Spoony Bard: Difference between revisions

[[File:Spoony_BardSpoony Bard.jpg|link=Final Fantasy IV|frame|[[Woolseyism|Damn his spooniness!]]]]

Enter the bard! (or sometimes "dancer" or "cheerleader") For some reason, when game makers want more [[Splat|splatssplat]]s, bards are the way that ''everyone'' tries to make their game "different." Bards provide an entirely new role that falls outside of those standard four roles, which lets players who want to try something different have a way to support the party in a way that is (questionably) new and (possibly) unique.

* Alternately, bards can be built to specialize in status effect abilities. This ''can'' often be a wonderful way to add a new role to the game, it's in [[An Adventurer Is You]] as "Buffers" and "Mezzers" for a reason. In games where enemies can have powers that disable your own characters, having a character that can disable them first, or provide your teammates immunity to their tricks is a great boon. This often falls flat, however, because the status effects in many games are actually [[Useless Useful Spell|Useless Useful Spells]]s. This problem is often exacerbated by having fairly short fights in many games where the standard [[Mook]] enemies you mow through are only meant to turn the game into an endurance match, anyway. A spell or song that gives a +30% attack bonus is only a useful bonus if you are actually going to attack at least four times with that status effect on - if not, congratulations, you just wasted a turn. Even if boss fights are fairly long, if the bard specializes in nothing but debuff spells, the enemy may be [[Contractual Boss Immunity|immune]], and the buff spells may simply not be useful enough to justify using a bard instead of another character.

It is worth noting that oftentimes, bard-type characters are Spoony Bards because the game makers simply didn't think things through when they made the class and didn't do proper balancing. Typically, when a class is "weak and worthless," especially in MMORPGs, other classes will be [[Nerf|nerfednerf]]ed, or the bards will get additional beneficial gimmicks to make them useful and avoid an inevitable revolt by the players.

** Interestingly enough, the second edition bard was just the [[Jack of All Stats]]. However, at a certain range of experience (party average around 3 to 12) this trope was [[Inverted Trope|inverted]], making bards curiously but non-obviously overpowered during this common range of play. Due to their being on the Thief experience table, they gained levels much faster than their wizard buddies, which allowed them to outperform wizards in their area of expertise for a good portion of the game due to their nukes being stronger--notstronger—not to mention the Thief skills, the weapon proficiencies, the improved [[THAC 0]] table, and bardic music. Unfortunately, [[Zig-Zagging Trope|the straight use of this trope]] comes into play after the middle levels, as they hit a hard limit on their spells and wizard-classes's advancement scheme became less stingy.

*** In 4th Edition, the ''Cleric'' class [[Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards|of all people]] very easily led to this trope--especiallytrope—especially before the lion's share of the [[Splatbooks]] came out. The class was (and is) the most eclectic in the game, with a lot of powers bordering on useless and/or counterproductive to the role. Fortunately, due to the lowered ability density of 4th Edition they still retain(ed) their [[Game Breaker]] status (as least [[Obvious Rule Patch|before the errata onslaught anyway]]) to a player who knows what they're doing. To one that doesn't, they're this trope.

* The [[Trope Namer]] is Prince Edward Chris von Muir from ''[[Final Fantasy IV]]''. After the death of an otherwise plot-unimportant daughter, the party's sage Tellah rails against the unfortunate lute player with a stream of insults and threats including "You spoony bard!", a somewhat [[Bowdlerise|Bowdlerised]]d translation that [[Good Bad Translation|became popular and was retained when the game was re-translated for the GBA version]] (though in the DS game the retranslator NPC found in the dwarven kingdom's Developer's Room states, "The bard ''is'' spoony. [[Lampshade Hanging|We checked!]]", see page quote.). Edward himself is [[Joke Character|singularly useless]], employing a ''[[Musical Assassin|harp]]'' as a weapon and possessing the special ability of [[Musical Assassin|"singing" at enemies]] -- a—a skill that's supposed to inflict [[Standard Status Effects|status ailments]] but [[Useless Useful Spell|which frequently does nothing at all]]. Edward's other special ability, unsurprisingly, is to run away and hide for a turn. In "hard-type", though, he's ''slightly'' more useful because he can also spread potions amongst the whole party. Slightly.

** [[Magikarp Power|Late in the GBA version of the game, Edward becomes one of the fastest characters in the game]]. Equip him with the Apollo Harp, and he can easily dish out 2000+ damage ''every few seconds''. And woe unto any dragon-type enemies you run into, as Edward will regularly dole out anywhere from 8000+ to max damage ''per hit''. Then he gets his ultimate weapon Loki's Lute which does that much damage to ANY creature that has a racial flag. (like dragon, demon or giant) His only glaring weaknesses are his defense and lack of hit points, making him more of a [[Glass Cannon]] -- but—but even then, he deals full damage from the back row, so defence is less important for him. There was also an accessory that changes his useless sing command to a Mighty Guard Spell. There was also his other much-upgraded ability, Salve: in previous versions, all it did was to take a potion and split it between the party members for a whopping 25 HP of healing. In the DS remake, it instead allows you to take any item and use it on the entire party at once with full effect, although it does use up as many of the said item as there are party members. Like the previous skill, it can also be later given to another character as well.

*** Seems like poor Edward just can't seem to catch a break. While he's shown to be much less wimpier storywise and he still retains his Salve ability in After Years, his Bardsong is again randomized. At very least you can still choose whether you want to target your party or enemies with it, including being able to choose from a single/all party members/enemies and the negative statuses it can cause have potential to at least be useful this time around since the game follows the DS version trend of making [[Useless Useful Spell|Useless Useful Spells]]s less useless. While he's not the [[Glass Cannon]] he was in the GBA version anymore, his damage output isn't that far behind from the other characters, he's still decently fast, the aforementioned Salve can be even more useful than the White Mages' healing spells both because of the buyable X-Potions and Elixirs and an item that doubles the effectiveness of items in battle and his ability to hide can still be useful against enemies who telegraph their [[Total Party Kill]] attacks.

*** And the strategy of multiple mages in formation works relatively well with Illusionists who have the High Magic second ability for the Magic Frenzy attack and the Dual Wield support ability-- aability—a strategy that allows a character two make one magic attack and two physical attacks against every enemy on the screen but consumes MP at a prodigious rate.

** A number of the more useless jobs in ''III'' had their Spoony Bard status almost completely reversed in the DS remake, turning into [[Lethal Joke Character|Lethal Joke Characters]]s if you get enough job levels in them. Particular notes are the aforementioned Scholar (on top of the weapon effectiveness boost gets a lot of charges for low-levelled spells, and when dual-wielding the higher-leveled [[Throw the Book At Them|books]] can output insane damage given they're a support class) and the Geomancer (stick with the class for long enough and you'll start cursing when you get the rare high-damage single-target Shadowflare, because you hit the damage cap anyway).

* In the first ''[[Baldur's Gate]]'', the bard class was pretty much tragically underpowered compared to the others -- thereothers—there was no good reason to choose a bard over a rogue. Things got better with the sequel and with [[Icewind Dale]].

** In a more bardly example, Chatot basically exists for its one unique move,<ref> Which is a recorded message that has a chance to confuse which is higher the louder the message.</ref>, is only catchable near the end of the games it debuted in, never evolves, and is generally useless.

** The Bard specialization, which Leliana starts with and any Rogue can take after you get her approval high enough, offers several buff and debuff skills to the normally DPS class. It also helps that multiple bard songs of the same type stack, and that their effectiveness is based on the cunning stat, which with the right talent is also largely responsible for damage potential. In short, bards are effective because they don't need to sacrifice their damage potential to be good bards--theirbards—their buffs actually complement their damage output rather then trading in for it.

* Gildward, the bard from the webcomic ''[[Adventurers!]]'', is a parody of the original [[Spoony Bard]] from ''[[Final Fantasy IV]]''. His name is even a combination of "Edward" and "Gilbert", Edward's Japanese name. In [http://www.adventurers-comic.com/d/0034.html this strip], he [[Defied Trope|almost]] gets called a [[Spoony Bard]] after demonstrating the utterly ineffectual powers of his magic harp.