Bard's ExplainedContents
1. The Guide
2. The Job
3. The Skills
4. The Tips & Tricks
5. The Sub
6. The Frequently Asked Questions
7. The Videos
8. The Updates
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1. The GuideThis
guide is made to clear most of the confusion regarding bard's build.
I'm lvl 80 farmed Bard in Venus. I will try my best to explain what
made Bards important and why it is fun to be one. I will update this
guide from time to time to answer new questions regarding the build and
the playstyle. And for the record, this is an advance guide for Bard, I
will not describe all the skills. I will only explain the extras that
most people didn't know bout Bard.
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2. The JobBard is all about MP,speed and damage absorbing. At lvl 80, u will get around
50%MP increase when Harp is equipped. Your speed with Swing March will be
at 90%. That is the fastest speed buff in the game minus the Drug of
Typhoon that costs around 200k for 30 minutes. Nukes skills is among
the fastest and the cooldown is fast too. So, what is your role? What
can you contribute? I called it
The 3 elements. MP, Speed and Tambours.
First of all, Bard is a support character.
Get it in your mind. Dont whine about Bards not hitting much and so on.
Bard should help others heal their MP. One will ask, "I got pots, why
should i get a bard to heal my MP?". For all information, wizards,
clerics and even warrior need MP to keep using / spamming their skills
in party. And the 15 seconds pot time is not helping because they will
use more MP than pots can heal. That is why Bard is important. To make
the party do what they do without running out of MP. Bard is also good
at damage support. It may not do much good in party grinding, but in
group pvp, it will shine.
Secondly, the speed.
The faster your tanker move, the more mobs they can lure. More mobs
means more kills for wizards. More kills means more exp/sxp. And to
have speed for all is a great thing when you are in pvp / guild war /
fortress war / jobbing.
Thirdly, tambours.
Bard have 2 main tambours and hit march. Guard tambour, mana tambour
and hit march. At lvl 80, Guard tambour will absorb 38% damage from
physical attacks and mana tambour will absorb magical attacks. Hit
march will increase your party attack rating. At lvl 80, it will
increase it for 79. Higher attack rating will increase the overall
damage done from you and the party. Since so many people underestimate
the power of tambours, let me give a simple example and calculation.
Imagine you are a wizard with 8K HP. A person come and hit you for 10K
damage and you are dead. With tambour, it will absorb 38% of the
damage. At the end, you will get hit for only 6.2K and you are still
alive and able to hit that person. The same concept can be use when you
are in a grinding party.
Battle Bard.
Your nukes is almost as good as chinese nukers. But the casting time is
extremely fast. You will need 3 main nukes and 1 extra absolute damage
skill. You will most probably 2 or 3 shots anyone without extra buffs
or block. Nuke away when you have time in between healing mp for your
party. Keep your tambour / dance up at all time and you will notice how
fun it is to be a Bard. I will make a video of Bard in battle in future
updates.
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3. The SkillsThis
is my current skills list. To make it easier for a new bard, just take
all the maxed ones. I will not explain each of the skills and what they
do. You can read the description in game and you will know. There are
some skills I didn't maxed and I will explain why.
Skills Not To Max and Why1. Mana Switch -This skill will absorb 50% of the damage made by the target. Dont get
your hopes high because there is a limit. For example, Mana Switch lvl
7, the max MP you can absorb is only 742. And it costs 1112 MP to cast.
Sure it will continue for 20 seconds, but my Mana Cycle is enough to
max my MP. I did lvl up the skill before but I soon realized it is not
worth to max and I dont use the skill anymore.
2. Holding Clamor - Useless because you will get Patter Clamor later without having this skill maxed.
3. Temptation -If you like to watch mobs fighting each other for 30 seconds, then max
it. I dont. It's fun for the first time, but worthless after that.
4. Mana Wind -Good at early lvl when your mp cycle is not good enough. Can be use for
emergency. It will aggro mobs to you. When you are higher lvl, you will
find it not that important and the high lvl skill called Mana Breeze
will replace it and it doesn't need Mana Wind to be maxed. Little
advice from me, a good Bard is a Bard that got totally ignored by mobs.
Just keep your Noise skill up and use only Mana Cycle.
5. Rave Melody -Dont need it because I'm pure Int and I have a high max Mana. But, for
a str Bard, this skill will be usefull since you have low max Mana.
Should be use in emergency time only.
6. Discord Wave -It is not always do what the description does. It will mostly do the
opposite. Instead of decreasing aggro, it increases it. This skill is
useful to get botters killed and I don't need it max to increase aggro
on the target.
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Good Skills That Need To Be MaxedI
will not explain all the skills needed to be maxed but only the ones
that people think is not worth to get but I found it otherwise.
1. Cure Melody -It doesn't appear to be good at first. With relatively slow cooldown
time and only on 1 target. I didn't include this skill for my farming
calculation. But at lvl 90, this skill will get an upgrade called Cure
Music and it will randomly cured one of bad status from weakening,
limitation, curse line for all the party members.
EDIT
: This skill is not needed for Cure Music skill. So, dont max it if you
dont have enough SP. It is still usefull when you are out of pills in
war.2. Tuning Noise / Tuning Sound - This is a low absolute damage output skill. I didn't add this before
but as time goes by I have learn that absolute damage is very
important. I got it maxed now both Tuning Noise and Tuning Sound. The
max damage from Tuning Sound is at 2661 and it will absorb 100% Mana
depending on the damage. Since the damage is fixed, I will get 2661
Mana when I hit a target. But it is also depend on the target's HP. If
the target have lower HP then the damage made, I will only get Mana at
the same amount of the target's HP. Why absolute damage is important?
When a target is fully buffed for instance with bless, screen, fence
quota and so on, you will be making the exact damage of 2661 regardless
the massive buffs that the target have. And Tuning Noise is a fast cast
skill and the cooldown is only 3 seconds. I have seen wizards made less
than 1k damage with Meteor on a fully buffed target, where absolute
damage skill will hit as much as the description says.
3. Horror Chord, Weird Chord and Booming Wave -At this particular time in Venus. I am the only Bard that have all
these skills maxed. People will think, "Bard attacks is useless and
low". I dont think so. Many people have seen me PVP in groups where I
used all these 3 skills. And I can safely say it is deadly. Horror
Chord (single target) and Weird Chord (3 target) cooldown time is only
3 seconds. It is among the fastest casting and cooldown skill in the
game. I am known as the ultimate KSer in group pvp, guild war, fortress
war because of these skills. I hit faster than anyone else. And if the
wizard cant 1-shot a target, I will finish them off. Practice these
skills and you will find it usefull. One more thing, Booming Wave is
among the best/huge looking skill in the game.
4 max dances and Booming Wave in action
4. Patter Clamor -Aoe bind skill. Most people will not get it but since there is no
pre-requisite skill to max to get this skill, I would suggest you to
get it. Use it when you are running from a target or to stop a running
target. Useful in group pvp.
5. The passives -Get them all. I hate to see Bard without max passives and their tambour
/ dance is down seconds after they got hit once. Max it to stop
interrupting the party. And to have the extra range is good so you dont
need to be so close and still keep tambour / dance up.
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SP NeededSP needed to get all the maxed skills at lvl 80 is 192,104