Bard Guide for Lost Ark

Bard is a support class that presents a variety of playstyles, all of which are focused upon buff uptime. A Bard will use their attacks and skills to focus on filling their Identity meter gauges so that they can play one of two Serenades. Serenade of Courage will be used to increase group damage, and Serenade of Salvation will be used to heal injured allies. Bards are unique in that they have three distinct meters that can be filled, as such either Serenade can be played at a higher potency, which will use additional meters, so that their buffs are more effective and last longer. This class will primarily be a support that uses Desperate Salvation and focus on defensively or offensively buffing allies. With that being said, it is possible to deal damage with the Bard while using the True Courage, but this is best fit for solo play and is not seen as a competitive DPS option.

A Bard will generally rotate between abilities like Heavenly Tune and Sonic Vibration to increase the damage output of the group. Their other skills will be focused on improving defensiveness. Commonly used defensive skills include Guardian Tune and Rhapsody of Light--these will drastically reduce incoming damage. Their other abilities will be primarily focused on generating meter. Meter regeneration is critical as a Bard as it will maximize your overall utility. The more Serenades that you are able to play, the more you support your group. Abilities like Wind of Music will generate significant amounts of meter, but also apply defensive buffs. There are a wide array of meter generating skills, but some other commonly used ones are Prelude of Storm and Stigma. The Bard will be able to play at range with a variety of musical skills. Some of these will be instantly casted, some will have a cast time, and other skills--such as March will require the user to hold the cast while it is being used. Overall, a Bard brings immense group value to benefit any composition

Desperate Salvation Bards have two seperate playstyles. One stacks Swiftness and emphasizes group utility through healing and defensive buffs. It really seeks to take advantage of Desperate Salvation. Along with its defensive skill set it does have some offensive abilities to buff the damage of party members. The second playstyle stacks Specialization. While this build does still use Desperate Salvation, it does not focus on using Serenade of Salvation, instead it looks to maximize group damage output by controlling burst damage windows with Serenade of Courage. Stacking Specialization enhances the damage effect it has, resulting in more overall group DPS. With that being said, the Specialization build will still use defensive skills and will look to use Serenade of Salvation when it is absolutely necessary. No matter what build you choose, a Desperate Salvation Bard will be a highly desired group member because of their wide array of buffs and capacity to heal.

True Courage is mainly used when doing solo content such as Chaos Dungeons or Thronespire. It will increase your outgoing damage from Serenade of Courage and your critical hit rate. This allows you to have significantly higher DPS, but not enough to truly compete with other damage focused classes. As such, take advantage of this engraving to help get through daily tasks or while you are doing anything to progress your character while not in a group. It can also be a great option when trying to help out lower geared characters through less difficult content. Your rotation will center around using high damage abilities to generate as much meter as possible so that you can have high uptime on Serenade of Courage.