I am thinking it might be best to have a diffuse pattern on my bar light and a spot on my head?
That’s kinda what I run, though it needs to be a decent spread and depth for the bar. I set it up so the spot helmet light is within the furthest away part of the bar light beam when riding straight, level tracks so the bar gives details of the mid to foreground, but the spot can extend a bit further when I look up.
The helmet light I find is more useful to see what’s coming in twisty singletrack, then the bar light illuminates what I need to ride over.
I previoulsy used a really bright bar light, but found a helmet/bar combi by far the best.