Bard - PvE Build
- Great AoE Healing
- Easy to Play
- Great Buffs
- Squishy
- Can be boring to play
Overview
This PVE Bard Build focuses on playing the Bard in Ashes of Creation in the role of a support and healer with a great deal of status effects to choose from. Bard's unique gameplay relies on providing constant AOE healing and buffs, capable of singlehandedly keeping a group alive while also offering incredible buffs. Not only this but the Bard can also CC and debuff enemies, making it easier for your group to take down threats either in the open world or in dungeons.
Skills
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.
Equipment
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 a group, aiming to maximize the healing and buffing you provide to the party without using long cooldowns.
- Start with
Pensive Melody to gain good mana regen for yourself and your party. Use Flourish to activate 
Dance Mastery: Power which will increase the 
Shielding Dance range. Follow up with 
Anthem of Alacrity (AOE) to boost their damage before using 
Mesmerizing Dance on top of a group of mobs so it becomes trivial for your group to kill them.
- 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.
- 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 physical power then use 
Chaos to increase Magical 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.
- Similar to The Apocalypse, this rotation will build up and trigger a Saga version that does even more damage. Use Conflict to boost physical power before using Chaos to also increase Magical Crit Chance for both yourself and other party members. Finally, use
Destiny as this increases Physical Critical Chance as well. Once you've used all three skills, use Saga to put down an AOE field dealing high damage but also knock back enemies, so make sure to only use this if you don't plan on having the mobs stacked together.
- 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 heald and apply the Glee buff, improving follow-up healing.
