Race:
For the healers, I love the Aasimar race still using it on all of them this mod. I just like that little extra 2% on power, OH, IH, Defense, and HP. The second number one race choice so to say is the drow because of the debuff and helping the party in that way. If you do not want to buff (Aasimar) or debuff(drow) of course you have other choices such as Human (+1 to all ratings); Wood elf (+5% crit strike – a good choice for DC and bard, who do not have crit strike in forte like OP and SW); Sun elf (more action point gain – which for healers is always so sweet), however, healers are a support, so I recommend utilizing every possibility you get to help your party either buffing or debuffing them.
Ability Scores:
WIS and CHA for all healers in the current mod (Mod 25), nothing new here under the sun – WIS because you do want that OH and CHA because you do want that forte – forte for all healers have their resource pool (performance for bard, divinity for OP and DC and soul weave for SW). On top of that, another stat in forte that is really nice is crit severity for Bard and DC, and crit strike for OP and SW. The third stat in forte is a defensive one – deflect severity for Bard and OP, deflect for DC, and awareness for SW. As I already mentioned healers want higher survivability so investment in defensive stats is important and I try to build my healers as tanky as possible without hurting and balancing their offensive stats.
And there we go the Minstrel bard!
Minstrel Bard:
I will be absolutely honest here, bard healer is the most challenging to play, but also the most fun to play in terms of gameplay and as far as healers go very very flexible in movement, it is the only healer that can cast while still moving and in this mod that is a huge advantage. Since the class fixes, Bard healers are in a very good place, especially considering how the class was at the start. Our heals right now are powerful enough and the class is in my opinion on top of all four, even dc right now, simply because it also offers so much more party benefits, apart from the healing. And the heals are in a very good place right now.
Gear, Stats, Enchantments:
Gear:
Helm: New helm from Menzzoberranzan - extra 150 performance, that's a free rejuvenating carol! And since today it is fixed on the live server.
Chest: Hunt gear either pure crit or the crit strike + crit sev ( both good depending on how u balance ur stats)
Arms: Power arms from dragon hunts
Weapons: Masterwork
wep mod: main: increase healing done by Appregio
off hand: awareness + action point gain
Boots: 7.5k power boots from dragon hunts
Arti set: Vistani!!!! Another great constant debuff we can provide to our party! Not even gonna go into other arti sets, if u get the opportunity to buff/debuff it's always the best option.
Rings:
Now here if the tank is nice and runs Elistrae's grace you can afford you use Elistrae Obligation for the nice stats. However, if the tank isn't running it, because he needs more survivability you run the Grace! Debuff!
And of course, the Glowing restoration ring, is still great, still has good stats and bonus for healers.
Shirt: +5% OH shirt from I think was from dragonbone vale.
Pants: AP pants from Dragon Hunts
Reinforcement kits: Crit severity and Awareness Jewel
Overloads: Devil's precision for the crit strike and whatever else you feel is good for the current content you run - Brimstone, Depths, Protection, White dragon Glyph, Demon, Dragon, Drow wards... etc (again to help the party in those places affected with those types of enemies.
Enchantments:
Enchants are a place where you can tweak and change relatively easily depending on your stats currently on bard I'm running x2 jade, x1 cobalt, x1 garnet in offense and x2 Amethyst, and x2 garnet in Defense. Sometimes I would swap the cobalt in the offense for another garnet if there is a missing raptor in the party and power isn't capped.
Utility: Jade!
Bonus: Action Gain or Movement Speed
Combat: Flash Freeze or the new Reflugent Fortification.
Personally, I think the solo heal on bard isn't great for the new Reflugent Fortification and that won't be as good on bard as will be on the other 3 healers, just because we can't always ensure that the defender's minuet will always heal the tank and second because often we would rather use Sheltering etude to heal back to full whole party rather than spend the performance on defenders minuet, especially if Vamp procs and we can cast sheltering for free.
Artifacts:
main: Any buff, debuff, or mitigation arti (halaster, charm, lantern, the sigil of the paladin, tiamat's orb, dice, demo, tentacle rod, blades or wyvern, etc...)
tarokka for the vistani set
and the other 2 artis can be whatever depending on what stats u need, personally, I would choose from the newer artifacts with the higher IL.
Consumables & belt:
Most often the consumables are Wild Storm elixir, flask of potency 3+1, squash soup, sambocade, and Invocation blessing of either power, crit strike, or crit sev, depending on the active arti stats mostly it changes around.
If u feel like u need some more survivability in certain places u can use the Caprese instead of the squash soup, or you can go for the Grand Summer Feast giving you a little bit of everything. For more OH u can use the Zurek, but I honestly rarely want to give up my sambocade movement bonus.
Belt items: Most often Forger's box + Dragonfyre. If more tankiness is needed would swap Forger's to Chain of Scales for the extra awareness.
In Dragon inhabited places: The AP Wonderous Dragon or the Damage reduction wonderous dragon instead of Dragonfyre.
Stone of Health well we don't need that as much there for most places but it's good to have it just in case, especially for end-game stuff.
Stats shown are with buffs: Squash Soup, Wild Storm elixir, Flask of potency rank 3+1; Sambocade, and Power/def invocation blessing. Bonuses of arms and chest are not proced, nor is raptor power since not in party. However in combat with everything on all offensive stats are above 85% or capped at 90% and def stats are a little higher with runic aura or awareness invocation blessing.
Boons:
Campaign boons
Nothing new with the boons, all power, crit strike, crit sev, defense, awareness, crit avoidance, deflect severity, movement, and as much from the HP boons as you can have.
Tier 4 is Forte and OH
Master Boon: Blessed Resilience (to help with DPS survivability)
Guild Boons:
Crit strike and awareness, however here u also can play around depending on how your stats look like and choose defense and power, or even HP.
Res. Sickness in end-game content. Everywhere else movement boon.
Companions:
Passives:
So the balance from the last mod kind of remains the same here. 2 OH companions (being the golden bulette (OH) and the polar bear cub(OH+def), or the quickling(OH+ crit strike) or the Nevember guard(OH+awereness)), Raptor (power for party and self) (a must in any end game content), and then either alpha compy (power) or the deep crow hatchling (power), doesn't matter which one of the two.
The last companion can vary and does vary or all my healers, so my suggestion is if you have a black dragon ioun stone (crit strike), use it, the 7.5% crit is awesome, if you have a quickling however, but you do not have the golden bulette pup you can take a 3rd OH companion.
Companion enhancements:
You are a support so you will use whatever is needed for the party between Dulled, Senses, Slowed reactions, Vulnerability, or Armor break (even though usually tanks will run this one)
Companion gear:
x3 OH+crit strike from Northdark Reaches campaign
Summoned companion options:
For summoned companions again there are different good choices that can help your party in different situations, so you can choose between buffing your party with Tutor or Drizzt, or helping with damage mitigation with Bruenor or the Stalwart Golden Lion, Scorpion in places where we need to make sure dps get constant CA. So many good options to have as a healer to be able to swap to what is needed based on the content and the group.
Now if survivability is an issue, or you have trouble balancing your stats and feel you miss too much on ratings, you can always go to the golden oldie of the augments and that has been the polar bear cub for us healers for the last I don't even know how many mods.
Mounts, Collars & Insignias:
Mount Active Powers:
Again You are a support, meaning that here you will use any buffing, debuffing or mitigation mount active power that the party may need:
Such as:
And in dungeons in mob fights and only mob fights you can use Vortex to help dps with grouping the mobs, it's great.
Mount Passive Powers:
Again as a support best choices always will be the ones that will help out your party members, currently we have 3 great options to choose from and swap to depending on the needs. ( They come respectfully from the mounts Myconoid Bulette, Ebon Riding Lizard, and the very well-known Runeclad Manticore).
If you want to be selfish, or if every one of the above is covered by other healer and the tanks you can always run the Neverwinter Pride ( Barded Newerwintian Lion) for the Forte and crit severity, or anything else that will help you with missing stats if everything in offense is capped, go for more awareness or defense, or even HP, always good choices.
Collars, Insignias & Bonuses:
Collars:
Outgoing Healing, Movement speed, Crit Severity, Encounter powers, and Gold gain. (last two can be anything really, for healers they are only important for the IL.)
Insignias:
There is no recipe for insignias, insignias are great for balancing stats depending on what you need. So on bard my insignias are a mix of Dominance, Brutality, Aggression, some fortitudes, and 1 of the new Rhythm insignias for the OH.
Perhaps later in the module, more Illuminated insignias would get changed to Rhythm but for right now, this combination works for me.
Bonuses:
x2 Gladiator's gale for the movement and stamina, Shepherd's devotion for the party buff, Artificier's, and the new 4-slot bonus Mender's covenant. Although I am not a fan of losing defensive for offensive stats, this one is at least kind of worth it for healers, and you benefit from the extra insignia IL and bonus stats.
You can substitute Artificier’s persuasion and Shepherd's devotion for magistrate's patience insignia bonus and protector's camaraderie, but since those are the insignias I have right now I use those two bonuses.
Powers, Feats, Rotation:
Soo... the interesting part. Rotation on a bard heal is very situational and often missing, it is more a feeling of timing and what you need to do when. If you are not careful to watch out, performance can drain very fast and if you panic it is difficult to recover.
The important thing to understand is that unlike the other 3 bard doesn’t have a tab solo heal. The tab enables you to enter performance mode and play different songs, which are your main source of healing. Encounters on bard also do not heal. So you need to get used to not having encounter heals or big tab solo heal/shield. Your main sources of healing are the songs u can do in performance mode + the at-will Arpeggio
At wills – Reprise (to apply vistani or grace ring debuff - although u do that already with Blaze flamenco, but always better to try to keep them up as much as possible) and fill AP and Arpeggio obviously to heal.
Encounters –
Bassline (to restore performance, but cast is long and annoying however u can move super slow while casting it, once u get the hang of it and time it, when people don’t need healing, is quite ok),
Delayed play – to slot a song and use it as an encounter with lower performance cost ( I usually slot Sheltering Etude here for saves when I am out of performance) – If vamp feat is proced while cast it will keep it slotted which is pretty neat (saves performance cost), so keep out on watching when it’s proced and make good decisions for the timing of using it.
Dancing lights (In ST) – or Lunge in AoE.
You can also use Flourish of course to boost your next heal instead, but honestly, I never felt the need for it so I run Dancing Lights almost everywhere. Better give that small mitigation/debuff. As we established we are in the buff/debuff business!
Dailies – Curtain Call (very powerful daily that scales out with the number of songs you currently have up on everyone and does few things at the same time – nice shield from sheltering etude, mitigation from warding Carol, AP from Blaze flamenco, and a heal from Rejuvenating carol)
And
Encore
or
Inspiration (pretty useless however because it only catches on two people)
Tab – Perform – So as already mentioned, the tab is not a mark solo heal, the tab is performance mode, which allows you to execute songs, which are your main source of healing. In addition, when you press it you see this.
In order to play the songs, you need to execute a certain sequence, which is different for each one as you can see below. For convenience, you can slot 2 songs in Quick Slots, however, songs played via quick slots do NOT give a stack of Storyteller, so it is best if you do not use quick slots and make sure Storyteller is up 24/7. That is the greatest constant buff a bard can give its party!
Songs:
Below you can see each song and what it can offer, I will not go into a detailed explanation but Sheltering Etude, Rejuvenating carol, and Blaze Flamenco you will use most often. Defender’s minuet for solo heal (fastest way to heal the tank providing some dps doesn’t have less hp atm… so pray it catches the right person xD) and Warding Carol is quite situational (Works great in VoS first boss phase 2 for example, second mini, maze, start of Tiamat, mtos first and last boss, and places you can cleanse negative conditions basically),
Aurora Phantasia is also very nice but you need to take into account the timing left on your other songs before u cast it since it turns perform into Aurora finale and you can’t cast other songs before u activate it, watch your performance and activate Aurora finale when u need burst healing. Basically, all songs can be useful in different situations and content and this is quite neat.
Class features:
Because everyone and I mean EVERYONE loves more movement speed!
And
In places where I want a little bit more tankiness I would substitute Sforzando for Songward. But never ever the Vamos Alla!
Feats:
1. Making our at-will more powerful.
2. Better the small mitigation of this than the other crappy feat.
3. Another one of your best friends as mentioned before helps keep you a song slotted in Delayed play.
4. Literally your best friend in heavy healing demanding places, however, watch out when it procs so you don’t waste casting bassline at the same time.
5. Storyteller - This together with Blaze flamenco are the ways you can buff your party being more damage for DPS or give mitigation for tanks. However, it only works if you play the songs not in quickplay so activating songs slotted via Q and E will NOT give a stack of this buff.
Rotation:
Sooo… fun part bard rotation…. Sorry to disappoint but there isn’t a universal rotation as is with the other 3 heal classes, songs are very situational. Few things, however – I try to have rejuvenating carol, sheltering etude and blaze flamenco up all the time. You ideally have them up before you enter a boss fight, durations are nice and long and it means everyone is entering the fight with some healing protection on all the time. and everyone enters the fight already with x3 stacks of Storyteller!!! Defender’s minuet when I need to solo heal someone… would mix in aurora Phantasia and then aurora finale here and there depending on the situation (admittedly not so often in heavy healing places you need all the performance you can get for sheltering etudes). In places with poison like displacer beast vos, beginning of tia, first boss mtos mob phase, last boss mtos purple poison balls, or places with negatives you can cleanse in general – warding carol is great, even if it has such a short duration…
Daily use is always strategic and in different content well it is used differently so got to know your heal checks and try to have ALL 4 songs (rejuvenating, blaze, sheltering and warding before daily yes warding for the damage resistance it will bring) up before using curtain call to get all benefits from it and don’t forget to reapply the main 3 of them right after…. As I mentioned already several times all about bard healer is connected with timing, planning, and very strategic usage and feeling. So watch when Vamp procs and use your performance wisely!
That is as much as I could summarise the Bard in mod 25 for you guys and to show you my bard and how I play my bard in this current module.
The build is tested in all content, including the new Gzemnid's reliquary M.trial and performs great.
That being said of course it is not the only way to make bard, but this is my way that I am more than happy to share with you!
If there are any questions or suggestions as always don’t hesitate to contact me and ask
in-game @sunshinedawn#4492
or on
discord @Sunshinedawn#8895!
GLHF,
Kali :)
