A bard whom there were none to praise, And very few to read.

- Hartley Coleridge

Tail!  Mithra!  Get it?

 

<edit: 2009Aug31>

So, in looking at my stats this page is popular with Google for the query “Unlocking Bard.”  So I guess I should actually post some information about unlocking the job.

If that’s how you got here, I suggest following this link.

Things to keep in mind:

If you’re just barely level 30, you might want to ask someone slightly higher level than you to accompany you on your way to Buburimu Peninsula and Valkurm Dunes if it’s night time.  The ghosts like to hang around the song runes, and they might give you some problems.

Another thing.  Although it’s been awhile since I unlocked bard, it was better for me to purchase a full stack of parchment (averaging about 1K a sheet) than a single sheet, and sell the remaining sheets singly on the AH for about 3K.  It took a couple tries to get them all sold, but in the end selling the sheets singly produce an overall profit.  It seems the only people who buy single sheets of parchment are people looking to complete the handful of quests that require it (one of which is unlocking bard).

</edit>

Professional and family life left me with a few hours last night that weren’t filled.  So like any dyed-in-the-wool geek, I jumped into FFXI and decided to unlock and play Bard for a little while.

Unlocking Bard is less than trivial if you have a job over 35.  Under level 35 that and you might encounter small annoyances.  Overall, Bard challenges Ranger as the easiest damn extra job to unlock, and it’s the only job I’ve unlocked that produced a net profit.

A bard is essentially a mage job that doesn’t use mp, so in the early levels it’s an exercise in Masochism like any other mage job.  Not quite the gnaw your arm off to escape level of aggravation that White or Black mage presents in single digit levels; since you can equip a sword and decent armor.  Somwhere between Black Mage and Red Mage lies Bard’s particular brand of soul destruction.

That said, working a mage job without having to worry about magic is an interesting concept.  You can tell SE put some decent effort into trying to keep the job balanced, and did a pretty decent job of it to boot.  I suspect that I’ll continue with Bard for at least a little bit before I return to Paladin full time.

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