Job Overview

Job Overview


Available after completing the quest Path of the Bard. A bright tune to soothe a party's wounds... A brisk march to raise a party's spirits... A forbidden chant to weaken a party's foes... The bards of Vana'diel use music as their weapon. A bard uses songs as its main advantage to boost the partys stats. Bards have many magic spells but no Job Abilities.
Strengths and Weaknesses


Strengths

• Extremely sought after by party leaders.
  
• Has the ability to strengthen the performance of every party member.
  
• Can weaken enemy with slow songs that stack with a WHM/RDM/NIN's slow, and weakens resistance towards elements.
  
• Lowers downtime for recovery after battles by being able to refresh MP and Regen HP.
  
• When used well, a BRD can dramatically increase exp/hour in any party.
  
• Soul Voice, the bards 2 hour ability, is very powerful, for example 2 attack songs with Soul Voice from a lvl 75 bard give an equivalent of Mighty Strikes to the melees, or a double march song the equivalent of Hundred Fists
  

Weaknesses

• Physically weak and poor in combat.
  
• Extremely dependent on party, without others cooperation, they are unable to do their job correctly.
  
• Can be one of the most frustrating jobs to do, in particular when a party refuses to cooperate. Partys often demand too much of BRD's at higher levels, and they may be responsible for more than 8 songs at a time.
  
• Cast time on songs are generally 8 seconds, and a situations can change greatly within that time frame.
  
• One of two jobs that must be concerned with positioning of all members of a party. (Bard & Corsair since 2006)
  
• Lack of Job abilities.
  
• Extremely consistant and repetative actions. Bard's will often be using the same songs over and over again in a party, running from the same two spots over and over again, and may never use some of the songs they learn other than for skilling up purposes.
  

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Job-Race Combinations
Please note that race is the absolute last thing you should worry about when picking a job. Anything said here is seriously exaggerated. A single piece of gear can often make up for a race's negligible lack in a stat. Every race also gets "Race Specific Equipment", or "RSE", that will boost a race's stats to equal, or possibly even surpass other races.

Hume
Believe it or not, Bard actually takes a lot of stats. With that said, Hume does not fail to be a great one. With survivability through endurance (vitality and HP) as well as evasion (agility), as well as a high count for charisma (stat used in song accuracy) and MP (for White Mage support job), Hume does not disappoint the world of Bards.

Elvaan
Elvaan plays Bard great too. With lower evasion, but higher endurance than Hume, it has no problem with survivability. Elvaan shares a high pool of charisma. The only true downside to Elvaan is lower MP means less curing power with a White Mage support job. RSE makes up for this detriment a lot.

Tarutaru
Combining high charisma with high evasion and MP, Tarutaru Bards are amazing too. Shy only in the field of HP and vitality in terms of Bard-related stats, Tarutaru can easily make this up with gear.
MithraMithra players can enjoy a balance of stats much like Hume. Moderate MP and HP, higher evasion traded in for vitality, allows for a versatile Bard. Choosing any regular support job will work. Low charisma can be made up by race-specific gear, and a lot of other equipment out there.

Galka
Galkas make superb Bards. Though their base MP is quite low for a White Mage support job, having full race-specific equipment can alone bring them well past even that of a Tarutaru. Low charisma is also easily made up by this same thing. On top of having the best RSE in the game for this job, Galka also own the highest HP and vitality in the game, so survivability is no problem. They even have half-decent agility.
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Support Job Options
The choices listed here are by no means the only ones available, although they are the most common. Feel free to try out whatever combination suits your fancy.

White Mage
The most common choice, WHM as the support job gives access to a number of abilities that greatly help the party and generally help reduce party downtime by reducing the strain on the main healer with spells such as status effect cures, curaga, and Bar-ra spells. Early on, debuffs such as paralyze and slow also help, but as a BRD begins reaching higher levels; these spells have reduced effectiveness or are resisted outright.

Red Mage
Another popular choice. This gives the ability Fast Cast which reduces song cast time by roughly 2 seconds. At level 64 this support job gets dispel which helps with Magic Finale's long recast time. Unfortunately this support job option suffers from a significantly reduced magic pool(about a 30mp difference at level 75), no status effect heals, and no Bar-ra spells. Also buffs such as Phalanx and En-spells are relatively wasted due to the low enhancing magic skill.

Beastmaster
A less common choice, this support job offers slightly higher Charisma in comparison to White Mage or Red Mage. If the player's Beastmaster job is leveled equally in comparison to Bard, it is possible to Charm strong enough monsters as pets to send against foes (particularly useful for solo combat, in which Bards are sorely limited). The downside of this support job choice is a lack of spells offered by alternatives.

Ninja
Mostly, this support job is used for a Bard pulling in high level parties, substituting Utsusemi: Ni for Blink and Stoneskin from /WHM or /RDM. With the proper party setup and cooperation, the loss of curative spells from the /WHM or /RDM is balanced by better survivability and faster pulling speed thanks to Utsusemi: Ni's shorter cast time and more consistent damage absorption compared to Blink.

Corsair
The /COR subjob adds one more global buff effect of the player's choice. As of a late 2006 update, it is possible to have two BRD songs and one COR roll active. (Previously, the COR roll would be counted as a song, and dispel one of the BRD effects; this was recognized by SE as a bug.) Further, a BRD song and COR roll with similar effects (like atk or acc ) will stack. This subjob also supplies the BRD/COR with buffing abilities that are not available to the main job, but supplement its intents -- like adding Ninja's Roll (eva ) to the standard atk /acc repertoire for melee fighters, or even adding bonuses to pets for parties in which the BRD/COR is supporting a large number of DRGs or SMNs. The /COR will never be able to use the Evoker's Roll gained at COR40, but the hMP effect Healer's Roll can impressively complement the performance of Mage's Ballad and Mage's Ballad II between battles. Swapping in Corsair's Roll just before the death of a battle target can be used to increase the experience points gained. This combination is still rarely explored, but has great potential in a properly-assembled party.