DAWNTRAIL Guides! Dawntrail L90-100 Miner Leveling, Botanist Leveling
Dawntrail Normal Raid Guide (Quick, Spoiler Free)
See: Viper STARTER Guide / Rotation | Pictomancer Starter Guide / Rotation
Becoming a Bard? I believe you’ve bumped into the right place for BRD job info! We talk about basic information and FAQs in our Bard Basics Guide. Read on if you’re expecting to learn about unlocking BRD, Bard Job Identity, trait and skill list, crafters and gatherers related to BRD, and link to other important Bard info!
Bard is a Ranged Physical DPS job, and one of the starting nine jobs introduced in 2.0 A Realm Reborn. BRDs were the only Ranged Physical DPS at the time, until 3.0 came out with Machinists.
How to become a Bard? Unlocking BRD:
First and foremost you need to have a Level 30 Archer, and have completed the L30 ARC class quest, “The One That Got Away”. After doing this you can unlock the actual quest to become a Bard, “A Song of Bards and Bowmen” which is issued by the Archer guildmaster Luciane in Gridania – New Gridania.
Also, you need to complete a level 20 MSQ, “Sylph Management”, which realistically should be done by the time you’re looking to unlock Bard.
Note that, upon completing A Song of Bards and Bowmen you MUST EQUIP the “Soul of the Bard” to actually formally BECOME a BRD. Interestingly, in the old days, unlocking Bard required L15 Pugilist – thankfully that’s no longer the case.
Rushing to or want to know how to unlock a certain class? Learn more:
FFXIV Job Unlock & Requirements Guide.
Bard Playstyle & BRD Job Identity
If you’ve asked yourself, “Why play, try, or choose Bard?” – here’s my attempt at selling you the BRD class.
As a ranged character, Bards feel really “safe” to play. Managing your DoT’s is another major aspect of FFXIV’s BRD so if you’re into that. HOWEVER, don’t go into bard thinking you’ll have that “sniper” “assassin” longbow character – Bards are undoubtedly in the supportive spectrum of DPS classes and their average DPS shows it. They’re also above average in the “hectic” rotation scale.
Aesthetically and thematically, the FFXIV Bard isn’t something you always see in modern MMORPG’s. It’s a hybrid of a “Magical Songstress”, and “Mystic Archer” if I’m to use my own scrubby descriptions – but it does such a good job of MASHING those two together both in form and function. Speaking of mashing things together, your keyboard will soon know that too.
What Crafters & Gatherers should Bard level?
While it’s common in MMORPG’s to think you want to craft your own gear as you level up your BRD… I DO NOT RECOMMEND IT.
Leveling up your DoH and DoL jobs should be thought of as a different activity completely. To be honest, if you’re a newer player, simply ensure that you DO NOT OVERCAP Levequests (always have less than 100).
The only relation a combat job has to a crafter or gatherer class is “which classes do you need to repair your gear”? My advice, ultimately, is pretty much all or nothing – level up all DoH classes in tandem. As a separate project, level up all DoL classes in tandem (with the optional Fisher).
What’s the best race for Bard?
Racial stats are (was?) a thing. However, I highly recommend not caring about it. The difference in performance between the “best” and “worst” race for you is not even 0.1%.
My advice? Pick for aesthetics. Will you stay the same job forever? If you change mains, will you race change? Ultimately, the difference is so microscopic that I cannot in good faith tell you that racial stats are an integral part of your character.
I won’t even link the Racial Stats Guide, as I haven’t checked up on this in a while – and I don’t want to cement the idea that the “best race” really matters.
Related Bard Guides – Read More!
Here are a few useful links for you:
- General Leveling Guide for ALL combat classes / jobs
- Archer Basics Guide & FAQ
- Archer Leveling Guide
- Adding new links as we update them!
Upcoming Odds and Ends
Here’s a few things we’ll be adding on here in the near future:
- Adding a “links to further resources”, we’re doing a site restructure so once those links are set, they’ll go in here.
- Human-readable, newbie-friendly skill and trait list.
> I used to have the in-game skill list here, but I found it useless as the in-game one is better… I’d rather have a new player friendly rundown. - More descriptive job identity? Pics?
> I dunno… pictures of the job gauges? A gif of some flashy skills? - Feel free to suggest anything else via comment or socials!
Summary & Outro
Well that’s about it for a really, really basic guide that hopefully points some lost souls in the right direction, or answers some of your questions regarding Bard.
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Is the Rain of Death skill description outdated? Not seeing the “while increasing damage taken” anywhere else
Can you equip bard with ARC 30 & CNJ 15 or ARC 30 & THM 15 ?
It’s most likely ARC CNJ, but they might add a third class in the mix. We will know by p4-launch for sure!
It’s archer lvl 30 and pugilist lvl 15
Fixed. Good catch thanks.
So does “Cannot be used with other songs.” pertain to that individual bard, or all bards, like a debuff so no other songs can be played by any other bards at the same time?
We’re pretty sure it means that you cannot have 2 active songs as a bard at one time. Although I’m quite sure two different bards can have the same song active (Although if it causes a unique stat altering debuff, I’d think that wouldnt stack on the target)