In terms of Artifact Armor, Shadowbringers has been one of my favorite of FFXIV‘s expansions thus far, featuring sets I absolutely love for Monk and Ninja (among others), and some of my favorite Relic weapons in the whole game (and I’m greatly disappointed it seems like we’re abandoning this expansion’s lovely weapons for the Blades of Gunnhildr quests). Many of the sets feel like returns to more “classic” Final Fantasy designs, with many of them sharing colors and motifs with the original Artifact sets from the original FFXIV (and A Realm Reborn).

This expansion’s Bard set is a bit of an odd bird in that regard, perhaps the first one that to really nail the complicated blend of the traditional Ranger and Bard jobs of Final Fantasies past. Most of the sets have shied away from the Ranger aesthetics, perhaps in an attempt to really solidify FFXIV‘s somewhat unconventional take on on its primary archery class. But the new Fili Attire attempts to ride the line between both archetypes in a pretty successful way (aside from a strange modeling decision to attach leggings as thick as boots to the leg-piece). I’m especially fond of the body piece, which has strong Ranger vibes and is thus a far better fit for Alahra than previous Bard sets have been.

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Glamour Components (Requirements: BRD 80, Female)
Weapon: Weathered Fail-Not
Head: Augmented Choral Chapeau (Jet Black)
Body: Weathered Fili Gilet
Hands: Replica Allagan Gauntlets of Aiming
Legs: Skallic Bottoms of Aiming (Jet Black)
Feet: Ishgardian Thighboots (Jet Black)

With dyeable sets still out of my reach since I’ve no mind to tackle Extreme content these days, I’m limited to the Fili Gilet’s base color scheme—but that’s not exactly a bad thing here. The chosen colors remind me personally of the Ranger Artifact set from FFXI (with less yellow though, thankfully!), and given my fondness for FFXIV‘s predecessor, such nods are always a plus in my book. The natural black of the body is also likely what I would have dyed the top anyway, but this way I get the nice green scarf to use as a base for secondary colors, too.

Once I was settled on using the body, it was a matter of deciding what I wanted to do with all the other pieces in the set, with an eye toward making a solid traveling glamour for Alahra (a choice inspired naturally by 5.3’s MSQ, of course). While the Fili Chapeau is probably my favorite of the lot of the last three Bard sets, I still found myself preferring the simplicity of the original Choral Chapeau instead, so I kept it in place from my last glamour. For gloves, I wanted to back away from the set’s third primary color of white, since I normally prefer to stick to two, which the body set me up for well. It came down to either Oschon’s Gauntlets or the Allagan ones, which the latter winning out mostly due to the green on them being a closer match to the gilet’s scarf.

For legwear and boots, I might have kept the Fili Bottoms, but they were just a little too baggy for my usual tastes, and I generally prefer something straight cut instead of angular, so the Skallic Bottoms were the next most reasonable choice. Those, of course, require a pair of tall boots (since the stockings dye an ugly shade of grey with the actual shorts in Jet Black). Given the general fabric character of the top, I really wanted something with a muted leather tone, but neither the Expeditioner’s Thighboots nor the Orthodox ones seemed to gel with the rest of the glamour. Though they’re hardly an ideal choice here, the Ishgardian Thighboots were the only ones that didn’t leave me completely dissatisfied.

But while I’m slightly unhappy with the availability of the right set of boots (at least that I could find!), I’m so enamored with the Fili Gilet that I can’t be too upset. Bard itself is pretty far from canon for Alahra, but her original incarnation in FFXIV was always meant to be a Ranger (before I found Monk and Ninja far more enjoyable to play and worked those into her character, too). So, I think this is the sort of glamour I’ll be hanging onto for a good long while, most especially if Bard ends up a poster job for 6.0 (which I think there is at least some chance for, given all the nods to the WoL’s traveling in 4.X and 5.X!).