A Bard Thought

[Tulzscha]

Option D: Give Archer the Arcanist treatment; have it split into both Bard and Ranger. Additionally maybe add a dedicated Support role.

[HyoMinPark]

Option D: Give Archer the Arcanist treatment; have it split into both Bard and Ranger. Additionally maybe add a dedicated Support role.

Developers have said they will never split jobs off of a class like they did with ACN and SMN/SCH.

They could make it so Archer, a job that has nothing to do with music, becomes a Ranger and make the current Bard an advanced job that you can unlock when you reach lvl 30 with any job. Could keep it in Gridania and you wouldn't need to change it's quests all that much.

However... I would see Bard as more of a caster than a Physical Ranged. So their gear would need to be swapped over to caster type. Which makes more sense as their songs are supposed to inspire others to fight harder. So their songs to attack enemies could give parties a buff while it's casting... provided the cast time was long enough. Or have the current Song rotation be what buffs your parties while you are in those stances and have those Songs effects your damaging song casts in some way. Weapon would be harps probably.

Would still be much less work to just introduce a Ranger job in the future and return Bard to a support-type DPS.

[Tulzscha]

Developers have said they will never split jobs off of a class like they did with ACN and SMN/SCH.

Doesn’t mean they can’t change their mind. It makes sense and would result in probably the least amount of work to make both Archers and Bards happy.

[HyoMinPark]

Doesn’t mean they can’t change their mind. It makes sense and would result in probably the least amount of work to make both Archers and Bards happy.

Somehow I doubt this is something they would change their mind on considering how difficult they have mentioned it being to balance SCH and SMN with both branching off of a base class that calls for them to share skills. It would be too much work. It would be much better to just introduce an Advanced Job called Ranger in an upcoming expansion rather than trying to work in a job splitting from ARC. Especially since all new jobs aren't starting at level 30 anymore, which is where ARC ends.