I have always had a special place in my heart for the bard class. As lackluster as they may be, they've always been a ton of fun for me to play. That said, they have so many things in their kit that just doesn't fit the style of FL. And when more than half of the things your class does is outdated or out of place with the game, its time to consider some changes. Now, I wouldn't bring this up if I hadn't already thought up a few, and I encourage others to pitch in.
Problems:
Knockout: Very rarely works. So rarely, in fact, that throw is pretty much always the better option.
Uppercut. I have seen it many times where even when it breaks the victim's jaw, they still cast. Battlemages, clerics, even invokers. It is certainly possible they were under the effects of subvocalize, and I am off base here. Anyone else that's played a bard recently, could you confirm?
Tarots. I've brought it up in prayer before. Tarots are a poor use of mana 7 times out of 10, and that's with the lucky perk. Stat bonuses don't really do anything you aren't already going to be accomplishing via gear and spells/songs (str bonus from legend of hercules stacks with giant strength. a third str bonus is too redundant). Tune falls victim to this same outdated mechanic. Players just don't have use of the range of different results. Streamline them, make it worth the investment.
Terrible weapon choices. Staff and pugil, but the useful combat songs require an instrument. Just as bad of a weapon selection as a thief (arguably worse, with the previously mentioned bit on staffs) without the added incentive to make it workable.
Support abilities in a game that punishes group-based PK and rewards solo prowess. Let's face it, the Bard is a support class. FL, however, has no need of one.
Abilities that do very little or worse, absolutely nothing. Marriage song, Serenade. Why do we have them? A bard can freeverse a song for any wedding IG they want to attend, or woo some character thats caught their eye. Panhandle, when you can farm tens of thousands of gold with no combat required at level 1, and can already steal. King's Feast. Sure, it's nice, but 150 gold a duck is already cheap. No giant bards, so 300 gold every so often when having less than 10k is unheard of just kinda defeats the purpose.
Brawl, a gimped 4th attack that only works in the terrain where your greatest enemies exist and wait for you to come try and hide in. This is another huge problem. The bard's a hybrid rogue that can't actually function as a rogue. Hide/sneak without detect hidden. A gimped 4th attack is not really worth the giant risk of duking it out in a city, and surely not waiting around in one to try and knock out a player, only to almost assuredly fail and eat some hefty lag. You'll get blackjacked/strangled before you do, and either have everything you own stolen by a thief or eat an assassination because the ninja studied you the entire time you waited for that avian invoker.
Magic Missile, but only three abilities that make use of the lowered saves, only one of which will see much use. Let's face it, we're not singing Weak of Mind and Body when we could be singing Four Seasons or throwing vuln cards.
Analyze, in my opinion, belongs on an adventurer, not a bard.
So what are the good options for a Bard in combat?
Throw. The go-to ability. Unless you're trying to run, it's a pretty safe bet that this is going to be the best thing to do, especially with vuln cards.
Taunt. Some players don't like it. I do. Since bards have awful defense, it helps mitigate the large amounts of damage they'll undoubtedly be taking.
Four Seasons. Some pretty good damage options.
Dirt kick: fairly standard and always useful.
Disarm. Not as effective, given their weapon choices, but every bit helps.
Magic Missile. "But you said..." Yeah, I did. So what does that say about how useful the rest of the bard's abilities are?
What about their other abilities?
Mystery is awesome. Free useful stat.
Shield of words is great.
Battle Hymn is dope.
Trip... not really all THAT useful, but I feel I should mention it somewhere. Few are the times where a bard will use it. They don't really want to try and lag anyone, most people are flying during fights, and throw accomplishes more. Pretty much only really useful when the enemy is worse technically or sorely outmatched in equipment, and going to lose anyway, but you don't want to have to chase.
Some good utility as well.
Best thing the bard has going for it is that spells and songs with similar effects stack (i.e. shield of words and the shield spell provide the same effect, but can still both be present on a single target).
So what are we left with?
Might as well call it the Thrower. Wanna play a bard? Spend hours farming every consumable in the game and a ton of cards of each vuln. Before each battle, smoke up and start spamming throw. Get in a cabal like Watcher or Trib for awesome pets and pray to whatever God(s) you cherish that your pet bashes them when its useful.
So what can be done for bards?
Remove instrument requirements, make base songs weaker. If an instrument is equipped, the song is stronger/lasts longer.
Rework tarots to either allow the buffed stat to surpass the normal racial bonus (albeit at a lesser amount, like 2), or remove the attribute bonus effects and replace them with proficiency boosts in other bard skills.
Lose mace. Gain whips.
Gain detect hidden.
Increase knockout chance slightly, i suggest ~10%
Grant dual parry.
. The limit up to your rank, this means that when it's most useful, when you are hunting, you cannot use it. Because every monster you hunt is higher rank than you. And then when you get to L50 and intend to use it on though mobs who have good EQ to make your life easy you cannot.