is bard hard to play?

hi guys just started and was wondering if bard a bad choice for a new players and what professions should i pick if i stay with bard. Or can u recommend a class that would be fun to play thanks

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Originally Posted by fyaha

hi guys just started and was wondering if bard a bad choice for a new players and what professions should i pick if i stay with bard. Or can u recommend a class that would be fun to play thanks

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Bard is one of the easiest jobs in the game so I definitely recommend it.

Bard would seem simple at a glance because you actually just spam a single GCD most of the time.

Quite early on, you get some DoTs to keep up and it's easy to get distracted by mechanics and fail to refresh them before they expire.

Later on, you get 3 songs to rotate between and the gameplay of each one is different. One of them increases the GCD speed, another one makes your abilities proc a lot and if you don't use them right away, you may have miss what would have been procs. One of them you build up 3 notes to enhance a proc ability to maximum and that can be tricky to keep track of. You have a lot of abilities to use off-cooldown later on and you want to be careful not to use your soul gauge ability until the bar reaches maximum.

It seems simple at first but it does actually become a lot to manage later on and there are simpler classes in my opinion.

By "professions" I assume you're asking about crafting/gathering.

The quick answer is that you don't need any of them to support your current job. I well remember the days of choosing the 'tailor' profession for a mage and 'skinning' for a rogue. You are not so limited here, nor will taking up a crafting or gathering job greatly aid you in your pursuit of level 80 and the end-game beyond. Sure, you can get nice food (and gil) via Culinarian, and weaving/leather/armor helps with gear glamour at times, but there are plenty of players who never take either set of jobs. On the other hand, if you enjoy crafting/gathering you can now have the thrill (and rewards) of mastering the jobs.

Bard is fairly simple to play, but decidedly not-so-simple to master. If you've played a Beastmaster Hunter in World of Warcraft, for example, the DoTs and songs will be a piece of cake after having learned to manage your beast companion for so long. It's utility is pretty unique - the songs buff other players, but still have an effect on your own performance as a DPS as well.

The job's mobility is shared with the other two ranged jobs, mechanist and dancer. Of the three, Dancer appears to have a simpler game play, except it is extremely proc-based and requires another job at level 60+ in order to start it. Similarly, Machinist requires you to have finished the ARR quests and a move into the Heavensward expansion before you can take it up. Bard is a good start towards either of the other two. Or do what I did and level all three.

However 'easy' it might be, if you're not having fun playing it by level 50, try another job. Heck, try several jobs just to get a feel for what you can do, you're not restricted like in some other games.

I tend to play Bard+Dancer, Dragoon (with its straighforward rotation), and Summoner (with a relatively straightforward rotation) to max level.

Hard to play?
That mainly depends on two things:

1.) How lucky are you?
Because if everything starts proccing it can be very difficult to keep up with it all.

2.) How are you at not getting tunnel vision with a hotbar that's proc heavy?

thanks guys for all ya answers have one more question sorry how do u unlock dungeons im lv 15 now but cant find any lol played wow for to long and used to just clicking group finder

yeah my main a bm hunter on wow classic lol one off the reason i went bard

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Originally Posted by fyaha

thanks guys for all ya answers have one more question sorry how do u unlock dungeons im lv 15 now but cant find any lol played wow for to long and used to just clicking group finder

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Keep doing the main story questline, that’s how you unlock most normal dungeons and trials.

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Originally Posted by fyaha

thanks guys for all ya answers have one more question sorry how do u unlock dungeons im lv 15 now but cant find any lol played wow for to long and used to just clicking group finder

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The main story quest (with the fireball icon) is required because it gates most content in the game. It gates your access to to dungeons, max level gear, new areas and its associated dungeon/raid content.

The main story is one long story and the story of the expansions is interconnected. The dungeon, trial and raid mechanics are inspired by the story and it gives a lot of context to what you are doing.

When someone says the first dungeon is level 15, they it's unlocked through the level 15 main story quests, not by reaching level 15 itself. Your level is not very relevant, just the quest level.

Blue quests unlock features such as dyes, glamour, flying, the gold saucer, but also side dungeons, trials, raids and classes. Don't expect any of the required content to be hard. Any hard versions of content is in optional sidequests.

I play Bard a few more this days and like it because, at my noob level, it is very easy.


I place DoTs then spam one aoe macro or one single target macro. And songs all the time (one is clearly for aoe, one is clearly for single target.) The "hardest" for me would be to keep DoTs on and songs active.

Bard is really putting damage over time abilities on enemies, then pressing one button to attack until you can use the other ability lol.

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Originally Posted by yotsuffy

I play Bard a few more this days and like it because, at my noob level, it is very easy.


I place DoTs then spam one aoe macro or one single target macro. And songs all the time (one is clearly for aoe, one is clearly for single target.) The "hardest" for me would be to keep DoTs on and songs active.

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what macros to you use for bard if you dont mind me asking?

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Originally Posted by fyaha

what macros to you use for bard if you dont mind me asking?

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Not sure what the poster meant by 'macro', but my recommendation is to save the macros for non-battle-related things, as they have a mandatory 'wait' built into them that does you no good in a fight. Be specially careful of macros that do more than one thing, as they cannot be interrupted once started.

It's pretty easy to look at your bar and use Heavy Shot (single target) and Straight Shot (single-target with about 10 seconds to use it when the icon 'lights up'). For AoE, you'll be using Quick Nock (level 18 skill) and, possibly, Rain of Death (level 45 skill) when it comes up. It shares a timer with Bloodletter (level 12 skill), which you should weave into your rotation whenever it comes up.

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Originally Posted by yotsuffy

I place DoTs then spam one aoe macro or one single target macro.

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You have an AoE macro and a single target macro?
Can you post these two macros here?
I would like to see them.

ill just keep playing with no macros for now just using hotkeys instead for now

ive been in lockdown now for 6 days from covid this game helped me kill alot off time

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Originally Posted by fyaha

what macros to you use for bard if you dont mind me asking?

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Originally Posted by ItMe

You have an AoE macro and a single target macro?
Can you post these two macros here?
I would like to see them.

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I agree with the fact that if you play with macros, you can't play at your theoretical best. Abilities, for example, shouldn't be played through macros. This said, macros help me a lot:
- I spend less time focusing on icons and more time focusing on the battle and its mechanics;
- much less "hand gymnastics", ie. less fatigue and less pain.

Also, don't spam macros! Timing is essential. Especially if you want to use macroed abilities between GCD actions.

The macros I use in battle are those (I play them in French so I may have made mistakes while translating them):


Sidewinder and Shadowbite: never in a macro.




Brainless multispam:

Code:

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/macroerror
/micon (Rain of Death)
/ac (Rain of Death) <t>
/ac (Quick Nock) <t>

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Brainless monospam:

Code:

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/macroerror
/micon (Straight Shot)
/ac (Straight Shot) <t>
/ac (Heavy Shot) <t>
/ac (Empyreal Arrow) <t>
/ac (Bloodletter) <t>

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Barrage never works fine with a brainless monospam so it is aside:

Code:

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/macroerror
/micon (Barrage)
/ac (Straight Shot) <t>
/ac (Barrage) <me>

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With the previous 3 macros, I can see when 4 actions are up and I play accordingly.



Pitch Perfect:

Code:

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/micon (The Wanderer's Minuet)
/ac (Pitch Perfect) <t>
/ac (The Wanderer's Minuet) <t>

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Nature's Minne, to help heal the current tank of my current target:

Code:

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/micon (Nature's Minne)
/target <tt>
/ac (Nature's Minne) <t>
/targetlasttarget

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