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Ashes of Creation: Early Access Bard Guide - The Best Bard Build!
This guide presents a melee combat Bard build in Ashes of Creation, focused on high autonomy, tanking ability, and significant damage. It details the progression of skills, the use of melodies and dances to maximize damage and survival, as well as the importance of resonant weapon procs. Build variations for solo, group, and travel content are also discussed.
1. ⚔️ Introduction to the Melee Combat Bard Build
- ✅ This guide presents a melee combat Bard build, not a traditional support.
- ✅ The author claims to have over 100 hours of experience with this build.
00:00 - 00:16
1. ⚔️ Introduction to the Melee Combat Bard Build
- ✅ This guide presents a melee combat Bard build, not a traditional support.
- ✅ The author claims to have over 100 hours of experience with this build.
00:17 - 00:46
2. 🛠️ Initial Setup and Skill Progression of the Bard
- ✅ It is recommended to remove the initial skills from the quick access bar and keep only 'Jest'.
- ✅ The guide will provide a breakdown of skills level by level.
- ✅ The author will show the combat and explain the build in detail.
00:47 - 01:27
3. 🎶 Key Skills for Bard Survival and Damage
- ✅ Cathartic Melody: Essential for life steal, allowing you to stay in combat.
- ✅ Shielding Dance: Provides shield and healing.
- ✅ Maddening Dance: Strong and OP skill for quick healing.
- ✅ Hymn of the Mind: To solve mana problems.
- ✅ Spirited Serenade: Enhances healing.
01:28 - 02:16
4. 🗺️ Build Variations: Travel, Group Content, and Additional Skill Points
- ✅ Epic Melody: For traveling, increases movement speed with 'Flourish' and 'Glee'.
- ✅ Pensive Melody: For group content, focused on mana regeneration.
- ✅ Endless Jest: Additional skill point for more 'Quick Wits' for yourself or allies.
- ✅ Anthem of Elacrity: To increase attack speed.
02:17 - 02:40
5. ⚔️ Equipment and Weapon Procs for the Melee Combat Bard Build
- ✅ The initial quest book is used due to its power.
- ✅ The goal is to use a two-handed magic sword and a magic short bow to maximize attack speed.
- ✅ The focus is on activating weapon procs for bonus effects.
02:41 - 03:07
6. 🔄 Weapon Finish Variations and Mana Management
- ✅ Refreshing Follow-Through: For mana regeneration when using the short bow.
- ✅ Ward: For greater tanking ability.
03:08 - 03:41
7. ✨ Understanding the Resonant Weapon and Melodies
- ✅ The key to the Bard is to use the Resonant Weapon and understand how it works with the melodies.
- ✅ The next weapon combo finisher activates an additional effect based on the active melody.
- ✅ Resonant charges are obtained by using skills, especially dances.
03:42 - 04:27
8. 🩸 Cathartic Melody and Weapon Finishers
- ✅ The cathartic melody is ideal for the melee Bard, as the resonance proc inflicts great bleed damage.
- ✅ Weapon finishers can apply bleed, wound, or snare.
- ✅ Anthem of Elacrity is important for this build.
04:28 - 05:05
9. 🤝 Adaptation for Group Content: Pensive Melody and Mana Regeneration
- ✅ In a group, the skills are changed to AoE versions.
- ✅ The pensive melody and resonant weapon restore mana to nearby allies.
- ✅ The short bow is used to passively obtain mana and activate the resonant weapon proc.
05:06 - 05:36
10. 🎭 Crescendo vs. Counterpoint: Active and Passive Playstyles
- ✅ Crescendo: For a more relaxed game.
- ✅ Counterpoint: For a more active game, allows weaving two melodies at once.
- ✅ Counterpoint allows extending the duration of the melodies up to 20 seconds.
05:37 - 06:10
11. 🎶 Weaving Melodies for Group and Solo Content
- ✅ In a group, you can provide life steal and mana to allies.
- ✅ In solo, you alternate between cathartic and threatening melody.
- ✅ Refreshing Follow-Through and Hymn of the Mind are sufficient for mana management.
06:11 - 06:45
12. 💃 Dance Mastery and Bard Mobility
- ✅ Dance Mastery Energy allows high mobility and the fastest movement speed in the game.
- ✅ Flourish is used to reset the cooldown of the dances.
- ✅ The rotation is: Flourish, Mesmerizing Dance, Flourish, and then the other dances.
06:46 - 07:30
13. 🏃 Pep and Cooldown Management for Continuous Movement
- ✅ Pep provides an additional 20% movement speed.
- ✅ Endless Jest allows you to obtain Pep when using Jest.
- ✅ The cooldowns of Jest and Nimble Dance are managed to keep Pep active.
- ✅ This makes the Bard the best movement class in the game.
07:31 - 08:01
14. 💥 Combat Power and Offensive Skills
- ✅ Conflict is accumulated to obtain more power and a damage increase when weaving the cathartic melody.
- ✅ Saga, the Apocalypse deals a lot of damage, especially with a resonant weapon proc.
08:02 - 08:21
15. ✨ Support Skills in Group Content
- ✅ Silent Pantheon provides physical and magical speed.
- ✅ Heroes of Ages Past is used for traveling.
08:22 - 09:10
16. 🚀 Extreme Mobility and Gravity Reduction
- ✅ Joy is used for stamina regeneration.
- ✅ Epic Melody provides movement speed and stamina regeneration.
- ✅ Pep further increases movement speed.
- ✅ Gravity reduction allows you to jump higher, reduce fall damage, and traverse difficult terrain.
09:11 - 09:28
17. 🎭 Summary of the Three Bard Specializations
- ✅ Solo offensive: Power and cathartic melody.
- ✅ Group content: Mana regeneration.
- ✅ Travel: Fast movement and skill resets.
09:29 - 10:28
18. 🛡️ Heavy Armor Choice and Bonuses
- ✅ Heavy armor is used to obtain physical defense bonuses.
- ✅ The bonus scales with the rarity of the equipment.
- ✅ Five pieces of epic heavy armor provide a 14% physical defense bonus.
- ✅ The pieces are: helmet, shoulders, bracers, boots, and belt.
- ✅ This also provides a fortitude bonus, increasing mentality and constitution.
10:29 - 11:02
19. ⚖️ Balance of Defenses and Jewelry
- ✅ Medium pants and shirt are used to balance defenses.
- ✅ Magic gloves are used to obtain magic defense.
- ✅ The choice of equipment depends on availability and price.
- ✅ For jewelry, power or magic speed is sought to increase damage and attack speed.
11:03 - 11:22
20. 🏃 Bard Movement Demonstration
- ✅ It is shown how to spam the skill rotation to maximize movement speed.
- ✅ Sprint is managed to maintain speed.
11:23 - 12:39
21. ⚔️ Combat Demonstration and Skill Rotation
- ✅ Skills are spammed to accumulate resonant charges.
- ✅ The finisher is used to activate the resonance proc.
- ✅ Dances are used to obtain healing, shield, and dodge chance.
- ✅ Hymn of the Mind is used to recover mana.
- ✅ Flourish also counts as a resonant charge.
12:40 - 13:10
22. 🛡️ Tanking Ability and Sustainability in Combat
- ✅ Conflict is kept active to obtain a damage increase.
- ✅ The build allows you to tank large groups of enemies and heal a lot of damage.
13:11 - 14:22
23. 🏃 Survival and Escape Strategies
- ✅ Mesmerizing Dance is used to incapacitate enemies and heal.
- ✅ Dances and sliding are used to escape if necessary.
- ✅ The build provides passive magic defenses and a great capacity for healing and life steal.
14:23 - 15:05
24. 💍 Advanced Equipment: Bloodbone Ring
- ✅ The bloodbone ring is very expensive but provides great healing.
- ✅ Conflict is kept active.
- ✅ You can survive in large groups of enemies by avoiding magic damage.
15:06 - 15:38
25. ✨ Mana Management and Resonant Weapon
- ✅ The short bow is used to regenerate mana.
- ✅ You play around the resonant weapon and skill spam.
- ✅ Mana management improves when leveling up the weapon skill.
15:39 - 16:25
26. 🔥 Inner Fire and General Sustainability
- ✅ Inner Fire provides regeneration of hit points, mana, and stamina.
- ✅ The build allows you to face multiple enemies solo and gain a lot of experience.