Bard - Leveling Build
- Great AoE DPS
- Easy to Play
- Great Utility
- Good Self and Group Heal
- Mana Regen
- Squishy
- Can be boring to play
Overview
This Leveling Bard Build focuses on leveling alone through the use of multiple AOE abilities that make it much easier to push through the leveling part of Ashes of Creation while still remaining a very useful Support build that can heal itself and others when and if you'd rather play in a group, offering great buffs for everyone while also being easy to play.
Skills
Feel free to ignore Skill unlocking order as there are too many different situations where you might need different skills at different levels depending on the content you do. Depending if you are playing solo or not, you have to swap skills. For example, you should get 
Discordance, 
Cathartic Melody, 
Dark Lullaby and 
Get Off The Stage when you are low level and you are leveling solo. However, all these skills become useless later on as you start playing in a group. You can still consider Cathartic Melody as an option when you are farming mobs in a duo with a fighter or a mage, etc.
Instrument Flute is just as good of a choice as 
Instrument Drum or 
Instrument Fiddle. There is no real difference between them, the only difference is in the sound coming out when you use singing skills.
- Depending on group composition, you might have to swap between
Pensive Melody and 
Menacing Melody if you have two bards in the party. You want to speak with the other bard and see if he wants to play Mana (Pensive Melody) or Damage (Menacing Melody) Bard. Additionally, you can also spec into 
Maddening Dance if your group's healing is strong enough and you are lacking damage, swapping out 
Shielding Dance for it.
- If you are somehow struggling with mana regen on your party, you can also swap
Fierce Wit with 
Destiny in order to build up 
Saga faster, however, this is very unlikely to be needed and Pensive Melody + 
Fortissimo usually give enough mana to keep everyone happy.
Equipment
At very early levels 1-10, you can play with Book instead of Longbow, or you can go straight into Longbow. Book gives you some good AOE cleave, making it a great choice for solo leveling.
Weapons
Stamina
As a Bard, avoid investing in 
Sustained Guard first, as you typically rely on skills like 
Flourish to stay mobile rather than blocking. Your main strategy focuses on dodging and sprinting. Start by prioritizing 
Escape Velocity to increase your sprinting speed in combat (default key **C**). This is crucial later on, helping you kite enemies during cooldowns or quickly escape danger.
Next, put points into 
Recuperation Training and Evasive Maneuver to boost your dodge evasion rate. These upgrades also unlock 
Springstep, which improves your mobility by increasing your dodge distance.
Finally, allocate any leftover points to **Guard Training** to reduce stamina costs when blocking (default key **E**). Adding 
Mental Fortification can also be helpful, as it lowers your chance of being crowd-controlled (CC’d) while blocking, which can be useful in certain situations.
Rotations
- This is the main rotation you should use when grinding mobs and AOE farming in order to level up quickly. Either while in a group or solo, this rotation works well in both cases.
- Once you've gathered mobs together using your auto-attacks, the first skill you use should be Cathartic Melody. This allows you to heal up while doing damage with your following abilities and the song plays throughout the use of other abilities. Next, use Maddening Dance to deal AOE damage to all mobs around you before following up with Get Off The Stage after stacking mobs together close enough for Get Off The Stage to hit all mobs but also debuff them.
- Finally, use Fierce Wit to deal fire damage when using
Quick Wit on the same mobs. Finish off whatever remaining mobs with Discordance.
- This simple rotation is used for single target DPS when fighting a mob alone. However, you should also use Flourish to help with kiting when needed.
- Use Discordance first to deal some initial damage and stagger the mob before using Get Off The Stage to trip the mob and making it incapable of attacking. Debuff the target futher with Fierce Wit, tripping them before continuing damaging the CC'd mob with Maddening Dance. Use Quick Wit two times then use Dark Lullaby to deal high damage thanks to the many debuffs applied to the mob.
- This is the main rotation you should use when grinding mobs and AOE farming in a group, aiming to maximize the healing and buffing you provide to the party without using long cooldowns.
- Start with
Anthem of Alacrity (AOE) to boost party attack and cast speed. Use Flourish to activate 
Dance Mastery: Power which will increase the Shielding Dance range. You can also use 
Nimble Dance instead depending on what kind of mobs you are dealing with. Next, use 
Chilling Lament (AOE) to apply the Chilled debuff.
- Use
Lovely Serenade (AOE) to further heal your party before using 
Hymn of the Mind (AOE) & Pensive Melody to restore your party's mana and make it easier to prepare for another pull, especially if you follow up with Fortissimo to boost mana regen. The Pensive Melody + Fortissimo combo is the main way of offering mana and you can keep playing this at all times.
- Use this rotation to boost party and your own damage while also placing down an AOE flame field that does constant damage. Just like the other Saga combos, you want to use your skills in the right order. Start with
Conflict to get the first buff, increasing Power then use 
Chaos to increase Critical Chance for both yourself and your party members. Once the Conflict cooldown is over, use it again before using Saga to trigger The Apocalypse.
- This is the support Saga rotation, being an effective way of healing up the entire party. Start with
Triumph to increase Max Health and Stamina regeneration before using 
Joy to apply temporary extra max health. Once ready, use Triumph again before using Flourish to apply Pep to all party members. Finally, use Saga to both heal and apply the Glee buff, improving follow-up healing.
- This is normally a desperate move to help the party regain mana. You want to get 3 blue buff stacks before using Saga to buff allies and make it so when they do regular hits, they regain mana. The most important part however is to let your party know in chat that Saga is up. Saying "Saga" in party chat is normally enough for people to understand, but you might have to explain how it works first. Make sure that you aren't casting this Mana Saga early in the pull though as no one is going to pause their normal skill rotation just to auto-attack to get mana, keep this for the end of the pull when only a few mobs are left.
- While this setup requires some skill changes, it is very strong for moving around, letting you move faster than a lot of mounts. Use
Epic Melody and Fortissimo to boost movement speed then use Flourish on cooldown. Make sure to sprint the whole time too as Epic Melody offers Stamina Regen.
Gambit is an incredibly powerful skill to save tanks or healers from dying, however, you must be careful when using it so you don't end up dying instead as it swaps HP between you and the target.
Marionette is a great setup for killing mobs, stunning them for a long time before dealing damage or just using it to keep ranged mobs stunned while the group is dealing with other mobs.
Consumables
While leveling, make sure to also use the appropiate level consumables, starting with 
Novice Scroll of Adventuring Experience at level 1 & 
Apprentice Scroll of Adventuring Experience at level 10 before working up to 
Journeyman Scroll of Adventuring Experience once you reach level 20. Level 20 is also where you can start using 
Elixir of Intelligence for extra damage but also extra healing amount while 
Fruit Salad can be used from level 1 to the max level with 
Chicken Salad being another good option.
