Why be a Bard?Follow

Well, a lot of people believe that a Bard makes the "Ultimate Support Class" and it would seem so, especially with a White Mage subbed. The Bard is a VERY group-oriented/dependent class, in fact it's essentially impossible to solo with this class, but most sensible parties will want you with them anyway so it's not a problem. You get some very nifty songs that each last for 2 minutes and you can keep 2 songs going at once if you have an instrument equipped. Your songs also cost no MP, so a Bard really won't need downtime, particularly if a White Mage is in the group for healing. You also get songs to speed up MP/HP recovery, so downtime for the rest of the group is limited as well. As for the difficulty of the Bard's Flag Quest, I'm not sure as I've not completed it myself but if you click the link above in the Bard's description it will tell you what to do. Hope this helps. <(^.^)>

Sorry posted twice

Edited, Sun Nov 30 15:15:50 2003 by xPATx

Yes, once you start obtaining the Threnody line Black Mages and Summoners will beg you to join them. A Bard casting Ice Threnody while a Black Mage casts Freeze and a Summoner summons Shiva would be a tremendous force. Hope this helps and, yes, Bards do rock. <(^.^)>

Edited, Sun Nov 30 20:17:21 2003 by ariushinju

yeah i really want to be a bard i cant wait but is being a red mage good with being a bard?

ok well this is a very nood Question do i have to wait to be lvl 30 with a Regular class(Red mage) to be able to be a Bard i dont know hos it works i see people walking around with like lvl 8 white mage and lvl 2 bard ow do i do that plz i cant wait to be a bard.

ok thanx man

Berrick,

You are correct, you cannot see their other job levels cause you can have more than one job at different levels. As long as ONE of your jobs is level 30, you can do the bard quest. As for me, I never really considered being a bard, but after reading this thread I've begun to get interested.

Oh one last thing, THIS GAME IS SO AWSOME!!

Devante
Alexander

If you've ever partied with a Bard then you would understand why they rock! I'm a WHM and I had my first party with a bard in Valkurm Dunes a few days ago. After we fought a couple of mobs I'm healing everyone up and the bard tells me not to worry about healing after battles because he has a HP regeneration song going. This left me free to rest my MP (he didn't have the MP regen song yet) immediately after the battle instead of having to use a bunch of it to heal everyone and then rest. Anyway, the point is, I was able to start resting my MP when the mobs were a hit or two from death. As soon as the mob was killed our puller was able to pull again right away and we made gobs of experience in a very short time. It was at then that I decided to work on becoming a bard.

Just wanted to add my 2 cents on being a bard.

The reason i chose one was because I liked playing instruments :) simple reason, but once I chose bard, I found that I liked it and stuck with it.

Might be my desire to play primary support classes (rdm, whm, brd), but I've found bard pretty fun. While not singing songs, I still do engage in battle with my small dagger, and while I do very little dmg, it's fun for me to still build TP and perticipate in chains now and then :)

But that's not the point of being a bard, heh. it's the songs. Granted I'm only a lvl24 Bard, so haven't hit the higher lvl songs yet (eg Mage's Ballad - one lvl away from that), I've found that I do help the pt a lot, and I typically get re-invites from the same people many times.

As mentioned before, say after the battle your enemy has done a few area attacks - just slap on Paeon I and II, and your regening HP at about 3 HP per 2-3 secs. Time for your whm to rest, and your whole PT is regaining HP in the meantime.

In a battle at this point, the most helpful songs appear to be Valor II and Sword Madrigal (ATK+ and ACCURACY+). If your fighting a monster that you rarely miss, I throw on 2 Valors (I and II). That makes my atk somewhere from 86 to 120 or something. (I forget exactly). Now imagine that increase across all the melee characters in your group. That's a substantial boost.

Anyway, I can post more about my experiences at a later time - for now, I gotta run. Hope that helps anyone w/ their decision :)

Your secondary job will never take away from your primary, it will only enhance it, although some subjobs compliment particular main jobs better than others, bard/monk isn't a bad combination , but if your a fan of being the damage dealer and main melee , i wouldn't recommend bard becuase bard is a Support class where as Monk is a Melee

To answer about using RDM as a sub for BRD, I just started using this as a sub this weekend, and I am finding it to be quite useful. I only have about 10 mp less than with my WHM sub, but with Ballad (MP regen) going at all time it doesn't make a diffence really. I am able to focus on debuff songs, allowing the full WHM to heal the puller immediately if needed. Then, with MP regen still on me, I use Enthunder and jump into battle, keeping an eye open for where a Cure 2 is needed.

I don't think it is likely that a PT with a WHM will die because the Bard subbed RDM instead of WHM, nor is it likely that a BRD/WHM could ever serve as a main healer. Therefore, RDM makes a fine sub for Bard, the only thing lost is Bar-ra spells and -na spells; however, En-spells make it easier for a bard to jump into battle once all the songs have been finished :)

-Fantasia, lvl 36 BRD/RDM, Pandemonium server