Are Archery Valor Bards any Good?

[Eldariel]

To put it briefly, the Valor Bard basically has a higher damage cantrip, and is better at holding Concentration spells than other Bards.

That's it. Limiting the Bard to relying on weapon attacks like a major feature is like a Wizard relying on Firebolt for most of his damage. Just because it scales doesn't mean it's worthwhile.

Given, Valor does better damage than most other Bard subclasses, it just happens to be on a class that isn't designed to deal damage in the first place.

If you want to focus on dealing weapon damage, be a class that is actually designed around it. You'll get more mileage out of it.

But if you want to create a party with maximal options and problem solving ability and good damage, it's one of your better bets for filling the "ranged damage dealer"-spot you really do want in every rounded party (up there alongside a few different Warlocks and Bladesinger; though it's of course less difficult to fill the role otherwise with Summon Celestial on the table for Cleric now). It's a decent damage dealer throughout its career by all accounts (though again Swords is better mostly due to having Flourishes especially to cover the Tier 2 where Valor Bard lacks a good buff and the base boosters for the Extra Attack, and Valor Inspiration buffs being not-so-amazing [though the AC buff can be great at times]) and scales up like casters in general, rather than down like martials.

But indeed, when evaluating it, one has to of course evaluate it as a caster with solid at-will, rather than pure at-will character: it always has the option of just casting a big spell that can turn the encounter on its head for especially Tier 1 and 2, which is generally going to do more to make a hard encounter easy than damage novas (with some exceptions: something like Demilich you just want to damage nova ASAP if you happen to have magical weapons). It's going to be a great damage dealer on very high levels due to the stupidly powerful spells that occur in Tier 3 and 4, but on the way there it's not going to be dealing as much damage as a Battlemaster at all points (though it's not far behind anything else - damage spells like Hex can of course be Fey-Touched for if that's the way he wants to go though given how feat heavy archery is, that may not be optimal) but he's going to be dealing very relevant damage at superb range (being a good chassis to stack buffs on if needed too) while still casting all sorts of great stuff.


In other words, want to make a strong party that includes a ranged damage dealer and for whatever reason you don't want Swords Bard? Valor is a great archer for the job, one of the best. Want to make a character that maximises the ranged damage it can deal but isn't all that useful all told? It's not the choice before Tier 3-4.