Allods Online Forum

Hi guys,
Decided to join the PMB about bard support as it became viable since last time it really wasn't, and this makes it much more interesting.
What happend that it became viable is that engineers as dps became meta and the best in single dps, thus making bards support instead was an alternative.
It offers relatively the same perks, albeit with some slower defensing abilities due to gcd.

I like bard because it's tankier than it used to be, as they buffed the Acoustic Barrier by a lot. Aswell the damage is not as small as it used to be since they added a bleed on Flying Blade (Used to be without it for support).

We'll start by listing the legend here and you can go as you see fit
Enjoy & keep learning!

The build
The rubies - grid I: Street Musician
The rubies - grid II
The rubies - grid III
Artifacts
Racials & World Mysteries
Reincarnation skills

The build

Bard PVE SUPP build: Talent Tree


||
- Disharmony || Dissonance -
This will be our main damaging ability in our build.
Consistent critical hits thanks to the Etudes, fast paced too and restoring our class resource on top of that!


Flying Blade:
This is our main ability to refresh the offensive buff duration.
Using this whenever Rhythm is active, will refresh it.


Requim:
This ability allows our Flying Blade to become an aoe on impact.
I find it a bit hard to time it so that the aoe is worth doing and I have been doubting to drop it.
Alas, I left it in here as it's what I am trusted with.
Feel free to drop it and go for March as only aoe. - Not the month.



Crushing Throw:
The nemesis of Engineer's "Shocker".
A simple Crowd Control to interrupt castings from mobs. Really helpful - as I do wish it'd be off gcd.


Solo:
This is the loner type of Requim, buffs the damage from your Etudes cast with Solo's buff active.
It does say in the description "increases duration by x%" but in reality, it is damage.
Don't let you get fooled by these russians!


Power:
This is one of the two buffs to our disposal.
Very strong in buffing damage, as well as healing!
Using your Flying Blade everytime refreshes the duration thanks to the rubies "Rhapsody".


Lullaby:
Our best Crowd Control ability for PVE.
Long sleep to specifically put mobs out of combat to chip away the right monsters in the right order.
More necesarry than you'd think!


Aspect of Support:
You obviously need this to make the build work. It's the cornerstone of being a support!


Valiance:
The other type of Power, but then raw stats instead of % from Power.
Thought I'd make it clear cause it seems to not be - buffs only your highest stat of your base stats, excluding potions, order buff, external buffs.


Bloodthirst:
We use this to proc our double heal buff and apply bloodlust.
We no longer extend the buff tho, mostly just for the double heal case to aid our healers (healer panic mode )


Overture:
This is our single target dispell, yes a dispell - not a puri(fication)!
Very useful on dispelling the last boss in Fenia's Cloister, Enraging robots in Lab731 and so many more mobs that are about to eat your tank alive!
Keep your friends closer, keep your enemies closer?


Courage:
We use this one similar to Bloodthirst, only now we use this to break cc's on the group.
The only real case where I use it often for PVE is in "Heroic Allod: Fenia's Cloister" on the 3rd boss. Group Knockdown occurs at 25% and that's where you'll need it!


March:
A great Area of Effect ability for damage, also heals your team but that's not the focus here since they got their bloodlust.
Also is the name of a month.


Ghost Shield:
One of our best defensive abilities on the bard!
Together with the rubies "Wall of Shadows", it makes for a great fort to the team!
Applies defense to everyone nearby and buffs your damage when spamming disharmonies


Entree:
A great Area Of Effect Crowd Control!
Usually used in pvp, but can serve nicely in PVE too.
Just try to time it so that you won't kill yourself with it, you cannot move or interrupt yourself during this casting!


Expression:
Another great Area of Effect Crowd Control, but a bit better.
This one allows you to move right after executing it, and the CC lasts only 1 second less.

The rubies - grid I: Street Musician



Burial Elegy:
This is our Engineer's Flying Fraction that mass dispells our enemies' buffs. Very helpful!
I like using this when the robots enrage in Lab731 (When the blade dies) and serves as a single dispell too when your single is on cooldown.


Creator's Frenzy:
Standard basic stats. The value of these has dropped since all gear stats have doubled, %'s have been halved (in some cases, exceptions), but the rubies still give the same stats. Meaning they're worth only half of what they used to be. Nevertheless still better than nothing and a free addition if you got the rubies to spare.


Creator's Inspiration:
Again, standard stats from your rubies as source.
Only now they give Supremacy instead of what it used to be, Critical Damage.
Supremacy is important for support so that's a good addition!


Embrace of Sleep:
A necesarry skill for the supporting role!
Insta-cast 30s sleep, very powerful. Perhaps not as needed for PVE, but surely can avoid some mistakes with this. Or rather, fix mistakes


Maestro:
These rubies give you a flat % damage boost if you are on support spec, great for us then!


Omen of Death:
These rubies have also been changed since 11.1.
Before they used to be split among 5 rubies, now they have been changed to 3 - thus increasing the value per ruby... a buff to team bard!
rank 3 gaurantees crits on every disharmony for 15s, and increases it's damage. A no-brainer!


Power of the Creator:
Flat vigor increase, 3% per ruby, up to 9 for all 3.
Vigor is the baseline of our damage and healing. The more you can get, the better! It beats anything.


Sonata:
Our Engineer's Medical Emergency, only not as good
Raid purification to cleanse everyone. Only we can't refresh it right after (damn reloads!) and it won't re--cleanse for as long as the Medical Emergency.
Still as necesarry tho!


Tunes of Chaos:
More Tempo (Class resource) for each disharmony you do, a welcome addition - and a necesarry one at that.



Victory Horn:
Increases the healing done by March, and the amount of targets hit by it (also for damage).
Only rank 1 for efficiency reasons. It's not a healing ability for us, and 9 targets total is good enough, maybe a bit too many.
It's a very specific ruby that's not optimal for the gameplay imho.

The rubies - grid II: Vocalist



Deadly Notes:
A raw damage increase for our Etudes, in our case only Flying Blade.
It's only rank 1 because it's the most increase (14%), rank 2 is 16% (wtf?) and rank 3 is 20%.


Free Musician:
Allows you to move while playing Etudes. Again for us, not necesarry because Flying Blade does not lock us in place - unlike Dancing Blade/Singing Blade, but it does increase damage for all Etudes by 12%, and that is why we want it. It also leads to the next rubies that we want to take...


Heart Strings:
...And it's Heart String! This allows our Etudes to deal another 30%. Lots of damage enhancers for our Flying Blade!


Funeral Lament:
Everytime we use Requim, we'd get 1 stack. Thanks to these rubies, we get 3.
I am unsure what the description means by 20% more efficiency but I am guessing the damage it deals.


Immortal Art:
Don't make a fool of yourself by dying on that random aoe you've never seen coming, take these!


Primo:
PRIMO! So fun to say
Same as Requim rubies, more stacks thanks to these rubies, without the efficiency blabla.


Recitative:
Don't ask me what that word means, but for us it means that March will do 95% more damage at the cost of only 60% more cooldown.
Going to r3 makes it even stronger, but also longer cooldown. On r3 it shows 120% damage at the cost of 100% cooldown.
That's still good, but on long term, r1 is the best DPS wise. Most damage increase for smallest cooldown increase.

The rubies - grid III: Vocal Virtuoso



Acoustic Wall:
Very important one, and has been changed since 11.1.
This allows us to apply Defense to our party and reduces the cooldown of our barrier ability to quite low!
Sadly, it's still on the gcd, unlike Engi's Iron curtain is not.


Drums of War:
Really, just took it to get to the Rhapsody rubies, but the Etudes damage boost is a nice addition and the aoe March applying Weakness will surely help our tank.
Luck by unluck I'd call it


Encouraging Surge:
This ruby allows your Courage to trigger anti-cc and cc-break to our group for 2,5s per ruby, so 5s total with both rubies.
Really helpful as I explained for 3rd boss in Fenia's Cloister.


Harmony of Chaos:
Another extra Tempo (class resource) for each disharmony we do, we can't get enough of it!


Heroic Ode:
This ruby is getting it's force from our Supremacy, the more we have, the longer the Rhythm will last.
Make sure to have enough so you can rotate your offensive buff without leaving a gap.
It does say that all rubies that work with Dancing Blade, Singing Blade and Flying Blade, but Singing Blade and Dancing Blade only speak about defensive support abilities. I assume this is another translation fail


Immortal Art:
Here's our 3rd rank of that extra health. Grab it! I know you don't want it, but take it!


Invigorating Surge:
Same as the anti cc from Courage, this one procs on Bloodthirst for extra healing. It's been nerfed that the healing is no longer 100%, but about 60%. Even tho description still says double, patch notes said that it's 60%. RIP translators.


Major Key:
You thought that's all the tempo buffs? Here's another passive tempo gain each 5s, you get slapped another one into your class resource


Rhapsody:
This is what makes Flying Blade reapply the Valiance or Power buff once it's active, and gives you the Rhythm effect.
Also increases critical chance from Flying Blade by 30%!


Tunes of War:
This one has changed since 11.1 too.
Only buffs now yourself (No need to target yourself) and buffs your damage by 20% for 8s.
Unsure if it's really worth on support, sure can be good on dps, but then again who plays bard support
It used to be able to apply this to other people so that was way better.
And applying it on enemies would make them deal less damage instead, also better.
Got a bit streamlined and honestly, nerfed


Untouchable:
Great rubies, very exactly similar to the ones Engineer has.
Makes you tankier, I mean why'd you not want it? Living on the edge? You edgy?


Wall of Shadows:
These rubies make Ghost Shield spread to your whole group. Protects up to 5 nearby players, thus your group and applies defense to all of them for 3s, refreshing the timer every second during the channeling.
This is considered a Tune so you won't be able to move because we did not take "Dynamic Performance" due to lack of rubies. If you do have more, you should go for those first. Quite annoying to break that casting because I want to move everytime.

Artifacts

Following artifacts are important to have as a support role.
These are focused on protection, so we can survive aoe's and random damage scratches.
Focused on damage dealing so that we can heal back the health we lost via bloodlust. More dps is also a great addition to the team.
And focused on Supporting, which will buff the value of Power and Valiance, aswell apply some debuffs on the enemies that increases the damage further.

Dragon Aspis

Rank 1:
I don't use rank 1 as often as I should, but it comes with a cost of mirra, and it being only 10% might be why you wouldn't want to use it.

Rank 2:
Perfect for both sitations, great addition.

Rank 3:
This is not really useful for us. I have never really used a defense and thought "Now they gain more healing".

Rank 4:
This can help us a lot when a dot (Damage Over Time) is killing us, some kind of back-up Caution actually

Rank 5:
This is extremely powerful, but it comes at the cost of standing together. Altho this is not a negative thing, it's something that has to be known by the others too, as people tend to forget it often and don't utilize this to the fullest.


Victory Cross

Rank 1:
This is great to have but only lasts you so long in the beginning.
Can help you when bursting really early on, but that's about it.
Very little bonus tbh considering how long combats actually take.

Rank 2:
This is a good addition to your class stat - Supremacy since 11.1 - and you should always take these bonus stats into consideration when making your stat presets,
Sadly tho with 11.1 the stats got all doubled, but the one here on the artifact remains the same, thus lowering it's value.

Rank 3:
This is the "What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger" rank.
See a firepuddle? See some aoe dot? See some damaging area? Get into it for that maximum damage.
Aslong as you can handle it ofc, don't risk your team!

Rank 4:
This is more a PVP rank, can't really think where it's good for PVE, especially with the cooldown it's got.

Rank 5:
Same as Rank 5 on Dragon Aspis, only with a smaller range. Cuddling is the best option when using these artifacts!


Unity Triquetrum

Rank 1:
This is really OP, doubles our sonata basically within 30s since Sonata was cast. Even more so on Engineer tho cause 2 ME's become 4!
Anyways, using Sonata gives a buff to your group for 30s that it purifies the 1st thing next that's purifiable.

Rank 2:
This isa more PVP related rank, I don't believe mobs have healers.
Everytime you deal damage tho, you reduce the incoming heal from your target.

Rank 3:
This is your best buddy when dispelling, especially love it on the last boss in Fenia's Cloister.
Makes you nearly easily top DPS as support Yes we can shine too!

Rank 4:
We don't really apply these healing, only Engineer can do this with Medical Emergency.
So that's a lost rank for us

Rank 5:
This is really great when using lots of aoe! Applying a debuff everytime on your targets so that they take more damage.
Super easy on Engineer with the Acid Turrets spamming aoe, but harder to keep up on the sad bard except when spamming Requim ;x

Racials & World Mysteries

Racial Abilities
Racial abilities are abilities you get depending on what race you are.
So each race has an unique one. With the Book of Secrets that you can buy for 100k at your Faction's leader, or boutique on f2p, you get acces to all racial abilities.


Deterrence:
This applies a fear for 2s. Simple CC but there are better options out there.


Epic Tale:
We don't use this one really for PVE, you can also pull mobs by accident with this one that you don't want to pull. The speed buff is meh and the weakness is good but again, there are better options.


Foul Trick:
This is one of my favourite Racials for PVE. A great and long CC, only downside is that it's a melee one. If opportunity presents, use this Racial.


Poem:
This is a purely PVP racial, so we won't use it here.
It basically heals all your group members for 15 whenever something gets dispelled on them.
Pretty bad really.


Steel Luster:
A 2s blind which is ranged. Not bad, it's ranged, but I prefer our Foul Trick for the longer duration.


Sudden Strike:
Another 3s CC but this time in a stun form, also melee, so watch that.




World Mysteries
World Mysteries are abilities we get unlocked by doing the important quest lines, and we get abilities as rewards.

Dithyramb:
This WM is one we'll nearly never going to use. There's a more offensive WM to use and our tanks can handle just fine without this.


Victory Hymn:
This is the WM we'll use very often. Using this to help the damage up from our group, especially since we can combine it with Engineer's Master's Plan which does the exact same thing.


Gift of Tensess:
You cannot go through the game without this ability
You get it by doing Teps in Asee Teph.

Reincarnation abilities

Reincarnation abilities are abilities you inherit from your reincarnations. Depending which class they are, you get to pick between 2.
I won't list all of them cause there are 11 classes and 2 for each, but I will talk about the most important ones.

At the time being of writing this PMB, the best one's for us are Engineer Medical Emergency.
It's a bonus Sonata basically, but with a limited range and on the gcd, so be aware of this.

Next to ME, we have Priests' Glint.
This is a fast teleport ability to the place where your mouse cursor is. Sadly also on gcd, so be careful if you gotta teleport really quick!

Then we have Flash.
Same as Priests' Glint, but then no option where to. You will teleport right in front of you, also gcd :/

These are my top 3 reincarnation abilities I keep going to. I know some people use a Druid's Trinity too, but that healing is really low, can't imagine why they'd do that.

- OUTRO -

That's it for my PMB on the bard.
I hope you all were able to learn something along the way and I hope to see any of you on the p2p servers, either RU or EU - both are great with great people and sweet gameplay whilst leaving your wallet at home

See you on the next one!