Note: From Rari to Thade: Rearranged a few things. More tinkering after xp!
The Bard is the most hybridized Class in all of Shards of Dalaya. While a Bard does not excel at any one particular task, they have a vast toolbox of abilities allowing them to be useful in any situation. This guide will attempt to give an in-depth description of the bard class, their unique song and skill set; as well as information on how to appropriately gear and augment a bard. It will also include a leveling guide, as well as a general overview of the bard play style.
The Bard is unique in that it has a use in all but one stat, that stat being wisdom. Ideally you will gear for most of them; ignoring any one stat would leave you at a disadvantage. However, statistics alone are not the only thing one must look at when one is gearing any character, especially a bard. You must also adequately gear for Attack, and Saves, as well as hit points and to a lesser extent mana.
Starting out
First things first, you need to decide what race you will be, there are two major things to take into account when picking a race: The starting stats and The racial modifiers.
Selecting Starting stats is always rather hard, especially for a bard. Being that nearly every stat has a use, you could go many ways.
If your bard is your first character, your best option is going to be dumping as many of your 25 starting points into Charisma and the rest into Dexterity or Stamina. Charisma will allow you to get less resists while kiting or duoing and that will greatly increase your ability to kill. The extra dexterity means less missed notes. Stamina for taking the hits.
If the bard is an alt and you have access to high end gear your best bet is probably intellect, most of the other stats are easier to come by, and bard mana pools are not very large; extra mana means less downtime from bellows and a prettier fomelo.
Starting Races & Their Stats
Above is a break down of the starting races, purely by stats. Stats that you should care about for character creation are in bold.
Stats Breakdown
Now for a small overview of each stat and it's uses. All the basic stats cap at 280. The Hidden Strength AA increases that cap by 25, raising it to 305. The Hidden Strength AA gives you a hard cap that goes past 305; however, each stat point past 305 is much less effective. Hidden strength only applies to Strength, Stamina Dexterity, Agility, and Charisma.
- Strength (STR)
- Strength directly increases the bard's attack leading to an increase in physical damage dealt. It also increases the bard's carrying capacity. Strength over the cap still increases attack, just at one third the rate.
- Stamina (STA)
- Increases your hit points; the amount gained per point is based on level. Over cap stamina increases your damage mitigation.
- Dexterity (DEX)
- Increases the chance of striking a foe in melee combat as well as reducing the chance of a missed note. Over the cap dexterity increases your chance to hit, at one third the rate.
- Agility (AGI)
- Reduces the chance of a being struck in combat. Also having agility under 75 reduces your movement speed. Over cap agility increases your avoidance at one third the rate of under cap
- Intellect (Int)
- Increases your Mana pool. 12 mana per intellect up to 200, 6 for 201 to your intellect cap, at level 65.
- Charisma (CHA)
- Reduces the chance of your detrimental songs being resisted. Very important for landing dots and bellows. Over cap reduces the chance of songs being resisted, just at one third the rate.
- Wisdom (WIS)
- No use!
- Attack (ATK)
- Increases your melee damage. Rare on low level gear, caps at 150 worn attack.
- Armor Class (AC)
- AC directly translates into a % of potential damage reduction on hits. For example, 1500 AC is ~80% potential reduction. Then, a fourth of that is turned into certain reduction (meaning at 1500 AC you always reduce hits by at least 20%) and the rest is randomized for the true reduction number for a single hit (so reduction is anywhere from 20-80%, and on average 50%, at 1500 AC)1.
- Resists
- Resists are one's chance to resist a spell cast by an opponent. There are five Resists - Fire (FR), Cold (CR), Magic (MR), Poison (PR), and Disease (DR). Each has a cap of 500. However over cap resists have a use; spells get a resists check, that is, a spell can check against your resists at a rate lower then your current resists. Thus having over 500 of one resist is often very useful.
- Haste
- Increases the rate at which you attack. More is always better for a bard, a direct increase to your melee DPS.
- (Worn effect) Flowing Thought
- Flowing Thought provides one mana regen per tick, per level of the effect. While not required it will help with down time and save you from medding which is awesome because bard mana regeneration is not very fast even with max meditate.
- (Worn effect) Recovery
- Health regeneration. Not particularly useful, while helpful in attempting to regenerate to full it takes far too long to be recommended.
Gear selection
Your goal as a bard is mostly to not die. When dead your raid loses all songs losing all benefit they had of you being in the raid, thus negating your raid spot in the first place. So the most important thing is survival. HP, and Resists are king. However, you also need to push out as much DPS as you can, to help the raid; while you are nearly guaranteed a raid spot because of Psalm of the Four as well as other buffs, any extra DPS you can eek out is a net gain to your raid. Thus, attack cap, and as much Charisma as possible are both very important.
Augments
Augmenting gear is something of an opinion. However there are three options at the high end and each has it's pro's and cons. Leveling is another story however; if you actually augment gear your best bet is probably charisma, but it's probably not an adequate use of money for your first characters.
At the high end there are three options. HP, Resists, and AC.
Hit Points
HP augging is king as long as you have the resists from gear to support it. Once you can get 200-250 all resists without resist augs, and have appropriate gear you can swap for added resists, it is best to aug HP. HP unlike the other two options, is always useful. Be it soloing, duoing, grouping raiding, HP is never a bad choice.
Resists
This will save you from spells and aoe's while raiding and grouping. The most important resists tend to be Fire Resist and Magic Resist. However some zones require other resists.
- Disease
- Cold
At the extreme high end Poison becomes useful. Generally you will want to mostly augment for magic and fire, and if you are frequently raiding something that requires other resists consider bagging gear augmented for that zone. The down side is, in duoing and soloing and to a lesser extent grouping, resists are not always useful, and you have essentially wasted an augment slot.
Armor
AC is definitely the least useful of the three options. It only reduces the melee damage you take, and as a bard, you only really eat Phantom Strikes and Whirlwinds while raiding as well as occasional Ripostes and Rampage. More useful if you only plan on solo/duoing, but in general HP is a much better choice.
Specializations
Specialization points are gained each level. You gain 10 every level that can be spent with the command /cm specialize. Each specialization has a different use, and caps at 250. You also gain 2 specialization points for each Alternate Advancement point you earn. You will cap all your specializations at 300 AA's thus a small mistake in specialization in the long run is not that big of a deal. A short overview of the specializations.
- Blade/Strike Specialization
- Improves your skill and damage with 1hs, 1hp, and h2h.
- Blunt/Agility Specialization
- Improves your skill and damage with 1hb as well as your combat avoidance.
- Sight/Warding Specialization
- Improves your skill and damage with archery and throwing, as well as your ability to resist spells.
- Energy/Defense Specialization
- Improves the damage of your damage spells and your mitigation.
- Focus/Mind Specialization
- Improves your ability to bypass the resists of enemies
Specialization choice
You have several choices as your first specialization as a bard, mostly based on how you choose to level (more on this later) Energy/Defense, Focus/Mind, Blade/Strike, and Blunt/Agility. If leveling while boxing I would recommend Blade/Strike first as most of your leveling will be melee mode followed by Focus/Mind and Energy/Defense. If you are just going to kite and solo I'd recommend Focus/Mind followed by Energy/Defense then Blade/Strike.
Skills
Bards have access to more skills than any other class. They get access to a mix of melee, and utility skills as well as instrument skills. Ideally you train your skills as you obtain them and level them while you level; it will make life far less painful then leveling a new weapon from 1 to 235 at level 65.
Weapon skills
Bards get access to three weapon types as well as Hand to Hand. One-handed Blunt, One-hand slashing, and Piercing all of which cap at 235. Hand to Hand caps at 200. They also get throwing which caps at 250. A high skill level means more attack with that weapon type as well as higher chance to hit. Skill mods directly increase your skill, up to a cap of +25.
Combat skills
Bards also gain access to Dodge, Dual Wield, Parry, Riposte and Intimidation.
- Dodge
- Increases your chance to avoid melee damage.
- Parry
- Gives you a chance to parry an opponents attack taking no damage.
- Riposte
- When you attack from the front you have a chance to Riposte, negating the damage and counter attacking.
- Intimidation
- A skill that attempts to intimidate your opponent causing any number of outcomes. It can cause a 40% slow, 25% slow, a 50 point dexterity reduction, a 50 point dexterity reduction coupled with a 50 agility buff, a chance for the opponent to miss their next attack, a failure doing nothing, or a critical failure causing one round of melee directed at you.
- Dual Wield
- Gives a chance to attack with off-hand. Every time your weapon's chance to attack comes up (delay modified by haste) there is a check made against your dual wield skill, if it succeeds your offhand attacks, if not it does not attack. This skill is nullified by the Ambidexterity AA, which guarantees success on every off hand swing.
Non-Combat skills
Bind Wound, Meditate, Forage, Sense Traps, Sneak, Safe Fall, Hide, Disarm Traps, Tracking, Pick Lock.
- Bind Wound
- A small heal. Requires Bandages.
- Meditate
- The ability to regenerate mana; bard meditate is capped considerably lower then other classes making bard meditating very slow.
- Forage
- Allows you to search for food and water, as well as particular quest items, in an outdoor zone.
- Sense Traps
- Allows you to sense traps for use with disarm traps.
- Disarm Traps
- Allows you to disarm traps.
- Sneak
- Allows you to be invisible behind certain mobs that see through invisibility.
- Safe Fall
- Reduces damage from falling.
- Hide
- Allows you to hide in plain sight. Bards cannot use this skill while moving.
- Tracking
- The ability to track npcs in whatever zone you are currently located in. Bard's tracking has a shorter range than of Druid or Ranger. This can actually be a benefit, avoiding some of the clutter in giant zones.
- Pick Lock
- Allows you to open locked doors and chests. Bard pick lock caps at 150. It can be used to open up to Moderate Treasure Map treasure chests as well as a multitude of doors.
Instrument Skills
Instruments are unique to a bard. They increase the effect of many songs. Instrument bonuses can also be found in the form of instrument modifiers; these can be found on gear other then just instruments. There are also items that increase all instrument mods rather then just a single instrument. There are five instrument types - Singing, Percussion, Stringed, Brass and Wind. The instrument skill itself reduces your chance for missed notes and songs ending. +skill mods decrease chances those even further. Instrument mods directly multiply the effect of the song itself (provided it is actually effected by an instrument mod)
- Singing
- Increase the effect of songs using ones voice. Most songs based on singing are not effected by their instrument mods. However, some of the most powerful songs, specifically resist sings, and more specifically Psalm of the Four are, making singing one of the most important instrument modifiers. Singing can only be found on gear there is no strictly instrumental items that increase your singing modifier
- Percussion instruments
- Increase the effect of songs using the drum. Most bard chants as well as movement speed songs are effected by percussion instruments. Percussion mods can be found in the form of drums and item mods
- Stringed instruments
- Increase the effect of songs using the string type. Most stringed base songs do not get an increase from an instrument mod, making it mostly useless. The only songs of note that can be effected by this are the bard snare line that includes up to Spell: Selo's Assonant Strane ; the snare effect is greatly increased. Can be found in the forms of instruments and item mods.
- Brass instruments
- Brass mods effect items using the brass mods. They only thing really effected by brass mod is the Denon's line, but that is one of the most useful of all bard detrimental lines. Can be found in the form of instruments or instrument mods.
- Wind instruments
- Effect songs using the wind mod. Both Bellows and Song of Dawn (bard jolt) are effected by wind, making it one of the most important mods.
Skill Mods
No specific skill mod is that immensely useful to a bard, +Slashing/Blunt would be useful, but it's not class breaking.
Styles
Bards have access to seven styles. The three basic styles which every class has access to, as well as four special styles. Each has it's uses.
| Name |
Level |
Description
|
| (1) Normal
|
1
|
The most basic combat style. Does not affect your combat in any way.
|
| (2) Aggressive
|
1
|
A five percent bonus to Haste and a five percent mitigation penalty.
|
| (3) Defensive
|
1
|
A five percent bonus to mitigation and a five percent haste penalty
|
| (4) Focused Blade
|
20
|
Increases your damage and accuracy drains stamina. This is your DPS stance. If you pop it at the start of a boss it will most likely last till the end.
|
| (5) Focused Mind
|
40
|
Focused Mind Stops pulsing songs from being interrupted. Drains stamina. Useful on anything that interrupts constantly.
|
| (6) Nimble Dance
|
55
|
100% Dodge until while stamina lasts. Causes exhaustion. This is your oh-shit button.
|
| (7) Will of the Maestro
|
65
|
Immunity to Fear, Mez, Stun, Charm. Also increases all resists. Drains Stamina. This is really useful for low tier raiding due to the number of mobs that fear. Also useful in other situations.
|
Songs
Songs are the bread and butter of the bard class. A good bard knows what song to use for any occasion; That is what makes the difference between a good bard and bad, an intimate knowledge of your song arsenal.
The first and most important part of this is knowing how to read a spell parse. While many of the parses can be found on the wiki, not all are up to date so the parser is your best bet. Even with a parser you need to know how to read what it is telling you. So I have provided some information on some of the more common parser outputs to help you on your way.
- Decrease Reduce Healing Effectiveness
- This is really a spell shield. Spells like Relic: Melody of the shield reduce the amount of damage you take from spells by a flat percentage, MOTS itself is a 30% spell reduction
- Decrease Hitpoints by 200 per tick
- Essentially a DoT. This is the base effect, increased by AA's, instrument mods and specializations
- Decrease Magic Resist by 50
- This debuffs the opponents magic resist by 50. Resist debuffs like this can be found on all of the chants, coinciding with the type of debuff the chant is. Magic having a magic resist debuff, cold a cold, and so forth.
- Increase Mana by 0 per tick
- a mana regen buff. Many of these read 0 rather then their appropriate amount, but most of the appropriate amounts can be found on the wiki.
Beneficial Songs
Bards get a wide variety of beneficial songs. You have songs to accommodate most anything, mana regeneration, damage shield, haste, overhaste, spell focus, spellshield, resists. A large part of playing your bard is knowing which songs to play at a proper time.
You Can play two beneficial times at any given time. No twisting necessary, they are added to the melody and play without any babysitting. Adding a third song removes the first, another removes the second, so on and so forth.
Generally while leveling you will be playing mana regen and haste or damage shield.
At the high end it is not that simple. You will switch between many songs based on the situation at hand.
Beneficial playlist
General use will be Psalm of the Four and Relic: Fiery Warcry of Tarhyl. However if you don't need the resists you can use Relic: Lcea's Lament's in place of Psalm of the Four. You just need to know which song to use at the right time and use what augments your group best.
Detrimental Songs
Detrimental songs are a whole different story. You can play two detrimental songs, but they must be twisted.
Twisting
Twisting consists of starting one song, then starting another. After 18 seconds since it's casting the first will fall off. The goal is to keep both songs playing without either falling off.
Generally while leveling your most used songs while be your chants or denon's while soloing or duoing, and mez and slow while grouping.
Detrimental playlist
At high end you will be using whatever your best Chant is + Denon's Agonizing Discord for the most part while grouping(while leveling you should be playing two chants until you actually get to be a high enough level to play Denon's Agonizing Discord). However, Denon's Agonizing Discord is an aoe, so if something is being mezzed it's probably not a good idea to use it and it should be supplemented with something else. Be it slow, a second chant, or even Occlusion of Sound. The trick is learning what your songs do, and when to use them! Another song to not forget is Song of Dawn, the bard jolt. Due to bellow spam being high aggro, it's a great thing to have on your bar, and should be used in any situation in which you are having problems not ripping aggro off the tank. As for slow, I'd recommend keeping Selo's Assonant Strane on your bar for slowing in group situations. Its uses are two fold; one it's a pbaoe slow and snare. So not only are you slowing 6 mobs at once, but in the event the tank were to go down, provided the mobs don't summon you can attempt to kite them around while your group mates pick them off. Also remember that Ancient: Lullaby of Shadows is your choice of mez unless the mob is over level 61. It will save lots of headaches if you remember to use it and not Dreams of Marlow.
Chants
Denon's
Jolts
Slows
Mez
Bellows
Bellows are like no other bard song. They are DDs with a cooldown that cost mana. They are a large portion of a bards DPS. The first four bellows share a cooldown; however, the last two do not, allowing them to be used at the same time. One has a 10 second cooldown and the other an 18 second cooldown. This creates a unique situation trying to twist two songs and bellow twice, and keep both songs running. However, at low gear levels this is not recommended, as the mana consumption is high and you would get more DPS out of using one bellow.
Song Choice
When you have a firm grasp of what your songs do comes the important part: Song choice. Being that you are limited to only eight memorized songs at any given time, you must be careful in your song selection. Generally if at all possible you are only going to want to keep two beneficial songs memmed, you don't have room to really keep more than that. Your top two bellows for bellow spam. You are left with four other slots. Generally one of these will be taken up by your best chants and your Denon's Agonizing Discord. You are left with two slots. Past that you have three main song choices. Jolt, Slow, and Mez. It's really up to you to decide based on the situation at hand.
Buffs
Buffs on a bard are an arduous task. You only get 16 buff slots, and need to keep 1-2 for debuffs. Being that you want almost every stat, it's hard to fit what you want into 14-15 slots. Generally however there are buffs one should never skip.
Aegolism
High highpoint and armor class buffs that only take one slot, rejoice!
Focus
The Extra Charisma from Spell: Relic: Ancestral Focus or Spell: Focus of Soul is always better then the small amount of armor class and mana regen from Spell: Protection of the Glades or Spell: Relic: Ward of Nature.
Sihala's Stalwart Shield or Spiritual Vigor
- or you can combine
Generally Spell: Spiritual Vigor is better then Spell: Sihala's Stalwart Shield; slightly less hitpoints, but raw attack. However if you want the extra hit points, have a spare buff slot, and Call to Battle is available you could take Spell: Sihala's Stalwart Shield and Call to Battle.
Haste
When you are soloing, duoing, or tanking, one should always get Spell: Empower over Spell: Glory of Enthann for both it's duration and added stats and armor class. For Raid DPSing one should get Spell: Glory of Enthann.
Stats
You want all four of the stat buffs shamans can provide, preferably in the condensed forms. This will save many buff slots by having these rather then the lower level versions.
Clarity
14 or 18 extra mana a tick is huge on cutting down on bard down-time, making Clarity buff a must have. Your other option is Spell: Lich which is only available in clicky form from Strings of the Gelid.
Stamina regeneration
Always useful for making stances last longer. Generally will only have room for Spell: Ancient: Sihala's Gift but you can sometimes fit in
Spell: Acumen.
Damage shield
The use of a damage shield while soloing or duoing cannot be over stated. The mage variety Spell: Relic: Cupola of Incineration or Spell: Aegis of Tarhyl lasts much longer then the druid Spell: Relic: Legacy of Blades or Spell: Legacy of Spine. It also provides a fire resistance buff.
Resist Buffs
Take whatever resist buffs are appropriate for the situation: Spell: Shiritri's Ward for Magic Resist, Spell: Shroud of the Seasons for Fire and Cold Resists, or Spell: Talisman of the Niklothar for Disease and Poison Resists.
Clickies
- There are a multitude of useful clickies. A few examples of especially useful ones are :
Potions
Basically, it comes down to a matter of need and available slots when it comes to potions.