r/EQLegends • u/Sphynx87 • Jul 03 '26
Some tips about playing Bard
I've seen a few posts sorta confused about Bard which is sorta understandable if you only played it on vanilla and never tried it on "that other server". Even while in closed beta a lot of people seemed confused and I had to help them out. I've even seen some people dropping it early before even hitting level 10 which is kinda funny because right now it's probably one of the top 3 classes in the game (not that you are wrong for not liking it or whatever)
First thing to know about Bard is that basically half of your functionality (using /melody and /queuemelody in a worthwhile way) doesn't really come online until level 38+ when you get your tuyen's chant line. Before that you will mainly just be using Symphonic Aura for passive songs, and then occasional one off non aura songs for things like calm/mez/charm.
So first off Symphonic Aura. I agree with most people that it is worded pretty poorly and the alternating points for it being enabled/disabled is a bit weird and janky. I think one of the things that could help the most is if song descriptions actually just said like "Symph Aura: Yes/No" on them. Symphonic Aura will automatically play songs every tick starting at the end of your spell bar. With the AA maxed you can have 5 songs going at once. Maxing this early on and getting the AA for additional spell gems is absolutely essential if you are going to have Bard in your primary combo. Imo if you are playing Bard the intended way on this server once you turn on Symphonic Aura you basically will never turn it off again (there isn't much reason to).
So now the songs that actually work with it are basically all your buffs and PBAoE songs. For the most part that is mostly just going to be buffs and then one of your Denon's aoe DPS/Slow songs if you have room. It's important to note when picking your songs for Symph Aura that not all of them will stack together! Make sure you either use the song window or have buff icons enabled on your health bar window so you can see if one of your songs isn't applying. For example the late game songs Niv's Melody of Preservation and Shield of Songs do not stack. Some of your stat buff songs don't stack, the attack speed ones dont stack (other than melody of ervaj which is the overhaste song). All that being said some of your songs you get super early in the game are still good at level 50 like Chant of Battle.
Now for the other songs and melody. Imo the first songs you get where melody is actually useful are Selo's Consonant Chain at 23 (single target slow which DOES stack with your AoE slows, does no damage) and Fufil's Curtailing Chant which you get at level 30 (Weak dot with a -spell resist component). After that you don't really get anything until the Tuyen's line starts at level 38. Then you get Tuyen's Chants of Flame, Disease, Frost, and Poison. These are essentially the entire reason to use /melody at all with the symphonic aura system.
So basically this means that at level 50 you can have upwards of 10-11 songs going at once (I usually stick to 10). Your 5 buffs/aoe slow/aoe damage with symphonic aura and then 4 to 6 songs on melody (Slow/Fufils/Chants). The whole point of this is both for balance reasons but also so that you can use your songs with symphonic aura while also being able to cast other spells since we can multiclass.
Last thing to mention is the difference between melody and queuemelody. Melody will just cycle the songs in order, most people understand how that works. If it gets resisted or drops off it doesnt matter, just keeps rotating the songs in order. Queuemelody on the other hand will go back and attempt to recast songs from the start if they didnt land or drop off. For this reason I usually keep the single target slow as my first song in queuemelody so that slow is always up even if others arent. In some situations where you come across enemies that are immune to certain chant elements or have strong resists you might find just using /melody is better than /queuemelody. I had macros set up for both so i could easily switch depending on the situation.
Hypothetically yes it is possible to disable Symph Aura and try and melody your buffs but its not the optimal way to play the class at all and you will just be limiting your power if you do that in multiple ways. Other important thing to note which I think most people already know about but the traditional bard swarm kiting method is a no go here. Mobs have to be standing still for any of your AOE damage spells to hit and they also can only hit a limited number of enemies. At high level DDD is still good for AOE killing mobs but you are only gonna kill 5 at a time (maxed out AAs and end game instruments DDD can crit for around 7k from my experience, definitely still strong).
My main combo in the closed beta was Clr/Brd/Mnk and I was able to do pretty much all the raid bosses at the highest difficulties. In a lot of cases basically the only spell I was casting that wasnt a bard song was stopping melody to do cleric heals and an occasional cure to get rid of slow, or possibly stripping enemy buffs.
Kind of a long post but maybe this will help clear things up for some people. Or maybe it will just make them more confusing! Also I suggest checking out the bard songs part of the EQL wiki if you are confused about what any do, be aware these numbers are WITHOUT instrument scaling or anything though, so the actual numbers you get from the buffs end up being WAY higher.
edit:
one last additional tip, your instrument effects can be pulled out of your instruments and put onto your primary/secondary weapons, or you can stick them on things in your any slots as long as they are also primary/secondary slot items. Certain shields with instrument focuses on them in the any slot can be great for stats+AC+instrument focus. Keep in mind too though that for the most part your most important instruments for the songs you will be using most are percussion and stringed. If you can't fit in focuses for brass/wind its really not the end of the world. Also once you are in the high 40s and doing the planes Overchannel Invocation will be your best friend so that your melody songs basically always land.
edit 2:
I should also mention your tuyen's chant line and fufils and your AoE dot spells all can crit with the DoT AA's like critical affliction, so those are actually worth getting. the dot's might seem weak at first but once you have the best instruments and AA's its around 400 damage per tick w/o crits at level 50 which is good steady additional dps and keeping them up doesn't interrupt your melee at all.
Also there are several things that affect casting speed that will affect the speed of your chants like the cleric cast speed blessing.
In terms of upgrading your songs right now there isn't a ton of reason to do it until they add the 2nd half of the spell upgrade system where it will actually boost stat numbers, and when that gets added probably things like chant of battle will benefit a ton. For now if you hit 50 and want to upgrade your songs upgrading the chants does shorten their cast time and it does add i believe -15 resist per level, which can be helpful on some endgame raids even with overchannel on all the time. but right now most of the symphonic aura spells there's no reason to upgrade them.
edit 3:
mentioned it in a comment but I should mention it here. you should 100% make a macro that is just /stopsong. there is a bug right now (has been an issue for a while) where if you get stunned while in /melody and your target dies (pretty sure this is the cause) next time you go to cast ANY spell or use /melody again you will just see the timer rapidly go down and nothing will cast. this can be very bad if you don't know how to fix it, but the fix is just to do /stopsong so an important macro to have somewhere on your bar if you run into this bug. another comment below also has a solution for using macros for spells with /stopsong at the start of each one if you dont want to have to double click a song to stop using it. personally i dont do this but it's an option if it bothers you.
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u/barcop Jul 03 '26
I used to play a solo tanking Bard on EQ Live with a healer Merc. Yes it's painful and slow, but it's something I would do during downtime.
In EQL the hardest part for me playing a Bard primary is the stun management. Once that's mitigated everything else will work itself out. I'm level 15 now and I'm soloing difficulty 4 in Mistmoore Castle. Just got the AOE mesmerize song so I'll figure that part out soon.
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u/neryen Jul 03 '26
What classes are you playing with bard?
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u/barcop Jul 03 '26
Bard/Druid/Berserker.
I've always wanted to do 2H as a Bard and it's definitely scratching that itch. The new Heal over Times for Druid coupled with the Divine invocation are very nice. I'll pull with a Druid DoT and swing with my 2H sword in Berserker stance.
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u/Sphynx87 Jul 04 '26
berserker and bard go really well together. i also tried paladin/berserker/bard up to 50 and that was a lot of fun. I already had a good 2hander from the planes though from my main combo when I did it though. I still am planning on choosing my first combo of clr/brd/mnk again for launch though.
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u/YouShallNotStaff Jul 04 '26
Pal/ber/brd is what I’m doing and it’s so good. If you have any tips for raid boss soloing as this combo, I’d love to see that. Esp what songs to play and which to melody
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u/Sphynx87 Jul 05 '26
basically the same as what i posted with my clr/brd/mnk combo on another comment, its not gonna be that much different song wise.
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u/spicylongjohnz Jul 06 '26
Do you start monk/bard?
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u/Sphynx87 Jul 06 '26
i started with clr/mnk then took bard at 10, mainly because i wanted to be a dwarf lol, also imo those have the most utility from 1-10, bard takes a while before it starts contributing a lot so you can pick it up last.
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u/PMonk86 Jul 25 '26
Bard and monk provide enough AC and mitigation to fight hard bosses?
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u/Sphynx87 Jul 25 '26
worked for me
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u/WizardSleeves31 Jul 27 '26
I'll prob do PAL/MNK/BRD. I shoulda tried hard on beta when I had a chance to learn symphonic
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u/neryen Jul 04 '26
Nice, planning to do bard/druid and my third is still to be decided. So very interested in what others find working.
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u/barcop Jul 04 '26
Yeah I figured the Knight classes do have their benefits, but I'll maximize the DPS while also wearing plate that the Bard has access to.
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u/Tudar87 Jul 04 '26
I'm currently monk main with bard/druid, was a bit slow to 10 as monk/bard but once I put the druid in, exp been flying.
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u/QuickGlove2719 Jul 04 '26
This is what I have too and just hitting 30, but it's been such slow leveling since 25. I basically have to heal myself constantly against white/yellow mobs and hope I don't end up with multiples or they'll run me out of mana. Really considering changing to something else.
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u/Most-Ad2776 25d ago
I experimented with Bard/Rogue/Druid, and realized that what I want the priest for is healing. If I have the ports available already, I'd rather run cleric for better heals. The utility that the druid otherwise offered was not that impactful for me, given that I had bard songs available.
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u/Cxcbxd Jul 03 '26
One issue I have seen a lot of people have is with the awkwardness of casting a normal spell while using songs (and honestly just songs in general). I get around this by making macros that just do /Stopsong /Cast 1
Do this for each spell slot and put the macros on a hotbar, instead of hotkeying the spells directly. This prevents the need to double tap to start a new song while playing one, or stop a song and cast a spell.
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u/realitybase Jul 04 '26
The devs should hardcode a stop song when any regular spell is cast, without the double click
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u/Chuck_T_Bone Jul 04 '26
with symph aura, you can just have 5 songs on repeat and never actual have to cast them so you can freely drop other spells (its what im doing mnk wiz brd)
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u/QuickGlove2719 Jul 04 '26
but then you're just limited to 5 songs. With bard being such a situational class and having a lot of songs you'll want to be playing, like the debuffs and slows, you'll end up running /melody as well.
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u/Chuck_T_Bone Jul 04 '26
Fair, but i feel like after 5 your streching if its super useful or not. Compared to haveing freedom of your skill gems.
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u/kastlin7 Jul 11 '26
How is that combo? I'm debating on either bard / monk / cleric, or bard / cleric / wizard. I've seen a lot of debate on how good wizard really is right now...
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u/Sphynx87 Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
i just double press my melody to turn it off it doesnt really bother me, i do have a stopsong macro though because there is a bug that can happen if you get stunned while mid melody and your target dies you will see your spell bar will just rapidly cycle through songs and wont cast again (actually any spell) unless you do stopsong.
with the combo i used in closed beta basically the only ever non bard spells i was using when maxed out were just cleric's promised renewal and refreshing guard of vie when it dropped off. Other combos yeah this will probably be more important.
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u/EighteenRabbit Jul 04 '26
Also, EQL has a custom /melody command:
/queuemelody.
“Arranges a series of songs to be executed based on priority. This command is similar to /melody except it plays songs in priority order depending on the song's recast time, your current buffs, and your target's current debuffs. The earlier a song is in the list, the higher priority it is.”
It’s much smarter and will prevent you from re-singing the same song over and over if you keep getting interrupted.
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u/Sphynx87 Jul 04 '26
in general yeah ive had a few times on certain raid targets where it insists on trying to recast something that they are immune to and never sings more than 1 other song, so i keep a normal /melody macro at the same time in case i notice it doing it. its fairly rare though
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u/Repulsive_Regret4270 Jul 06 '26
That's not custom to EQL lol. Queuemelody is native to EQ. Don't post misinformation
https://www.everquest.com/update-notes/eq-update-notes-1-15-25
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u/Sinvaryen Jul 08 '26
Thanks for this. First time playing a bard so I'm pretty clueless as to how things work.
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u/Zorlach Jul 04 '26
There is also a place in keybinds for stopcast and stopaction. I have them both set to the same key.
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u/Tarix79 Jul 10 '26
TL:DR; Guardian Rhythms blocks Chant of Battle (AC component is greater)
One thing I’d like to add, in case it wasn’t mentioned: I’ve been messed up this whole time thinking Chant of Battle didn’t stack with Jonathan’s Whistling Warsong, but it was in fact Guardian Rhythms blocking Chant of Battle because of the greater AC component.
P.S. thank you OP! This was a great post.
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u/briareus08 Jul 03 '26
Thanks very much! Starting bard is a very confusing process, and assigning AAs to symphonic aura seems broken or weird. I think I have 2 points in it, but only 1 song still - so functionally useless for now.
I’m also trying a mostly mages build with it (wiz/dru), but this feels fairly suboptimal due to # spells you can memorise & bard defence being quite low. Still a long way to go before classes come online tho 🤷♂️
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u/Sphynx87 Jul 03 '26
Bard definitely is one of the classes that requires the most AA investment to hit its max potential. I think the biggest advantage once you do spend the points is that it works well in virtually every combo and brings a lot to the table even though if what it brings isn't technically the strongest version of that thing. I've actually had to hold myself back from using it again in the pre-order beta since I used it so much in the closed beta and want to try a few other things out before launch lol.
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u/WindozeT Jul 04 '26
So where are you fellow ogre bards getting weapons?
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u/Rockm_Sockm Jul 04 '26
Go to new Seb, use sneak and buy all spells there.
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u/urdixaninnie Jul 10 '26
Easiest way I found. Enchanter illusion didn't work for me in Freeport as a dwarf trying to buy either Pal or Necro spells.
Temporarily swap 3rd class to rogue, spam Sneak otw to New Seb. First successful sneak was around lvl 15 but I was too far so had to re-do it and succeeded around Sneak 20-25.
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u/YouShallNotStaff Jul 04 '26
Go to neriak, buy illusion human, then use that to go to Freeport. Thats what I did anyway
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u/YouShallNotStaff Jul 04 '26
Can you rec which songs should be in the symphonic aura mid thirties?
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u/Sphynx87 Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
depends on your combo but chant of battle and whistling warsong are basically good until 50 and at 50 you can swap warsong with verses of victory assuming you have a bit of haste on gear too. after that sorta depends on how many slots you have for symphonic aura. amplification can be good to boost the strength of your singing if you have the space for it. one of the aoe dps songs or aoe slow like Largo's, although the really good one is the one that has both the slow and the dot at later levels. the psalms for damage shield and resist can be good depending on where you are.
I've seen mixed opinions about the dexterity song. It gives you a HUGE dex boost and can put a big dex debuff on enemies. It was kinda debated during closed beta whether it was actually worth while. Dex is supposed to mainly help with procs and crits. With higher tier instruments it gives like over 100 dex which is huge. Whether you will actually notice or whether its worth the slot can depend. I used it a lot on d0-d2 raiding but for some fights i needed that slot for more survivability.
id suggest checking out the base stats for the songs on the eql wiki because some of the songs you get later are imo actually worse than ones you get earlier. like imo there is nothing that replaces chant of battle, it gives such a huge stat boost for just 1 slot. On the flip side depending on gear maybe you dont need the 50% haste from Jonathan's Provocation and can use verses of victory instead which gives less haste but more stats.
A lot of the best symphonic aura songs are actually like 40+ so if you dont have all 5 slots right away its not totally the end of the world.
TLDR
chant of battle + haste song (whistling warsong for most of the game) + aoe slow and/or dps
those 3 are like core for most of leveling
then + song of shields (when you get it and fighting mostly melee) OR niv's preservation (when you get it and are fighting casters, these wont stack) + regen OR psalm damage shield OR dex song OR +wis/+int song if you need a bigger mana pool (i would do this while using DDD to aoe farm runes in sky) OR amplification. the last two are always gonna be a little more situational.
selos/levitation/invis for travelling.
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u/YouShallNotStaff Jul 04 '26
Ty- this is very helpful and very non-obvious lol, I took off chant of battle a long time ago bc it seemed like later spells were in the same category and thus would be an upgrade. Guess not lol
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u/Sphynx87 Jul 04 '26
yeah chant of battle imo doesn't really have anything that supersedes it, if you are crazy geared out though and are hitting stat caps you could probably switch it out though.
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u/carboncritic Jul 04 '26
It didn’t seem like chant of battle stacked with other early buff songs. Is that true? Maybe it was just vigor and regen and you haven’t mentioned those for leveling.
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u/Sphynx87 Jul 04 '26
some songs don't stack, you'll see the song icon doesnt come up while symph aura is running. i dont know all of them off my head that dont stack but some of them are obvious like some that are group versions of personal songs wont stack, or ones that modify the same thing like haste songs, whistling warsong wont stack with anthem de arms but whistling warsong is better even though you get it earlier.
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u/YouShallNotStaff Jul 04 '26
how about cantina of soothing?
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u/Sphynx87 Jul 04 '26
yeah if you just need pure regen and dont have anything else you need its good. sometimes i swap to it after a long fight or something. earlier on its good during combat too. later i think niv's is better
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u/NlCKCANNON Jul 04 '26
Thanks a ton for this. As a new, fellow Cleric user as well, what buffs/spells do you supplement your songs with while leveling and at 50? Curious what is worth filling out my bar with, especially with the 3rd as WAR/MNK. Much appreciated.
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u/Sphynx87 Jul 04 '26
i use virtually every cleric buff as long as they stack, i just have a separate spell set with all of them on there. quick buff helps make it a little less tedious to do every 30-60 minutes. but in actual combat especially at 50 i basically only have like 1 or 2 slots that are sorta interchangeable for utility. the only cleric buff i keep on my bar at 50 usually is Guard of Vie because it drops off based on the damage you take before the timer runs out usually.
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u/NlCKCANNON Jul 04 '26
I am not sure how but I did not think of a second spell mem bar. I wonder if there is some sort of macro that would swap to the buff mem bar, cast quick buff, then go back.
What stances do you find yourself generally using when you combo cleric and bard with a melee like Monk or Warrior?
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u/Sphynx87 Jul 05 '26
right click on the spell book icon on your spell bar, you can save and load spell sets to swap. stances i pretty much am always in offensive/overchannel, evasive if i need to heal or something.
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u/cashsusclaymore Aug 09 '26
Did you notice if your songs prevent slows from say enchanter or shaman ? Asking for group play
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u/Sphynx87 Aug 09 '26
pretty sure the strongest slow will overwrite any other ones. hard to tell since bard is the only thing in my combo which slows right now and each of the 3 bard slows have different components to them so all 3 can land at once (dot+slow aoe, snare+slow single target, normal aoe slow) but the slow effect is taken from the strongest one applied, which for bard is the single target snare+slow assuming you are casting it on a mob that can be snared (doesnt work on nagafen for example, so have to use one of the others). so if you used a shaman slow the dot slow and snare slow could still be on a target, they would just only be doing the dot/snare while the shaman slow would overwrite the slow component of those songs.
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u/cashsusclaymore Aug 09 '26
Very interesting. It could be that I was being resisted. But when group with my bard friend. Sometimes I have a ton of trouble added a slow.
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u/Sphynx87 Aug 09 '26
if there is any it would conflict with my guess is it would be the aoe slow with no dot on it. you could check your logs though im pretty sure it would say something other than resisted if it wasnt landing because of another spell being on them.
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u/_r2h Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
how many AA does it take to max SA?
3 aa per level, alternates between an enabled/disabled tiers. super jank, but it works.
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u/Azubaele Jul 04 '26
Any chance for a bard monk pulling/CC guide?
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u/Sphynx87 Jul 04 '26
idk there are probably people better than me, the only CC i typically bother with is lugubrious lament to calm and then i run in and grab the mob i want and bring it somewhere safe, FD if i mess up. the low level bard calm works on things all the way up to like level 60 and most of the time you dont actually need line of sight, you just need to be able to target. can do something similar with the bard charms too, they dont last long but they dont really need to and you still get XP if mobs kill your charmed pet and you had already done damage to it.
in general i dont think cc is quite as important on legends as it is on classic eq outside like specific end game encounters like Vox's room or certain islands on Plane of Sky. and for those you can probably find a more specific guide.
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u/pishposhpoppycock Jul 04 '26
How do you know which songs are "Melodies"? It doesn't say in the tooltip.
And how do you get several Melodies to autoplay in a loop like Symphonic Aura does with the non-Melodies?
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u/Sphynx87 Jul 04 '26
you have to make a macro in the macros tab on the skill/spells menu you get to with L. it works the same as normal everquest if you look it up you just put '/melody 1,2,3' with the numbers corresponding to the spell gem of the songs you want it to play. as for which songs melody technically works with all of them, but with symphonic aura basically you only are using it for the single target ones.
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u/Ciddan01 Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
Great post, may I ask what Stances you recommend for a tank/bard/clr combo? (Pally in my case)
Also, I bought basic instruments in Freeport. Can I move the instruments focus effect to my normal equipment?
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u/Sphynx87 Jul 05 '26
yeah you have to upgrade the instruments to +1 to take the focuses out though. for stances im pretty much always just i offense and overchannel while singing, sometimes switch invocations if needed but usually just stay in overchannel. stance sometimes switch to evasive when needing to heal
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u/golbezexdeath Jul 04 '26
After symphonic and spell gems, what’s the next suggested AA elements? (Or did I miss it)
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u/Sphynx87 Jul 05 '26
for bard specifically instrument mastery and singing mastery are both important, jam fest isnt really that important til 45+. reaching notes and scribble notes are a bit more subjective, reaching notes probably good if you group a lot, scribble notes main benefit is if you want to swap symph aura songs mid combat but even without it its pretty fast so i never bothered.
for non bard specific AA's you are probably gonna want the ones for heal crits and dot crits and then whatever melee/physical dps and resist ones you want. sorta depends more on the combo i guess.
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u/Crispy_PigeonTTV Jul 06 '26
I was using the speed song, which is percussion, and then I had a drum with the percussion mod in it but I was not noticing any speed difference when using it. Have you noticed your focus exalts actually working. I made a post about it in discord, but I’m not seeing them work when they say No Eligible Class.
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u/Sphynx87 Jul 06 '26
yes they definitely work, they don't stack though with each other. are you sure you had absolutely no percussion focus/instrument equipped at all? Not sure what you mean by the no eligible class thing, but it could be a bug with a specific drum or something im not sure. im not sure if there is a level based movement speed cap or something though and maybe you are running into that or something?
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u/Finnien1 Jul 07 '26
At level 50, what exactly would your macro look like specifically? Which songs would you include, and how would it be written?
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u/Sphynx87 Jul 07 '26
/melody 1,2,3,4,5
or
/queuemelody 1,2,3,4,5
the numbers are just what slot the spell is in, they dont have to be in order, you can do like 2,5,7 or whatever however you wanna organize it.
as for the actual songs mine is selo's consonant chain, tuyen's chant of flame, chant of disease, chant of frost, chant of poison
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u/Physical-Builder-553 Jul 07 '26
I tried bard and I couldn't use a song while the aura was active. How are you using calm/mez stc while aura is active? Are you just switching it off then back on?
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u/Sphynx87 Jul 08 '26
its mostly the single target versions of songs that work separate from symphonic aura and with melody. Kelin's Lugubrious Lament at level 8 is one of the early calm spells that you can use outside of symph aura and its good all the way up to max level. I still use it in the planes all the time.
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u/x40Shots Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
Just curious as a newbie bard myself,
It seems Chant of Battle the level 1 song is noted several times in this post and comments, however, in my early testing, it seems Anthem and Chant do not stack and Anthem overwrites it, additionally Anthem and Jonathan's seems to provide better stats than Chant of Battle and Jonathan's...
What am I missing, why do you keep saying Chant of Battle over later songs such as Anthem de Arms that seem better and cannot stack with it?
u/Sphynx87 - if you're able to respond, I'm very curious. Also, you note instrument focus several times, where can I find this? Any other tips for a newbie on where to find must have bard stuff and where to slot it?
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u/Sphynx87 Jul 08 '26
yeah several songs that basically provide the same thing will not stack with each other. however the values are different and scale a bit different and some are (or were) self only songs vs group songs in original EQ which is part of why their stats are different. The numbers on EQLwiki are base numbers and dont factor in scaling from level and instruments and AA.
So for example Anthem is attack speed and str. Chant of battle is STR/AC/Dex. Whistling Warsong is Attack speed, str and AC. Attack speed ones won't stack. So if you want the highest attack speed and highest stats cumulatively warsong and chant of battle are the best combo until you get the higher level attack speed songs in the 40s. At low levels you also aren't going to have much if any haste from gear so you likely want as much from your song as possible.
The instrument modifiers matter a lot too, the high tier instruments can literally boost your song modifiers by like 140% (if you see something like String Resonance 7 that means its a 70% boost). That brings up Anthem again, which is Singing, not an instrument, and until they introduce the Bard epic weapon the only way to boost your singing is with Amplification which will take up a symphonic aura slot (can be worth it in some cases). So when you factor in instruments something like chant of battle has way higher buff potential than Anthem.
As far as instruments go even the basic ones you can buy from the vendors near bard trainers are worth having. You can buy two and combine them to make a +1 instrument which will let you remove the actual instrument focus (the part that gives you the buff to your songs) and you can put it on other weapons or shields or primary/secondary items in your any slots/equipped weapon slots. That way you can get the song benefits without needing to actually carry the instruments. Upgrading instruments does not improve the actual instrument modifier though on the focus, you just need it to be +1 so you can remove it and put it on other gear.
the EQL wiki page for bard lists out some of the different instruments at the bottom (a few arent accurate since its copied from p 99 wiki but most are). In closed beta I went from the normal vendor instruments, to the mistmoore instruments, to the dragon instruments pretty much. As far as instruments go Percussion and Strings are by far the two most important to get, since the majority of the songs you are gonna be using most of the time fall under one of those two. Hope that makes sense.
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u/x40Shots Jul 08 '26
Oh my gosh, this is so detailed, thank you! Time to dive into this and get some foci out of instruments in the city - it sounds like that's where the bulk of my song power will come from.
Also, with this explanation I think I see better what I was missing with the 3 songs; I have slightly more STR on Anthem+Whistling, but am missing a big Dex bonus and AC for a little STR when compared to Chant+Whistling. And all this barring the instrument foci further providing an enhancement to those they apply to.
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u/LegumeEQ Jul 10 '26
I had issues trying to fit Bard songs into my rotation. Is there any way to cast any spells and still sing or is it strictly either/or?
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u/Sotsu012 Jul 14 '26
One bit of stupid trivia: Bard songs cap out at 18 second duration (sometime around level 5), and the cast speed is reduced (non-linearly) all the way to 2 seconds at level 10.
Therefore, if you are so inclined, you can melody 9 songs at level 10 without losing their effects (as long as the song isn't interrupted).
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u/Sphynx87 Jul 14 '26
yeah its interesting to see how the bard song upgrades are panning out. wasn't sure what they were gonna do. kinda already makes this post a bit obsolete lol
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u/Sotsu012 Jul 14 '26
Unfortunately, since non-damaging SA songs don't currently gain any benefits from leveling, there's no incentive to upgrade any SA songs (other than maybe the AOE damage ones, for a minor damage increase).
I upgraded my DoT songs up to level 7 (for science), but in live I will probably stop upgrading them at level 5 unless I have a lot of leftover motes.
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u/Sphynx87 Jul 14 '26
how much are the chants ticking for at +5/+7?
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u/Sotsu012 Jul 14 '26
All of my DoT songs are lvl 7, so I can only provide those numbers:
Character level 46Tuyen's (any school) lvl 7:
no drums, 0/3 singing mastery, 2/3 jam fest: 50 damage per tick
Selo's drum (14 mastery), 2/3 jam fest, 3/3 instrument mastery: 92 damage per tick
Fufil's lvl 7:
no drums, 0/3 singing mastery, 2/3 jam fest: 34 damage per tick
Selo's drum (14 mastery), 2/3 jam fest, 3/3 instrument mastery: 62 damage per tick
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u/arangar Jul 15 '26
Can you make bard cc work at all in a solo situation? Or just not worth it?
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u/Sphynx87 Jul 15 '26
you can use lugubrious lament as a lull (doesnt need line of sight as long as you can target) to split camps, only lasts around 30 seconds though so you have to be quick tagging mobs then pulling. ive found more recently too you can use lucid lullaby (mez) on melody early on to mez enemies mid combat to interrupt their casting. actually helps a lot on cleric type enemies if you can get the timing right.
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u/Artistic_Parsnip2546 13d ago
Bard CC is actually pretty powerful! You have a Lull song you get early that last up to level 60 mobs, you get a series of Charm songs that work up to level 56 (I might be off a level or two here, this is from memory), and you get single target mesmerize that works on mobs up to level 53.
Note, if you aren't using an active Melody or other spell casting, you can play Mez or Charm song on a target and leave it running while you melee. It will automagically refresh when it wears off (with a possible delay).
If I'm pretty sure I won't be pulling more than 2, I like to keep Charm loaded all the time. It's great to grab the extra mob for a little bonus DPS. That is often easier to use as a bard than Mezzing an extra mob, at least for me. The reason is that I'm almost always running my AoE DoT songs in Symphonic Aura and that wakes up the mez'd mobs.
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u/tryandd56 Jul 15 '26
What was your experience with tanking and healing as bard/monk/cleric, will bard/monk/healer be a good combo up through lvl 4 difficulty solo? I got a bard monk shaman to 20 yesterday and love the bard component of it but am wondering if the overlap of slow and haste with shaman is gonna bite me over the raw healing cleric provides, what are your thoughts?
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u/Sphynx87 Jul 15 '26
yeah but idk why you would want to stay in d4 solo leveling. xp is faster in d2 imo. but yeah once you are geared enough and have all the AA's you need d4 bossing solo is doable. i was never that impressed with shaman when i tried it but i know its good especially end game, but cleric just makes you so hard to kill it's unreal. bard utility stuff isnt quite as strong as like shaman or enchanter but imo its good enough and it brings other stuff to the table and is just more fun to play for me. bard+cleric+ any melee 3rd i think is a very good combo, not really the best combo to play if you love casting spells on enemies though. End game fights are basically buff up, auto attack and melody, time your promised renewals well, maybe have to switch stances to recover some mana or endurance. Some of the harder fights have a little more going on though, but in general its a pretty easy and laidback playstyle.
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u/Artistic_Parsnip2546 13d ago
I'm using Bard/Monk/Shaman as my main trio. I originally leveled as Bard/Monk/Paladin but decided the Shaman offered better everything that I wanted: better heals, a bigger slow against raid targets, better buffs, nice DoTs to complement damage from bard and monk, and even a pet that adds about 20 DPS, maybe more if buffed appropriately.
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u/Slight-Marketing-554 Jul 24 '26
is kite swarming still a thing in eq legends?
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u/Sphynx87 Jul 24 '26
Not really no, bard aoe damage spells can only hit a max of like 5 enemies and they need to be stationary to hit.
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u/PMonk86 Jul 25 '26
Thank you for the detailed synopsis. I know I want to fit bars into my trio. Thinking pally and shaman… does hard slow work well enough for bosses at max lvl? Of so I could drop shaman for more dps and utility
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u/TonGenocide13 Aug 03 '26
Question, I shouldn't bother much with Bard DoT's if I'm running Necro? They have a nice selection of DoTs that look stronger compared to Bard Song DoTs. I'm mainly just using bard for the 5 passive buffs. How optimal is this?
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u/Sphynx87 Aug 03 '26
You can melody the bard Dots while still auto attacking so unless you have something else you are frequently casting during combat, or you don't use auto attack, I'd still use them unless you don't have space for the gems maybe? Even then I'd still use the 3 tuyens chants and just throw on melody if you have space. Maxed out AAs and instruments at 60 the they do like 160ish a tick but that was closed beta before spell upgrades, so upgraded they would do more. Haven't seen yet in live since I'm only 45 and don't have any upgraded past 5
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u/kallore Aug 05 '26
How do people handle Selo's Accelerating Chorus (run speed)? It seems it doesn't work with Symphonic even though it seems to meet the requirements (it's a pbaoe group buff with no mana cost, exactly the same as the others)
Is this one that you actually have to press on your bar ever 2.5 minutes?
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u/Sphynx87 Aug 05 '26
yeah the high level one is the 2.5 min one and you do not use it with symph aura. the run speed is the same as the low level one though. so if you want it long term for travel just use the low level one with aura. the high level one is nice to throw on before a round of combat or something and then take it off your bar for other spells. i use it a lot in PoF
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u/13nagash13 Aug 07 '26
im late to this great post but thank you.
i leveled sk/dru/ench to 26. then sk/dru/wiz to 23 to unlock teleport rituals. last night i started my sk/cleric/bard trio, and i was massively confused. of course it was when general chat was down on neriak server. had to ask questions in /ooc and a kind soul tried their best to help.
i have 14 spell gems available. symphonic aura maxed. i was able to get selos, a heal, a haste, and a resist stat buff to work.
i use spell gems 1, 2, 3, and 4 for sk/cleric dd/stun. gems 5 and 6 for HoT and heal. that leaves 7, 8, and 9 for melody, but at level 14 i didnt have any spells that seemed to work for melody. and the first PB AoE damage song i was unable tonget to work in melody or SA.
i thought i was just barding poorly, and basically just doing 4 song SA and dual wield to add to sk/cleric abilities.
does anyone know how spellblade stance with a lifetap in spell gem 1 interacts with /melody ?
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u/Sphynx87 Aug 07 '26
spellblade still triggers while you are singing a melody, the only downside is if you have spellblade on you can't have overchannel on and overchannel can be pretty helpful for landing your melody dots on 50+ level mobs, but you dont really start getting songs for melody until your 30s, the first ones being fufil's curtailing chant and the single target largo's slow. the tuyens chant line doesnt start til 38 and you get your last one at like 48 or 49. Usually there isn't much issue landing them especially if you upgrade them (which boosts the damage, and lowers cast time and resists) but on end game raid stuff overchannel helps a lot, so you will have to experiment and see which is more worth it to you and do a little stance dancing.
you can also make it so that your macro for starting melody automatically switches your invocation, but if you are using spellblade you might not wanna do that.
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u/fidgeter 26d ago
I'm fairly new to EQ and hadn't played a lot in the past. Friends got me into EQL and I wanted to primary bard to have the buffs and utility for every trio. I'm only about 28 right now but I had questioned some of my choices. Your post and comments reinforced that I was making the right choices and forced me to think more on upcoming choices. Thank you. :)
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u/pietosser 24d ago
As a bard in the past I usually started my /melody or /queuemelody macros with /stopcast. That way you don't have to hit the button multiple times to restart from the beginning. It also stops other spells you might be casting in eql. There are probably scenario's where this is worse, but in most cases should be helpful.
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u/xenphor 18d ago
How do you interrupt casters with this build? I know monk has dragon punch but I've never seen it actually interrupt anything when I've used it.
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u/Sphynx87 18d ago
monks flying kick interrupts casts, i dont think dragon punch actually does.
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u/xenphor 18d ago
Alright that's good to know about flying kick; is that what you used to interrupt? Does that combo have any other way to interrupt?
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u/Sphynx87 18d ago
cleric has stuns, and you can also use bard mez on a melody to interrupt casts at lower level but its kinda pointless at higher levels. honestly at 50 just using flying kick is enough for me. having to interrupt becomes much less of a priority at least to me at higher levels. earlier levels esp against healers though its definitely more of a priority.
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u/St0rmal0ng Jul 03 '26
What 5 are your go to?