How Would You Fix Bard?

I don't agree with people saying GEO took BRD's job. They just took one, though a large, aspect of it. Before reading, don't misunderstand; GEO/BRD are still in a position where if you can only bring 1 or the other, you're better off bringing the GEO.

BRD still has things no other job can do. Albumen and Vinipata pretty much require you to bring a BRD to do Troub/Night Lullaby on the adds, with Carnwenhan being a very large boon to add to it. BRD can reach a maximum of 7 mins 20 second virtually unresistable Sleep duration while the next longest sleep is Sleep(ga) II/Repose which lasts 1 minute 30 seconds.

BRD also basically has a 10-11 minute 1-hour effect, while GEO's is 3 minutes 30 seconds. People may compare the twos' abilities of granting large amounts of accuracy, but they seem to forget BRD's lasts almost 3 times longer than GEO's (when fight duration permits, such as Schah), making BRD a better choice if you're looking for large accuracy buffs. Similar to GEO, their 1-hour buffs can reach the entire alliance with an organized group, while a GEO would need to be present in the same party they wish to give a party buff bubble to. Even without 1-hours, groups should consider bringing both rather than only GEO if they're worried about Accuracy issues.

While it's not very prevalent anymore due to the option of doing so not really being required for some jobs to perform their role, BRD has the option of giving each party member their own specific buffs, rather than being limited to 2 and a half. BRD can both raise your melee's Att/Acc/Haste, your tank's spell recast/Defense and your WHMs' spell recast/Refresh, your BLMs' spell recast/INT/Refresh, etc.. to pretty high levels while under the effect of Soul Voice/Clarion Call.

While more niche, they also have Scherzo, which is nice by itself, but when paired with Earthen Armor (woo, more jobs working together), you're pretty much immune to (single-hit) 1-shots. GEO is obviously nice for reducing damage as well, but sometimes it isn't enough (Clarasch Call, even VD Leviathan's Grand Fall).

If I had to offer my thoughts on how to balance BRD and GEO, I would simply buff Madrigal and Minuet mildly, change the property of their useless songs to do something meaningful such as MAB/Macc, buff Attribute songs for replacements to Madrigal/Minuet when they aren't necessary, and perhaps rather than nerfing Idris, slightly nerf Blaze of Glory/Ecliptic Attrition instead. Doesn't help that you can stack them for near Bolster-tier bubbles fulltime in Escha currently unless you're doing multiple lower tiers, in which case bubbles of that power aren't needed anyway.

Aa things are now, there are a few scenarios where BRD is pretty much required if you want to melee high tier content, or clear it at all in the case of Albumen and Vinipata, and probably Unafraid of the Dark (haven't done/watched that fight so idk), so I don't believe BRD is as useless as people make it out to be. Not as good as GEO in a large majority of circumstances, true, but a couple things will hopefully never be taken away from them.

To be fair, "if every lua waa created equal". Some luas automatically switch your gear based on what the mob is casting.

Hell, I saw an impetus tracker the other day.

Skill, twitch, like-levels of skill and committment are all important things but some people let the game autopilot as much as possible.

Some people do amazing with Vanilla, or so they swear.

Back when BRD was relevant and Terpander didn't exist, Daurdabla99 was just as broken as Idris, if not more.

Back then BRD could provide 2 songs to each player in each party.
With Daurdabla99 you could provide 4 songs.
That's basically the same as saying that a PT with a Dau99 BRD was the same as having a 7men party with just 6 player.

I don't think there are many items in this game that allows a job to perform exactly as two players with the same job could do.
Dau99 was incredibly broken.
You don't feel that nowadays because BRD doesn't matter, because Terpander exists, because meta-game changed and many other reasons.

That's a very good point about bard. Harp almost doubled a bard's capacity.

Also, though cheap now, Aegis redefines what a paladin is capable of. In regard to magic damage, mdb aside, it takes my paladin's effective health from 6500ish to over 24,000.

Physical, only about 10k, ignoring blocks/shield DEF, and phalanx.