greater than 255, then 255 + ((dex - 255)/5) + 45 = X X * 3/5 = Y Y + (Y * (AA + spell + worn crit bonus percent) = Z Z/8900 = crit chance. This is just for melee and non berserkers/warriors. its different for different skills and class combinations. take the top HDex bard, vs the top HSta bard https://eq.magelo.com/profile/3628151 Dex = 2902 HP = 253228 https://eq.magelo.com/profile/2174493 Dex = 2252 HP = 261371 so it's between 8000 hp or 650 hdex. The crit chance for the bard with 2252 dex, using 397 dex from wulthans, 225% crit from auspice of the hunter, 200% from aa's and 360% from cleave is 46.4%. The crit chance for the bard with 2902 dex and all those other bonuses is 54.2% almost an 8% increase in crit chance. The difference added by one point of dexterity is only .012%. but times that by 650 and you get almost 8%. when we were only getting a couple points of HDex from gear, it didn't matter, but now that we can get 45 from a single type 5 aug it's a huge deal. 8% increase in crit chance, or a 3% increase in hp, i know which one I'd pick, For the point of the thread, I'm not 100% sure how much 650 HInt would boost your mana regen, but I assume it's maybe 50 if it increases both worn and non worn mana regen? i really don't know to be honest, but even if that were the case, over the course of a 10 minute fight thats a couple more insults or maybe one more alliance cast, no i don't think that is worth it.
Depends on how you want to play your bard. I gear for raiding and my priorities are supporting DPS first with personal DPS second. If the extra 8-10k hp helps me survive an AE or a couple extra hits, the DPS boost I'm providing to the other four members of my raid group will far surpass the 8% crit chance DPS you're theoretically getting.
Maybe it’s just me, but this isn’t my experience. My bard dies on raids for all sorts of reasons unrelated to the raid wiping. It is also my experience to live with barely any HP or narrowly live due to delay death. Regardless of the reasons, if my experience isn’t unique, then STA is worth considering for all those in similar situations. For those in your situation, it is clearly unnecessary, but that doesn’t mean that everyone should give up on increasing our health pools. When this discussion was going on, many of us had RoS on farm and for some of us the content was trivial. Most of the time, however, I am working with my guild on new content and there is a lot of dying going on. Moreover, I simply don’t have immediate access to all the BiS gear and my choice of the best augs on demand. As a result, I take what I can if I think it is going to help. If I see something with a large amount of DEX, STA, and maybe STR, I’m going to take it.
Even in TBL, the only time I went purple is when I took aggro from a raid mob because a tank wasn't engaged. Other than that, I haven't dropped below 20%... Hell, even when I went LD in the middle of a raid and didn't die. I won't have BiS for a long, long time (considering BiS is tradeskilled and only 1 drops per raid, it is going to take a very long time).
It's not unique. Not every raid is going to be made up of the same classes and a bard can fill in a few of those gaps. That's great if your guild can offtank everything and don't need to mez or charm. Not enough offtanks and there's no enchanters available? Bards on mez and/or charm duty. I enjoy the utility on raids other than playing songs and attacking mobs. Bard is a utility class, gear up however you need to be utilized.
I focus on HDex, and as far as Bard DPS sucking, I am not seeing that. I have seen nice increases on the bard and there are plenty of raids that Bellow and shout cannot be rotated with all the adds. Flurry of notes for a bard is lethal and in group content, if you are running songs that add procs a bard becomes a machine. I do not balance any stat it has been my observation in EQ figure out what you want to be real good at and focus on it. When trying to balance out I find you become marginal at the balance. But would love to see some data based on how much difference the dex makes. I focus on Dex for the ability to fire more proc/Ripost/parry and I look at agil next for avoidance. The beautiful thing about the bard is so many different ways to play the class
