Contributors: Ness, Mirth

This document is created by community members as a compilation of class related information. This is not meant as a new player guide, if you are a new player we suggest reading Maxroll’s Build Guides instead. If you have any feedback or want to help with class discussions, join our Discord!

Identity Mechanics

Bard has an identity gauge that can be used to either heal your party, or buff the damage of your party. This identity gauge is filled by hitting an enemy with your skills. Certain skills fill your identity gauge much faster than other skills. This identity gauge is often referred to as Bard's "meter", with the individual bars often referred to as "bubbles".

Once Serenade of Secrets is unlocked in your Enlightenment Tree, your identity gauge will have an additional, fourth bar to be filled.

Using either Serenade of Courage or Serenade of Salvation will consume up to 3 bars of gauge per use. It will always consume the maximum amount of gauge available.

Your Awakening Symphonia and Hyper Awakening Symphony Melody will generate 1 bar upon use.

Serenade of Courage (Z)

Upon use, grants your party a 5/10/15% damage buff for 8/12/16 seconds based on the number of bars consumed. The efficiency of this buff scales with the Specialization stat.

Serenade of Salvation (X)

Upon use, will place an AOE on the ground that heals any party member in the AOE by 4/6/8% of the Bard's maximum HP a total of 8/12/16 times, and lasts up to 14/18/24 seconds. An additional heal for 8/16/24% of the Bard's maximum HP will occur upon this skill's expiration.

This heal works on a tick system: there are a set amount of ticks to be shared amongst all players standing in the puddle, full HP players included. For example, the entire 8 ticks can be shared amongst 4 players, for 2 ticks of 4% healing each. However, Bard herself can step outside the Salvation and feed 2 people for 3 ticks of 4%, and 1 person for 2 ticks of 4% totalling to 8 ticks. This can be scaled up to funnel heal 1 person, and allow them to receive all 8 ticks.

Serenade of Secrets: Major & Minor Chord

These skills are enabled once you unlock your Tier 4 Enlightenment Tree, Serenade of Secrets. This adds identity skills that can be cast within 8 seconds of using either Serenade of Courage or Serenade of Salvation. 

Casting either Chord increases your personal mana recovery by 25% for 8/12/16 seconds based on the amount of gauge used by the original Serenade skill. You can cast any combination of Serenade -> Chord, though the most common order is Serenade of Courage -> Major Chord, and Serenade of Salvation -> Minor Chord.

Major Chord (Z)

Grants your party an increase in damage dealt to enemies equal to 10/15/20% of the Serenade of Courage base effect. Major Chord scales with the Specialization stat. The result is as follows with level 3 Serenade of Secrets:

• 1 Bar Serenade cast = Major Chord provides 1% damage buff
• 2 Bar Serenade cast = Major Chord provides 2% damage buff
• 3 bar Serenade cast = Major Chord provides 3% damage buff

Minor Chord (X)

Refunds 5/10/15% of the amount of gauge used by the preceding Serenade cast. The result is as follows with level 3 Serenade of Secrets:

• 1 Bar Serenade cast = Minor Chord provides 0.05 of a bar.
• 2 Bar Serenade cast = Minor Chord provides 0.20 of a bar.
• 3 bar Serenade cast = Minor Chord provides 0.45 of a bar.

Harmony & Perfect Harmony

Harmony is an identity system that ties into regular usage of your Serenade and Chord. Each cast of Serenade of Courage/Salvation will gain 2 stacks of Harmony for each bar consumed. Every cast of Major/Minor Chord will gain 1 stack of Harmony.

• 1 bar Serenade -> Chord = 2 + 1 = 3 stacks of Harmony
• 2 bar Serenade -> Chord = 4 + 1 = 5 stacks of Harmony
• 3 bar Serenade -> Chord = 6 + 1 = 7 stacks of Harmony

Your current Harmony stacks will be indicated both as a UI element next to your character, as well as on your buff bar with a number above it, indicating the number of Harmony stacks.

Once you build 7 or more Harmony stacks, it will transform into Perfect Harmony, and your UI element will change from a blueish hue to a purplish hue with more flashiness. Your buff bar will also change into the Perfect Harmony icon with a number above indicating the number of Perfect Harmony stacks remaining.

Every cast of a normal skill will consume 1 stack of Perfect Harmony, and refund 10% of the skill's cooldown and 50% of the mana cost of the skill. These stacks do not function on Aria, Awakening, or Hyper Awakening. During Perfect Harmony, you cannot gain additional stacks of Harmony, and once it depletes to 0 stacks, you lose the effect of Perfect Harmony and can once again build Harmony stacks.

Gameplay Overview

Bard gameplay is focused around four major aspects:

1. Attack Power Buffs ("AP"/Attack Power)
2. Note Brand
3. Defensive Utility
4. Identity Gauge (Bars/Bubbles)

Knowing which one to prioritize at any given time is critical to being a successful Bard. You can greatly increase your party's damage, keep them protected against lethal and non-lethal damage, and improve the overall experience of your party and your success rate of your raids.

It is important to think of Bard as a high uptime class. Bard has naturally low skill cooldowns, no strict rotation to follow, and only delays skills occasionally.

A B C's: ALWAYS BE CASTING

It is often better to have a suboptimal cast of a skill, then to not cast a skill at all. Get into the mindset of casting often, and your gameplay will improve over time.

Attack Power (AP) Buff

Bards have two Attack Power buffs: Heavenly Tune and Sonic Vibration. Attack Power buffs make the majority of your damage buff contribution to your team's damage.

Maintaining this buff on your party members is always your first priority. Due to the low base cooldown on these spells, you can get high uptime on these spells, even without high Swiftness or high gem investment. Cycle between Heavenly Tune and Sonic Vibration, as the buffs do not stack when cast together. 

Check the duration of each skill by watching the red sword icon above your hot bar. Generally speaking, you want to cast Sonic Vibration as Heavenly Tune reaches ~1s duration, and to cast Heavenly Tune at any time as long as Sonic Vibration has 7s or less recast time.

Heavenly Tune is significantly stronger: it lasts longer, has no positional requirements, and provides your team with a 40% mana regeneration buff and an 8% attack speed buff (16% with Tough Tune). If paired with Courageous Tune tripod, Heavenly Tune is also a significant source of damage reduction when it hits an enemy. This reduces the boss' attack power by 35.4% for 8s, which notably works for your entire 8/24 man raid, not just your own party. This is the best spell in the entire game.

Sonic Vibration requires your party to stand in its AOE to gain the Attack Power buff. Position it correctly so it's easy for your allies to stay inside without having to move too far. Most bosses are small enough to allow you to place it on top of the boss, allowing DPS in the front and back to stand close to the boss to receive the boss. For larger bosses, you will need to adjust accordingly to your DPS positioning.

AP Power Buffs all benefit from the stat line "Ally Attack Power Enhancement", found in various accessories and vertical power systems.

Brand

Brand is a debuff placed by supports on the boss, similar to damage synergies by DPS classes. Brand increases the damage taken by the enemy by a base 10%, and does not stack.

After your AP Buff, Brand is your second consistent source of damage buffs for your party, and should be prioritized after your AP Buffs are up.

Note Brand is the name of Bard's Brand. For Legion Raids, Kazeros Raids, and most other raids, you can watch the HP Bar of the Boss for the debuff icon to make sure you have it active. For Guardian Raids specifically, a large floating Note Symbol will float above the boss when affected by the debuff.

Bard has a clear winner for applying Brand:

Sonatina applies Note Brand to any targets hit for a 10 second duration, and has a fast animation that can hit multiple targets, making it the easiest skill to apply branding.

Alternative options are below:

• Serenade of Courage will also brand any enemies on cast once the Enlightenment Tree Serenade of Branding is unlocked, providing a 6 second+ brand duration and has a 24m range.
• Sound Shock provides excellent stagger, useful for gates with important stagger checks (G3 Clown, G5 Brel, G3 Akkan, etc.). Can be viable as a solo brand, but constantly casting this skill can make you fall behind on other skills, as well as providing significantly less identity gauge than Sonatina.

Defensive Utility

Many of your spells grand your teammates some form of Damage Reduction or Shield. This is an extremely underrated part of your kit - a good support drastically reduces the amount of damage their party takes, and makes life extremely comfortable for their DPS.

Guardian Tune provides 32% damage reduction for 8 seconds upon cast. If you run the Endless Protection tripod, it also grants teammates a shield for 8 seconds after the damage reduction wears off. It's recommended to use this ability off cooldown in the vast majority of circumstances, unless you are specifically saving it for a known Debuff Block coming up soon, or if you opt to use Powerful Protection, which further increases the damage reduction but removes the shield component.

GUARDIAN TUNE IS YOUR BEST DEFENSIVE UTILITY AS A BARD, IS ONE OF THE BEST DEFENSIVE SPELLS IN THE GAME, AND YOU SHOULD BE USING IT AS OFTEN AS YOU CAN.

This spell is one of your highest priorities after all of your damage buffs are up, unless there is a pattern coming up that requires its use to be delayed slightly.

Wind of Music provides a shield to all nearby party members with the Wind of Protection tripod. This shield can reduce a lot of damage over the course of a fight, and is particularly effective on melee DPS.

Rhapsody of Light provides an incredibly powerful 75% damage reduction to allies within it's radius, as well as granting yourself push immunity and 50% damage reduction during the duration of the spell. It is incredibly versatile and can be used to save allies from damage that Guardian Tune or Wind of Music alone cannot fully absorb. It is also your only real "reactive" defensive spell, letting you choose what patterns to block and fill in for gaps not covered by your other defensive spells. 

If you opt to use Superspeed Cast on Wind of Music, also known as "WoMWoM", try to lean on using Rhapsody of Light as often as possible to proactively mitigate any daamge that Wind of Music would normally block.

Symphonia, your Awakening, provides your entire party with a massive shield for 10 seconds. It is very effective for patterns that do a lot of damage, and it is common to plan Symphonia use ahead of time during heavy damage patterns.

Heavenly Tune, if using the Courageous Tune Tripod, places a 35.4% Attack Power debuff on the boss for 8 seconds. This is a debuff that stacks with most other damage reduction sources, providing a significant amount of damage reduction. This debuff uniquely provides damage reduction to your entire raid, and is one of the only defensive utilities that can mitigate a raid boss "grab" patterns (i.e. Thaemine G4 Stab Grab, Mordum G3 Grabs)

Identity

Meter generation follows a fairly strict prioritization order:

1. Sonatina gives the lowest amount of meter compared to other meter gen skills, but also applies Brand. Prioritize this if Brand will expire.
2. Wind of Music is your highest meter generator with Superspeed Cast, or is a high uptime shield with Wind of Protection. Keep on cooldown when able.
3. Prelude of Storm is quick to cast, and has the lowest cooldown of your meter generators. Keep on cooldown if possible.
4. Rhythm Buckshot is quick to cast, and has the second lowest cooldown of your meter generators. Keep on cooldown if possible.
5. Soundholic is your highest/2nd highest meter generator, but also the longest cast time, linear meter generation during its cast, and longest cooldown. Interrupt this spell as necessary in order to upkeep AP/Brand/Defensives if they come up during this spell.
6. Symphonia provides 1 bar worth of meter, the lowest among all supports. Use it when other skills and priorities are on cooldown, and if you do not need to save it for a dangerous pattern within the next ~2 minutes.

Serenade of Courage (Z)

Serenade of Courage is a high contributor to Bard's overall damage buffs, and is also responsible for injecting a lot of cooldown reduction and mana regeneration into Bard's kit. Bard also has the highest base multiplier at 15% for 3 bar buffs, giving Bard the highest damage buff ceiling across all supports.

Before you unlock Serenade of Secrets, use 2 bar Courage primarily, and save 3 bars for major burst windows.

After you unlock Serenade of Secrets, use 3 bar Courage as often as possible in order to maximize your base multiplier, Perfect Harmony uptime, and Major Chord contribution. Use 2 bar Courage if a good damage window occurs with DPS burst damage ready, but you do not have enough time to build to 3 bars. You may also need to reserve 1 bar for healing your party; in this case, use either 2 bar Courage or save up for a 3 bar as you see fit.

Serenade of Salvation (X)

1 bar Serenade of Salvation is the most efficient use of your meter for healing. Much of the heal comes from the Desperate Salvation Enlightenment node, which is unaffected by the amount of meter used. Avoid using 2 or 3 bar Salvation whenever possible, unless you have no other defensive option to prevent the imminent death of a DPS. 

The vast majority of your meter generated should go towards casting Serenade of Courage. If you are healing a lot, it's a sign that you aren't using your other defensive spells as well as you could be. 

Major Chord & Minor Chord

Major Chord

Major Chord should be used in nearly all cases after you send a Serenade of Courage. Even though you have an 8 second leeway to cast Chord, you generally want to cast it before or during the first spell cast following your Serenade of Courage.

Never use Major Chord after a cast of Serenade of Salvation.

Minor Chord

Minor Chord should be used after all uses of Serenade of Salvation.

You can occasionally use Minor Chord after a cast of Serenade of Courage. This is for specific instances where you send a 3 bar buff, but the boss will not be around for much of the duration of the buff and will not have a damage reduced phase to rebuild meter, and your DPS still have a burst window that fits into this time. Overusing Minor Chord after Courage is otherwise a slight damage loss when compared to Major Chord.

Aria (T)

A damage buff of 10% that stacks with every other damage buff. It has a relatively long cooldown compared to all other buffs Bard has, and thus has your lowest overall damage buff contribution. As the duration is 15 seconds, make sure you cast Aria when the boss can be hit for the majority of it's duration.

It also buffs Hyper Awakening damage by 20%, and Support T-Skills are the only way to buff this damage. Try to sync your Aria during raidwide timed Hyper Awakening windows.

Specific to Bard, Aria also gains 10/20/30% bars on cast with Rhapsody of Abundance. This is a small gain in meter overall, so if you are playing with EXTREMELY mana hungry DPS (i.e. RE Deathblades with perfect uptime in high uptime fights), you can opt for Unending Inspiration for a small increase in party mana regeneration.

Tripod and Rune Comparisons

Bard has many options when it comes to tripod and rune choices. As Bard does not have a strict rotation requirement, your choices can be up to playstyle preference, and to help address particular issues.

Green highlight indicates standard/preferred choice

Tripods Options

Rune Options

Green highlight indicates standard/preferred choice

Animation Cancels

Bard has a number of useful animation cancels to help speed up casting, or to help reposition quicker. As Bard thrives off of high casting per minute, these can be helpful to keep everything on cooldown. The most helpful ones are listed below.

All cancels with spacebar can also be done by using Perfect Block/Clash 

Skill	Timing & Link to Example
	Small inner circle approaches apex of height -> Space Bar
	Sonic Vibration Cancel
	Immediately after first tick occurs -> Space Bar
	Rhapsody Spacebar Cancel
	Right before second tick occurs -> Any skill or movement You can delay slightly to cancel as second tick occurs
	Rhapsody Walk Cancel
	Anytime after first shot -> Space Bar
	Soundshock Cancel
	As skill comes out -> Space Bar
	Sonatina Cancel
	As skill comes out -> Space Bar
	Rhythm Buckshot Cancel

FAQ

Is Spec Bard viable in Tier 4?

Aria does not scale with Specialization. Swiftness also reduces Aria's cooldown. Spec Bard also dramatically reduces your defensive utility due to increased cooldowns and the requirement to use WomWom, forcing your team to take a lot more damage and play scared when they would normally DPS. Spec Bard can only function in raids where the damage output of the team is so far above the requirements of the raid, that it wouldn't matter anyway.

If you have absurdly high investment (Level 9+ Gems on every skill, Relic Magick Stream), play perfectly in cycling your AP Buffs, and have a party that can play perfectly in Sonic Vibration, then Spec Bard is the max ceiling for Bard as your Serenade of Courage and Major Chord hit absurd scaling, even outscaling your AP Buffs. Keep in mind that nothing that Spec Bard provides can make up the difference in the weak defensive utility.

NEW AND INEXPERIENCED PLAYERS SHOULD ALWAYS PLAY WITH MAX SWIFTNESS!

How do Swiftness and Specialization affect me?

How do my attack buffs stack?

Brand adds debuff to the enemy that multiplies damage taken by 10% + Brand Power. The formula goes as:

10% * (100% + Brand Power)

_{Brand Power = Transcendence + Karma + Ark Passive + Necklace} 

 Heavenly Tune adds 22% of Bard’s base Attack Power. The formula goes as:

22% * (100% + Ally ATK Power Enhancement) * DPS AP * SUP Base AP

_{Ally ATK Power Enhancement = Elixirs + Transcendence +  or Gem + Rings + Bracelet
22% is derived from the base effect and first 2 tripods of Heavenly Tune and Sonic Vibration.}

This buff increases with Base AP % increases from Tier 4 Gems or T4 Stones. 
This buff does not increase with any flat AP increases from accessories, AP engravings, or flat AP from elixirs.

 Serenade of Courage is a base 5/10/15% DMG buff for the party, and “efficiency of the Serenade of Courage buff applied to party members” is multiplicative with Spec Scaling, T4 DMG Gem and any “Ally Damage Enhancement” from accessories. Bard’s Spec Scalar is %0.0501 per 1 point of Spec, or %2.505 for 50pts of Spec.

 Major Chord is a 10/15/20% scalar off of the base value of the amount of bars used for a 
Serenade. The formula goes as:

(Base% DMG buff) * (100% * Spec Scaling) * (100% + Gem + Ally Damage Enhancement) 
+ 
(Major Chord * Base%) * (100% * Spec Scaling) * (100% + Gem + Ally Damage Enhancement) 

_{Ally Damage Enhancement = Rings + Bracelet
Base % DMG Buff = 5/10/15% for 1/2/3 Bubbles used respectively}

Aria is a base 10% DMG buff for the party, and this amount is multiplicative with any “Ally Damage Enhancement” from accessories. The formula goes as:

10% * (100% + Ally Damage Enhancement)

_{Ally Damage Enhancement = Rings + Bracelet}

What Accessory/Bracelet effects do I want?

Necklace - Brand Power %, Serenade Meter Gain %. Prioritize Brand Power as high as you can afford.

Earrings - Weapon Power %. Flat Weapon Power, Max HP can be filler stats

Rings - Ally Damage Enhancement, Ally Atk Power Enhancement. Ally Damage Enhancement is slightly better.

Bracelet - Hybrid Lines in Bold, other lines. See below:

• On hit, Target's Crit Damage -x.x% for 8s. Ally Atk Power Enhancement +x%.
• On hit, Target's Crit Resistance -x.x% for 8s. Ally Atk Power Enhancement +x%.
• On hit, Target's Defense -x.x% for 8s. Ally Atk Power Enhancement +x%.
• Targets that have a party-wide protective effect are granted Outgoing Damage x.x% for 5s. Ally Atk Power Enhancement +x%.
• Weapon Power lines (all)
• Intelligence

Swiftness and Specialization are important, but if you have multiple hybrid lines on a bracelet, you may forgo one of the primary stats. Use the Support Buff Calculator if you are unsure of a bracelet's potency.