Bard is a play as skills become available kind of class, but if you want to see big numbers with a class that has a rotation go blm. Bard only has 1 redeeming quality left and that is its songs. Sure it has silence but now players have become so good at using a pally/selene/monk silence that it really is not needed. So for now bards will always be needed but once players start figuring out better mana/tp control, then having 1 may soon be a hindrance than anything, sure foe is great and all for burn phases but so are pots and the max potential of foe only comes out if more than 1 mage is in the group doing damage anyway.