What I’ve learned so far, written by a Bard who’s still learning.
Keep a song playing
This is the heart of the job, and it’s the thing I forget most when a fight gets busy.
Bard has three songs, and each one plays for about 45 seconds:
Mage’s Ballad (I learned this one at level 30, straight from the soul crystal)
Army’s Paeon (level 40)
The Wanderer’s Minuet (level 52) (this takes time to unlock so don’t worry about it yet)
Each one has a long cooldown, so the trick is to chain them so there’s never a silent gap. This is the optimal order: [Minuet → Ballad → Paeon]
Each song also changes how some of my other buttons behave. While these songs are active there is the chance to “Proc” Repertoire.
Each song grants you different things if this Repertoire is proc’ed. (With Mage’s Ballad, the Proc grants you reduced cooldown on Bloodletter and Rain of Death.
My mistake to learn from: Forgetting to pay attention to the song timer in order to recast when available.
Keep the poison and the wind on them
Bard has two damage-over-time effects so keeping them active at all times matters a lot:
- Venomous Bite (poison)
- Windbite (wind)
Once you hit Level 56, you unlock an ability called Iron Jaws which makes it a lot easier to recast these damage-over-time abilities by refreshing both at once.
Weaving: the in-between notes
Coming soon…