Lost Ark features tons of classes for all types of players. Whether you prefer a tanky character, an assassin, or support, there is a class for everyone. Today, we will be taking a look at one of the most popular classes of Lost Ark, the Bard. This complete complete Bard class guide for Lost Ark will show you everything you need to know about the character and their abilities.
Since every class is quite complex and can be confusing for new players, we will show you all the details from the start to the more advanced levels to help you choose the best build for your character. With that said, let’s dive right in and take a look at the Lost Ark Bard class.
Lost Ark: Bard Class Guide
Bard is an advanced class variant of the female mage in Lost Ark. She uses a harp as her main weapon and can dish out a variety of buffs and debuffs along with her other abilities. You should perform a class tester in order to get better acquainted with her skillset. Due to the limited support classes in Lost Ark, the Bard has a very high party attraction meter. At the same time, she is quite strong in PvP as well thanks to her abilities to buff her allies.
Spells and Attacks
Like other classes, Bard also has her own set of spells and attacks that she can use to either damage the enemy, heal her team, or buff her teammates so that they can deal additional damage. These spells are extremely useful and it can be quite beneficial to know how to properly utilize them. A good Bard will know when you use their spells and how she should use them.
| Skill | Tripod 1 | Tripod 2 | Tripod 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Harp of Rhythm: Summons a harp that acts as an independent ally. The harp shoots targeted musical notes at enemies within a 14-meter radius. | Summoning Will: The harp’s duration is increased by up to 4.5 seconds. | Melody Increase: The Bard’s Serenade mana increases for every second that the harp is on the field. | Note Brand: Enemies hit by the harp’s notes receive a debuff that renders them more vulnerable to all party members’ attacks, for +10% damage for 2 seconds. |
| Heavenly Tune: Inflicts damage on nearby foes. Buffs party members within a 24-meter radius for enhanced attack speed and mana recovery speed for 8 seconds. | Quick Preparation: Cooldown speed reduced by up to 6 seconds. | Forte: Skill’s AoE is increased by 25%. | Intense Tune: Buff effects from the skill are doubled, and outgoing damage is increased by up to 265%. |
| Prelude of Storm: The Bard’s tune summons a storm that inflicts damage and stuns foes for 3 seconds. | Quick Preparation: Cooldown is reduced by up to 3 seconds. | Melody Increase: Serenade mana gain from striking enemies is increased by up to 225%. | Powerful Prelude: Stun duration is reduced by 1 second in PvE or 0.5 seconds in PvP. An electrical field engulfs enemies in a radius for 2 seconds and inflicts up to 145% total damage. |
| Sonic Vibration: Foes at a targeted location are lifted off of the ground and slammed back down. The melody lingers for 3 seconds, inflicting lingering damage 4 additional times. | Protective Vibration: When the skill hits an enemy the Bard receives a shield that lasts for 3 seconds. Every subsequent foe hit increases damage by 9% up to a total of 54% in PvE or by 4.5% up to 27% in PvP. | Brilliant Wave: The skill’s attack element is changed to Holy. Party members entering the lingering aftermath AoE get a 2-second attack power buff for 15% of Bard’s attack power, and the total attack power is raised by 6% for the same duration. | Wide-Angle Attack: Lingering aftermath AoE is increased by 40%. |
| Soundholic: Channel a blinding ray of light with a duration of 3 seconds, attacking foes for 10 hits. (You can change the beam’s direction at this time, but channeling ends early if the Bard moves.) | Sound Concentration: Damage per hit increases by a maximum of 12%, up to a maximum of 72%. | Sustain Enhancement: The skill’s duration is increased by up to 1.5 seconds, allowing for 5 extra hits. At lower levels, the cooldown time is slightly increased. | Focus Fire: Disallows changing direction, reduces skill duration by -50%, and reduces total hits to 7 (5 if you didn’t choose Sustain Enhancement at Tripod 2). However, the damage inflicted increases by up to 876%. |
| Wind of Music: Summons a fierce wind that inflicts damage and pushes foes. Its radius then widens by an additional 1 meter and inflicts more damage in its AoE. | Quick Preparation: The cooldown is reduced by 4 seconds. | Melody Increase: Serenade mana gain from striking enemies is increased by up to 225%. | Wind of Protection: Creates a 4-second shield for all party members in AoE, absorbing damage up to 30% of Bard’s max HP in PvE, or 15% of Bard’s max HP in PvP. |
| Sound Shock: Use your harp like a bow to fire arrows (well, orbs) of light that explode on impact, inflicting damage on both the target and other nearby enemies. | Quick Preparation: The cooldown is reduced by 2 seconds. | Sacred Shock: Changes the skill’s attack element to Holy. Foes hit by the skill get the Note Brand debuff for 2 seconds, increasing the damage they receive from all party members by +10%. | None |
Before you reach level 50, there is a limit to which you can customize your class. Since you will unlock Engravings and Awakening Skills after hitting level 50, the build will be relatively linear till then. So, throughout the early game, choosing your normal skills and their enhancements is the ideal way to go.
Awakening Skills
Like Engravings, Awakening Skills become available once you get to level 50. You can unlock both Awakening Skills if you want but you can only equip one at a time to make things balanced.
Every class is also assigned a unique pair of Awakening skills that have extremely long cooldowns. Their main use is as a trump card in crucial situations. While the long cooldown certainly does hurt your use options, it also means that the resulting attack is that strong and it certainly is.
Therefore, I suggest that you save these skills unless you really need to use them. Using them correctly will inflict a lot of damage to the boss and will turn the fight in your favor. Here are the awakening skills for Bard:
- Oratorio: The Bard plays a giant harp and sings with the angels to inflict Holy damage. The attack ends with an explosion which deals on the final blast of Holy, and debuffs afflicted foes’ Crit resistance against your whole party by -12% for 6 seconds.
- Symphonia: The Bard rises into the air and plays music with an angelic choir, granting every ally within 12 meters a shield that absorbs damage equal to 100% of Bard’s max HP. Meanwhile, enemies in range receive a small dose of damage, alongside a -30% reduction to their attack power, a -20% reduction to their attack speed, and a -40% reduction to their movement speed for 10 seconds.
Best Bard Build Engravings
As aforementioned, you don’t have to worry about builds during the early game. Since you unlock Engravings once you reach level 50, you should focus on learning the spells and attacks of Bard before that. After you hit level 50, you can start looking into Engravings and the overall build as well. However, we will show you the best Engravings for Bard so you can know what to expect.
Engravings are part of Lost Ark’s endgame content, and allow you to apply a variety of buffs and boost to customize your character’s kit a little more. As well as generic engravings available to all characters, every class has two “class bonus” engravings unique to them. Effectively, these let you pick a subclass for them to specialize in.
The Engravings for the Bard are Desperate Salvation and True Courage:
- Desperate Salvation activates when the Serenade of Salvation buff ends. It’s an additional buff that recovers another 24% of your max HP.
- True Courage increases the outgoing damage of Serenade of Courage by 20% and increases its crit rate by 10%.
Since the Bard is commonly built around healing, Desperate Salvation will be your go-to choice of class engraving for her. However, the Bard is a team player, so it’s worth considering switching out for True Courage if the rest of your party has a specific need for it.
The number of engravings you can equip is variable and depends on how many slots you have unlocked. Class-specific bonus engravings require Learned Engraving slots, which you unlock by reading books. The two engraving types that can be equipped by all classes (damage boosts and utility buffs) are equipped according to how many engraving points you have available through a combination of your equipped accessories (such as necklaces, earrings, etc.) and their Ability stones, all of which can be picked up as loot or from merchants throughout the game. Mix and match your loadout until you’ve maxed out your engravings points to 35 and you should be able to equip about three basic engravings in addition to your class bonus.
Since the Bard is one of the few characters in Lost Ark who you won’t be building for damage potential, the usual go-to engravings aren’t necessarily the best in her case. For this area of her build, focus on mana regeneration and improving her defenses with a selection of the following:
- Heavy Armor increases Bard’s defense by up to 150%. There aren’t many other opportunities to improve this stat for her, so it’s an invaluable choice if you’re feeling vulnerable and squishy.
- Spirit Absorption increases Bard’s attack and movement speeds by 15% each. This is much more important than it might initially sound since quick movements while dodging and kiting are important for ensuring Bard’s safety, especially in boss fights.
- Increased Max MP adds an extra 30% to Bard’s mana pool, which is useful for ensuring that her normal skills don’t run out of juice.
- Awakening reduces the cooldown time on Bard’s awakening skill by 50% and adds three more uses before triggering the cooldown.
Best Bard Combat Stats and Accessories
In addition to Engravings, items in Lost Ark (necklaces, earrings, and rings) are your source for Combat Stats. These substats can have a major effect on your character, and it is important to target gear with the right stats for your build. Bards should focus on Crit while leveling, which will increase your critical strike rate and damage for a nice clear speed boost. Use Specialization as a secondary stat to build Serenade Meter faster.
Once you hit level 50 and start running group content like Abyssal Dungeons, you will want to drop the Crit in favor of Swiftness. This will decrease your cooldowns and help you cast support skills more often. Whether you prioritize Swiftness or Specialization first is up to you. Both are perfectly viable options.
Symphonia is the more popular choice with the majority of Bard players, due to its defensive capabilities nicely rounding out Bard’s build with a strong shield, along with its impressive suite of enemy debuffs. Oratorio has some undeniably attractive features but it’s hard to make a case for it when Symphonia has so much going for it.
Strengths and Weaknesses
The Bard is a strong class in Lost Ark. However, there are still some things you need to keep in mind about her to make everything work out. Knowing her strengths and weaknesses is the key to becoming a good Bard player. With that said, here are the things you should know beforehand.
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
| Strong support in both PvE and PvP. Supports are key in the late game so there is a high demand for them in Lost Ark! | Extremely Squishy and susceptible to damage. |
| Support specialized class. | Low attack, can’t do much if her team is not around. |
Playstyle
You can build Bard into either a buffer or a healer depending on your playstyle. While she can be played in many ways, it is recommended to stick to one distinct style of play to maximize her usefulness.
Leveling Tips
Leveling in Lost Ark is more of a tutorial for the class than anything else and you will have a fairly smooth experience doing just about anything. However, with that being said, there are a few things you can do to optimize your leveling experience.
To maximize damage while leveling, you should focus all your skill points on the following skills:
- Dissonance
- Soundholic
- Stigma
While these are the recommended skills, you can level up with just about anything. As a Bard, make sure to pick the damage skills if you’re leveling solo but feel free to experiment and try things out with any extra points.
Gems
Gems grant bonus damage and cooldown reduction to specific skills. You can only equip 11 Gems at a time, so it is recommended that you prioritize the ones that are useful for your most significant skills. For the Bard, I suggest prioritizing the Cooldown Gems over Attack Gems since you will focus more on using your abilities than attacking.
Attack Gems:
- Sound Shock
- Soundholic
Cooldown Gems:
- Heavenly Tune
- Sound Shock
- Wind of Music
- Guardian Tune
- Rhapsody of Light
- Prelude of Storm
- Soundholic
- Harp of Rhythm
Card Sets
Bard heals work off of their own total HP, and thus you want cards that increase your HP pool. These two Recommended Card Sets do just that; every 2 set pieces increases your total HP by 4%. Because these set bonuses are activated every 2 pieces, you can mix and match the two sets below without worry.
Set 1:
- Maneth
- Tarsila
- Sol Grande
- Brealeos
- Aporas
- Kagros
Set 2:
- Velcruze
- Spear of Annihilation
- Parkunas
- Fjorgin
- Navinos
- Vanquisher
Summary
If you want a quick summary of how to use the Bard effectively, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. I agree that going through entire class guides can take a long time so here is a summary of everything you need to do as a Bard to make sure that you are useful to your team.
- Bard needs to build Serenade Meter by using their abilities. They can spend this meter to provide either a powerful attack buff Serenade of Courage or a strong healing area of effect Serenade of Salvation.
- Always keep your Sigil debuff Brilliant Stigma on the monster, rotating between your debuff applying skills (Sound Shock, Stigma, and Harp of Rhythm).
- Cycle through your attack buffs but don’t overlap them as they don’t stack (Heavenly Tune and Sonic Vibration).
- Keep your party alive by casting Guardian Tune and Wind of Music as much as possible.
- Build your meter using Soundholic and Prelude of Storm.
- Cast Serenade of Courage if you have 2+ Serenade Bars, and Serenade of Salvation if you have 1 bar.
- High Swiftness is the best stat for this subclass.
This has been the Bard class guide for both PvE and PvP. We suggest that you try out as many classes as you can to find out your playstyle. Let us know which class is your favorite and how you are liking the game so far in the comments below.
