Spoony Bard: Difference between revisions

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

2. Foolishly or sentimentally in love.''|'''Dictionary.com'''}}

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.

* First, bards can often be an attempt at being a [[Jack of All Stats|jack of all trades]]. This may seem nice on paper - they can back up the powers of their specialized compatriots whenever a [[Plot Tailored to the Party|certain role is critically needed]]. If the party is undermanned, they may need someone who can fill two roles at once. Unfortunately, because [[Crippling Overspecialization]] is often not crippling in these games, [[Min-Maxing]] is implicitly encouraged. Even worse, because [[Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards]] means different classes progress at different rates and the monsters are built to be a challenge to those characters of the basic four specialized types, the bard is often [[Can't Catch Up|struck with abilities so underleveled by comparison as to make them completely useless]]. The '''Spoony Bard''' fails to become even a "jack" at all trades, only managing to become a [[Master of None]].

* 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.

The term "Spoony Bard" itself, incidentally, comes from [[Final Fantasy IV]] - it was originally used as aan accidental [[WoolseyismPurple Prose]] <ref>The translator was a Japanese native who appears to have pulled the word from a dictionary, unaware of how rare it was. A more blatant example of this can be seen in the manual, where an early screenshot features "quay" of all words.</ref> insult at Edward (a bard), but so many fans of the game saw him as a useless waste of a party slot, thanks to being a status-effect character in a [[Useless Useful Spell]] game, and even worse, having the command "Hide" that does [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]], (making him not just weak, but a [[Dirty Coward]] to boot,) that the players themselves took up the amusing insult to Edward, and the bard class in general.

* Varies in the RPG ''[[Dungeons and Dragons|Dungeons & Dragons]]'', depending on edition and campaign. There are a lot of "trap" classes in almost all editions. This is where [[Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards]] came from after all.

** 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.

** Mostly averted in [https://web.archive.org/web/20130623113141/http://www.wizards.com/DnDdnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/dramp/20081103%2Fdramp%2F20081103 fourth edition. Bards] are a "leader" class (healer/buffer/debuffer) like Clerics and Warlords, and are neither conspicuously better nor conspicuously worse at that role than those classes; they'll be solid contributors to any party that isn't overloaded with such characters. Bards tend to focus more on debuffs than the others, which have their own specialties too. In a nod to their "jack of all trades" style in previous editions, they are the only class that can take multiclass feats corresponding to more than one other class.

*** 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.

* [[Warhammer 4000040,000]] has the iconic Tactical Squad, which can be given a Missile Launcher (with two types of ammo, one for anti-tank and one for anti-horde), a flame thrower for close ranged combat, the sergeant being tooled up for actual close combat, and can be split into two squads so that the close combat half can move and cap objectives while the heavy weapon guy can sit back and shoot. They can also take a Razorback Transport, which can bring the Close combat half up to the enemy while providing another heavy weapon, which is mobile. To top it off, they're pretty cheap for what you pay for. This all ''looks'' good on paper, as they can theoretically take on any threat they see, it's actually horrifying bad, as they cannot put enough shots/attacks to ''kill'' whatever threat they see. Especially glaring is the Missile launcher, whose anti-horde firing mode in theory can hit multiple targets, but because of coherency rules, it'll likely hit no more than 2, and that's if it's ''lucky'' (and on top of that, there's roughly a 75% chance of the target in question surviving anyways). The only reason they are still widely used is because the only alternative to fill the standard marine's troop choice is the badly-priced Scouts, which are roughly the same cost as marines, but lack their stats and survivability in lieu of other rules. In armies that gives the player another choice for troops, Tactical Marines are almost universally passed up in favor of those.

* In the [[Dungeons and Dragons|Dungeons & Dragons]] based game [[Baldur's Gate]], bards tend to be bad fighters and bad magic users, but get more bonuses toward identifying items through the "Lore" statistic than any other class. If your party loadout includes a specialist wizard who can't cast the Identify spell on an item, having a bard can help avert spending large amounts of money identifying the magic items you frequently encounter but their utility usually stopped there.

* 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 seeing how Edward is still moping over his beloved Anna ''[[Final Fantasy IV: The After Years|17 years]]'' after her death, such that his kingdom is without an heir, he apparently still fits the literal definition as well. That said, he's ''much'' [[Took a Level Inin Badass|more confident and assertive]] now, and is one of the only heroes to get the better of the villains, if temporarily, so far.

*** 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]].

* ''[[Final Fantasy X -2]]'' has the Songstress dressphere (class), which, despite being plot-important, is almost completely useless. There ''are'' some redeeming features to the Songstress, such as the MP Mambo (which causes all spells to have 0 MP cost) and Magical Masque (which causes all magical attacks to your party to be 0). Though, both dances can only be gotten late in the game, and neither one can come even close to touching the [[Game Breaker|Cat Nip.]]

* The Bard Class in ''[[Ever QuestEverQuest]]'' is stated as a "Jack of All Trades, Master To None" in that it's sort of like multiple classes combined together. Unlike normal buff spells, the bard had to constantly keep "singing" almost non-stop and keep refreshing the songs over and over again every few SECONDS. Most players can successfully juggle 4 song buffs up at once. They can also wear Plate armor, and dual wield weapons (but not Double Attack.) Among the song types they have, they can increase run speed to being the fastest in the game (faster than the most powerful mounts), charm enemies, stun them, deal damage over time, and heal over time.

** Bards have been changed in ''[[Ever QuestEverQuest]]''. They no longer have to press the singing keys every few seconds (this led to wrist problems for some players). They also have some pretty awesome abilities. A well played bard can be one of the most powerful classes, they can solo many mobs at once and in groups they can boost damage output by a huge amount. They also can single mobs from a pack of them with ease.

* Many, many, many ''[[Pokémon]]'' fall into this category. Because any player can choose from all of them, many tend to get ignored completely. This tends to lead to [[Magikarp Power]] when you realize that damn near any Pokémon can be used effectively if you raise them right and throw on some [[T Ms]]TMs...Okay, ASIDE'''aside''' from Magikarp.

** 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.

** ''[[Dragon Quest III]]'' featured the Gadabout/Goof-off/Jester, who is either a clown (male) or a bunnygirl (female). An NPC will outright ''tell'' you that they're useless. Their stats are below average all across the board (except luck, [[Dump Stat|which does almost nothing]], only reducing the chance of chance of being inflicted with a stat effect by a ''fraction of a percent'' in a game where the primary stats [[Cap]] at 255), and they will often waste a turn doing something silly rather than attacking. On the other hand, [[Magikarp Power|Gadabouts are the only class that could become a Sage without the use of a special item]].<br />The SNES and GBC remake made them a little better, giving them the Whistle ability that calls a random battle, saving some time when level grinding.

** Averted in ''[[Dragon Quest IX]]'', as the Minstrel plays more along the lines of the [[Jack of All Stats]] and is a decent fighter and spellcaster all around, which is a good thing, because you start out as one!<br />And then played straight with the Luminary (Dancer). Not only is it a pain to unlock (the quest requires finding a random dungeon with a specific [[Mook]] in it, [[Guide Dang It|which is a pain if you do not even know what type and what level dungeons they're even found in]]), which can take hours or even ''days'' if you're particularly unlucky with the random dungeons. Upon finally unlocking the Luminary, you are treated to a class with terrible stats(baring speed and charm, they're among the worst of all the available classes in the game), useless abilities, and awful equip options. And if that weren't enough, you don't even get to unlock the class until you beat the main story and start doing postgame content; making the effort put into getting the class that much more obnoxious.

* 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 [https://web.archive.org/web/20100614035008/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.

* Elan from ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]'' is as [[Cloudcuckoolander|spoony]] as they come. His bard songs are pretty much useless, his motivational speeches have a tendency to horribly backfire, and the only weapons he can use can be [[Breakable Weapons|Sundered by someone cursing too loud.]] However, his real talent is a result of his bardic training: he's as [[Genre Savvy]] as they come, and sees damn near everything coming. Whenever he works close enough with [[Genius Bruiser]] Roy, he becomes [[Dangerously Genre Savvy]]. And that training perfectly synergizes with the Dashing Swordsman [[Prestige Class]] he literally [[Took a Level Inin Badass|took a level in]] - which turns entertaining quips and drama into [[Badass|Bad Assery]] - turning him into a [[One-Man Army]].

** Notable in that his [[Took a Level Inin Badass|leveling up]] hasn't drowned out the endearing aspects of his character: optimism, ''extraordinary'' loyalty to his friends, and a certain bumbling charm that makes him what he is. [[Character Development|Elan's progression]] from a simple Spoony Bard to Dashing Swordsman isn't just about getting more/useful class powers, but him developing the chops to be a genuine [[Big Damn Hero]]. As part of this growth he also is slowly shown to be [[How Do I Shoot Web|learning how to properly use his regular bardic spells]].

* Julie, the protagonist of ''[[Our Little Adventure]]''. She's [[The Archer|good with a bow]] and she's the only group member with any sort of healing powers but seldom ever kicks ass and takes names. Julie's [[Reluctant Warrior|dislike of fighting]] might play into it, but she's got no problem with [[Magic Music|boosting her groupmates' killing skills]] using [[BigNon LippedSequitur Alligator MomentScene|silly musical numbers.]]