Lost Ark: Bard Guide – The best builds

Having a bard in the team is essential for challenging gameplay content, as she is an important support class in Lost Ark. MeinMMO author Anny Bader took a closer look at her and explains what it’s all about.

The bard is one of two subclasses of the sorceress in Lost Ark. Together with the paladin, she belongs to the two support classes. She buffs and heals her team but is also playable solo.

On the Tier list from MeinMMO, the bard is in the S-tier for PvE. In PvP, she starts in the B-tier, but at high rank, she also slips into the S-tier.

For stats, you should focus on agility and specialization, which one to prioritize is a matter of taste. However, experienced bards often recommend agility, as it allows your skills to recharge faster. Additionally, you can move faster, which is useful since the bard has no mobility skills.

How to play the bard

This is the bard’s special ability: As an identity skill, the bard has three bars that you see at the bottom center. They fill up when you deal damage to enemies. When the bars are full, you can play one of two songs.

• The Serenade of Redemption heals players in an area on the ground for 24 seconds. All group members within it are automatically healed.

• The Serenade of Courage increases the damage of all group members by 15% for two minutes.

Once you play one of the songs, all the bars that are completely full will empty. So if you have filled 1.5 bars and play a song, you’ll have half a bar left. Therefore, it’s worth holding off on using the ability immediately and saving for multiple bars to have more leeway in your actions.

Maxroll explains how the math behind the serenades works in more detail here.

All abilities of the bard

Prelude of the Storm: You play a melody that summons a storm. Deals damage and stuns enemies.

Prelude to Death: Deal damage to enemies multiple times and temporarily reduce their movement speed. Increases your damage by 50% afterwards.

Dissonance: Music notes collide in the cursor direction, dealing damage.

Heavenly Scale: You attack the enemy while simultaneously buffing your group members within a radius of 24 meters. Increases attack speed and mana regeneration.

March: You play on the harp, and the notes chase your enemies and injure them.

Bundle of Notes: A group of notes that move slowly and attack.

Rhapsody of Light: Sound waves appear at the target location and deal damage multiple times. Ends when you move.

Rhythmic Harp: Create a harp that attacks your enemies with its sounds.

Rhythm Shell: Your notes explode and knock enemies back.

Sound Shock: Create a light sphere that deals damage.

Sound Vibration: Launches enemies into the air and then slams them back to the ground.

Sound Wave: Melody that pushes enemies away.

Stigma: You cast a stigma on the target location that attacks your enemies.

Sound Technique: Light beam that attacks your enemies 10 times.

Judgment Core: Summon three cores that protect you. Explode when enemies approach and deal damage to them.

Wind of Music: The wind pushes your enemies away, then spreads out and deals damage.

Guardian Song: You play the harp, and your group members within a radius of 24 meters take 20% less damage.

The Bard in the Leveling Process

How should I distribute my first skill points? It’s important when distributing points that you never need to raise the skill levels higher than level 10. Skill level 4 is needed for the first tripod, skill level 8 for the second, and skill level 10 for the third.

The number of skill points needed varies. For level 1 you need 4, for level 2 you need 20, and for the third level even 48 skill points.

Level 12: Allocate 4 points each to Stigma and Dissonance to deal more damage.

Up to level 15: 20 points in Dissonance.

Up to level 20: 48 points in Dissonance.

Up to level 25: 20 points in Stigma, 4 points in Sound Technique.

Up to level 30: 48 points in Sound Technique, for which you can remove 16 points from Stigma.

Up to level 34: Now gradually reset points back to Stigma. Also add 4 points each to Sound Shock and Heavenly Scale.

Up to level 39: A total of 48 points in Stigma.

Up to level 50: Finally, add 48 points to Sound Shock.

The Best Builds in Endgame

While other classes establish a build with their class engravings, you play the bard flexibly. With her, you don’t choose a fixed playstyle but vary it from time to time.

The bard can either be a pure support, you change your build depending on the situation and teammates in your team, or you play solo and use some of her DPS attacks. Engravings and collectible cards remain the same.

Which skills do I use? To play as a pure support, you use three armor buffs, two damage buffs, your counter-attack, and a debuff for the enemies.

Icon	Skill	Level	Tripods
	Sound Shock	7	Sustained Explosion Holy Shock
	Rhapsody of Light	10	Quick Preparation Stabilized Light Radiant Protection
	Wind of Music	10	Quick Preparation Melody Boost Wind of Protection
	Sound Vibration	10	Persistence Shining Wave Wide-angle Attack
	Sound Technique	10	Sound Concentration Retention Enhancement Concentrated Fire
	Prelude of the Storm	10	Quick Preparation Melody Boost Powerful Prelude
	Heavenly Scale	10	Quick Preparation Hard Music Intense Music
	Guardian Song	10	Mental Enhancement Endless Protection Wind of Protection

However, if you’re playing solo, you shouldn’t play a pure support build. Take the skills Sound Vibration, Sound Technique, and Prelude to Death with you to prove yourself solo. However, the bard is usually played as a pure support, especially in raids.

What does the rotation look like? You position yourself close behind the enemy, as your attacks Prelude of the Storm and Wind of Music deal a small AoE damage and do more damage from behind. Additionally, you should stand close to your group members so that the buffs you apply take effect.

You should use your awakening “Symphony” as soon as it’s ready. It absorbs damage for the entire team based on your HP. Additionally, it injures the enemy and steals their attack power and movement speed.

The skill Sound Shock provides another important debuff that you should apply again as soon as it expires.

Now follow your damage buffs, which you must apply one after the other because they cannot take effect simultaneously. For example, when Heavenly Scale expires, Sound Vibration should be ready to apply immediately to maintain the buff.

You should apply Guardian Song as often as possible, as this attack provides a strong armor buff to your team. Follow this with Sound Technique, Prelude to Death, and Prelude of the Storm, if skilled. This will fill the bars of your identity display.

Once all attacks have been used and buffs and debuffs have expired, start the rotation over again.

Which engravings do I use? Awakening is the most important engraving for the bard, as it reduces the cooldown for your awakening by 50%. Only after that do you focus on the class engraving Desperate Salvation. At level 3, it heals 24% HP.

Once you have both at the highest level, there are some additional combat engravings that are useful. Expert increases your shield by 25%. Many bards use Heavy Armor as a third engraving to improve their defense.

Spirit Absorption returns a portion of your agility if you have focused on specialization. Increasing MP recovery is worthwhile if you have focused more on agility instead, as you might run into mana issues.

Which collectible cards are important? Since you heal a percentage of your total HP with the bard, it’s worthwhile to build these up. There are various card sets that increase your maximum HP by 4-12%.

So you should collect either Farewell, Weapon (Velcruze, Spear of Annihilation, Parkunas, Fjorgin, Navinos, and Conqueror) or Area Boss 2 (Maneth, Tarsila, Sol Grande, Brealos, Aporas, Kagros, and Adrinne).

Six of each card are sufficient to increase your HP by 12%. You do not need to collect them multiple times to awaken them, as you do with sets for other classes.

What do you think about the bard? Do you play one yourself, or do you just enjoy having one in your group? If you play a bard: Are you also solo or only in a group? Do you wish for more support classes than the bard and the paladin? Feel free to write it in the comments here on MeinMMO!

You can find more guides in our Lost Ark overview