Welcome to the Basics Guide for Bard! Whether you’re a fresh level 100, a returning player, or just need a refresher, this guide will get you started and help you feel comfortable.

This is a basic introduction to level 100 Bard. It will not go into many nuances, optimizations, or topics outside of playing the job in battle. In particular, this will not cover a range of nuances that aim to keep key skills on cooldown despite Bard’s shifting speeds. Following the basics here is plenty sufficient for most game scenarios.

If what you’re looking for isn’t in here, it may be found in one of the dedicated guides below:

• Leveling Guide
• Skills Overview
• Gearing
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Opener
• (Temporary) Quick write-up including some advanced topics

Playstyle

As a Bard, you won’t have a set rotation. Instead, Bard skill usage is based on what’s available and/or what your timers are at a given moment. The core of this is a set of three songs you’ll cycle through. Each song has some effect that has an 80% chance to occur every three seconds.

Note: Something with a random chance to occur is commonly called a “proc”, and will be mentioned throughout this guide.

Between songs, procs, and its pair of damage over time (DoT) debuffs, Bard can feel like it has a lot to keep an eye on. But with practice, you’ll get the hang of it.

Core Concepts

ALWAYS BE CASTING!!

As with any job in FFXIV, the biggest part of being a good Bard is to keep your global cooldown (GCD) rolling.

As a physical job, Bard’s GCD skills - skills that share a 2.5 second base cooldown - are called Weaponskills. Everything else is an Ability with its own independent cooldown. Such skills are often called oGCDs.

Normally, you have enough time between GCD skills to use two oGCD skills. If you aren’t already, get used to the pattern of (GCD - up to two oGCDs - GCD - up to two oGCDs - GCD - etc.).

Also, note that you can press a GCD skill a little in advance, and it will fire as soon as possible. Use this fact to make sure your global cooldown never stops spinning.

Positioning

As a Ranged DPS, you have full freedom of movement. You can make use of this to give the party space for mechanics, keep yourself out of harm’s way, and so on.

However - Try to stay at a medium to close distance by default. Party heals (and buffs!) have a range, and you want those to reach you. If you die because you were too far away and missed a heal, that’s your fault, not the healers'.

Rotation - General

As is the norm in FFXIV, Bard operates on a two-minute “rotation”. That means every two minutes we repeat the same pattern of skill uses, give or take the various random elements of Bard.

Each two minute cycle starts with a “burst”, aiming to use your highest-damage skills during a pile of buffs - three of your own, and more from the party. The lead-up to the burst, and the burst itself, comprise about 30 seconds out of each two-minute cycle. An “opener” is a version of the burst used to start the fight, as your beginning state differs from mid-fight.

After the burst, Bard settles into its core gameplay pattern, which we’ll cover first. The opener / burst sequence involves more skills and specifics, so that will come after.

Normal GCD usage

Outside of burst, which GCD skill to use on Bard is simple: Press Burst Shot, or Refulgent Arrow if it’s available. This makes up 90% of your GCDs. The two exceptions are:

• Use Iron Jaws if your damage over time (DoT) debuffs - Stormbite and Caustic Bite - are about to run out. Or, re-apply them if they do fall off. You have breathing room here, so don’t be afraid to use it with 4-7 seconds left until you’re more comfortable.
• Aim to fire Apex Arrow and Blast Arrow around halfway through Mage’s Ballad (more on that shortly), by about 21-19s on the timer. Or sooner, if your Soul Gauge hits 100 early.

Between keeping an eye on your songs (below) and your DoTs, it can feel like a lot to track at first, but you’ll get it down with practice.

The song cycle

Bard has three main songs you can use for up to 45 seconds at a time: The Wanderer’s Minuet (WM), Mage’s Ballad (MB), and Army’s Paeon (AP). They have two-minute cooldowns, so cycling through these songs forms the backbone of your rotation. Song swaps serve as touchpoints, and alter your gameplay slightly as you go.

Each song gives a small (but always-on) buff to the party, and has an 80% chance to trigger an effect (a repertoire “proc”) every three seconds. The timing aligns with the song timer - procs can occur at 42 seconds on the timer, 39 seconds and so on. In addition to the song-specific effect, each proc gives 5 Soul Gauge.

You should always have one of your three songs running while in combat. Because the last proc chance happens at three seconds left, feel free to move on to the next song as soon as the timer reads three or less.

Song order

The best way to cover two minutes with the three songs is to spend ~43 seconds in Wanderer’s Minuet, ~43 seconds in Mage’s Ballad (leaving as the timer hits 3-2 in both cases), then ~34 seconds in Army’s Paeon (leaving at 12-10 on the timer).

Wanderer’s is Bard’s strongest song, followed not too far behind by Mage’s Ballad. Army’s Paeon is a decent bit weaker, so it’s the one to cut short.

Song effects

Depending on what song you’re in, there will be some minor skill use differences.

In Wanderer’s Minuet, procs give stacks to spend on Pitch Perfect, up to three. Try to always use it at three, unless you are worried about Empyreal Arrow (which triggers a proc) overflowing you. Also, spend whatever you have before you leave for Mage’s Ballad.

In Mage’s Ballad, procs give you half a charge of Heartbreak Shot. They can fill up fast, but if you use Heartbreak as able you should be fine.

In Army’s Paeon, your GCD and auto-attacks up to 16% faster as you get procs. Make sure to stay on top of the GCD as its pace accelerates. Also, try not to double weave at full stacks, as that’s likely to cut into your next GCD.

Other off-GCD skills

Outside of songs and the Minuet-only Pitch Perfect, you have a few other off-global damage skills to mind.

Empyreal Arrow is the most important - not only does it deal damage, but it also gives a repertoire proc, and on a short 15-second cooldown. In optimized rotation plans, effort goes into trying to keep EA on a clean every 15.0 second schedule. But for starting out, just try not to let it sit off cooldown for more than a second or two.

Heartbreak Shot is available beyond just Mage’s Ballad. As a charged action it’s very flexible, just keep it from hitting a full three stacks and you’re good. (At three stacks, it is no longer on cooldown, so avoiding that means it’s always charging a new stack)

Lastly, Sidewinder will come off cooldown once between bursts, around the middle of Mage’s Ballad. Try to use it quickly so that it comes back on time for the next burst.

Opener and Burst

Your opener and burst are a more specific sequence of skills. The goals are to buff the party at a good time, deal a lot of damage during buffs, and time certain skills in a future-friendly slot.

Standard opener

You may see other models around, but for starting out the standard opener is a solid go-to.

A few details:

• Use Heartbreak Shots, Refulgent Arrows, and three-stack Pitch Perfects as able. They aren’t all displayed here. (and any given Burst or Refulgent in the image could be vice versa).
• It’s worth dumping any Pitch Perfect stacks you have (even just one) before buffs run out. Hence the usage shown at the end.
• If you have some combat detection lag making it hard to use Minuet quickly, send a Heartbreak Shot before the Stormbite.

Two-minute burst

Every two minutes after your opener, you want to do a similar sequence. Thanks to the Enhanced Army’s Paeon trait it will be a little different, but the idea is the same.

The same notes from the opener apply. Once you’re into the fight, you should have Apex Arrow and Blast Arrow here, making a total of six key GCDs you want to use while all buffs are up:

• Apex Arrow
• Blast Arrow
• A Barrage-buffed Refulgent Arrow
• Resonant Arrow
• Radiant Encore
• Iron Jaws

The exact order you use these six is not a big deal, though if your soul gauge is full you do want to get that Apex off.

Dungeons and AoE

In dungeons, your AoE (area of effect) rotation is much the same as on a single-target. Ladonsbite, Shadowbite and Rain of Death replace Burst Shot, Refulgent Arrow and Heartbreak Shot respectively.

You can use your songs in the same order, and do not be afraid to use your buffs and big two-minute skills on trash. Remember that Barrage does buff Shadowbite, even if it does not triple it.

While running from one pack to another, if hitting 3+ enemies with Ladonsbite is impractical, you can go ahead and spread some Stormbites around instead. Putting both DoTs on particularly high-HP mobs can be good too. They’ll be alone sooner or later, so getting a lot out of a couple single skills up front is efficient.

Targeting

Ideally, if there’s a meaty enemy in the middle of the pack, that’s the one you want to aim at. Otherwise, in Minuet, try to bounce between targets in the middle of the pack. A lot of your burst skills deal more to the main target, and it’s not too helpful to kill one extra early by over-focusing it.

In your other songs, you don’t have a lot of focus damage aside from auto-attacks and sending Empyreals out (which you should still do), so this is less of a concern. Sticking to one central target should be fine.

Defense and Utility skills

On top of some shared basics, Bard has a few unique utility skills that can come in quite handy. Don’t forget to use them!

Troubadour - Simply enough, try to use this when the party is going to take a lot of damage. In harder content, your healers should be able to tell you when they want it. If they haven’t, make the best guesses you can.

Nature’s Minne - This increases all healing received by party members in range. It’s similar in purpose to Troubadour, but affecting heals changes some of the use cases and timing.

The Warden’s Paean - Cleanses any debuff with a little white bar over the icon. While rare in challenge content, you’ll see these in dungeons and alliance raids on occasion. So keep an eye out, especially for Doom and Paralyze. Warden’s can even prevent a debuff in advance too (usually).

Second Wind - A simple self-heal. It’s useful for solo play, and also if you need more healing than the rest of your party for any reason.

Arm’s Length - Canceling a knockback can be useful sometimes, so have this ready on your hotbar. Note that there are a few knockback mechanics that ignore it.

Head Graze - Cancels enemy casts that have a shaking red bar. Most things you’re expected to cancel will have long cast times. Don’t worry about hitting quick casts like spell attacks from sprites.

Repelling Shot - This is never necessary, but sometimes it can make a dodge or spread out mechanic a little more comfortable.

Peloton - Only usable out of combat, but speeds the party up a bit from one pull to the next. Good for getting commendations sometimes.

Leg Graze & Foot Graze - It has been several years since these have been useful in endgame group content. They’re handy sometimes in solo-friendly content if you need to kite or run away. That’s about it though.

Credits

Sana Cetonis [Adamantoise] - Primary author

Yumiya Nagatsuki [Behemoth] - Theorycrafter

Stephia Deleva [Goblin] - Contributor

Khemi Nawilo [Behemoth] - Contributor

Elya Kura [Ragnarok] - Contributor

Verzell Varion [Adamantoise] - Contributor