How to Play and Build Bard | Aura Kingdom
Bard is the supportive class of the game in Aura Kingdom, in this guide, we will discuss a little bit on everything that you need to know about building your bard in terms of stats builds, gears, eidolon, envoy’s path, secondary weapon. Please check our Aura Kingdom Guide Index if you have found this guide helpful.
Bard Stats Build
Bard Gears
Bard Secret Stone Selections
Bard Skills
Bard’s Skill Mastery
Bard Envoy’s Path
Secondary Class Choices
Bard Stats Build
The idea between full support is that you want to minimize your casting time to support your dungeon group better. However, with a sub damage build you can contribute to your party further by being part time DPS. However, sub damage usually works out alot better if your entire party is properly geared. Meaning that boss’ hit should not take out more than 75% of your member’s HP. If you wish to learn more about the stats please continue to read into our Aura Kingdom stats guide.
In addition, you may get yelled if people die when you contribute to killing mobs faster.
In addition, another con is that your sub sorcerer’s DPS output can be overshadowed if there is another sorcerer in your party. The main reason that you want to keep your SPD at 30% is because ballad’s tick rate is capped at 0.8s a tick. You want to always keep up your ballad as it is your main healing skill to keep members alive at all times.
Offensive Side
Full Support Party Build
Bard + Sub Sorcerer or Sub Wizard – 50% maxed capped speed
Rest go into Critical.
Solo and Sub Damage Build
Bard + Sub Sorcerer: 30% speed + rest into critical
Bard + Sub Wizard: 30% speed + rest into damage
Defensive Side
Defense over HP at any time. Reset stats to HP when you have +9~20 all defensive gears at the level cap.
Key Note Summary
Full Support
1. Place all of your points into SPD, since you can always switch to “damage” type gears once you have maxed out the SPED spec at 50%.
2. Choose Defense over HP at earlier stages, then rest the stats to HP as you improve and upgrade your gears for better DEF. In general, HP is a better choice is you can obtain and upgrade you gears, as it is the best defense against enemy DoT attacks.
3. Improve Heal % with gears, envoy’s path, and secret stones.
4. Defense is important, the better your gears are, the easier time you will have as a soft tank. With good gears and stats, you can tank boss’s carpet attacks and be more flexible to heal the melee team mates.
Offensive Stat: Speed
Aura Kingdom has offensive stats and defensive stats that you can add for your character. For bard, the best and only offensive stats that you should put points into is the SPD stats. Being mostly a supportive class, your goal is to keep your teammates alive throughout the dungeon. Higher speed lowers your skill cooldown and boost your Ballad heal over time rate as well as damage over time rate for some of your skills. Higher speed is the way to go to be flexible to cast your healing skills as much as possible.
Adding only speed allows you to equip “damage” related gears once you have achieved the 50% cooldown reduction rate. So go ahead and fill all of your stats into speed stats.
Defensive Stat: Full HP or DEF
For defensive stats, you usually have either of these two routes to place points into. Either go for Full HP or full Def. Choose to focus on one or another and not both at the same time. However, the growth potential of going HP is higher as you will be better equipped against DoT attacks. Although your defenses can be weaker, they can be “fixed” through upgrading your armors at later stages. However, DEF trumps HP build at beginning stages where it may be hard for you to fully fortify your armor sets.
Additional Notes on Critical
Adding Crit stat point increases the Critical Rate. This includes Critical Rate the following:
Normal Attack Damage
Skill Attack Damage
Skill Heal amount
Damage Over Time Damage.
However, it does NOT improve heal over time amount.
Other Important Healing Factors
Received Healing: The received healing stats improve all kinds of heal received including skill heal and heal over time skills.
Healing %: The heal % boost obtained through envoy’s path, gears, or secret stones affect both active heal skills and heal over time.
Healing Potency: This heal amount adds to skill heals and do not improve heal over time skills.
Bard Gears
Below are some basic guide lines about how to gear your bard in the game. Learn how to get and make your gears stronger, please jump to our Aura Kingdom Gear guide.
Weapon
Always use the strongest weapon that you can afford as they will both increase your heal stats and they typically have higher stats in speed and critical.
Now, you have a choice of either going for the highest level yellow weapon currently in game. Or you can downgrade and use the Orange or Blue item of the next in question.
If you are going for the orange or blue, aim for +10% heal for both the main and off hand weapon if you are going full support route. However, some gold tier weapons generate additional heal tick skills. You will have to make your judgement call on which weapon to hold.
Armor
The gears can generally be divided into two categories:
Heavy armor with bonuses in: Damage, Crit, HP.
Light armor with bonuses in: Speed, EVA, HP
The heavy armor let you have additional attack and single heal while the light armor prepares you better for your full support role. The light armor option usually let you have more def and hp too. If you find yourself constantly dying in dungeons, going the Speed + HP route may be right for you.
Trophy
Like how you are gearing your character in terms of stats. If you are going for full support, trophies that focus on SPD and DEF is a good choice. If you are going half support and damage, CRIT is a better route to take.
In general, higher level trophies offer better stats and they are usually a better option to use.
Accessories, Rings, and Back
We would like to stress on these because you can either go with the Yellow sets of the level cap. Or you can downgrade and use the next blue set available. The stats that you want is Ballad skill +2 as having an additional +6 ballad level can really boost your healing power to a whole new level.
Costume
Costumes and card enchantment with heal + is the way to go. If you are lucky enough, grab the custom costumes which give all stats +1% can help. Pick a costume with the stats build that suit your game play.
Bard Secret Stone Selections
Now for secret stones, you can have up to two different bonus stats. As a supportive healing class, you will not get much from the additional damage toward certain element. So your best bet is to land on secret stones that give you two stats. Ideally you would want HP or SPD as the other secondary stats on top of the two preferred stats below.
This is a rough guide to help you grab the secret stones for your bard, read the Aura Kingdom secret stone guide to learn about secret stones in depth.
When you are drawing the secret stones from the Mastery Bard, your goal is to have whole sets of every thing.
Special note that Bard does not have a secret stone in place for the Body armor. So pick that stone from your sub class sorcerer or wizard. In addition, grab a secret stone for your offhand as well.
Solo and PvP: You want to have a whole set of damage taken -2% stones because the damage deduction can help you take less damage. You will have easier mobbing the monsters yourself while taking less damage from bosses. You can have up to -14% if you have whole damage deduction secret stones setup.
Party Play: Heal +3% is the way to go for party play. You can have up to +21% Heal if you have whole heal setup.
Bard Envoy’s Path
For Bard’s Envoy’s path skills, you generally want to head for directions that give you better survival rate. Below we will hit on all of them and give you some recommendations on why you should pick certain envoy skills over the others.
Strongly Recommended Envoy Path
Whether your going full support or half support, you should get these bard’s envoy skills:
Efficient Immune System: Every time you are attacked, there is a 35% chance that one negative status will be cured. This skill is very important because it can cure some major debuffs such as speed -, or reduced heal. You need this skill to be effective in dungeon runs and PvP settings.
Altruism: Increase Heal +3% each, you can add two points into this. As a supportive bard, you want your heal +% to be as high as possible. Adding both of these is really a no brainer.
Bard/Wizard Combo: Harmonic Series to boost your party members attack, and Sonic Shield to lower damage that your members receive.
Now after adding those needed envoy’s path skills. Everything else are simply your personal preferences, however, we will go over the envoy skills to give you an idea on how they can help you to build your Aura Kingdom Bard.
Recommended Envoy Path
Muscle Up + HP, and Thick Skin + DEF is good to let you stay alive.
Attack Swiftness boost your cooldown rate to help you pump more stats into CRIT after you hit the 50% speed cap.
Weak Point analysis for crit +% is good if you are sub sorcerer looking to boost your solo efficiency.
Battle Tactics: Additional damage can help to boost your single heal skills and potentially additional defense if you use the right skill mastery.
PvP Envoy Skills
Bob and Weave only for PvP build and play.
These combo skills deal good one time damage, however with high cool down time, they are really not useful anywhere else other than the 1 shot wonder in PvP.
Bard / Sorcerer: Holy Sound Wave.
Bard / Wizard: Electronic Music.
Bard / Sorcerer: Song of winds, only helpful if your entire team is EVA build, other than that it’s a pretty useless skill in party setting.
NONO Envoy skills
Now we will go into what you should NOT get for your bard. These skills are useless as you mainly deal damage with your off hand weapon anyways, these do not help much with your character and you are better off getting other skills.
Bard Mastery: Damage +% when equipped with a harp.
Bard Studies: Crit Damage +% when equipped with a harp.
Bard Training: Crit rate +% when equipped with a harp.
Sneak: Malice -50%. You do not really need this skill as you actually want to draw boss fire when your tank fails. In general, you as a bard is not likely to get hit by bosses when you are partied with good tanks and strong DPS.
Fire Sprite: The fire sprite is a weak summon that does not really do good damage, you really rely on your teammates to dish out damage anyways.
Fleet Footed: In general, this skill is useless as you really do not want to move faster than your team mate anyways. The only place where this envoy skill is useful is while luring monsters in dungeons.
Child of the Sun: Damage of holy skills +10%. Useless skill as you do not have much holy damage skills.
Bard’s Skills
Storm Song: This is your basic single attack skill that is fast and deal decent amount of damage.
Blissful Harmony: The strongest overall damage of your skill as a bard, the overall DoT plus the initial damage can pack a punch.
Healing Harmony: A single heal skill that heals a good amount but with a casting time.
Ballad: The best group skill that you have and will use over and over. Stack 3 times to heal your group members continuously.
Healing Tones: A group heal skill that does less heal than healing harmony, you will rarely use this skill because of the high casting time.
Holy Notes: A great skill to use because it’s instant cast. Although the skill has relatively higher cool down, it is great to be used as an emergency heal.
Rhapsody: This party buff is useful only if you are doing speed runs. The best place to spam this skill is with time sensitive runs such as the Infernal Abyss.
Bard’s Skill Mastery
In this section we will discuss the various ultimate skills that you can obtain in the game:
General Skills
Pick either the Def or accuracy variations to focus on different kinds of players on the PvP battle field. In general, you will most likely choose a skill that boost your sub weapons as Storm Song is a pretty weak skill to use in terms of damage output.
Song of the Howling Wind: Storm Song Accuracy +25%
(Purchased from Master Bard) Song of the Howling Wind (Green): Storm Song Accuracy +50%
Song of the Full Moon (Blue): Target Def -8%
(Purchased from Master Bard) Song of the Full Moon (Green): Target Def -10%
In a part setting, using song of the full moon is better to lower the defense of bosses while your teammates dish out additional damage.
Attack Spec
For Attack mastery, the best one is Focus. If you have enough SPD to reach the cap, either switch out to either Murderous Intent to have higher critical rate for both heal and damage. Or you can switch to zeal for more damage coming from your part. You will have to make your judgement call based on your current gears and playing style.
Attack mastery really depends on your build, either go Focus route to hit the CAP faster, or use CRIT or DMG if you have already hit the cap.
Divine Power: DMG +5%
Divine Power (Green): DMG +7%. Obtained via level 30 dungeon.
Focus: SPD +5%
Focus (Green): SPD +7%, obtained via Ultimate Skill Lucky Pack: Attack Spec or level 30 dungeon at 3rd boss drop.
Murderous Intent: CRIT +5%
Murderous Intent (Green): CRIT +7%. Obtained via level 45 dungeon or attack chest box.
Zeal: 10% chance to deal 50% more damage
Zeal (Green): 10% chance to deal 70% more damage. Obtained via level 50 dungeon or attack chest box.
Boost: SPD +3%, DMG +2%
Boost (Green): SPD +5%, DMG +2%55555555
Callosness: Crit +3%, Crit DMG +4%
Advanced Skills
For the advanced skills, either go with the Damage buff when your team is taking damage OK. If you see that your team is pretty squishy, consider to use the Rock and Roll to give them additional. In general, keep the damage buff as it can benefit more players in your party.
Sad Love Song: Ballad Skill gives Damage +2%
Sad Love Song (Green): Ballad Skill gives Damage +3%
Rock and Roll Ballad: Ballad Skill gives DEF +3%
Healing Chorus: Healing Tone heals for an additional 10%
Healing Chorus (Green): Healing Tone heals for an additional 15%
Defense Spec
The best mastery to use is HP if you are HP build or DEF if you are DEF build.
Vigor: Max HP +5%
Vigor (Green): Max HP +7%
Iron Wall: DEF +5%
Iron Wall (Green): Def +7%
Agility: EVA +5%
Agility (Green): EVA +7%
Unyieldness: Recover 1% HP while being attacked. This effect can be triggered once every 30 seconds.
Courage: Max HP +3%, damage taken -2%
Extreme Speed: EVA +3%, Move SPD +5%
Tactical Spec
Go for either decrease target DMG or DEF. In general, you may want to decrease target’s DMG in hell mode to lower boss’s attack power, and DEF in party mode so that your party can kill the monsters faster.
Organized Sabotage: Every attack has a 25% chance to decrease the target’s DMG by 10%
Break Defense: Every attack has a 25% chance to decrease the target’s DEF by 10%
Preemptive Strike: Every attack has a 25% chance to decrease the target’s CRIT +5% and CRIT DMG by 10%.
Ambush: Every attack has a 25% chance to decrease the target’s SPD by 10%
Expose Weakness: Every attack has a 25% chance to decrease the target’s Received Healing by 20%
Ars Noxia: Every attack has a 25% chance to decrease the target’s Move Speed by 10%
Special Skills
We personally like The Best Defense or Ominiscience while using our bard.
Fiery Song: Fortify Song of Winds, EVA +20%
Percussive Song: Fortify song of winds, Move SPD +5%
Frenzied Sprite: Summon Fire Sprite 5 levels above.
Vicious Sprite: Fire Sprite duration +10 sec
The Best Defense: 1% of DMG added to DEF.
The Best Defense (Green): 2% of DMG added to DEF.
Capoeira: 1% of DMG added to EVA
Deep Blue: DMG +2%, Malice -5%.
Omniscience: 1% of DEF added to SPD.
Secondary Class Choices
For Bard, they are pretty versatile in terms of going secondary classes. In most situations, you will either go for Wizard or Sorcerer as your secondary class.
When you use skills from a secondary class, the cool down timer required is triple of the original class.
Bard / Wizard Combination
The Bard / Wizard combination has more ultimate combo moves that benefit the whole party. As a bard / wizard, you are able to act as a sub DPS when your party is safe and sound. Usually if your party can function with just Ballad, any bonus DPS coming from your can clear out mobs faster.
Bard / Sorcerer Combination
The Sorcerer combination has additional moves that can help with team member’s health. Blood seal which lets team members recover certain amount of HP while attacking the mobs can help at the beginning of dungeons with luring.
In addition, the Sorcerer has 1 additional party heal over time skill which can boost your supportive ability even further. The only downfall is that sub sorcerer is easily overshadow by the party’s main sorcerer if there is one. However, this combination is superior as a full support when the part does not have a main sorcerer.
Bard / Other Combinations
Other sub classes for the bard can be pretty generic. Check our Secondary class recommendations to see if any other pairing may work for your play style.