Newbie Bard Guide: By Rrowrr

For those new gamers wishing to create their very first Bard.

Before Chreating your new Bard:

Your Primarily stat as a low level Bard is Dexterity. (It really doesn't matter in the long run which race you pick.)

Charisma with regard to spell resists is as important as Dexterity with regard instrument use and missed notes. Other important stats are Stamina and then Strength. You can (and will) be able to bump your Dex, Cha, Sta, Str, using equipment with stat upgrades. It is tempting to dump skill points into Strength at startup, but no more than 5, and those 5 would probably be better spent on Charisma. Warrior focused armor that Bards can wear is readily available to increast STR and STA, as well as Dexterity, while good Charisma enhancing items seem to be a bit more elusive until later in the game.

NOTE 1: Experienced players have many ideas about what stats to boost at startup. I am taking some heat for suggesting DEX instead of STA. High STA makes you more capable in context of tanking. However, I argue that Bards are not tanks at higher levels other than in the most generous sense, such as off-tanking in emergencies.

NOTE 2: It is now approximately 2 years since writing this original guide. Only regret is wishing I had placed more beginning STAT points in Stamina instead of Dexterity.

For a Bard Hunting Guide:

See Conky's Bard Soloing Guide for advice on kiting, and the Ranger Hunting Guide would work well also.

Choose Wisely Young Skald:

• Bards are a conundrum of compromise.

• Choose your song list carefully. You can't be everything to everybody all the time, you must carefully think through your song list choices. I can't count the times I've set up for buffing and support, then have to engage in combat and get my @$$ kicked because I didn't have room/time to memorize the right support songs and the right melee songs.

• Bard songs offer some unique advantages and disadvantages. Most Bard magic buffs effects your entire group and AoE songs affect more than one mob, but the group members or mobs have to remain within range of the Bard to maintain effects. Bard magic also lasts as long as the song lasts because they use no mana (yes, some do use mana), but song effects also disipate quickly when songs end or target moves out of range. And songs always seem to end or miss a note at the most unfortunate times. Hence, my advice to consider maxing Dex points from at the start.

• One really cool thing about Bard songs is you can cast (start/stop) while moving, and can easily switch between different combinations of your memorized songs as needs dictate. So develop a good methodology for accessing your songs with hot buttons. Always practice doing this while running, you will come to understand the value of this advice at the higher levels.

• Explore zones as much as possible because your quests will usually require a lot of running around. Consequently, others will expect Bards to know their way around.

First:

Remember that weapon/melee stats can not increase while kiting, so the best time to work on weapon/melee stats is as a young bard when decent armor at that level is cheap. Pre Level 20 think of yourself as a Fighter who sings. Do as much melee fighting with all weapon types as soon as possible and when level 17 immediately start dual wielding to work up Dual Wield skill. Use your song damage and Bellows stun effect to offset armor limitations.

Armor is your friend, but a shield gets in the way after level 17+. Doesn't mean you can't use a shield, but you really really really need to start working on Dual Wield skill. At higher levels the best Bard weapons are often the fastest ones, even if the damage ratio isn't always the best. Bard damage mitigation does benefit from Parry and Reposte skills, so it many cases the faster a Bard weapon the better in context of damage mitigation. Otherwise Bards have weak damage mitigation, and I can't think of any high-tier shields usable by Bards. By now you should have chain armor and at least half of the newbie-quest Plate Armor (ie: Antique Armor Quest, which you need to be 18+ to complete solo). Consider your strength to weight ratio when selecting armor, but remember you start getting strength buffs from Jonthan's Whistling War Song.

If necessary, grind through some Light Blue mobs if only to get weapons, offense, and defense stats up. (THESE status are much more difficult to work on at higher levels against tougher mobs.) Best soloing songs at this level are Hymn of Restoration, Johnthan's Wistling Warsong, and Brusco's Boastfull Bellow. If you are a new player and have no cash, grinding through light blues will also help increase mob trash for selling to vendors until you get the game figured out.

While kiting you can twist Dissonance and Bellow and find that at lower levels Bellow will often do as much damage as Dissonace, and Dissonance really needs an instrument to be efficient at low levels. Bellow is both a damage and a stun, so it is better while melee/weapon fighting. (BUT when grouped DON'T use Bellow on rooted mobs because your stun will often break your druid friend's root spell, and she will come to dislike you for that.)

Keep Selo's Accelerando handy for escaping if Mob starts to get the better of you. Run away and practice kiting while healing, and/or return to melee mode to finish off the mob.

Second:

Primary instrument at early levels is a Lute while kiting, and a Drum while exploring. Note that Restoration and Dissonace are both string songs. Wind instrument is available and useful at level 14. Brass instrument isn't really useful until level 18. At higher levels 20+, you will have many options of songs and instruments to choose from to suite your intended play style. And the options only increase from there.

At level 14, try kiting a mob with Brusco's and a good flute. Brusco's seems to have greater range than Dissonance, but you have to be in range to cast it. Using this combination presents an interesting puzzle to master. (ie: at lvl 33 I soloed a yellow-con Griffin in North Badlands, kiting him with only Selo's Chain, Brusco's Bellow, and a flute. A griffin killed by a noob with a flute, running in circles...LoL... how humiliating...)

Primary instrument at higher levels will be Percussion. Get/buy a Dancers Tambourine from Eldenal's Mansion as soon as you can afford one. A Concubine's Tambourine from Plane of Air is great also, if you can get in a raid and get lucky looting one. A Dragon Skin Drum from Traekoth the Ancient if you have the patience to wait for Traek raids. Check out the Instrument Mods page for other options.

Third:

Begin practicing kiting level 10-20 but don't rely on it exclusively because you still have melee/offense/defense skills to work on. Try melee on carefully selected mobs first but have haste song running. Practice a lot with setting up hot buttons to access songs. And practice switching from Weapons to Instruments while on the run. Just in case you find your self running away from melee fight and have to initiate Selo's as well as switch from weapons to Drums for kiting. This can be a bit tricky at first.

Stick to kiting one at a time and stay away from caster mobs and mobs that do damage at distance until you know what you are doing. We eventually get a couple songs that can effectively be used as 'nukes' to take out mobs quickly, and come in very handy against casters and mobs that heal. Just be aware of the mana limitations and other limitations of these songs.

• SoD Bards can not group/swarm kite like on 'live'. We can, however, kite with 2 automatic beneficial songs while twisting 2 damage songs. (i.e. At level 42 with two Tuyen's chants and a 2.0 mod drum you should be dealing out somewhere around 180 points of damage per tick. Where a tick equals 6 seconds). At this level I you can do 256 points of damage per song pulse with Brusco's Arrogant Bellow and 2.0 mod flute. It sometimes makes you wonder why Bards are given weapons skills in the first place.

• Note: I can kill more monsters, faster, twisting two high-level chants that I can trying to AoE. Bards can twist chants on two monsters at the same time while kiting by using a hot key with the switch target function. Bards can twist two songs on 3 monsters at the same time if they have a way to switch targeting on three monsters consecutively. I can't do 3 mobs at the same time unless the are rooted and I can mouse click on each one in turn. Sometimes I pull a group of monsters through a zone and kite two down, then switch to kite two more, etc, faster that trying to AoE all of them at the same time. It seems AoE only works up to maybe 6 monsters is all (I don't do AoE so I can't really confirm this). With relic chant that does double damage over a regular high level chant, twisting a second high level chant, max skills, a hihg percussion Mod, tomes, plus AAs that allow 10% song crits for double damage, Bards can crank out a lot of mana-free Damage-over-Time. And kiting becomes quite a lot of fun at this point.

• Twisting is defined as starting a second song before the first song effects end, then recasting the first song, etc, maintaining both song effects. Songs generally last 3 ticks (18sec) but only take about 3 seconds to cast. On 'live' it was possible with enough finger coordination and concentration to twist 3-5 songs, but SoD mechanics allow only 2 attack songs. If you try to twist in a third attack song the effects of the first song end. The great thing about SoD vs. Live is we can play 2 beneficial/buff songs and one attack song without twisting. Max is 2 buff songs while twisting 2 attack songs for a total of 4 songs at the same time.

Fourth:

Level 20 is when Cords of Dissonance really becomes effective as an AoE for kiting as long as you use the proper instrument. And you can still twist Dissonace and Bellows, which is pretty cool when it works. However, you will have a lot of song failures and "missed notes" and have to restart songs a lot pre-20.

By level 20 your song/instrument skills should be 95+. If not then you need to go sit in a corner some place and work on song/singing skills. You will notice a big difference when skills hit 100. At this point DoT kiting becomes much more efficient.

Learn how to run in circles for extended periods of time, experimenting with different views (F9 key). Learn how to switch equipment around while running fast, and while not running into things, and while avoiding other mobs. It's not really that easy. Western Bandlands is a great place for Bards to practice and solo to level 18+

When running across a zone, try not to pick up a train (sometimes you do and just don't know it) and you then get everyone killed who are camped at the zone out point. The responsible is often to just die, so it doesn't ruin everyone else's day.

Max out your swimming skill. You have an underwater breathing song, and consequently you will at some point be required to do something underwater for either a quest or helping someone else.

Fifth:

Study up on "Crowd Control" on the more advanced Bard forums (Maybe some of that info will migrate here over time.)

When a group can't find an Enchanter or someone to root/pacify/mezmerize mobs they will look to their Bard. This is all well and good, except that Bard songs do not last very long after you click to a new mob, so the Bard has to target each mob, mezz, then target next then, mezz, then go back to the first, then second, etc. rinse, repeat... you get the idea... and can see why this can be problematic in a chaotic melee.

This is especially complicated when mobs are grouped close together and hard to target quickly, so ask puller to give you targets ahead of time. I have a hard time controlling more than 3 mezmerized mobs. IT IS usually BEST for the group leader and Bard TO PLAN AHEAD of time and give yourself time to orient for a clear line-of-sight to target the proper mobs. If you are surprised by a large pull, then do your best.

Sometimes my "crowd control" is having a mob on me and I run in circles around the group with it chasing me until someone has time to root it or pull it off. (Bards are good, or should be good and running in circles. ...Silly Bards... running in circles is always amusing.)

Just remember that when Charm ends or Mezmerize is resisted the mob will immediately attack YOU because of all the aggro you build up from messing with their head.

Specializing:

See Note 1 below. Pre level 40 all specializations are usefull and I recommend balancing them up to 90+. Post level 40 consider the following, in order of priority:

1. Focus/Mind (Reduces enemy song resistance).

2. Energy/Defense (Improves song damage).

3. Sight/Warding (Improves your spell resistance).

4. Blunt/Avoidance (Improves combat avoidance and blunt).

5. Blade/Strike (Improves splash and pierce).

Notes:

1: Pre 20 think as a fighter/melee. 20-40 you begin to transition from melee to caster/kiter, but keep working on those melee stats. You also get your first Mana regen song at 20 which makes you desirable for supporting casters. Keep working on those melee stats. When you hit 40, your melee skills will serve as a solid backup and you can even tank for short periods, but by now you are primarily a solo-kiter or a good group-buffer. So, keep working on those melee stats.

2: Make sure you take advantage of advancing skills at every level pre-20. Bards can grind experience fast and furious, but increasing levels too fast and missing skill advancements early on become problems later. Pre-20, good melee armor is your friend. Post-20 armor class becomes less important the stat bonuses.

3: Bards solo more effectively outdoors than indoors. Out of doors Bards can be very efficient killers. A Bards greatest weakness is when fighting mobs who can root or summon. (Remember that most songs do not use mana, so they can keep dishing out damage and killing as long as they want (as long as they don't get cocky and get themselves killed).

4: Bards offer no single advantage. Bards must use a combination of speed and flexibility. However, a good (and wise) Bard can adjust to fill in the gaps and weaknesses of any given party. Bards can wear plate armor and can almost tank for short periods, but not really. You just don't have enough Hit Points or damage mitigation to be effective tankers.

5: Bards can dish it out, but we can't take it. Be careful and be smart. An experienced Bard can pull agro off the main tank with the right mix of songs, instruments, and stat building gear. Don't embarrass your tanks or your casters, help them, even if it means standing in the back playing heal, mana, buff, and haste songs. (And don't embarrass yourself by pulling aggro off the main tank and then getting killed, you will get little simpathy from your group because you should know better.)

Lastly:

Do not rely on your songs for damage before hitting 100 in music skills at level 20. You will find that prior to 100 you will have a lot of "singing stops", "song ends", and "missed notes" that disrupt your songs effects. Unlike true casters, Bard magic effects end when the song ends.

Bards must use a combination of speed and flexibility, and you as the player have to figure out exactly what mix of abilities is best for your play style, and/or for your group in any given scenario. Listen to what others ask you to help with, but also recommend what you think will be best. Sometimes other peeps know what you can do and sometimes they don't.

Worry about leveling up to get all your songs before worrying about AA points. This kind of depends on the level of the other people you group with. If you want to play at Level 64+ then start working about AA points after getting to 64.

Thank you,

Rrowrr Erostigris, Maestro Bard of Luclin, Retired

(Reincarnated in SoD under a new Half-Elven alias.)

Updated 12/14/07