I main bard in FF14, and was hoping bard in Lost Ark would be sort of similar, however it appears it will be a lot more focused on healing/shielding party members. I am a long time player of WoW, FF14, and SWTOR, however I have never been good at healing, nor have I ever enjoyed it. I love the animations and aesthetic of bard in Lost Ark, I am worried about the healing aspects though. Do you have to have knowledge of fights in order to correctly time heals/shields, if so, wouldn’t this class be difficult as a new player? Can you dps in a group, or do you have to strictly focus on healing?
There is not a traditional healer role in this game you as a bard are a support you play your group skills and you give buffs and a small amount of heals in the normal course of you gameplay. Has small challenges leveling solo as does not produce the same dps as others. Fun to play level 52 in Russia looking forward to launch in a few more days
There’s no true-support in the game. All classes are damage dealers, but some like Bard and Paladin have a couple of skills that give shields/heals/buffs and so they end up being vital in end game.
They lack a bit of dps compared to others, but they still dps a lot!
Don’t be fooled by the lack of bard damage. I have seen some impressive Chaos build bards that do some incredible damage. That being said, you won’t do this in party content. But don’t worry about solo progression…Bards will do just fine.
If ya want the bow Bard of FFXIV, you can consider Sharpshooter. They are the one true 100% ranged class.
Without the support abilities of the FFXIV Bard…
Everyone DPS but at launch there are only 2 support class. I heard from many that Bard healing is superior than Paladin. Give it a try and see if you like it. There should be 6 character slot by default 
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It is easy to play… Make sure you pick skills that work well together why leveling, otherwise it will be painfully slow. This is true for most classes. Watch tons of guides and videos.
yup…DPS Bard and Support Bard 100% different. There is one amazing AoE that Bard has with the right tripods, kills everything.
Yes you ideally want to have fight knowledge to utilize the class correctly, when to shield, when to heal, when you have a window for damage buffs, etc.
I wouldn’t call it particularly hard, but I definitely think it’s more difficult to play well than Paladin You have more hard decisions to make.
I wouldn’t sweat it too much though, most people will be learning the fights for the first time right alongside you.
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No they really don’t. The DPS gap between a support and a true DPS is pretty massive at endgame. I mean you can gear for DPS as a support, but then you’re not a support, and you still do less damage than a similar geared DPS.
The majority of DPS that supports add comes from buffing other DPS and debuffing the boss to take additional damage.
Bard isn’t really a healing class, I wouldn’t think of a bard in lost ark as your traditional healer role at all. Your healing is basically your ultimate and with some engravings it goes from a miniscule heal to a not as miniscule heal. Not to say it doesn’t have its uses as it can save people but that’s it… you build yout serenade meter then you decide if it’s worth using.
There’s also a shield you can apply but that also requires timing and generally used more in pvp and in pve you’d just focus on dps. But nothing in the way of of “oh shit this guy stood in shit I need to heal him up” or “this gunlancer is tanking this damage to the face I need to heal him”. Nothing like that, Even the “tank” role at best is someone who can position mobs/bosses, they still have to do most of the mechanics and their dps rotation.
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RIP face tanking boss 
If only I can full tank i would enroll as Gunlancer instead.
But back on the topic, Bard+paladin is pretty much a support role more than a healer role
Man, you basically tried to deny what I said by saying what I said right after xD
That’s exactly what I meant by “They lack a bit of dps compared to others”. If they build full DPS they will still do a lot of damage, regardless.