The Mage main class has gained a ton of attention from avid Lost Ark players, featuring some classic support roles and even high damage dealing advanced classes. Apart from her striking look and feel, the Bard class’s amazing support abilities and skills can be extremely valuable in just about any team. But, it will take some solid Lost Ark grinding to unlock her true potential.
Bard Class Overview
The Bard is an advanced class, within the main Mage class. She is purely supportive, as she doesn’t deal much damage compared to other classes and can’t really survive for long against brutal opponents. But, she does have the best healing and shielding abilities in Lost Ark to date, making her a crucial asset in just about any party.
Bard Abilities
Although the Bard class can deal some great AoE damage, she does lack single-target damage attacks. As a result, this class may struggle against tough enemies or bosses – at least until you reach level 30 and can max out her Soundholic ability.
Unlike other classes that use striking forces and whirlwinds of lethal moves, the Bard class simply casts musical melodies and soothing serenades. Some of her moves can deal damage, but most of them are better suited to support roles.
The Bard class’s identity skill is Serenade, after which she can play two songs that boost the entire party. Both of these songs can be extremely useful in various battles:
- Serenade of Courage: Boosts the entire party’s attack and damage.
- Serenade of Salvation: Heals the rest of the party.
It’s no surprise that she has low HP, and teammates will need to have her back – especially earlier on in the game. The main downfall with Bard is that, since she isn’t really a fighter, players can end up missing out on some of Lost Ark’s epic combat mechanics.
Bard Awakening Skills
The main thing players should focus on for unlocking Awakening skills is completing the Main Questline until Vern Castle. From this point, continue until Beatrice notifies you that you must visit her in Trixion.
Continue on and complete her chain of quests, as these quests will be incredibly beneficial for the Bard class as well. These quests will reward players with the Bard Awakening Skills.
Oratorio
Bard plays a giant harp and sings with angels to inflict Holy damage, ending this attack with a massive explosion dealing a final blast of Holy damage. Debuffs lower enemies’ Crit resistance against the entire party by -12% for 6 seconds.
Symphonia
Bard ascends into the air and plays music with a choir of angels, shielding every ally within 12 meters. These shields will absorb damage equal to 100% of Bard’s max HP. Enemies will be inflicted by minor damage, but will suffer from the following debuffs:
- 30% reduction to enemy attack power for 10 seconds
- 20% reduction to enemy attack speed for 10 seconds
- 40% reduction to enemy movement speed for 10 seconds
Since Bard is typically more valuable in a supportive role, Symphonia is the most popular approach. It offers defensive and shielding abilities that can be extremely useful for allies while flaunting an impressive range of debuffs for enemies.
Bard Leveling Guide
Bard levels up fairly slower than many of the damage dealing classes, so while new players can get the feel of her pretty well, it may take more time to reach level 50. That being said, experienced players may still be able to go from level 11 to level 50 with Bard in around 11 hours.
While the Bard class can be tricky to handle in various contexts, there are still some solid build options that will be incredibly useful. Create two skillsets and builds as you level up (one for bosses and one for AoE), and try to create a Chaos Dungeon build and a Raids build once you hit level 50.
Gear & Combat Stats
Focus on equipping the highest item level gear possible throughout the leveling process. Prioritizing Crit and Specialization Combat Stats will also help a lot, as this will help Bard increase her clear speed and damage overall.
Best Class Engravings
Acquiring class Engravings will take time, as it will take a ton of solid grinding. But, they’ll be incredibly valuable in the endgame as these will instantly boost Bard by adding a variety of buffs.
In addition to generic Engravings, each class has two Class Engravings that are unique, which will essentially let you choose an area for your Bard to specialize in. The Bard Class Engravings are as follows:
Desperate Salvation
This is an additional buff that recovers an extra 24% of your max HP. It will begin after the Serenade of Salvation buff ends. It’s a great approach if you’re going for full healer Bard.
True Courage
This will be handy if you’re hoping to have a support Bard that deals decent damage wherever possible. It increases the outgoing damage of Serenade of Courage by 20% while increasing its Crit Rate by 10%.
Generic Engravings
When it comes to generic Engravings, you will need to focus on building up the Bard class’s weak spots. The usual go-to engravings will not be necessary in her case, and you should rather prioritize mana regeneration and defense.
The best generic Engravings for Bard are as follows:
Heavy Armor
Heavy armor will increase Bard’s defense by up to 20%. Since Bard is quite vulnerable to attacks in general and there aren’t many other options for increasing her defense, this engraving will definitely come in handy and help her survivability overall.
Sprit Absorption
Spirit Absorption will increase Bard’s attack and movement speed by 15%. Having higher movement speed will be incredibly useful in keeping her out of harm’s way, especially throughout boss fights or tough enemy encounters.
Increased Max HP
This Engraving adds an additional 30% to Bard’s mana pool. Equipping this Engraving will help make sure that Bard doesn’t run out of mana throughout battles.
Awakening
This Engraving is only useful once you’ve unlocked Awakening Skills. It reduces the cooldown time on Bard’s Awakening skill by 50% and also adds three more uses of the skill before activating its cooldown.
Continue The Main Story
If you really want to gain levels as quickly as possible, continuing the main story will be incredibly advantageous. Continuing the Main Questline will be beneficial to any class at any stage of the game, as it will grant players some solid rewards in addition to unlocking some amazing activities in-game.
Setting Return Point
Unlike many of the other classes where setting the return point to Vern Castle would help you out a ton, you shouldn’t be so quick to change the return point for the Bard class. Her return should remain set on Luterra Castle, as Bard’s Awakening quest requires you to return to the East Luterra area.
Skill Point Allocation
Allocate Skill Points to gain Tripods for the most effective Bard skills. Below are the most notable skill tripods for the Bard class:
- Level 12: Dissonance and Stigma (4 points each) to increase the damage dealt.
- Level 15: Dissonance (20 points) to amplify the damage against normal mobs.
- Level 20: Dissonance (48 points, remove all points from Stigma) to help kill big groups of mobs faster.
- Level 25: Stigma (20 points) to unlock the debuff Brilliant Stigma; Soundholic (4 Points) to increase single target damage.
- Level 30: Soundholic (48 points) remove 16 points from Stigma to further increase damage.
- Level 34: Stigma (re-add 20 points) to unlock the debuff Brilliant Stigma; Sound Shock (4 points) for more damage; Heavenly Tune (4 points) for an Attack Speed buff.
- Level 39: Stigma (48 points) to unlock Pain Brand and increase damage dealt.
- Level 45: Sound Shock (48 points) to fire the skill twice and double the damage.
Metered Abilities
Bard can stack up to three charges for her skill with a single identity, and her Serenade meter will refill by attacking enemies. Each Serenade will use up one charge, meaning players can cast up to three tunes before their energy runs out.
Serenade of Salvation is typically the most useful aspect of Bard’s abilities, especially as you level up and begin partaking in PvP encounters. This is extremely useful as parties will need solid support via hefty healing abilities.
Using this sort of build is quite easy, as there isn’t much you have to do to ensure it’s effective. All players should focus on with this build is keeping at least one charge ready at all times, in case your team needs to be healed.
Bard Gameplay Tips
While every player’s overall experience with Bard will differ depending on build, there are quite a few basic aspects to consider throughout gameplay.
Obstacles and Trash Mobs
The best way to clear out trash mobs and obstacles throughout Arkesia with the Bard class is to use the Dissonance and Stigma abilities. Once you hit level 50, you can max out Prelude of Death to increase the mob group kill speed.
Boss Fights With Bard
Most of Bard’s damage comes from landing a well-placed Soundholic during Boss encounters. This ability is a Back Attack, gaining 10% more Critical Strike Chance and overall damage when hitting an enemy from behind.
If it’s possible, players using Bard should wait until they get a chance to dodge the boss’s attack. Cast Soundholic from behind the boss while it’s still performing the recovery animation, as this is Bard’s best shot at landing single-target damage.
However, since the Soundholic ability can result in a massive DPS loss if the hit is missed, you should still prioritize hitting the boss as much as possible. Delay using the Soundholic ability if the boss is about to be staggered (indicated by a purple bar under the HP bar) as this will be the opportune moment to land a good hit.
Useful Combat Items
Since the Bard class doesn’t have too much in terms of single target damage, she would benefit from combat items such as grenades. These items will be a massive help when trying to land single-target damage against bosses, or near the endgame when enemies are scaled to your character level.
While it may cost some gold, it will really help speed up your clear time – especially with bosses. Use the following grenade types for the Bard class, depending on your needs:
- Grenade (Bound): Damage
- Whirlwind Grenade or Clay Grenade: Staggering
- Destruction Bomb: Encounters that require some lethal damage, such as Valtan in Luterra Castle.
Since Bard is relatively feeble compared to many other classes, players may overlook her. But, she has quickly become one of the most popular and advantageous classes in the game as she offers benefits that are in high demand throughout Lost Ark’s endgame content.
