How important are bards really?

[KingTonberryIV]

As I was considering having a bard over my redmage, i seem to have noticed that bards are used mainly for xp groups. buut what about in a group fighting one big boss? is bard still as valuable as another red mage or another white mage? i would think that in this kind of situation, 1 red mage and a white mage is more useful than a white mage and a bard. or even 2 white mages.

what do you think?

[tenthrow2]

important? no, needed? no, nice bonus to have in group? hell ya.

if you figure your avg group consists of 2 mages, mix of 3 war/dmg dealers, and 1 support........if that support is a bard things are very good. But if it's not filled with a bard, an rdm or another whm fits just as well.

Every job has it's strength and weakness and place in party. Personally, i LOVE bards in my parties and plan to be one when i reach 30. A well played bard is a huge value to a group.

[subjectivist]

Yes, bards are very popular for EXP groups because they can decrease down-time (like Redmage's Refresh). However, for huge monster fights (HNMs), bards are indispensable (as well as Redmages) because all the casters have to have their MP high. HNM fights can seriously last hours and so without Redmages and bards for MP regen many usually fail to survive the HNM without losses.

roughly quoting StarRealms, Redmage is probably more important from level 40-55 because they have Refresh (+3 MP) whereas Bard only has Ballad 1 (+1 MP), but after 55 Bard is preferred over Redmage (although the ideal party has both) because we get Ballad 2 which, when combined with Ballad 1, is +3 MP.

Most groups at later levels are hurt by too much healing power with two whitemages, as they do not do enough damage.

The cookie cutter group is said to be Tank, THF, Damage Dealer (like RNG), RDM, BRD, WHM. I really wanna try PLD BRD RDM BLMx3 though