Playing as Bard, how necessary are additional skills?

[Alcyon1]

While the DPS boost from Blood for Blood is indeed really nice, the problem is that it gives you just a 10% boost to damage on Bard, while at the same time increasing the damage you yourself take (incoming damage) by 25%. This trade off is problematic in fights such as Titan (Hard) and (Extreme) where you are constantly bombarded with AoE's, many of which are unavoidable. So while it is useful to have an increase in damage, it is not essential.

Just LOL.
As people pointed it, don't use B4B with the wrong timing. For Titan EX, since everybody is packed, getting hit by WoL means death, with or without BFB. For the Tumults, the WHM will (pre-)cast some AOE heal, with or without BFB doesn't really change anything. The only moment when BFB is dangerous is when Titan jumps, but you can remove the buff by clicking on it.
The only moment when BFB was dangerous was against Twintania, pre-2.2, when your were using the strat "Fireball = tank+pet+target".

BFB IS essential, unless you don't want to kill the high-end bosses without being carried. Invigorate and Internal Release are even more essential.

I'm using Invigorate, BFB, IR, Second Wind and Featherfoot (the last one is virtually useless).