Bard

[Xifanie]

Life & Angel song: A bit Faster & stronger
Nameless song: 34% for each status; add transparent.
Last Song: 50% CT=100, BUT much quicker
All other songs: 100% +1 stat, 1.3x-1.5x normal CTR.

That's about how I would do it as original bards doesn't heal enough to be even a decent healer, 50% +1 stat sucks very much, especially on higher levels, and Last Song was never even usable.

[VincentCraven]

I rarely ever used Bards, so I'll try that and see how it works out. Is Dance skillset okay as is?

[Chrona]

Give Bards good stats too, they kinda suck =p

[Argg0]

Dance is better because stuff changes in a diff way...

Let's say I have a 10 sp unit.

It takes 10 CTR to act.

Add Cheer Song (+1 Sp) and you'll have 11 Sp...

Still, 10 CTR and 10 CT extra, next turns will be 9 CTR to act for a while.

Now, if we get to 9 Sp from 10...
12 CTR and extra 8 CT.

Better shown by showing more stuff...
20 = 5 CTR
19 = 6 CTR, 14 extra
18 = 6 CTR, 8 extra
17 = 6 CTR, 2 extra
16 = 7 CTR, 12 extra
15 = 7 CTR, 5 extra
14 = 8 CTR, 12 extra
13 = 8 CTR, 4 extra
12 = 9 CTR, 8 extra
11 = 10 CTR, 10 extra
10 = 10 CTR
9 = 12 CTR, 8 extra
8 = 13 CTR, 4 extra
7 = 15 CTR, 5 extra
6 = 17 CTR, 2 extra
5 = 20 CTR
4 = 25 CTR
3 = 34 CTR, 2 extra
2 = 50 CTR
1 = 100 CTR

So, as you can see, with 10 sucessful Cheer song we get 1.5x faster, or 5 CTR faster.... while with 10 sucessful Slow Dances the target gets 10x slower, or 90 CTR slower.

Basically, increasing speed sucks, decreasing sucks.

Bards and Dancer need status. Badly.

[VincentCraven]

Wow, I guess Bard really needs a boost. Stat-wise, I'm already changing them, but man, wow. Bard sucks!

[Xifanie]

Well, yeah I suppose.

Dancers while sucking are already much better than bards mainly because they can hit more targets, nameless dance has much more status effects to inflict, and have much better stats. Would 5-6 CTR be good for stat songs? That would make +2 stats between each turn most of the time on lower levels & on the entire party.

[VincentCraven]

I'll try CT at 5 and see where it gets us

[Edit: with 100% status as well

How about CT 10 for Last Song, and CT 7 for Nameless Song (along with 34% and Transparent)

Life/Angel Song... CT 4? With 30/20 + MA?]

[Xifanie]

With 100% chance of +1

Else it's pretty useless  

[Asmo X]

Not that improving the skillset would actually make people want to be a Bard but I like the changes.

[VincentCraven]

Yeah, the class itself is going to get.... something. Lemme look at the stats for a bit... *stares at data*

[Prinygod]

Bard and dancer can be a fun class to use, powerful if you use a mime or two. For example i had a party of a bard, dancer and a mime (and 2 other unimportant characters) and that meant dance and sing was used twice. So its important to not make it too strong. After all 100% +1 stat plus resolving  %50 faster and happening two times every time the ability goes off, may be overpowered, but some testing is needed to be sure. But the classes them selves should defiantly be improved. I aways wanted to try out different stuff with harps and cloths, but the bad classes they came with left me no choice to drop them asap.

[Prinygod]

with the most recent patch, Nameless song only have a 34% for one stat, not for each state. Also harps seems to be overpowered. My Razma is a bard and with 5pa and 11ma, my ramia harp did 80 damage a neutral compatibility. Ultima then activated causing 174 damage, with a 70 faith on Ramza and 69 on the enemy. Finally me thinks that cheer song is overpowered as i typically get 2-3 speed for all characters before my second turn, but i suppose that will be limited at higher levels.

[VincentCraven]

The damage is okay, and Ultima doesn't activate all the time. Still, that spell is too potent for that Harp. I'll have to think of a replacement.

As for the songs, I'll probably tone it down

Nameless Song... fixed, or should be... try downloading it again. I bet these songs are a tad to powerful now, but we'll see. If you start dominating the game because of it, I'll certainly tone it down. As for now, we'll see how it goes.

[Prinygod]

Nameless song still seems to only add one status effect, and it almost seems that its success rate has went down. Ive tried 5 times on a full party and it only worked twice, but it may have been bad luck

[VincentCraven]

I dunno why it is that way. I just rechecked it and re-uploaded it, so now I'm certain that if it doesn't work, then I can't really do anything about it at this time.

[Prinygod]

the most recent update fixed it, the likely hood to get at least one is up, and I've had characters get multiple at once.

Update* the success rate is weird. Its almost like there it a 34% chance it will work, and then it does a 34% check for each status effect. The reason is say this it miss most of the time but when it does work it usually has more than one status take effect.

Also while i haven't tried abusing it, Sing is now a very useful skill set. It heals enough hp to make a difference, enough mp to where my mages can easily cast another spell, and several rounds of cheer song wins the battles.

[VincentCraven]

Good. I'm glad the problem was just an error on my part. I'm surprised that it only gives a status effect 34% of the time though.

Let me know if Sing ever lets you dominate too much.

[Argg0]

Bards and Dancers aren't an easy class to access, a high tier.

They are spected to be somewhat strong (see Ninja, Samurai, Calculator).

And, usually, people won't have they by chapter 1, where +1 stat is a big buff, but by chapter 3 or so, when +1 stat isn't that biggy, it sure does help, but a lot less.

(what I mean is, going from 6 to 7 speed is a lot, but going from 12 to 13 is like nothing)

[Xifanie]

I guess that if you take the time to powerlevel jobs up to bard/dancer, it should be worth it. And they should still be decent at higher levels. So I suppose there aren't any problems now.

[Kourama]

Why not give Bards and innate status ability like Regen or Reraise? Sure their stats don't get a huge boost but they are much studier characters.