Bard Guide by Tattersail

{|cellpadding="5" width="100%" Welcome to Tattersail's guide to being a Bard!
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There are several Bard guides around but I found that most topics are scattered. This is the reason why i wanted to make one complete Guide. I do not claim to know everything so I wanted to share here so others can correct me whenever! Please take in consideration that this is still a Work In Progress!

= Unlocking Bard = First things first! To be a Bard you have to be level 30 in order to unlock the job by doing a quest. "Ut Oh!" I can hear you think, no worries this one is a piece of cake!

To flag The Old Monument quest you have to speak with Mertaire who hangs around in The Merry Minstrel Tavern in Lower Jeuno. This poor fellow is heart broken! Luckily Bki Tbujhja knows something that might help! With this done, get yourself a Parchment, hop on a Chocobo and head to Khoonta Dunes in Buburimu Peninsula. There is a hidden path there that will take you to the Song Runes. Click the Song Runes to receive a cutscene.

After speaking to Lewenhart you will be on the A Minstrel in Despair quest. Now you can trade the parchment to the runes. Give your now 'Poetic Parchment' to Mertaire in The Merry Minstrel Tavern to receive another cutscene with Lewenhart.

Speak to Bki Tbujhja again to activate the last quest The path of the Bard. Now she will mention another set of Song Runes in Valkurm Dunes. Head over there and go to Secret Beach. Click the Song Runes to receive another cutscene with Lewenhart.

Congratulations! You have now unlocked Bard

= Being a Bard = Being a Bard can make levelling life very easy for you. Parties simply -love- Bards. But do not let this fact turn you in to a slacker! Bards have a good name and reputation to uphold. Not to mention having a bad reputation as a Bard will effect every job you have. Reputation is -everything- in FFXI.

If you wish to practice your new choosen profession adequately and competently you will have to learn a lot about other jobs. This is because Bard is a support job and a very powerful one at that. You can actually make a big difference in how fast your party kills mobs, or be the one that can save your entire party.

The most Important thing to know is what song has what stats in order to boost your party members appropriately. Learning the duration of your songs is also handy. If you know what is you can sing them again before the 'wears off' message comes up. You also have to know the range of your songs. Most of these are area of effect. You wouldn't want your Mages to have an melee attack bonus now would you?

If you know all of the things I have mentioned above it will also help you to convince your party members to listen to you. You will be the one who has to position them properly so you can land all the correct songs on each party member.

However don't think only you know what is best. Yes by the time you reach mid levels (37) you will know a lot. But some jobs may have reasons for wanting someting else than what you think would be good. Unless you have a Monk asking you for Ballad, then use your own judgement

= Stats of a Bard = Your main stat is Charisma. It will greatly influence if you can land a debuff song on a mob. It has nothing to do with buffing songs for your party members. You can add a lot by equipment and food. Which we will get in to later. Be prepared to pay handsomely for your gear though!

Singing skill determines the effectiveness of your songs Wind instrument skill together with Singing skill determines the effectiveness of your songs when using a Wind instrument (e.g. Cornette) String instrument skill together with Singing skill determines the effectiveness of your songs when using a String instrument (Harps)

MP is also important assuming you will sub WHM.

= The songs of a Bard = As a Bard you will almost have a new song at every level you gain. "Holy Circle Bat Man!" I hear you think. I am not Batman (O.o) But yep my friend, 75 songs you will learn and that is a lot. When you merit you will even learn two extra songs! However only 2 songs will be active on a player if there is 1 Bard in the party.

Your songs will mostly support your other party members. In this light, it is most useful to use a White Mage sub.

= What song to sing?! = Yep, confusing isn't it when having so many options? I will not explain what to sing up to level 10 before you can party. Simply get there by slicing and dicing all the while using a dagger type weapon. Dagger is a Bard's highest skill, B- so it will be the most effective.

However do make sure that your Bard Magic Skills (Wind, String, Singing) are capped. You do not need MP to sing so you can do this anywhere you wish without having to rest once! Neat huh?

Once you have reached level 10 you will be able to sing the following songs;

What we need to know about Defense: The stat that reduces the damage from a melee attack. Damage taken is related to the attackers attack value vs. the defenders Defense value. A character's defense is a sum of various factors, including their main job level, their current VIT score (at a ratio of two points of VIT to one point of defense), all currently equipped gear, food, the trait Defense Bonus, and spell effects such as Protect or Knight's Minne.
 * Knight's Minne "Increases defense for party members within area of effect"

What we need to know about Attack: Stat that is compared to an enemy's defense that determines the minimum and maximum amount of damage a character will deal.
 * Valor Minuet "Increases attack for party members within area of effect"


 * Army's Paeon "Gradually restores hitpoints for party members within area of effect"

This is simply Damage over Time (DoT). So remember when a mob is slept, it will wake it up!
 * Foe Requiem "Deals sonic damage to enemies"

These work like the bar-spells but since you can only have 2 songs active you won't be using these for quite a while. In fact, don't think I've seen higher level Bards reporting usage for these. What we need to know about Resistance. Well read it at the link I provided because it's a lot.
 * Herb Pastoral "Increases resistance to poison for party members within area of effect"

Using Light based spells will have more effect.
 * Light Threnody "Weakens the target enemy to Light-based attacks and effects"

Ok now we know what the songs do. Since you have a small amount of songs it's fairly easy at early levels. Simply play Minne and Minuet to boost melee and help them kill off the mob faster. At this level it doesn't matter if your Mages get these songs as well. But I'd advice to try to landing your song on melee only. This in order to practice the AOE (Area Of Effect).

After singing for your party members it's time to sing for the mob. Play Reqiuem and Light Threnody to weaken it. These are single target songs. No worries about angering other mobs! If Dia is casted after your Threnody, it will have even more effect.

When you see the mob's life is very low you can sing Paeon to regen HP and make life for your WHM just a tad easier. Then when the puller returns to camp (by using map you can time this) you can sing your Minne and Minuet again. Rinse and repeat as needed!

Seems easy huh? Well at this level it is. As soon as you get to level 15 you will have learned Mambo and Madrigal. The first will give an Evasion bonus and the second will give an Accuracy bonus.

Yes my friend, the plot thickens!

Now you have 4 very potent and helpful songs to sing to your melee. This is where you have to learn what is useful for which job. In other words, time to research a bit! Luckily you're reading this guide so I'm going to help you out a little, oh and see those links? Click them!

Evasion bonus is great for Ninjas. It will save them a lot of gil in casting Utsusemi. It will also make it easier to cast it because they have less chance of being interrupted by the mob. Accuracy is great to ensure that melee will land more hits on the mob.

So what to choose now? There are several options;

None of these are right or wrong so picking any of these options is perfectly acceptable.
 * Trial and error
 * Ask your party members what they want
 * Use your own judgement

Using Mambo when having a NIN tank will make life easier for the NIN and for the WHM. Both will have to cast less because of that. You can also land Mambo on your mages so that if they draw hate. They won't get hit that often. Having Madrigal up together with Minuet will kill the mob faster. Just adjust to what would be best for every particular situation.

= Advanced partying! = Now lets move on a few levels right up to 40. Yep this means you will have at least 40 songs!

Now this is where the -real- hard work and running around begins. Let me explain. You will have Ballad which regens MP, several Etudes which are single target spells and raise some basic stats, Prelude for ranged accuracy, Advancing March for attack speed and a few tier II from your prior starting songs.

Your Mages are going to want Ballad and the appropriate Etude. Melee will want 2 melee songs (mostly 1 of them will Madrigal). Your Ranger will want Prelude and so on.

Lets built a party;

WHM, BLM, BRD (you), NIN (tank), DRK, RNG

Now I'm making this party pretty demanding;


 * NIN wants Mambo and Madrigal,
 * Mages want Ballad and Etude
 * DRK wants Ballad and Madrigal
 * RNG wants Mambo (this actually won't happen a lot but used this to make it more complex) and Prelude.

How are you going to do this!?!

You want to position the players accordingly. Remember mob has to face away from the mages. So if the DRK is backup voke he shouldn't stand infront of the mages yet we want him relatively close for his Ballad.
 * Note: The 'drawing' is just an approximate. You will have to experiment with the AOE of the songs.

--BRD2--- BRD3DRK---BRD1 mages -mob-NIN--- -RNG-

Well first off you will sing on the spot marked as BRD1. First sing Prelude for the RNG then sing Mambo. Go to BRD2, sing Madrigal without landing it on RNG


 * RNG will now have Prelude and Mambo
 * NIN will now have Mambo and Madrigal

Go to BRD3, sing Ballad and Etude both of the mages (there's 1 for INT and 1 for MND)


 * DRK will now have Madrigal and Ballad
 * Mages will have Ballad and Etude

There you go! Mission accomplished!

= Stacking songs = First song played will be your first music note icon, second song played will the second one. If you play a third song the left icon will disappear. This is how songs stack.

Lets try a different party with the above comment in mind.

WHM, RDM, PLD, MNK, RNG, BRD (you)


 * Mages want Ballad and Etude
 * PLD wants Ballad and Minuet
 * MNK wants Minuet and Madrigal
 * RNG wants Minuet and Prelude

--BRD2-- ---PLD--BRD1 mages -mob-MNK-- -RNG


 * BRD1, sing Madrigal and Minuet
 * BRD1, sing Prelude for the RNG
 * BRD2 sing Ballad and then Etudes

Madrigal, Minuet and then Ballad. Minuet was sung as second and Ballad as third, so these will be active. Madrigal, Minuet, Prelude. Again Minuet was second and Prelude last, so these will be active
 * PLD will have received songs in this order;
 * RNG will have received songs;
 * MNK will only have gotten Madrigal and Minuet
 * Mages will have gotten their Ballad and Etudes

After the fight or when the mob is at low health, you can now play a double Paeon. That's right, a tier II and tier III version played together will stack.

Result: Everyone happy!


 * Note: You can also use Divine Seal and Curaga. At times this will be more effective than Paeon.

= Monsters like music too! = Well they don't really. But who cares!

Throughout your Bard career you will learn 3 debuff songs to use on mobs. Requiem, Threnody and Elegy. Elegy is the new one which you get at level 39. This will slow the target. You can have one song of each type active on a mob. Yay! Another debuff song is Magic Finale this works like Dispel.

You will also learn Lullaby which will put a mob to sleep. This one can sometimes be more effective on mobs than the Sleep spell. Mainly because it is a light based spell and not dark based.

= You and your instruments =

As you may have noticed, next to singing skill you also have 2 instrument skills. This being Wind and String.

There are 2 instruments that are for debuff songs. These are Nursemaid's Harp and Sorrowful Harp. They will increase the effect of the song but String has a lower Magic Accuracy so you will have a bigger chance of being resisted.
 * String instruments will have a wider area of effect on your buff songs. This will increase more when your string skill becomes higher.


 * Wind instruments have a smaller area of effect than String. Their strength is the extra Magic Accuracy they have.

E.g. Nursemaid's Harp has Lullaby +2, this means the mob will be asleep longer. Mary's Horn has Lullaby +1. The mob will sleep longer than normal but not as long when using the Harp. But because Wind has more Magic Accuracy your chance of being resisted with the Horn is slimmer than with the Harp.

If you have to make sure your mob is asleep for a while you can choose to go with the Harp version. Just make sure you got all the extra Charisma you can get since this adds to your Magic Accuracy as well. A simple rule of the thumb to get debuffs to stick; Your +CHR has to be half of your base CHR and after reaching level 60 approximately 30 CHR would be good. This is just to go by, not a law.

= +1, +2 or no + at all =

This is where question arises; Do I have to get the +1 or +2 instruments? If you are able to, please get the +1 instruments. They will add to the effect of your songs. Luckily most +1 instruments are nowhere near as expensive as a +1 weapon or body armour. Usually the +2 will give the same + to a song but will have extra CHR, HP, MP or whatever other stat. So if the +2 has extra effects for your song, by all means get it if you can. If it does not, it's not a necessesity

= I'm hungry! What to eat? =

At the lower levels I would suggest eating cookies to help you regen MP while resting. This is good because you will back up heal a lot.

Then comes a point in a Bard's life that one will acquire a more select taste for food. Unlike Mages, a Bard will want to watch his diet! I have listed all the foods that adds CHR to your stats. You will have to use your own judgement which food would be best for you.

Take gil, effects and what type of situation in consideration!

= So many songs to sing but nothing to wear! =

This is the part where we will have to fork up lots of cash. No don't turn away, don't be discouraged. Just go to Jeuno and sing for gil Ok seriously though, prior to taking up the mantle of Bard you may want to save up some gil. You can do this in the form of crafting, HELM, farming, BCNMs and so on.