PvP Job Series: Bard

As we are approaching the end of the Tactics PvP Job Series, we will focus on the viability of the Bard job as the main role in PvP.

PvP Performance Statcard

Looking at the above performance ratings, Bard isn’t the best option as the primary job in competitive PvP. We will go further into this, starting with their abilities.

For more information on this job, visit the job link: Bard

Abilities

Bards are a male-only job that uses their Bardsong skillset to apply HP and MP restoration and buffs to allies regardless of distance. Bardsong abilities act similarly to magicks in the sense that they have a cast time, but instead of taking a damage penalty while performing, your evasion rates are ignored instead. While the song is performing, the song will continue to cast when able, and taking any other action will cancel the current Bardsong. Each Bardsong other than Seraph Song and Life’s Anthem has a 50% chance to successfully apply whatever buff you are trying to cast on your units. Anyways, let’s take a look at some of their commonly used abilities in PvP:

Rousing Melody (action) – 50% chance to increase all allies’ Speed by 1. With this having a fairly short charge time, upping your allies’ Speed enables them more turns, as well as other benefits, such as more damage to Throw or faster Jump landing.

Battle Chant/Magickal Refrain (action) – 50% chance to increase all allies’ Physical Attack or Magick Attack by 1 respectively. These abilities become more effective when your team composition is mostly physical or magick-focused builds.

Finale (action) – 50% chance to set allies’ CT to 100, causing them to have immediate next turns. This sounds great on paper and works wonders when it goes off on at least half of your units, but its biggest drawback is is the amount of time (20+ in-game clock ticks) it takes to even cast.

Move +3 (movement) – Though this ability is prohibited in the Starter format, it is by far the most versatile form of movement in PvP.

Fly (movement) – This ability is a built-in Ignore Elevation, go over characters and obstacles when traversing, and ignores fall damage. While Fly has advantages, Teleport tends to be the better option for traversing height differences since there is no penalty for teleporting height differences.

Stats

Stats as a primary job: HP: 55% | MP: 50% | SP: 100% | PA: 30% | MA: 115%
C-EV: 5 | Move: 3 | Jump: 3

Can equip: Instruments, Hats, Clothing

Bards are quite limited in stats, with only really having 115% MA to work with as their best feature. They are also limited to only using instruments as weapons, which can only target at a range of only 3. Having Speed is important in order to get your turns quickly so you can start performing a Bardsong early. Ninja or Thief is likely your best option if looking to strictly use Bardsong due to their higher innate Speed.

Conclusion

Though Bardsong can buff allies across the map, it can take a considerable amount of time to cast and it is very RNG-focused when hoping for buffs to apply to certain allies. In slower formats or games, Bardsong’s effectiveness does get better as there are larger opportunities to take a chance on the buffs. But looking past that, Bards aren’t bringing much competitiveness to their limited equipment options and all-around low stats.