Fix over-reliance on bard set

[feral sierra]

I've seen a lot of people complain about the (effectively) hard requirement for a bard set in endgame content, and realistically there's a VERY easy way to fix it.

As of right now, a HS gets +180 duration and +3 buff effect, the duration is very nice, but the buff effect is negligible.

Simply buff these values for a HS, I'd say +240 duration and +30 (or +50) buff effect. This way, since a HS (or more) is basically a necessity in endgame dungeons, the rest of the party won't need to have their own bard set, since the HS without any additional buff effect, will buff for values comparable to those who have dedicated bard sets. And they can go even higher with their personal bard sets.

This also further plays into the HS's healing/support role.

[wary swift]

Yes, give HS 50 MBE, we need 120% BFOs ,

Editing due to time out. to be serious. I think they need something else to buff HS's core support role besides just mbe. I do agree the overabundant requirement to have bard set is kinda cringe. But its mostly the duration being 1min by default that I have an issue with generally.

[feral sierra]

I mean obviously this can be further balanced, or put a soft cap for the actual buffs, but the point is that they should replace needing to have a bard set for every player who engages with endgame content.

And the pseudo-improvement they gave HS with the inspired/excellent performance rate was just a "buy more RNG stuff" message in disguise, since you need reforges for it to have any kind of effect 😓

[upbeat bough]

Nah, i agree with this post. Curently a "Bard set" is almost exclusively a gacha only item (set) which is bad design from the offset. Either do what the OP said or make the "set" items ingame craftable and obtainable. Reforges are a nightmare to get either way

[crude oxide]

You can hit 120 bfos with the lyre coming out 😭

[potent fable]

Said lyre will also probably be a nightmare to craft-

[sick scroll]

nothing is a nightmare if ur rich enough
just think of how long to craft a perseus weapon if you refused to spend gold

[crimson prawn]

imo music talent giving damage buffs is just cringe in general, skills alone should have enough damage to clear, and music talent should be more like QOL/nice-to-haves, e.g. movement speed for mobs/players, cast speed/delay, hp/mp/stam regen, defensive player buffs.. things like that.
then being a HS, and it being an arcana, should enhance the music talent with damage buffs, giving music buffs merit to exist all across early - late game.
but alas here we are

[storm goblet]

bruh I dont want this game to get any easier... I dont want hs to be relegated to an afk bot. This is how you get more afk bots.

[crude oxide]

easiest to craft of the SL items i believe 😭

[verbal shadow]

Create problem. Necessitate bard sets for every endgame player
Sell solution. Re-release troubadour/seraphic cantabile gacha

[wary swift]

tbf, this was a change that was made in kr for kr and they don't have music gachas afaik.

[steady bloom]

down with bard

[eager dragon]

Maybe a craftable music Ceann armor set 🙂

[lucid topaz]

Just want to reiterate this point since everyone seems to think they need some 8bill gacha bard set to play the game. You don't. Bard set isnt that expensive (150~200m for a 50~55% viv/under 50m for a 40% viv which lets you get close to the damage you were at pre patch).
also giving hs 50 mbe would do nothing except force more players into saint, you can just rely on your friends bard right now if you want?

[pallid crypt]

This is honestly the advice we need to be sharing.

HS with a better MBE isn't off the table but people are making it out to be this massive undertaking.

Someone memed the gach sales and my only thing is we need in game craftables that are reasonably achievable that isn't necessarily end game but can help with building into bard sets.

A reasonable ask.

[verbal shadow]

Bard set isnt that expensive 150~200m for a 50~55% viv

150-200m is ridiculously expensive for a f2p mid game player. Even 50m for a 40% viv is a lot for a mid game player
to say it's not expensive says a lot about the mabi economy... and early-mid game players suffer from it the most. Why is gearing up so god damn expensive in this game...

[wary swift]

I mean in mabi terms its really not that much. Go into fine leather mines and make like 300~500k per half run of fomor attack.

[pallid crypt]

Its an education matter.

The gold is there for all players to tap into, its a matter of do they even know where it is to begin with.

Then after you educate, are they willing? There are some mind-numbingly simple ways to make 50m pretty quick for a mid-game player if they are open to committing to it.

[lucid topaz]

The 150~200 50~55% is what I would expect out of an endgame buff user(and if youre running endgame content youll make this easily). If you cant make 50m easily midgame I'd say youre an early game player.
That is 1 ruin mat drop from techs (or a few demo mats), a few weeks of running glenn normal (price has went down now so this isnt nearly as good) a few crom mats, probably like 5~8hours of farming fine leather. Or a multitude of other things you could be doing. Selling 3line logs, doing commerce runs, just selling life mats in general, doing ptjs and selling those mats, or even just selling stuff from events that come around.
Frieren event was completely free and a lot of those homestead props that were in the event shop are selling for like 500~750k each. I think I bought around 40~50 back then and theyre just sitting in my pet...etc etc.
Early game is the hardest and you will have to do some grinding of something to get up off your feet and into harder content. Or you could just not and solely make all your money without doing combat like a lot of players do, but then idk what youd need the bard gear for .
If all of that sounds like too much effort, you have to keep in mind youre playing an mmo. if youre unable to do anything to make money because it's too time consuming for you then I don't think you should be trying to climb up in content in an mmo. this is getting kinda off topic atp so I won't continue the convo after this but feel free to respond if youd like, I'll read it

[crude oxide]

if you do all your weekly techs that's 10.5m excluding drops a week, glenn bearna that's 5m+ a week right now, crom is like an extra 3m.

that's 18m a week only doing content excluding drops, if you include drops it's probably closer to 25-30m a week, leaving you plenty of time to do other gold makers. if you do fine leather farming for an hour a day for a week that's over 21m gold a week rn

150-200m is extremely managable for a mid game player.

[crimson prawn]

A clean demo costs 40m ish now, to craft one its a catch 22, and 40m for a beginner is a huge amount of gold. Now on top of that people are saying invest 90-200m in bard gear to get your magic back up. Fact is that entry req for midgame and endgame has risen.. magic was a good, cost effective avenue that's no more. Ofc this will prob matter less when new rise comes :p

[sudden bear]

People are still very ignorant about how bard works, gacha does not magically give you 70% vivace you still have to roll for the correct reforges like everyone else. The set people are mentioning are also just 3 or 5 mbe, and it's a lot cheaper to get than what f2p friendly kr nexon put in the game (2b gold to roll for 2-4 mbe)

You get 30 mbe from skills, 5 mbe from gm bard, 8 mbe from master title, 23 mbe from blaanid lute. That's 66 mbe
Now use your free journeymans to get inspiring rate on random accessories
That's a 43% vivace with essentially 0 gold spent

[crude oxide]

there's beginner friendly ways to make gold. I just mentioned 1 hour of fine leather farming a day for week being 21m gold, a fresh account who just finished flying high is overleveled for fine leather farming, they'll likely over kill everything. 14 hours of fine leather farming gets them a demolition staff. They don't need above 40% vivace/bfo for techs, but they can get it with minimal investment if they go for insp rate build. It really isn't a hard ask if you don't fall into noob traps.

[dense remnant]

I can get a 49% haunting vivace as a Harmonic Saint...and the only p2w aspect I have is a fairy dragon and maybe Fortissimo 2nd title. No MBE reforges (because reforge RNG hates me)

• Allegro Chord Demonic Gloomy Sunday, full upgrade
• Chorus on Bohemian Hat
• Encore on Bohemian Wear
• Solo on Bohemian Gloves/Shoes
• 'Master of' 1st title

And that's all obtainable through in-game means if you're willing to put the grind in.
(I'm currently trying to get Ensemble on my Gloomy)

[upper hedge]

I feel like they really should give us an extra equipment switch slot perm for free so people can actually work on bard without constantly getting 15 day coupons over and over like this is more of a reason to do it bc of the mage nerf it makes actually having a bard set worth

[crisp minnow]

Personally I'd rather bard be a bonus for both physical and magic. A reward for investing into it and not a requirement to do content. I kinda miss when all content could be ran with at most only needing two talents (because some enemies being resistant to certain damage).

[crude oxide]

except that's not possible without gutting bard or making content far too easy, bard is a role they clearly want to be important.

[verbal shadow]

what if bard was relegated to QoL buffs like the poly songs (march, harvest, enduring) whilst dps increasing buffs are limited to HS

[wary swift]

I think the ship has sailed on bard being required, they just boosted it yet again. We are looking at 100+% bfo in kr where they have 0 gacha bard gear. That's 2.2 x 1.2 boost with a power pot due to its silly formula.

[steady bloom]

ok hear me out: fuse bfo and vivace into the same skill. increases min/max atk, increases ma, drop the crit% line for the attack/cast speed line. call it battlefield vivace

[pallid crypt]

Or, they could have just given us MA in BFO and allowed us to Poly Vivace

But then we wouldn't have you are big brain idea to make B F V real

[eager dragon]

Make the Crit Line, Final Critical Rate that breaks our weird crit cap 🙂

[wary swift]

100% crit lets goooo

[steady bloom]

thats an option for sure but it definitely has a higher balancing burden

[crisp minnow]

There is a way to remove reliance on the bard. We introduce difficulties into the game. We can have "casual", "normal", "experienced", and "try hard" and for the fun of it "impossible". Casual doesn't need bard, normal just use singing r1, experienced you invest into enchants, try hard you need maxed instruments and decent enchants, impossible you need absolutely everything known to man at perfect. Basically allow people to play how they want to play.

[storm goblet]

fusion bolt mage comeback...

In reality though, what content are people running that necessitates such a set? As an HS myself, I focus hard on bard, but I really think even VHM doesn't require the buffs that people reach for. How much of it is bigger number make my brain feel good vs this is actually necessary to clear the content? Does a 70% bfo make your experience smoother if you mess up? Sure. Is it absolutely impossible to clear anything without it? Doubtful, especially with the nerfs

[pallid crypt]

Man, lots of conversation comes back to "time".

To preface: This is coming from(me) a guy who built a minus max damage set just for grins and runs content with it because why not? I like challenge.

That out of the way;

I have things to do. 3 businesses I run, people to take care of, things to accomplish, and goals to hit IRL. Thats great!

This also means that when I am on Mabinogi, I either wanna use my time to spend with my guild members/friends, or if we are clocking in for content, since many of us in our guild are in the boat of "we got IRL things to do" we wanna get in and out.

Its not a necessity by the game's standard of what it takes to clear content, but it has become our standard to clear content as quickly as possible(while still having fun) in order to meet our time constraints.

This does not mean that we are locked away from the game with these super egregious schedules that make it impossible to slow down, but like many other players, we have other things we all wanna do in mabinogi, too.

It all ties in.

TL;DR

I agree with you, but its nice to clear content faster.

[wary swift]

Too late, fusion doesnt scale with bfo at all anymore lol

[pallid crypt]

lol yeah

Though I think the comment in passing was referring to the comment made by Banner Imp combingin Vivace and BFO together as they are now, which would make Castign Faster, and MA increased. Fusion Bolt would get a boost there. 🙂

[wary swift]

You already get both from vivace!

[storm goblet]

I know how you feel, but I think part of the fun also comes from seeing what you can do with the bare minimum and optimizing after. Seeing 30 min runs turn to 25, to 20, to 15 slowly as people make more money and build their sets out is also part of a satisfying gameplay loop.

[pallid crypt]

I dont disagree.

I like long boss fights too. So things have to be planned for me on newer content as it takes longer.

But bringing the time down has a lot more motivators for people in my position.

This isn't an argument, by any stretch, to simplify content.

[steady bloom]

yea it would just be a qol change. would make gearing, buffing, and receiving buffs more straightforward, and all 3 of these things feed into each other for taking a small amount of pressure off of bard gearing. if not already planned, even more pressure could be taken off by also letting music buffs persist through death and channel change.
basically the more coherently and reliably we can buff each other, the less pressure there is to be able to buff yourself. the min-maxing is still there, but it feels less like you have to do it.

[feral sierra]

You're all missing the point of WHY this would be a good thing, by getting bogged down in the "economy" aspects of it.

In a role based MMO that Mabi is TRYING to become, the healer/buffer SHOULD have an advantage with buffs, and not just a puny 5MBE advantage (the duration of +180 is fine, but could still be improved), it should be a substantial advantage, such that it discourages the other roles from "we got buffs at home".

A more draconian way to achieve this would be to have a "global debuff" in endgame dungeons that cuts all the music buff effects in half, unless those buffs were given by a HS (so effectively a 40% HS buff acts as an 80% buff from anybody else).

[crude oxide]

it'll have 10x boost to inspiring performance chances which means it can get guaranteed haunting performances

[verbal shadow]

I think gutting music buffs for anyone that isn't a HS isn't the play. People have already invested so much into their bard sets that it would be disingenuous to devalue their investment. If you're a mid game battle astro/dd who didn't have or use a bard set, then you'd understand what it's like to have your build devalued. HS got a nice buff for marvelous/haunting performance rates and I think they should lean more in that direction to further their role as a support. Maybe a more potent MBE from arcana links so it helps newer HS get more substantial music buffs.

When I was playing HS, I felt like there was no point in playing music when other EK's, DD's whatever had stronger buffs than me, even if their buff was a significantly shorter duration. That whole "support" aspect of HS felt redundant, and as new player who wanted to support, that didn't sit right with me.

Random idea. What if HS was able to augment other's buffs by either increasing the potency of the buff or extending the duration? That way, new HS players can still contribute with music buffs and invested HS players can support to a greater extent. I know this increases the power level of HS in general, but when looking at the latest patch and seeing all the new toys and buffs and QoL for arcanas like EK's, AS's etc. I think HS deserves more than just a reforge dependent buff. (this is just my humble opinion as an inexperienced mid game player)

[crisp minnow]

Most people in mabinogi think about the economy first and the game second. Rather than game first player economy second

[gloomy fractal]

There should be a wider range of bard gear. That way everyone has access to something that gives them the option to improve their buffing abilities, if they desire to, without having to fight for the optimum because it's the "only option."

I personally dont think bard sets are mandatory unless your primary function in a party is to provide bard buffs (HS), and so there should be options for Bards as widespread as other weapons and gear.

[feral sierra]

The first part about the investment isn't relevant, since this wouldn't be the first time something like this happened (anybody remember when final hit became poop? Or when elemental reforges became poop?) and it's more or less expected that at one point stuff devalues.

The 10x rate for excellent/inspiring sounds nice on paper, until you realize it only really gives you a noticeable boost if you have excellent/inspiring rate reforges.

In fact I think it ONLY affects the values for reforges, now that I did a bit of math:

This is the formula that the wiki claims is being used:
Specific Performance Rate / [Normal Performance Rate + Excellent Performance Rate + Inspiring Performance Rate]

And according to the wiki, we get these base rates:

Nb = 206
Eb = 75
Ib = 15
Tb = Nb + Eb + Ib = 296

This gives the following percentages:

20600/296=~69.6% for normal
7500/296=~25.34% for excellent
1500/296=~5.07% for inspiring

Now if we account for the supposed 10x increase for a HS (if it were to affect the base rates, and not just the reforge rates), we would have these numbers (the link bonus only mentions that only the excellent/inspiring get a 10x boost):

Nhs = 206
Ehs = 750
Ihs = 150
Ths = Nhs + Ehs + Ihs = 1106

This gives a percentage rate of:

20600/1106=~18.63% for normal
75000/1106=~67.81% for excellent
15000/1106=~13.56% for inspiring

Now I don't know about other HS players out there, but for me, without having any excellent/inspiring rate reforges, I sure as hell aren't pulling an excellent performance more than half the time 🤣

It's safe to say this 10x ONLY affects the rate you get from reforges, which is an EXCEPTIONALLY scummy thing to add in the first place...

And apparently it's not the only place they did something so scummy, apparently for SG they also locked some link bonus behind a reforge:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Mabinogi/comments/1lyy20g/localization_strikes_again_sg_link_5_issue/

[storm goblet]

Reforges have always been an integral part of gear, and there is a free way to get this rate- echostone and precise from different avenues. The buff makes an incredibly noticeable difference as hs with even 6 to inspire, + hs using ts and having such high buff timers that any music buff will last the whole run when tuaned means that hs already are encouraged to be the only buffer. Harmony makes your buff last forever with the saint duration.

People who feel disgruntled because when they play hs someone has a higher buff set- yeah, because they invested hard into it... a bard set is also gear. It's like saying there's no point in me death marking when my friend is Dan 3, has duration accs + dmg Amp and the set effect. People should work around their strengths.

[meager dirge]

Don't HS get guaranteed inspiring now at a certain point?

[eager dragon]

Yeah. If you have a complete rate set for either excellent or Inspiring you'll have a 100% chance to play it. That's instrument+2acc's of reforges 🙂

[wheat fulcrum]

I saw alot of people mentioning fine leather farming can some one explain it to me ?

[gloomy fractal]

Fine leather farming is a means of making gold. Players in this thread reference it as a primary active means of funding bard gear.
For a more through explanation please ask in the #🆘・help or #1038415023057408000 channels.

[native hemlock]

Go into fiodh int with the ingredient hunter title on, the boars drop a lot

[feral sierra]

I don't think you truly understand the problem here.

In order to make use of a link bonus, you need to engage in the most overwhelmingly pay-to-win mechanic in the game (yes, the "free" reforges are just garbage when it comes to journeyman, and not only much weaker, but also exceptionally limited in the case of precise reforges) to get benefits from this.

To put it into perspective, this would be like if DD's arcana link that grants +2 more int chain casting, would only work if you have at least +100 magic attack from reforges...

This is an OBJECTIVELY bad and scummy design choice, why on Earth anybody would ever want to defend something like this is a complete mystery to me...

[gloomy fractal]

I don't want to remove your feedback because it's valid sentiment, but could you edit out the abbreviated profanity please. We don't allow it in this discord.

[storm goblet]

If anything, it's because I think the enchants are far more egregious than the reforges. Almost all of the bis enchants for bard are completely unobtainable in-game, unlike any other set, sans accessories. I think the rate and reforges are fine. I think the enchants need to be made obtainable in-game. Same with any set effect being gacha only for bard.

My fear comes from something I see often- hs being relegated to a buff bot. With recent changes, and as more and more content gets easier, saint gets pushed out of it because their dps will always be worse since they are a support class. I don't think the solution to this is buffing bard for saint.

I'm speaking as someone who mains the class and increasingly sees Ms cowenna place her 70%+ bfo bot in front of glenn to go 4man with cousins. I'm most certainly not absolving nexon of responsibility for creating that situation. The more we keep buffing people and skills, the more the game balance is severely affected.

Even in the situations you bring up, I'd bring up polar vortex with ice spear reforge on gloves vs without. Because it scales from 15-20 you either have to have 15 or 20 to get the full benefit, too. If you have 19, you have 15. The reality is that no matter what reforges are incredibly important to every talent. I don't think it's exclusive to saint or bard.

Part of me almost wishes that debuff duration was buffed less, and saint was given a link bonus to up their duration. I don't know. It's hard to say how to fix the feeling of "uselessness" other than making healing necessary.

[mild gull]

I have no issues with bard being required. I hate the idea that support characters and people who want to play as such, have been downgraded and ignored up until HS and SG came out. This isn't a solo game. And it should be harder to play if you decide to play it as such.
Just my opinion though.

[feral sierra]

I agree that's also egregious, but not as bad as this issue with the rate reforges for HS (and the other thing with the range for SG).

I find a huge difference between a reforge that improves (even if exceptionally so) an effect you already have from a link, and a reforge that activates an effect from a link (in other words, the link is useless without these reforges).

[swift patio]

I think the fix here is to buff playing music, musical knowledge skills and the associated master titles. And the calculations for the performance type should rely more on skill level rather than reforges.

They can easily do this too by just giving us Dans for the music skills and that increases the rates.

To me, mastering a skill/talent should either remove or reduce the rng of such things.

[meager dirge]

But where's the money in that

[potent fable]

They're already removing the need to rank 1 3 line using reforge tools, by making it so every reforgable item is already like that, so I don't see the problem in buffing music itself so it doesn't have such an over-reliance on reforges and other outside help like Crit said.

I get what you're saying though, Caelum, that they may not do it because they're looking for money, but they just announced the news about reforges and acknowledged that they'd lose money generated from reforges this way but ultimately decided it was for the better.

Tbh, I feel like the various gacha they come up with is where the money mainly is actually.

I lost my train of thought with that bit, but I hope you see what I'm saying.

[pallid crypt]

Raysos is right, they confirmed auto 3 line and auto rank 1.

I bet they still have Exquisite and Precise available but it wont be as terrible to use as before.

This will also generate more excitement for F2P players.

[storm goblet]

yeah I think this will do a lot to mitigate the pain around reforging, esp for bard and dual rolls.

[feral sierra]

I don't know, I kind of doubt it.

Apparently there won't be reforging tools anymore, and you'll have to get equipment from dungeons that have reforges applied, and then just "move" those reforges to your selected piece of equipment.

This sounds incredibly tedious, and they will probably find a way to over-monetize this system as well, I'm sure of it...

[wary swift]

There are still reforging tools, just removed from dungeon voucher shop, also no journeyman.

[meager dirge]

If anything I think people will want to reforge even more because there are going to be more lines. Triple and quad roll pieces may become the new normal for whales

[potent fable]

Quad roll? where did you see that we're getting four lines instead of three?

[fallow gale]

I would just move bfo/vivace out of bard skills and make them HS only.

Also make them a toggleable aura around the character so party members need to be within x distance to prevent / hinder alt shenanigans.

[upbeat bough]

Do you have a source for this? At the very least using translator on the NEXT announcement, I got the impression they are ditching the reforging tools even from the nx shop

[obsidian river]

#1392778566927646811 message the patch notes only mention the dungeon voucher and journeyman
Also if you go to the kr webshop you can see reforges still there

[wary swift]

A kr player in ud was talking about how the other sources from commerce/fynni etc are still there as well.

[last crescent]

Throwing in my two cents on something for the first time.

Minor MBE buff to HS would be nice. 30-50 is WAY too much, however. Honestly though, the excellent and inspiring rate changes have already solidified HS as the definitive best bard, which was seriously missing beforehand. Imo duration buff for non-HS isn't necessary because tuan. If it's annoying, run norm set or get an HS. It's harsh, but even further encourages running a support as opposed to DPS braining the entire game, which is already an issue.

Giga bard enchants should definitely have alternatives, but I'd keep them slightly weaker to maintain the value and prestige of gacha enchants, obviously cycling in new ones of greater strength over time as well (or don't idk idc). I think it's important to maintain the "you had to be there" aspect, along with respecting people's wallets. Dominant strategies are fine, but there's no reason why it's like a several % difference and major duration increase between regular and gacha enchants. It's silly. Close the gap.

[fallen prawn]

I think another good answer would be ether remove monthly payment on equipment slots or allow 1-3 slots for free. Making a bard set can be rough but you can easily reach 40 BFO/Vivice with master title, gloomy, gloves, hat and boots with enchants your bound to run into grinding dungeons like RAHM/AAHM. This is where I started and it lasted awhile before I got farther but I think the real issue here is equipment slots.

20m-25m for a extra slot. 4USD a month to keep it alive unless you buy VIP from nexon or players. buying from players (20-26m a month for combo and like 16m for combat)means you need to commit to SWE/Dungeons for money every week to assure you can purchase another one from players. Assuming the price doesn't go up that is.

Blaanid gives you a extra equipment slot and dungeon guide/guide shop gives limited time. if this time was infinite but more expensive (say 200 per or so) that would push players to keep playing but but overburden them with the need to get time. Unfortunately extra slots is a money maker. I think this system gates people from building bard/debuff sets more than anything else in the game.

[feral sierra]

Well, 1MBE is roughly 0.2% on BFO or Vivace, so the 3 MBE a HS gets is 0.6%. A 30 MBE increase means 6%, which while it's a lot, it's still not that big.
1MBE is also 0.3% for an inspiring, so 30 in this case would be 9% increase.

As you can see from these two pictures, the first one is an average music buff set, and the second one is the same but with added 30 MBE. The difference is not that drastic, but would help a HS without a good bard set keep up, and even excel if they do have a good bard set.

The excellent/inspiring rate is, as I mentioned before, a bad design choice, since it ONLY works if you have reforges, which are a pay-to-win mechanic.
No, the free ones we can get don't really matter, since the free ones you can get are few and far between (I think like 20 tops per week), require A LOT of grinding to actually get, and they also have much lower rates, on account of having a larger spread, for example 1-20 compared to 7-20 on a R1 staff for magic attack, or more relevant, 1-6 for inspiring rate on an instrument, compared to 2-6 for an exquisite tool.

[meager dirge]

You're upset that a game that has been p2w since launch is p2w?

It's like barking into the void

[last crescent]

I do somewhat wish that the rate changes weren't tied to reforges, but I believe it was to give players the choice between insp or excellent build (idk why you wouldn't go insp at this point) that a flat numbers change couldn't do. Likewise give freedom towards how much chance you want to diversify builds.
On that note, I think gloomys are one of the easier things to reforge, as the pool is pretty tiny. Although, I was in the same situation with hitting a wall and feeling useless. Not going for a PE stone centric build, dual rolling acc, etc. was kind of the solution to that. Thinking outside of the box, and not having eyes too wide.
You make a good point with MBE. Makes me a bit more indifferent to an MBE buff, and, admittedly, I probably should've done the napkin math first lol (I was at work). I try to respect the fears of becoming too strong though.

[feral sierra]

Oh sorry, I just noticed I had inspiring effect reforge set to 20 in the above image, with it set to 0, it goes to 46.7% for regular, and 54.5% for the extra 30 MBE points I proposed for the HS

That said, I have no idea how people get 80% BFOs xD

Inspired performance effect is max 13 (with limit break) on instrument, 2x4 on accessories (with limit break) and 10 on echostone, for a total of 31

Check this attached picture, I gave it 31 inspiring effect from the max possible you can get from reforges, 20 playing instrument effect on instrument (if you're even lucky enough to get 20 playing instrument AND max limit break for inspiring performance effect xD), 30 mbe from enchants, 38 from upgrades (which is not possible lol), all the relevant effects, and it's STILL below 80% on an inspiring roll...

How the heck do some people actually roll more than 80% on BFO?

[meager dirge]

I imagine by getting obscure sources of MBE that aren't widely known enough to be on the wiki

[storm goblet]

You're missing homestead stuff, bugle (special bugle gives +5) , etc. There's no bonus hs buff effect as well.

Which again, nobody needs that much. There is not a single piece of content in this game that requires that high of a music buff. People just like having higher numbers.

[feral sierra]

I mean even ~8 years ago, when crusader raids were (fairly) new, I saw people do 70% BFO and one shot Hasidim... (or was it Zebach? I don't remember xD)