Spoony Bard Guide, by Saradema

**WELCOME TO MY EXTENSIVE BARD GUIDE! WHERE I WILL EXPLAIN THE INS AND OUTS OF BARDING, GEAR, SKILL AND MERITS!**

**So Sara, what IS a Bard's job?**

Well, it's simple, our job is to sing songs to support our party, Ballads for the mages, Minuets for the Rangers and Corsairs etc etc, but let me start by explaining about the skills you will need.

. Singing skill, the most important skill for Bard! Singing skill is used to determine the effectiveness of the songs, cap it!

. Wind Skill, the second most important skill, most songs are played with horns or flutes, most notably one of our Relics, Gjallarhorn, make sure to cap this!

. String Skill, not AS important as the other two, however if you're swapping instruments and use a Nursemaid's Harp to sleep, then you may want to cap this.

Singing skill is taken into account for BOTH OF THE OTHER SKILLS.

**But there are so many songs! Which ones are needed!?**

That's true, Bard do have a lot of songs! I will note down the ones that are great to have on your macro line!

**BUFFS**

. Advancing and Victory March: These two songs are your haste songs. Yes they do stack, and they're the most useful songs you can use.

. Knight's Minne: These songs will enhance your defence, although I rarely use it, I have IV & V on my macro, just incase!

. Valor Minuet: These songs will enhance your attack, great for any DD, even better for rangers and corsairs! Keep this in mind.

. Sword and Blade Madrigal: These two will enhance your accuracy. Sometimes you find those pesky evasive mobs, use this to help your DD's out!

. Hunters and Archers Prelude: These two will enhance your ranged accuracy. Your Rangers and Corsairs will love you if you use this on yet again those pesky evasive mobs.

. Sheepfoe and Dragonfoe Mambo: These two will enhance your evasion. This is nice for Thieves, Ninjas and Dancer tanks when their shadows are being wiped too fast.

. Mages Ballad: These two will give your party Refresh. I don't need to explain why this is useful.

. Army's Paeon: These songs will give your party Regen. Again, need I explain?

. Etudes: These songs will raise your stats, E.I STR, AGI, etc. Although I don't use these often, they can come in use at times, so it's up to you if you want to macro these.

. Carols: These are basically a Bards BAR spell. Can be very useful on certain mobs.

. Chocobo Mazurka: This is your movement speed song. No need to explain.

**DEBUFFS**

. Battlefield and Carnage Elegy: These two songs are you slow songs. They do not stack, use Carnage over Battlefield for the higher slow percentage

. Requiem: Your Damage Over Time song, useful for when you're not sleep kiting mobs.

. Foe Lullaby: This is your single target sleep. Very useful

. Horde Lullaby: This is your Sleepga song. Very useful

. Threnody: These songs lower a monsters resistance. Depending on what you're fighting these can be helpful, always think of these if spells or songs are badly resisting, maybe you can help stop that!

. Magic Finale: This is your dispel song. Incredibly useful, if you see Red Mages, Scholars or Black Mages being yelled at for Dispel and they're not doing their job, don't forget you can also help with this handy dandy song!

These are the most useful songs from the list you're given at !Vrtra, you can ignore everything else that I've not mentioned. (Unless fixed there are a few spells from level 75-80 on the AH, don't forget to check this)

**There are so many instruments to choose from, do I need all of these?!**

Although you don't need every instrument, there are a lot you do need if you do not own a Gjallarhorn, but even then, there are a few ones I have as well. I will go through a list and tell you which I believe are good to carry!

. Gjallarhorn 80: CHR+6, Singing Skill +15, Wind Skill +15, All songs +2, this is your Relic Horn, and very useful, if you're wanting to play Bard seriously, this is what you should be aiming for.

. Requiem Flute: Requiem +4. The best Requiem piece.

. Angel Lyre: Hymnus +2, Haste +2%. I'll be honest here, I have this JUST for the haste.

. Sorrowful Harp: Threnody +3. The best Threnody piece.

. Mythic Harp +1: Darkness +20, Etude +2. The best Etude piece.

. Harlequin's Horn: Mazurka +2. This is an optional piece, the collector in me would of gotten it just to have it.

. Hellish Bugle +1: Attack+4 Evasion+4 Mambo +2. This makes a pretty nice piece to idle in, as well as a nice Mambo piece.

. Nursemaid's Harp: Lullaby +2. Now I know what you're thinking, Cradle horn has an extra CHR and is a horn, however I would choose this over the horn only because of the harps range ( I will get onto this after this section!)

. Iron Ram Horn: CHR +4, March +2. A nice CHR piece and March piece.

. Ebony Harp +2: Accuracy +1, Paeon +2. The best Paeon piece.

. Crumhorn +2: INT +1, Carol +2. No idea why we have INT, but it's the best Carol piece.

. Angel Flute: Prelude +2. The best piece for Prelude.

. Horn +1. Elegy +2. The best piece for Elegy.

. Military Harp: Finale +2. The best piece for Finale.

. Harp +1: Minne +2. This is the only Minne +2 piece!

. Cornette +1 or +2. Minuet +2 (If the +2 version you get Agi+1). Either piece works well here.

Now yes, that's a lot of instruments, and there are a lot more to choose from, I personally chose ones I would of gone for, this is the link for all the instruments so you can figure out how to find them/buy them/craft them! http://ffxiclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Instruments

**So, what's the difference between Horn and Harp, how do I decide?!**

There are a few differences between both Harp and Horn, and I will tell you these now.

. Debuff songs played with Wind Instruments have higher Magic Accuracy than songs played with String Instruments.

. Buff songs played with Wind Instruments have an area of effect of 10'.

. Buff songs played with String Instruments have an area of effect that starts at 10' when you first learn the song, and rise with your String skill to a maximum of 20'.

With this in mind, it makes more sense to play debuffs with a Horn or Flute, right? Well, yes and no. Depending on the instrument and it's added stats depends on what I'll use, E.I Nursemaid's harp and Cradle Horn for lullaby's I would use Nursemaids due to the fact is has a better range area, this makes it's easier for AoE sleeps. However I would try use a horn on any other debuff songs, perhap you could use a horn for a single sleep and harp for AoE sleep, mix and match, find out which you prefer!

Each +1 to a song on an instrument increases its duration by 10%, and also increases its effect. All buff songs have a base duration of 120 seconds, or 2 minutes, so you need to take this into consideration as well!

**Well Sara, that's great and all but what about gear, do I need to gear swap or can I just use the same gear**

No. Do. Not. Use. One. Gear. Set. You. Make. Me. Cry!!!

For my Bard I have several gear sets, Idle, Precast, Enhancment buffs, Debuffs, and then a Cure set, and Stoneskin etc set. (As well as a TP & WS set but don't tell Wad).

My idle set consists of a Regen, Refresh, PDT, Emnity down, Spell interruption down, and evasion set hybird set. To be honest you can make your idle set however you like, but this is mine.

***Carnwenhan, Genbu's Shield, Gjallarhorn, Marduk's Tiara, Orochi Nodowa, Novia Earring, Melody Earring, Marduk's Jubbah, Marduk's dastanas, Balrahn's ring, Patronus ring, Cheviout cape, Moon Sash, Goliard Trews, Suzaku's Sune-Ate.***

Feel free to use this as inspiration.

Precast is for the first 3-5 seconds of the song, making you able to cast your next song much faster, a good set for this is:

***Chatoyant Staff, Vivid Strap, Walahra Turban, Sheikh Manteel, Veela Cape, Aoidos' Belt, Byakko's Haidate, Rostrum Pumps, Minstrel's Earring, Loq. Earring.***

The best way to gear your precast set is to add in Song spellcasting time down gear, fast cast gear and haste, so add things in and take them out :) So just mix and match gear with these stats in your slots

My Buff set is pretty much complete, so I will use this as an example, however there are a few pieces I am still after myself :)

**WIND BUFF SET!! IF YOU'VE NOT GOTTEN A GJALLARHORN YOU'LL NEED TO MAKE A WIND AND STRING SET!!**

***Carnwhenhan (You can use Chatoyant Staff and Bugard Strap +1) Genbu's Shield, Gjallarhorn (If you do not have this, use any instrument with +stats for the song you're singing), Marduk's Tiara, Wind or Pipers Torque, Musical Earring, Wind Earring, Minstrel's Coat, Choral Cuffs +1, Nereid ring x2, Astute Cape, Marching Belt, Choral Cannions +1, oracle's Pigaches.***

**STRING BUFF SET!! IF YOU'VE NOT GOTTEN A GJALLARHORN YOU'LL NEED TO MAKE A WIND AND STRING SET!!**
*As I don't use this set I will make a gear guide with out Carnwenhan.*

***Chatoyant Staff, Bugard Strap +1, instrument of choice for song, Marduk's Tiara, String Torque, Musical Earring, String Earring, Choral Justaucorps +1, Choral Cuffs +1, Astute Cape OR Erato's Cape, Augur's Brais, Marduk's Crackows.***

You will need either JUST wind or BOTH sets depending on if you have a Gjallarhorn or not, remember, Singing skill works on both instruments, so stack on that as well as the skill your instrument is, higher skill level higher accuracy, and better buffs placed on yourself and your party members.

Now, for the debuff set, unlike your buffing set your skill+ gear won't be of much use to you, you want magic accuracy and CHR to help land those songs. I will use my gear set as an example, please note my gear is a current work in progress, as I am still building this set!

***Chatoyant Staff, Bugard Strap +1, Gjallarhorn, Bard's Roundlet +1, Piper's Torque, Melody Earring +2, Marduk's Jubbah, Choral Cuffs+1, Omega Ring, Veela Ring, Jesters cape +1, Gleeman's Belt, Marduk's Shalwar, Goliard Clogs.***

These are the most important bard gear sets, cure sets, stoneskin sets are nice to have, and I'm sure you can figure out which gear pieces you can use to make these ;)

***Ok, so we've gotten song types, instrument types and now gear sets sorted, what about merits, what are these?!***

A very important question, if you're not aware merit points are used to unlock extra spells, abilities, and buffs to certain jobs, there are two groups, group one and group two, let's talk about group one first!

Lullaby Recast, Finale Recast, Minne Effect, Minuet Effect and Madrigal Effect, the names are simple enough to explain what's going on here, which should you use? Well that's up to personal preference, I tend to find my lullabies aren't that long of a recast, where Finale is, so I went 5/5 on that, out of Minne, Minuet and Madrigal I tend to use Minuet more, so I went 5/5 on that as well. But like I said, personal preference, just think which would benefit you more.

Now let's move onto group 2, Nightingale, Troubadour, Foe Sirvente, Adventurer's Dirge, the two songs from that list are useless. You want to 5/5 both Nightingale and Troubadour. There is no preference, this is the norm, reducing emnity loss and reducing emnity gain can not and will not beat halving casting and recasting as well as double song duration.

***Ok, but what of my other two abilities?***

Oh, you mean Soul Voice and Pianissimo? Well I'm glad you asked, Soul voice is your Two-Hour ability, this enhances your songs so the potency of both Enfeebling Songs and Enhancing Songs are doubled, and the accuracy of Enfeebling Songs are greatly increased. It can be stacked with Troubadour and Nightingale! As for Pianissimo, it turns any song which is normally an AoE into a single target spell, making sure you can ballad that moronic healer which likes to stand right in the fray (Wyrm BCNM, Tiamat, Fafnir, Nidhogg are not counted as we stack on their feet).

***What is a "Bard Swap"?!***

Excellent question, when doing high tiered NM's or Zerged NMs when there are 2 or more Bards present the leader of the run will call out which bard will play which song, for example, Missiontester, March x2, Minuet IV, Saradema, Minuet III and Madrigal x2, or something similar, each bard will then most likely be told to Soul Voice(it it's up) as well as Troubadour and Nightingale those songs, after they play for 1 party they will then drop, when they will be invited to the next party, and play the same songs they were told to do, it's easy as long as everyone pays attention. :)

***What Subjobs should I level for Bard?!***

The main ones will be White Mage, extremely nice with reraise, pro&shell, stoneskin, blink, bar spells and -na spells. Then you'll have Ninja, for pulling you'll have utsusemi. You can use Red Mage, very useful for phalanx, fast cast trait. And last but not least Dancer if you want to have solo fun!

***Are there any pet peeves whilst playing Bard I should be warned about?!***

Yes, yes there is my young Padawan. PEOPLE WHO MOVE OUT OF SONG RANGE. AND THEN COMPLAIN THEY DON'T HAVE SONGS!
Honestly, as I previously mentioned, a horns range is 10 yalms. A harps range is 20, as I rarely use a harp, if I run to you and start playing a song, I don't wish to see you then run off and complain, our songs have a recast too you know!

But honestly Bard can be a lot of fun, just pay attention to the fight, throw out songs according to the party leaders instructions OR what you think is most needed at the time (seeing your nin's shadows falling fast? Mambo! Seeing your DD's not hit their target? Madrigals!) and I really hope this guide helps you in learning and playing the job, I'm going to throw down two links to help you with gearing and researching more about bard.

http://myffxigear.kicks-ass.org/
http://ffxiclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Bard

March on my young Padawans. And sing your heart out!

Thank you for taking the time to read this! - Saradema :)