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User:Boisterous/Bard Guide by Boisterous

From EverQuest Legends Wiki

Information is pulled from discord conversations, in game activity, and EQLwiki.

In short, as a bard you want to be upgrading and using your symphonic aura (SA). As you get into your 30s, you’ll bring in a /melody macro for your Tuyen’s Chant line. Since there are so many class combinations, take everything with a grain of salt - don’t upgrade bard songs if you’ve got a better option from another class, e.g. Charm if you’re playing BRD/ENC.

Most things are reversible, choosing classes isn’t permanent, so don’t be discourage. Min/Max is fun for some, not for others. Choose your own path to fun!

Symphonic Aura and Melody

Symphonic Aura (SA) is an always-on set of songs. These songs do not get interrupted and are essentially active all the time. They will still “tick” as normal for effects like runes and regeneration.

These songs are still placed on your spell bar, starting with the highest-numbered gem and working backwards.

You can purchase more spell gems with AAs, and you can purchase a stronger aura — meaning more songs — with AAs. At max level, SA lets you play 5 songs as auras. Be aware that if two songs do not stack normally, they will not stack with SA either.I assume the same stacking information carries over from live to EQL. If so, you can check against this app Bard Melody Selector to see what overwrites what.

If you have SA on, you cannot play any other songs that meet the SA requirements without turning SA off. SA does not work while sitting. It does not turn off, but it does not pulse. It is unclear whether this is a bug or intended.

Melody and Queue Melody

Melody allows you to autocast songs — note that they still actually need to cast — in an order you specify.

In EQL, you cannot melody a song that would be applicable to SA while SA is active, even if that song is not one of your 5 active SA songs. With the correct AAs and song levels, you can easily melody 5 or more songs at once on top of the up to 5 songs from SA.

Because of the SA restriction, your melody is mostly used for single-target DoTs — you will get 5 by level 50 in EQL — and a few other specific songs.

Queue Melody is similar, except any song that is currently “on” will be skipped in your order in favor of songs that are not currently active. This has benefits and drawbacks, especially with resisted songs and NPCs with high resists. “On” means the song is currently active on you or on the target.

Bard will require heavy investment into spell gems if you want to take advantage of everything. Depending on your composition, that can be prohibitive.

Melody is not required to utilize most of what bard has to offer. Compositions with limited combat casting, such as WAR / CLR / BRD, can fully take advantage of using 10 spell slots for bard.

Symphonic Aura Songs

In order for a song to be eligible, it must have no mana cost, have no cooldown, and be a non-targeted area of effect song. This ability chooses the first eligible song, starting from the final spell gem, and working backwards. Any song that meets these criteria cannot be played manually while the ability is turned on.

Songs that fall under Symphonic Aura

Instead of listing every song that can be used under SA, this section lists some that might not be obvious. Feel free to suggest more. Group buffs, self buffs, or detrimental PBAoE — point blank area of effect — songs.

Songs that do not fall under Symphonic Aura

Any non-AoE, non-self songs.

  • Tuyen's Chant line — consider using Melody for these alongside Fufil's
  • Level 23 Snare/Slow: Selo's Consonant Chain

If you are using Melody and SA, consider using a /stop macro for life-saving songs:

  • Mez
  • Charm

Macros and Setup

There are some common macro commands you will want to use regularly. Macros are custom commands that you can set up on your hotbar. Mazirian has a great guide on how to make macros.

Melody Macro

/melody 1 2 3 4 5

This will play the five songs in the order they are placed in your spell gems. Every time you click the macro, it will start from gem 1 and try to play them all in order.

Reminder: if you are swapping songs on the fly, make sure your gem slots match the numbers in the melody.

Queue Melody Macro

/queuemelody 1 2 3 4 5

This will attempt to play the five songs in priority order. If song 1 is currently active on you or your target, it will skip it and move to song 2. My understanding is that it will prioritize keeping song 1 up over song 2. This means that until song 1 lands, it may not move on to song 2. In a battle with high resists, it may never attempt to play song 2, so I recommend having a macro for each situation.

Stop Macro

/stop

There are variations of stop, such as /stopcast and /stopsong, but /stop will stop both spell casting and song casting. I recommend using that.

In general, you will only need a stop command for urgent songs or spells, such as:

  • Mez
  • Charm
  • Feign Death
  • Heal

IDK, I’m a bard. What do other classes do?

Example Interrupt Macro

Here is a macro you could use as a baseline to interrupt a melody and cast a spell: 

/stop
/cast 1
/pause 30
/queuemelody 3 4 5 6

Explanation:

  • /stop stops song and spell casting.
  • /cast 1 casts whatever is on gem 1.
  • /pause 30 waits for the cast to finish.
  • /queuemelody 3 4 5 6 plays gems 3, 4, 5, and 6 on repeat.

AAs

EQL AA Tool The AA tool above has excellent descriptions.

Symphonic Aura is an essential tool to level up. It will likely require the archetype AA Mnemonic Retention.

Jam Fest works as if you are casting songs as a higher level. Jam Fest 3 is reportedly +5 levels. This is unconfirmed and came from Discord, but if accurate, it makes it easier to land songs on higher-level mobs. It also means your scaling songs are doing more at +5 levels.

Instrument Mastery 3 increases the damage of your damage-over-time songs.

It has been recommended not to take Singing Mastery 3 until you have a large enough mana pool to cast DDDirge 3–4 times with Empower Invocation.

Itemization

Spell Haste II affects your single-target DoT songs, such as Tuyen's Fire, Tuyen's Disease, and Fufil's.

You can get Spell Haste II easily enough from Efreeti Lord Djarn's ring, which you want for the HP anyway.

While using Symphonic Aura, you can /melody all 4 Tuyen's Chants plus Fufil's for single-target damage.

You will need to upgrade those songs so they cast fast enough to melody 5 songs.

Mote Upgrades

DDDirge is worth every mote upgrade. At Rank 10, with Amplification, Empower Invocation, Jam Fest 3, and Singing Mastery 3, it does 3k non-crit damage. It feels great to pull 5 mobs and blow through your mana bar to Dirge them down.

Song Scaling

More to come, but it currently seems like songs scale differently — and better — than on live. For information on song scaling and upgrades, see the Spell Upgrade Guide on EQLwiki.

For example, Chant of Battle is giving around 40 STR / DEX at level 45.It might be worth using if you are playing a melee build in EQL, whereas it was off most people’s bars by level 20 in live.

Tips and Tricks

Ion Blaze made a great tips and tricks video for getting started, and he always plays a bard. I recommend watching it, especially the section on moving your instrument focus to other items: Ion Blaze Bard Tips and Tricks Video

A reddit user made a great guide about Melody and SA, using the Tuyen's line. Give them some love.

If you are looking for more bard info, this Bard guide is a wealth of knowledge from Project Quarm and will have some relevance here:

Bard Guide

A tool for selecting melody's that don't conflict: Bard Melody Selector

Reddit Post with the basics, framed another way:

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