U72 Melee bard for R10

Lominal

Lominal

Well-known member
This build has been one of my all time-favorites for r10s. It has good dps (not top tier but it's competitive with non-meta), good cc, is tankier than many melees (uncanny dodge+good prr), and can off-heal. It's also a bard, so you have some party buffs for everyone.

I recently touched it up to modern gearing and wanted to share. I'll try to maintain the google doc as best I can.


Any questions about why I made the choices I did I'll be happy to explain here or on discord (Serenistelf#4027)
 
Vox

Vox

Well-known member
I love me some melee bards, interesting choices on the ED splits.

My last run through was 18/1/1 on a scourge (a la @Potion Hoarder ), but even with sanc.f sentient swaps + prowess + full arcane warrior stacks & boosting, the damage still felt really low (413 mp, only dust self debuffing)

But to be fair, I didn't have all the melee + damage PL back then & was using potf + magewrites + 5pc dread & t5 fatesinger, the CC was super & tanking dooms was easy, but it didn;t have the damage.

I like your gearset, might try it out sometime :)
 
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Lominal

Lominal

Well-known member
Vox said:
I love me some melee bards, interesting choices on the ED splits.

My last run through was 18/1/1 on a scourge (a la @Potion Hoarder ), but even with sanc.f sentient swaps + prowess + full arcane warrior stacks & boosting, the damage still felt really low (413 mp, only dust self debuffing)

But to be fair, I didn't have all the melee + damage PL back then & was using potf + magewrites + 5pc dread & t5 fatesinger, the CC was super & tanking dooms was easy, but it didn;t have the damage.
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If you wanted to do scourge, I think dropping t5 Warchanter for DL would (tragically) be the play. Something like 12 bard/5 DL/3 Arti Str based. The sad part is you wont get to use as much of bard's kit as the build posted here, but it should be a solid build.
 
Lominal

Lominal

Well-known member
Vox said:
If you don't mind, what are your fronts on this on unbuffed r10 mobs?
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its been a few months since I was on it , But with no debuffs I think sword was 600-800 fronts, 2.5-4k crits, shield bash was like 150-300 fronts
 
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Komrad

Komrad

Active member
I've been on a similar bard build before.

The main thing that's holding it back (for me) is the awful AWFUL cooldown on Spinning Ice.
It needs to be at least 15 seconds to be fully competitive with other special cleave attacks and to not slow down the combat flow.

Additionally, warchanter tree desperately needs a crit profile upgrade (+1 threat/+1 multi or +2 multi) for two-handed weapons, so it provides more options for Warchanter players.
 
I

I dont Like gimps

Well-known member
Komrad said:
I've been on a similar bard build before.

The main thing that's holding it back (for me) is the awful AWFUL cooldown on Spinning Ice.
It needs to be at least 15 seconds to be fully competitive with other special cleave attacks and to not slow down the combat flow.

Additionally, warchanter tree desperately needs a crit profile upgrade (+1 threat/+1 multi or +2 multi) for two-handed weapons, so it provides more options for Warchanter players.
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u gonna be a SWF and u gonna Like it :p
 
Lominal

Lominal

Well-known member
PrinceOfAsphodel said:
I was theory crafting melee bards with 6 levels of Dragonlord. Do you actually net more DCs with 18 levels of Bard?
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DC's aren't really the issue (you can easily hit 140+). I prefer to be t5 warchanter for party buffs+dps, which means you're only taking DL for the feats. it might end up being more dps with weapon focus line (gaining 4 mp), but 18 bard (WC core 5) is 1 imbue dice and basically makes your aura raid wide. I also don't mind having a second mass heal (lv 6 spells) in things like skeletons when the secrets are dying.

Full BaB can be re earned from DC mantle so it's not an issue.
 
Ying

Ying

5000+ hours played
Which augments do you slot in the weapon and buckler? For dino setup, I'm thinking:

Weapon: Deconstructor, Feareater
Buckler: Resonance 153, Devotion 153

Good is covered by Divine Crusader, and Silver covered by the dino augment. So basic DR breaking is covered.

Since PDK doesn't provide hit/dmg with the buckler, I'm less concerned about the base damage. Since it's more about procing SA/imbue/DC dice, seems like a good place for utility augs. The Resonance is there simply to boost the Swashbuckler imbue.
 
Lominal

Lominal

Well-known member
Ying said:
Which augments do you slot in the weapon and buckler? For dino setup, I'm thinking:

Weapon: Deconstructor, Feareater
Buckler: Resonance 153, Devotion 153

Good is covered by Divine Crusader, and Silver covered by the dino augment. So basic DR breaking is covered.

Since PDK doesn't provide hit/dmg with the buckler, I'm less concerned about the base damage. Since it's more about procing SA/imbue/DC dice, seems like a good place for utility augs. The Resonance is there simply to boost the Swashbuckler imbue.
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something like that yeah. its a good spot for sets augs/utility because its not expected to do a lot of damage.
 
Vox

Vox

Well-known member
Lominal said:
its been a few months since I was on it , But with no debuffs I think sword was 600-800 fronts, 2.5-4k crits, shield bash was like 150-300 fronts
Click to expand...

Been checking some of the other chad solo r10's on youtube, the fact that your SWF is hitting harder than Symb's & Emergencies' 2hf barbarian on non-crits is pretty impressive
 
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