Bard

Bard is one of the twelve classes in Elder Tale, and one of the three Weapon Attack classes. This class specializes in using magical songs to increase the stats of the other members of an attack party.

There are two localized variants of this class: Skald on the Scandinavian server, and Tribal on the Oceanic server.

Overview
Although categorized as a Weapon Attack class, Bards lack the offensive power of Assassins and Swashbucklers, and their equippable weapons are limited to lightweight one-handed weapons, musical instruments, bows, and a select few types of two-handed weapons.

Despite these limitations, Bards' spell-songs are the reason why they fall under the Weapon Attack category. Spell-songs have a wide range of possible effects: some deal direct damage; others inflict debuffs such as Sleep, Slowed, and Paralyzed; yet others enhance the party's abilities by increasing action speed, attack and defense specs, and rendering them immune to debuffs. These powerful abilities are how Bards fight&mdash;even if their personal damage is low, a skilled Bard can amplify the party's fighting ability much more effectively than having just another damage-dealer.

That said, this class has a high learning curve and is tricky to use. Because they have low personal damage, they're difficult to use as a solo player. To balance their indefinite duration (only removable by the caster), spell-songs have relatively low numbers on their effects, making them less useful in short battles. Learning how to properly use this class, gauging which songs to use and when to switch them, requires insight and experience gained over many battles. This makes it a relatively unpopular class and in turn, means that there are less people making guides on how to play it, perpetuating the loop. Skilled high-leveled Bards, like with Enchanters, are rare to find.

Bards have their chance to shine in high-difficulty battles such as raids, and some even say that a raid party's success chance is directly tied to having a Bard around. First-class guilds that understand the class' potential even go out of their way to recruit promising rookie Bards so they can be trained up as powerful raiders.

Sample Builds
There are three main builds for this class: the Concertmaster (buffing spell-song specialization), the Prima Actor (special attack specialization), and the Virtuoso (debuffing spell-song specialization that forgoes all damage).

Concertmaster
This build was developed to support raid parties, as continuous support songs can affect up to twenty-four players (the size of a full raid), not just the caster's own party. However, it is still usable in smaller-scale battles by allowing the party to maintain its pace over a longer period of time.

Concertmasters assist allies and draw out their full potential by using supportive skills like War Conductor to increase allies' action speed; Curtain Drops to lower aggro; Battle Conduct and Repeating Note to cue in a concentrated attack; and Shifting Tact to lower skill cooldowns. Micromanaging these skills to maintain perfect uptime and seamlessly transition when needed requires a lot of focus, so Concertmasters aren't expected to contribute much personal damage.

In terms of weapons, most Concertmasters pick the cheapest weapon for their level&mdash;usually a bow so they can attack no matter where they are. During battle, they leave their characters on auto-attack and focus on their allies' status screens. Some hardcore players, during the game era, even had timers on the side to keep track of skill durations.

Henrietta and Pianississimo use this build.

Prima Actor
A build that aims on maximizing the player's damage potential, using skills such as Sword-Speed Etude and Onslaught Prelude to increase close-combat strength and Pavane Dance to boost evasion rate.

The attack method differs from player-to-player, but they can be roughly divided into three types: a weapon-based type that continuously attacks while using Resonance Beat; a song-based type that uses debuffing songs (usually Ballad of the Slowpoke Snail) to weaken enemies; and a hybrid type that switches between the two as the situation calls for it.

For the most part, weapon-types equip powerful two-handed weapons to maximize damage from Grand Finale, coupling it with buffs and other attack skills like Duet to further boost damage potential. Meanwhile, song-types use special attack spell-songs which have both melee-range and wider-range effects on top of dealing minor area-of-effect damage; as a result, players of this type often take to the front lines to scatter the effects of their songs across the battlefield. Its main weakness is that it is more effective against multiple enemies, so its effectiveness drops considerably against single enemies.

But the real problem this build faces is the number of naysayers that will criticize you for running it. Being able to take comments like "If you wanted to be a DPSer, pick another class" and "You're wasting your skills on yourself" in stride is perhaps this build's most powerful skill.

Takayama Misa uses this build.

Virtuoso
Focusing on maximizing the effects of their spell-songs and weakening enemies, this build abandons any pretense of dealing damage. In fact, many "true" Virtuosos firmly draw the line at wielding anything that isn't an instrument; according to them, Virtuosos who use weapons like swords or bows are really Prima Actors, even if those weapons have effects that give them instrument-like bonuses.

Typical spell-songs used by this build are Ballad of the Slowpoke Snail to slow enemies, Lullaby of the Mermaid in Moonlight to put enemies to sleep, and Dirge of the Trapped Lion for instant death. These songs have wide ranges of effect and can lock down multiple enemies at once, and because two spell-songs can be used at once, Virtuosos can use a continuous support song to bolster allies' abilities at the same time.

This build is not without its demerits, however. Firstly, while songs have wide ranges, they are centered on the caster. To get maximum effect out of these songs, Bards need to put themselves in the middle of enemy groups&mdash;a very risky move considering they have few defensive abilities. Secondly, while these songs have powerful effects, they don't deal direct damage. Trying to defeat enemies with spell-songs alone is time-consuming and inefficient.

As a result, Virtuosos are wholly unsuited for solo play. At the same time, they're difficult to make use of in raids. Song range may be wide, but this is still a Weapon Attack class; they don't have the range of a Magic Attacker, so they need to put themselves in danger by heading to the front lines. To effectively participate in raids, being geared to defend against attacks and having tight coordination with allies is a must.

For this reason, Virtuosos work best in parties of four to six people, particularly when paired with guildmates that know each other well. Because of the level of precision needed to run this build, very few Bards use it.

Enkaatanto uses this build, focusing on Anthem of the Affectionate Mother to supplement healing on Silver Sword's main tank, Dinclon. Isuzu begins focusing on this build in volume 8.

Known Skills

 * Note: This section will be heavily revised in the future.

For general information on how skills work in Elder Tale, see Skills.

Bards have the unique ability to use spell-songs, which have myriad effects and remain in effect until toggled off or switched out for another song. Out of the fifteen total songs that can be learned, up to two can be used at a time. The level of variety and potential combinations that can be created with these songs make Bards equal to&mdash;and some cases, better than&mdash;an Enchanter's support abilities.

Known Instruments
From the Log Horizon TRPG Supplement: Into the Theldesia [Testing New Builds (1)].