Bard Class Guide (Classic - Prophecy of Ro)
This guide covers Bards in EQ during the Classic - Prophecy of Ro era. I decided to end this at Prophecy of Ro since it's kind of the end of the original era of EQ. Each of the classes start to become much more complex after PoR and they all change a bit to find their role in the game and become more balanced with each other.
Bards role on raids is to give ADPS to melee, their role in groups will vary depending on what the group needs. You can provide Mana Regen, Haste, Over Haste, Healing, Damage Shield, Snare, Mez and other benefits. It's typically advised to have two different macros, one for a caster group melody of songs and the second for a melee group melody.
During this era, Bards do terrible damage. When boxing bards most boxers don't even bother attacking with them because their damage is negligible. Even after PoR your damage is still going to be very low. In future expansions you should expect to do 30% of the top parser - meaning if people are parsing at 100k DPS you'll be around 30k. Ultimately my point here is, you're a support class and that never changes.
Important Stats & Focus Effects
Increasing your stats is the #1 way to make yourself stronger until you hit Luclin. During Luclin you'll start maxing out all of your stats with buffs, gear and AAs and your focus will start to change to other things. Once your stats are max you'll want to get Focus Effects on your gear and Heroic Stats (once they start becoming available on gear).
Bards will want to prioritize Strength, Dexterity and Attack for raising their damage. You'll want an item with Haste on it too of course. As far as increasing your survivability, you'll want to focus on AC, HP, Agility & Stamina. I personally focus more on surviving than dealing damage since damage on Bards is so terrible anyway.
The last stat that is important to Bards is Charisma. This will increase the duration of your Charm spells and prevent them from breaking early; it provides similar benefits to Mez spells. It will also increase how much you vendor items for.
Strength: This increases your Attack and weight limits.
Dexterity: Increases chance to proc during combat and accuracy.
Stamina: Gives you HP.
Agility: Increases AC.
Charisma: Charm & Mez spells will last longer, also increases how much you can vendor items for.
Planes of Power is the first expansion you will start to see Heroic Stats on gear, this will become more and more common as time goes on until eventually every piece of gear in the game has HStats. These stats give you kinda sorta the same benefit as normal stats - just less so. You can cap your Heroic Stats just like normal stats too, they have soft caps after which they will give a lesser benefit.
Bards will want Heroic Dexterity, Heroic Agility, Heroic Strength and Heroic Stamina the most. Since all of these stats have soft caps you'll want to spread around the HStats you get, that will normally give you the most benefit early on.
Heroic Dexterity (Accuracy/Proc Chance): Heroic Dex increases your accuracy and proc chance during combat; it has diminishing returns later in the game once you start getting a lot of it.
Heroic Agility (Avoidance/Strike Through): Increases AC, Dodge, Block and Many of the most important Mod2s. Use my Heroic Stats Guide for more information.
Heroic Strength (Strength): Increases Endurance. Improves the percentage of AC that gets transferred from your shield to be used for damage mitigation. It also improves melee attack damage very minimally.
Heroic Stamina (HP/Mitigation): Increases HP, HP Regen, and HP Regen Cap. It also gives you some Mod2s which help with damage and stun mitigation.
Want more information about Heroic Stats and what they do/how they're beneficial? Curious what Mod2s are? Take a look at my Heroic Stats Guide for more information about what each stat does and why we're getting the ones that we're focusing on.
Important Focus Effects
Starting in Luclin and becoming more common as the game goes on certain pieces of gear will come with Focus Effects. For melee classes you don't start getting tons of Focus Effects until OoW and beyond. Below are the main Focus Effects that you want to get on your gear when they become available.
****Instruments: Early on Bards must carry around different instruments that boost your Songs. Eventually these focus effects are put on gear and you can have them all at once instead of needing to switch to instruments.
****Haste: Not really a focus, but this is the most important secondary thing you should get on your gear. Eventually it becomes a staple on your gear in the future and you don't have to seek it out anymore.
****Cleave: Increases your chance to crit with all combat skills by a significant amount. This is the most important focus you should seek out once it's available.
***Ferocity: Your chance to double attack is increased by a small amount. Your second biggest DPS increase will come from this.
**Improved Dodge: Chance to Dodge is increased by a moderate amount. Pretty much gives you a bit more survivability.
**Extended Range: Increases the range of your spells.
*Improved Parry/Block: Chance to Parry and Block is increased by a moderate amount. You should never be using a shield, so you only benefit from the Parry. Increases survivability marginally.
Important Spells (Songs), Skills, Disciplines & AAs
As a Bard you get a spell bar but you don't have any spells - what you have are Songs. Your songs will (typically) go into the Song window when you use them and (for the most part) your songs will stack with basically every spell in the game. Your songs consume mana but the amount that they consume is negligible at best and mana is almost never a big issue for you.
Your most important Songs as a bard include Regen, Selos, Haste, Overhaste, Resists, Mez, Pacify and Stat/Spell Damage Boosts. Bard Regen stacks with basically all other Regens, your Selos will provide faster movement speed than SoW and your Haste can be used if your group lacks Enchanters or Shamans. Early in the game Bards are the only class that gets v3 Haste (aka Overhaste). This is one of your most useful spells basically forever. Resists are important too since you'll be fighting many bosses that need Resists in the early eras and last but not least Bards have many songs that give small boosts to things like Dex or Spell Damage.
What songs you play completely depend on your group and their make up. If you have more casters than melee you'll want to play songs that benefit them and vice versa. How many songs you rotate in your melody will depend on your gear and AAs as well, once you get stuff that extends the duration of your songs you'll be able to play more in a row without any fading.
One other tip is to watch the duration of songs. Some will last twice as long as others which means you don't have to repeat them in your melody as often. You get a level 30 song called Amplification that falls into this category. Amplification lasts for an 8 song melody which means you could make a melody like /melody 8 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
The melody shown above will use Amplification first then do two rotations of songs before looping back to Amplification. Below are some examples of twists you'll be doing during Luclin, once PoP hits your twists consolidate a bit and we'll talk about that further down.
Basic Pulling Melody: Regen, Selos, Armor Class, Haste
Luclin Era Spell Names: Ancient Lcea's Lament, Selo's Song of Travel, Guardian Rhythms, McVaxius' Rousing Rondo
Basic Melee Melody: Haste, Overhaste, Regen, Resists, Dex/DPS Buff or Damage Shield
Luclin Era Spell Names: McVaxius' Rousing Rondo, Warsong of the Vah Shir, Ancient Lcea's Lament, <Resist Name>, Katta's Song of Sword Dancing
Basic Caster Melody: Regen, Int/Wis Buff, (Resists/Damage Shield/Spell Damage Protection), Spell Damage Increase
Luclin Era Spell Names: Ancient Lcea's Lament, Cassindra's Elegy, Niv's Melody of Preservation (Spell Dam Protection), Occlusion of Sound (Susceptible to Fire, Ice & Magic)
Basic Raid (Tank Group) Melody: Regen, Overhaste, Resists + AC
Luclin Era Spell names: Ancient Lcea's Lament, Warsong of the Vah Shir, Guardian Rhythms, Elemental Chorus
I will show you example macros below in the "How To Play: Bard Basics" section. Aside from the spells listed above some of the other songs you may want to consider having on your spell bar is Syvelian's Anti-Magic Aria (Dispel), this song is useful for pulling. Dreams of Ayonae is what your Luclin Mez spell is called, this is useful too if you lack CC in your group.
Depending on your group and situation you may need to use Snare or Slow spells on the mob too. From PoP-Omens you'll stay mostly the same, Omens will add upgrades for all of your important songs and you won't get many new features until DoDH and PoR. In PoR you'll get an Aura like many other classes, it's called Aura of the Muse and it increases your groups Attack Speed and Spell Damage.
Bard Disciplines
In the early eras you won't get many Discs as a Bard. The 5 discs below are actually the only ones that you will get until 85+. Once you get higher than 85 you will start to get some Discs added with each expansion that raises the level cap.
Resistant Discipline (30) - Classic (Allakhazam, Lucy) My advice for finding Classic era discs is to check Warrior Tomes merchants; Teniyu Emua in West Freeport is my choice)
Increases your resistances by a lot temporarily.
Fearless (40) - Classic (Allakhazam, Lucy)
Fear immunity for 1min.
Deftdance Discipline (55) - Velious (Allakhazam, Lucy)
Your chance to dodge attacks and successfully Dual Wield is increased.
Puretone Discipline (60) - Velious (Allakhazam, Lucy)
This gives your Songs more power while active.
Thousand Blades Discipline (69) - DoDH (Allakhazam, Lucy)
Your chance to hit is increased by 100% with all skills and your chance to crit is increased by 5% with all skills.
AAs
Just like with all of the other classes I am only going to cover the clicky AAs that you get. Almost all of the passive AAs are great and worth buying - the order of importance is subjective depending on what you do most with your character. In Luclin you'll get your first Focus AA called Reaching Notes; this will increase the distance your songs can reach. Starting with Planes of Power you will get Boastful Bellow which is one of the attacks you put into your DPS rotation. It's not much DPS but neither are you, so it's a good match.
Sonic Disturbance is a knockback which I personally never used. You'll also get Fading Memories which I believe is the first fade any class gets in the game. Fades allow you to dip out and escape combat instantly from basically any mob you want; it also provides you invis so you can avoid combat from other enemies too. At this point in time it's a high mana cost but it's a great spell.
Once Omens of War hits you get your first burn cooldown, Dance of Blades. This AA gives you a large DPS boost for a short period of time, it also marks the start of you not doing terrible damage anymore. Eventually when you activate all of your cooldowns you will be able to parse pretty well, then your DPS will dramatically drop off.
You will also get Shield of Notes in OoW which gives you a solid defensive that absorbs both spell and melee damage. DoDH adds Cacophony and Song of Stone, both of these are meh. Cacophony is a stronger version of Boastful Bellow with a long cooldown, it also can interrupt/prevent spells from being cast by your target. Song of Stone is a swarm pet AA that doesn't deal much damage.
Basically, you will use both of these on boss fights/nameds/whenever you choose... but don't expect them to raise your DPS by very much.
How To Play: Bard Basics
In this era of a game playing a Bard is pretty straight forward since their DPS is so terrible it's pretty much not even worth it to melee. When you're in a group you'll typically be a puller and in that situation you will want to stop attacking mobs at 50% to go look for more. Your focus should be on pulling in that situation and not DPS.
When you're on raids you will typically be needed for your Songs primarily. Some raids it's best for you to avoid meleeing entirely because that will put you into AoE range and Fear range. Your melee damage is so low that it's not worth the mana to heal you; getting Feared and losing Songs on the Group/Raid is also a bigger loss than not having your melee damage.
You may not like to hear that as a Bard but it is the reality, your main value to comrades is the ADPS and support that you provide. Once you reach PoP and OoW you'll be able to provide equal support to both Casters and Melee. This will continue for a few more expansions until you eventually become delegated to Melee and Tank groups when on raids since that is who you benefit the most.
Now, with that out of the way let's take a look at the PoP Song Rotation and what sorts of Macros you should setup as a Bard.
PoP Song Rotation (Groups): Warsong of Zek (Haste), Psalm of Veeshan (Resist + DS), Rizlona's Call of Flame (Overhaste + Spell Damage), Wind of Marr (Regen)
Bard Amplification Melody
#7 is Amplification. Use that first then do two four song rotations
Tip: Use /stopsong at the top of the macro to cancel any melodies that are currently active before you start yours.
The macro shown above shows you what a standard Amplification melody macro looks like. Amplification increases the effectiveness of your Singing and it will last for two four song rotations. When using the melody shown above you will do Amp first then two rotations of songs, 1, 2, 3, 4 and repeat then use Amp again. You could throw in Selo's at the end of this rotation too since that would give you movement speed that would last throughout the entire melody.
Adding Selos to the macro will make it very long but also much more useful. You'll get a 2.5min Selo Song in Luclin which will allow you to keep it up through multiple song rotations; you only need to weave the song into your rotation every once in awhile like what is shown below.
Selos Melody: 7 5 1 2 3 4 12 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
Selos is #7 and Amplification is #5; just like the macro above everything else is the same.
Basically, all the macro above does is open with Selos and repeats your melody rotation over and over for about two minutes before refreshing with Selos. You may want to add another rotation to the macro if you have extended durations or subtract one if you don't. Mess with it and do what works best for you.
As far as Discs go, you have a few which I mentioned above and they can boost your crappy DPS when you are actually swinging your weapon. Typically you'll save them for boss or named fights, when you're EXP grinding you can blow them on the larger pulls. Bards also have a lot of esoteric uses, like their Song of Highsun. This teleports monsters back to their spawn points and this song is the only reason we have detailed information about where certain nameds and quest mobs spawn.
If you pay attention to boxers who sell AoE PLing they use Bards AoE dps songs to draw initial agro of the monsters. Basically what they do is pull a large amount of monsters and draw agro with Bard AoE. When the mobs reach 90% they will start AoEing on the INT Casters. The Bards will hold agro long enough for the mobs to die and essentially that makes Bards the tanks for the AoE PLers. Once cooldowns and stuff are added later on in the game Bards aren't used as much for this anymore though. During this era, I see them often used by most of the PLers.
But I wanna do damage...
Stirring in every Bard's heart is the desire to be useful in terms of DPS. This desire starts to be addressed with Omens of War and grows with each expansion until eventually you can do decent burns. In this era really all you can do is Auto Attack and use Boastful Bellow. Make sure you /autoskill Kick as well for a bit more dps.
When you're fighting a boss or named you'll want to use Thousand Blades Discipline, Dance of Blades, Cacophony and Song of Stone. That's really all we are capable of doing right now, as more expansions come out we'll get more burns which will increase our dps by a lot.
More Tips & Tricks
- One of the best Bard Guides I found online. It's created for level 85 Players so it won't be useful until Prophecy of Ro and beyond. I'm putting it here because it will be awhile until I do my own version of TSS-TBL Guides for each class.
- These are two more materials I used for research in my guide: Bard Guide (PoP) Ion Blaze & Bard Twists (PoP) Ion Blaze