It's a given that you'll be getting Courage from somewhere, so that really doesn't count
wat
He was saying his Bard does as much ranged damage as other ranged toons because it gets to add Inspire Courage to argue that Bard ranged is better than Bard melee. I'm saying you can play without Courage up if you want to add a difficulty level to the game, but why would you? (Doing 1,000 pt Polar Rays is one valid answer.) Given a Courage field, other ranged toons do (way) more damage than ranged Bard.
Which is beside the original point anyway, which was whether to put your Bard in melee or use a bow. With some exceptions, if a toon has Image and can melee, she's getting her ass in the fray. The more Outflankers the merrier.
I don't know if you are dense or just like to not read my posts fully. I said multiple times that if you got another ranged person in the party then you don't need archer bard and yes in that case both Good Hope and Inspire Courage give same bonuses to that archer and bard does way less damage.
So no, you don't get Inspire Courage anyways. You get it from this archer bard if there are no other archers in the party.
If there are other archers I already accepted that caster bard is superior as a support and disabler for the archer and others.
Where did melee bard come from now?! This is first time you brought it up. And now, melee bard is not better than archer bard just like melee is not better than archery in this game, except with high sneak attack dual wield builds that no bard will have.
