Since when is Bard an Archer?

[Wynn]

Would have made more sense to release Bard as a class, like how it was going to be.

True. But they decided to go with what they already have rather than work on new classes at this time. c'est la vie.

Personally, I would have preferred to be a RNG but BRD it is. And if I don't like it, there is always BLM.

[Vackashken]

Since SE needed another support class and ARC was the only one that even remotely made sense compared to what was left.

This is probably the most realistic answer lol...

[Vydos]

(I'm going to be a bit straight-forward with my answer here. But don't take this as a flame or a personal assault.)

Bards are musicians, yes. But I don't recall there being a rule that states bards can't be archers or whatever. Let's be honest here, a bard could be anything besides being someone to spread tales through music. S/he could be a monk, swordsman, mage. S-E simply decided to make it an archer this time. With the nifty tool of carrying a harp that can change into a bow.

And as far as I can tell, yes this is a final fantasy game. And no, this isn't final fantasy XI

[Finchley]

(I'm going to be a bit straight-forward with my answer here. But don't take this as a flame or a personal assault.)

Bards are musicians, yes. But I don't recall there being a rule that states bards can't be archers or whatever. Let's be honest here, a bard could be anything besides being someone to spread tales through music. S/he could be a monk, swordsman, mage. S-E simply decided to make it an archer this time. With the nifty tool of carrying a harp that can change into a bow.

And as far as I can tell, yes this is a final fantasy game. And no, this isn't final fantasy XI

Fair point ! I guess the ball game has changed slightly!

[ChiefCurrahee]

Taken from the Final Fantasy wiki:

Bard

Bards (吟遊詩人 Gin'yūshijin?) use songs to cause effects, often buffing the party or debuffing the opposition via the Sing command.[4][12][35] They generally equip harps as weapons

in FFXIV bard use harps.

It just happens that FFXIV is badass enough to make bows transform into harps and back again depending on the abilites used.

[HiirNoivl]

Because a bow is a harp with one string

[Wynn]

Because a bow is a harp with one string

I like this answer the best.

[Wolfie]

Because you're used to the idea that bards are FFXI bards.

D&D bards use swords, daggers, bows AND spells in addition to songs and war cries. They're also experienced thieves.

There isn't a single definition of what a bard does, besides songs.

[Athaya]

Traditional bards in D&D leveled skills of fighters and theives so the use of a bow is not strange at all.

[Firon]

As I said before Yoshi-P must have got the bard/arc thing from DQ, and before now SE has had an pretty lame brd build until now fighting with a harp was always kinda....lame?