BRD - the most purposefully gimped job in the game.

[Kavik]

OK, my brd is 80 so some may think that I have no business complaining about this, but as an avid brd for several years before the cap increase I see these issues all the time espescially with the new yellow !!'s. Brd is inherently.... gimp. No it's not a matter of the gear brd can or cannot equip being good for their job, although why on earth brd can wear some things is beyond me, ie brd can wear kirin's osode and pld can't while both brd and pld can wear dusk. Anyway! that's a whole different story. Due to the purposeful gimpness of brd it has made being a main brd very difficult(mostly in abyssea), it is nearly impossible to sleep anything with lullaby because the lvl of the mobs is such that a C rank in your skill just does not cut it anymore, and landing threnodies without the help of elemental seal is extremely difficult even with good atma's, especially considering that many mobs are resistant to threnody in general. Brd is the ONLY job that does not have at least a solid B rank skill in anything it is actually supposed to use, IE wind skill, string skill and singing skill, as well as it's weapons, as opposed to other singularly purposed jobs such as blu or nin. Example's below

Combat Skill Ratings - Brd
Skill Skill Ranking Cap at Level 1 Cap at Level 45 Cap at Level 90
Dagger B- 5 132 325
Staff C+ 5 128 315
Sword C- 5 128 305
Club D 4 122 280
Throwing E 4 114 255
Evasion D 4 122 280
Parrying E 4 114 255

Magic Skill Ratings - Brd
Skill Skill Ranking Cap at Level 1 Cap at Level 45 Cap at Level 90
Singing C 5 128 310
String C 5 128 310
Wind C 5 128 310

Combat Skill Ratings - Blu
Skill Skill Ranking Cap at Level 1 Cap at Level 45 Cap at Level 90
Sword A- 6 138 354
Club B- 5 138 325
Evasion C- 5 128 305
Parrying D 4 122 280

Magic Skill Ratings - Blu

Skill Skill Ranking Cap at Level 1 Cap at Level 45 Cap at Level 90
Blue Magic A+ 6 138 361


Combat Skill Ratings - Nin
Skill Skill Ranking Cap at Level 1 Cap at Level 45 Cap at Level 90
Katana A- 6 138 354
Dagger C+ 5 128 315
Sword C 5 128 310
Great Katana C- 5 128 305
Club E 4 114 255
Hand-to-Hand E 4 114 255
Throwing A- 6 138 354
Marksmanship C 5 128 310
Archery E 4 114 255
Evasion A- 6 138 354
Parrying A- 6 138 354

Magic Skill Ratings - Nin
Skill Skill Ranking Cap at Level 1 Cap at Level 45 Cap at Level 90
Ninjutsu A- 6 138 354

As you can imagine the gap grows drastically with other jobs which are more oriented towards other things. Basically, brd is the only job that gets ANY singing, wind or string skill and yet, it has a C rank in everything and has no more or less skill + gear then any other job, Also brd has had very few updates over the years, we have gotten 1 new JA and 5 or 6 more songs to go with the level increases, nothing like the attention war or pup etc have gotten. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE upgrade our applicable stats that only BRD can use! And give US some versatility! If we're to be a back line buff job at least make us a GOOD one. I would also appreciate an ability to make single target buffs such as Etude's AoE just like sch has for it's buffs. Thank you for your time and consideration in the matter that currently plagues many brds! Also i encourage any brds to post any other suggestions they might have here as well.

[Karumac]

The resist function vs songs works different because you combine Singing + Instrument. That's why we have a C in all 3.

[Catsby]

The only time you get resisted anymore is when the monster is simply immune to whatever it is you are trying to hit it with. On that note, more monsters need to be susceptible to requiem.

[Karumac]

Well, you also get a resist a lot when Yellow happens to be the monster's strong element.

[sope]

If we're to be a back line buff job at least make us a GOOD one.

1: /whm and gear/atma for cure potency.
2: cast haste, and sing capped marches while wearing +0 skill gear.
You are now the best back line buff job.

[Khajit]

It seems to me that Kavik knows just about nothing about brd nor anything about what it does at all.
I'd like to take this moment to inform him or her that there are these things called instruments that you can use.

[Michae]

idk how gimp ur brd is but I have no problems sleeping mobs in abyssea, landing threnodys and such and tho Im close Im not 100% skill capped. The skill for brd seems perfectly fine since as long as u keep up with ur skills landing debuffs and sleeps is cake, even in abyssea. The ONLY time I have to use elemental seal for a threnody is when i go blm/brd for seal runs. As Karu said, resistance for songs is different than those for spells, which is why brd can sleep mobs easily blm has a hard time. Brd is one of my mains and I never had an issue with landing songs.

[Karumac]

Also, my atma: VV/RR/Apoc. I carry a Dagger and hit stuff while singing like a badass.

[Medea]

I think you just need good atma for abyssea to sleep mobs, it goes the same with blm sleepga without atma is difficult. Also lv80 is low to land spells there speically at high chains, you will land more spells at 90 even without atma.

[Glamdring]

I generally don't have issues landing songs, I get a RARE resist on Elegy (with earth staff), generally on Boss level NMs and they all have insane resist rates anyway (by design). Verilei hardly ever works, but then again I hardly ever use it, or see it used by anyone. Requiem... is that being resisted or is everything above level 65 in the game just immune? No idea, I use alot of chat filters on brd in hopes of seeing when my songs die (when I have a properly placed pt to do angling), or wear off the mobs.

I don't even have trouble landing threnody /brd, but I only do it with beast or dancer main. I think I did try it once with thf main, but I can't remember how it worked as I kept dying (pt wouldn't move the mob so I kept raising to die to immediate AoE spam). Now, trying to time a Threnody to proc is another matter, especially /brd without all my casting haste gear.

[JiltedValkyrie]

RR/DD/Apoc as BRD/PLD and you have yourself a tank. Been trying it out recently and it's working really well. Bard may have ho-hum skills, but there is a lot of versatility in variety.

[Mirage]

Idk, OP. When I'm doing dom ops parties I see brd sleep huge pulls all the time.

Oh yeah, and as if marsh isn't still really good.

[Retsujo]

I use Blighted Breath, Merciless Matriarch, and Despot on BRD.

Even before Abyssea, I've had less than capped skills and hardly any resists on monsters that just weren't plain immune, save for Requiem. Requiem is the only complaint I have. If I can land Lullabies without a problem, why can't I land Requiems on a lot of things? If a Scholar is able to modify their helix spells to do around 100/tick, why can't we land our Requiems for the miniscule amount of HP per tick it takes away? Why can WHMs and RDMs land their different tiered Dia spells on the same mobs?

Not that it's that much of a set back, but it'd be nice to have a secondary status ailment we can stick on a monster.

Other than that, OP, you must be doing it wrong.

[Mirage]

Because Dia is unresistable regardless of level, except if immune to all magic :p. A level 10 whm can land dia on a lv90 mob every time.

[Retsujo]

I think that might've been my point ;)

[Mirage]

That all enfeebles in the game should be unresistable? :p

[Retsujo]

That would be a dream come true~

But more that Requiem has the same unresistable properties as the Dia spells, since it does the exact same thing.
Hell, Flash can be resisted and there aren't very many mobs that resist it. Put it on that resist list :P

[Lotmorning]

As far as OP is talking about I can also say there are times where you unable to land threnedy for !! even with Macc Drink and 3x Macc atma. I can't recall all the NM's we have seen threnendy having no effect on the mob. Also Reqruiem not sticking on hardly anything anymore is a disappointment when dia can be landed 99% of time no matter what your skill is.

[Gilraen]

I agree with the OP but not on the same things. Bards have piss-poor soloability for their level. I treat it as a rule of thumb that a Bard, solo, is effectively 10 levels weaker than their actual level. Gear only modestly mitigates the disparity but doesn't reduce it in any really significant way. As a back-line buff job Bard is hard to beat, but you better have your NPC Fellow leveled if you want to strike out on your own anytime soon.

[Babekeke]

BRD/DNC can solo as well as most other jobs inside abyssea. I use acc/dex kila, and OA2-4 parazonium as daggers; double march; haste gear; Stronghold/Siren shadow/Razed Ruins. Or use double minuet if you like 800 att with meat. Evisceration is one of the best non empyrean WS inside abyssea!

BLM/BRD can land threnody without ES I'd say ~20% of the time in my experience, using Macc/CHR gear, the correct stave, and only Ultimate atma for Macc and nothing for CHR. If you can't land it as brd main, maybe you think wind staff is correct for wind threnody? Maybe.

The tier 2 VNM avatars resisted threnody even with ES for all elements other than the one that they were weak to.

[Mirage]

Don't forget about haste samba :p

[Babekeke]

Don't forget about haste samba :p

100% guaranteed, I always forget about haste samba o.0
Sometimes I'll even use drain samba 2, and still not notice that I now have haste samba lol

[Catsby]

It would be nice if the less useful songs got a boost or if we had an ability to add a 3rd song every so often. Pretty much every fight has you casting some combination of march, minuet and carol. Sometimes I troll my party and give them gavotte and they freak out because they don't recognize it and think it's some debuff.

[Wesa]

It would be nice if the less useful songs got a boost or if we had an ability to add a 3rd song every so often.

The good news is, you do get the ability to add a third song every so often.
The bad news is, it's called "using Daurdabla."

[Glamdring]

The good news is, you do get the ability to add a third song every so often.
The bad news is, it's called "using Daurdabla."

and the upgrade path for it is kinda like a tour of hell

[Babekeke]

And it's Stringed....

[Urat]

And it's Stringed....

This is a bad thing? FYI stringed > Horn when it comes to the derpaderba, there is just as much string skill gear as wind skill, so you end with same macc, except higher 'cause derpaderba hes skill+ on itself as well, and you get string instruments' extended casting ranged.

I don't think I need to be the one to tell you that being able to cast threnodies from 30' instead of 20' away is a godsend to any bard vs enemies with powerful AoE attacks, ironclads, etc. It also makes it easier to land buffs in abyssea when everyone is all over the place, and stick debuffs on kited mobs without fear of it running out of range before you're done casting.

String > Horn, the only reason most people go with horns is 99.9% of songs' instruments are in the horn category. The only good string before derpaderba is Lullaby, and not many people would build an entire string gear set up for just one song.

[Babekeke]

FYI stringed > Horn when it comes to the derpaderba, there is just as much string skill gear as wind skill, so you end with same macc, except higher 'cause derpaderba hes skill+ on itself as well.

Except that the reason that everyone* used to carry Mary's horn instead of Nursemaid's Harp was because WIND IS MORE ACCURATE THAN STRING.

* - Except for those people that carried horn for single lullaby, and harp for horde.

Yes it's "Great for landing buffs while everyone is running all over the place" but you lose the +2 benefit of the horns. It has it's advantages... but it also has it's disadvantages too. IMO not worth the time spent to do the quest (and the time spent to level stringed from 0^^ )

[JiltedValkyrie]

I agree with the OP but not on the same things. Bards have piss-poor soloability for their level. I treat it as a rule of thumb that a Bard, solo, is effectively 10 levels weaker than their actual level. Gear only modestly mitigates the disparity but doesn't reduce it in any really significant way. As a back-line buff job Bard is hard to beat, but you better have your NPC Fellow leveled if you want to strike out on your own anytime soon.

I just tanked A-Ulegeurand zone boss on BRD/NIN since our PLD and NIN both died almost instantly. I had hate from just doing damage and only died when the mob hit about 3% HP remaining. Thankfully the SMN finished it off. BRD has access to a lot of great DD gear.

[Drhatchet]

Horn > Stringed for landing debuffs because wind instruments naturally have higher macc than stringed (a lot more).

The extended aoe range is bad when you have close quarters fights, you want all the melee to have march but you'll give it to the mages too, the range on Stringed is based on your level, skill, and song tier so one song will hit everyone 20' away while the next will only be in the standard 10', I could go on and on why I hate stringed in this game.

Back to the OP: How many other jobs have 620 skill native? Answer: none. You combine instrument + singing when doing skill checks for buffs and resists.

[Urat]

Anyone who has played DnD, the game once upon a time FF series was the lovechild of, will know that everything in OP follows exactly how bard works.

Bard is a jack of all trades class in nearly every game it exists, good at a lot of things, only the master of its one natural talent, singing/music/whatever it is in that game. Honestly I think bard should have had a much wider variety of weapons to select from, but having like, C rank in most of them. Warrior seemed to be the job that got jack of all trades in XI though which I'm cool with as well, as just like the Fighter in DnD, this is still the case. So Kudos to SE for following with the system for us vets.

tl;dr Bard is a gimp fighter on purpose, they're supposed to be.

[Yinnyth]

Also brd has had very few updates over the years, we have gotten 1 new JA and 5 or 6 more songs to go with the level increases, nothing like the attention war or pup etc have gotten.

Scherzo was a very good addition, as was minuet V. BRD AF3 was an amazing addition (Hi, movespeed shoes- where have you been all this time?). The cap on songcasting time reduction was increased from 50% to 80%, vastly decreasing the time it takes to do a full round of songs for bards who gear themselves in such a way. Last update they added the ability for god gear and abjuration gear to be augmented, both of which bard can wear (pup can wear neither). BRD was my first job to level 75 and has been my primary job ever since then because of how retardedly useful it is when played properly. I have full AF3+2, AF2+1, AF1+1, level 90 gjallarhorn, sheikh manteel, and even a melee and WS set including twashtar. So take my word for it when I say that bard is not gimp, and never has been.

We don't put out the amazing WS numbers that heavy DD put out, but heavy DD wouldn't have those amazing numbers without us. We don't have access to very strong healing spells, but without us, the healers wouldn't be able to keep curing very long at all. We don't get very many debuffs, but carnage elegy is the single best debuff in the entire game... well... maybe second to stun.

BRD could get into almost any group because no matter who is already in that group, BRD can make them better at what they do. PUP, not so much. I've never had troubles joining endgame linkshells. In fact, in 4 cases, endgame linkshells found me and asked me to join them. If you're a PUP main though, have fun with that.

The trick to enjoying bard is to care about the overall success of your group. The heavy DD can have their fights over who parsed higher, or who did the stronger WS, but they would be nothing without us. Bards are kingmakers, and damn good ones at that.

[Yarly]

1: /whm and gear/atma for cure potency.
2: cast haste, and sing capped marches while wearing +0 skill gear.
You are now the best back line buff job.

Hey look at that, the thread ended with that post.

Obviously OP just burned his BRD to 90 and has like severely under-leveled singing/string/wind and decided to post his ignorance all over these forums. Good jorb!

[Cream_Soda]

We don't put out the amazing WS numbers that heavy DD put out, but heavy DD wouldn't have those amazing numbers without us.
If you're using the correct songs, they will.

March increases ws frequency, but does nothing for the numbers themselves. If you're using anything but dual marches (provided there's not a second bard), you're doing it wrong.

[Lotmorning]

I would just like to see something done with requiem, it is at a point after so many years that 99% of NM's resist this, but as stated before dia from a lvl 1 whm could land on same NM.

[Urat]

Hey look at that, the thread ended with that post.

Obviously OP just burned his BRD to 90 and has like severely under-leveled singing/string/wind and decided to post his ignorance all over these forums. Good jorb!

In abyssea, /dnc + triple regain atmas beats /whm.

I can go into battle bard mode and put up a little samba for added help, and my regain rate allows me to literally spam CW3, which is a potent enough curing power to keep the DDs alive in a big group more effectivly.

Add in the fact CW is instant and won't make me have to spend more time casting.

On the flip side I do know brd gets access to a lot of potential +cure potency gear, so if you have a set of it from leveling whm then mayhaps /whm is better for brd, simply because you have more powerful cures.

[Yinnyth]

I would just like to see something done with requiem, it is at a point after so many years that 99% of NM's resist this, but as stated before dia from a lvl 1 whm could land on same NM.

Requiem is a kind of strange debuff. It has more tiers than any other spell in the game, but aside from sleep and charm, it's also the status effect that monsters are most commonly immune to. The only thing I've really found it useful for is killing ahriman in Dynamis (I used to solo the trigger eye in Dynamis - Beaucedine with SV night/troub requiem VI, then drop my glass before he could kill me). Overall I agree though. Requiem deserves some un-nerfing.


March increases ws frequency, but does nothing for the numbers themselves. If you're using anything but dual marches (provided there's not a second bard), you're doing it wrong.

If you're going to nitpick my post, I may as well do the same to yours. March does affect the damage a weaponskill does as long as 2 conditions are met; the bard must have set bonus from AF3+2, and the weaponskill must have a DEX modifier or be capable of critting.