There are so many directions you can develop your bard for your own particular playstyle. This guide will emphasize the path of the raiding bard, which is one of many playstyles. Eventually, you'll acquire all the tools of all the playstyles, but in a raiding guild, the ability to perform well on a raid is being given the first priority.
I'll start with songs, since they are the bread and butter of your playing.
Debuffs:Songs
Harmony of Sound (65 PoP)
Ancient: Chaos Chant (65 GoD)
Fire Chant (PoP-SoF)
Cold Chant (PoP-SoF)
Fufil's Chant (30/60 LDoN)
Denon's Disruptive Discord (18.)
Zuriki's Song of Shenanigan's (67 OoW) or Melody of Mischief (62 PoP)
Largo's Melodic Binding (20)
Selo's Assonant Strain (54)
Denon's Bereavement (59)
Requiem of Time (64 PoP)
We have a lot of old songs that continue to earn their keep in our collection. Debuffs can be easy to overlook A) because they provide no visible buff, and B) because they can be a pain to sing and maintain, and are often situational. Singing debuffs can be dangerous, requires attention, and doesn't make for good afk /melody in most cases. Their impact on an event however, can be staggering, and can be far more important than any buff sung. When singing debuffs, in general, you have to be aware of aggro and making sure you keep a hair trigger on fade to dump aggro if you need to. You also need to be aware of the damage components of these songs, and know when and where they should be used, and where and when they should not.
Harmony of Sound
A no damage version of our chants that debuffs Magic, Fire, and Cold according to percussion mod. Unlike the chants, it is lower in aggro, does no damage, is unresistable, and covers a spectrum of 3 resists. While not as large of a debuff as a true chant line, it is still huge. Because chants are resistable, this song almost always needs to be sung on a raid mob before having any hope of landing any of the other chants. If you are using a /melody, it should for this reason be placed before other debuffs being sung, for maximum effect.
Just like your own songs can get resisted without HoS, this is true of every caster in the raid. Harmony of Sound is generally a top priority to sing on a raid mob for everything from landing slow (or refreshing it) to landing nukes for full damage, to not wasting mana on resisted spells. When you consider the huge difference in damage output for casters, you'll realize this is indirectly our biggest dps song. Imagine a squadron of nukers and dotters all spamming their nukes and dots on a mob. Now imagine that 60% of those are resisted, and the other 40% of the nukes only land for 30% of their full damage potential. This is not uncommon. Lowering the mob's resists to magic, fire, and cold allows the casters to hit harder, more often, and with less wasted mana. For this reason, use of this song is required on most raid bosses, and even on some trash (on incoming or very close to it) to help ensure that slow lands successfully. There are also times when hos can be skipped, but is important to understand how valuable it is, and absolutely vital to the success of the raid - much of the time.
Harmony of Sound can be acquired as a reward for a Glyphed Rune turn in in pok (pop bosses drop these) and can also be researched. Personally, I would look into researching it first. We have researchers in guild. If you're browsing the bazaar, maybe you can pick it up there. You can also keep your eye out for Occlusion of Sound which is a lower and less effective version of Harmony of Sound. Drops in Western Wastes I believe. While a lesser version, it's a hell of a lot better than nothing.
Ancient: Chaos Chant
This chant combines the debuffs of all five chants into one single song. Many times Harmony of Sound isn't enough. You can get it to land, but still can't get fire chant to land, and I'm guaranteeing you neither can the mages land their fire bolts. What you need is more debuff. While Chaos Chant isn't unresistable like its cousin HoS, it is a chromatic check, which is the next best thing. It uses the mob's lowest resist, giving you the best chance of landing this debuff no matter who the mob is. That's not to say it will always land on the first try...
Chaos Chant debuffs all five resists at once, and is the weakest chant in terms of raw resist lowering, but has the advantage of being easier to land than the other chants and further lowering the resists once it's on so other things can land. Typically, once Chaos Chant has landed, the debuff it adds causes it to continue to land reliably on every twist. If for some reason you do not refresh it before it wears off, it will no longer be lowering the resists. On some mobs this means "starting over" in terms of trying to get your debuffs to land. If I am using melody and I am singing both hos and chaos, I will typically have hos in the first position and chaos chant in the second, that way if I need to break melody for anything, I can re-start the twist hopefully before they wear off. Realistically, on some bosses, if it doesn't have hos AND chaos chant, it's not getting slowed.
Chaos Chant is typically not needed on trash mobs, and due to the dot component, can be hazardous where A) mezzing is being used or B) where damaged mobs summoning tanks is an issue. Unless you have a really good reason to sing chaos chant on a trash mob, don't. DO use it on boss mobs whenever it's appropriate. It's a fairly high priority on a raid. Also note though, that sometimes hos IS enough. Experience on an event and coordinating with casters will help you learn where it is truly needed, and where other songs may be better to sing.
Because slow can make or break a raid, communicate with the shaman on the raid, and make sure they know which bard is doing debuffs. For instance, sometimes I just do HoS which is enough for the dps'ers, but once every 5 or 6 minutes the shaman needs the additional debuffing of chaos chant to land/refresh slow. Having him tell me when he needs it further debuffed let's me only have to sing it when it's needed, instead of full time, if it's not needed full time. Either way, always let the raid's slowers know who to get in touch with if they can't land their slows. This is very important.
If there is no shaman on the raid, and an enchanter is slowing, you may need to add fufil's as well for the magic debuff. The level 30 and the level 60 versions are equal in their magic debuff. Also, if you're still not getting the levels of debuff that you want or need, you can swap in your drum for further effect. Many times a drum is overkill and not needed, but when a mob is particularly resistant, applying the higher percussion mod can give you the extra umpf that you need to be successful. You can swap the drum in and out as needed. On bosses where a drum is absolutely critical, it can make sense to have a bard grouped with the casters, and sacrifice some group buffs to have that bard be the debuffing bard, and just leave a drum equipped. Generally much easier than having a melee bard trying to switch it in and out all the time. Not that you can't....but it can be annoying. General Rule: Epic 2.0 plus instrument mastery 4 gives you a 3.7 percussion mod, and is usually good enough. Equipping a drum can boost that higher, and is a top priority only when it's needed. When it's needed, it's more important than the bard meleeing, if you have to choose between the two.
Chaos Chant is a guaranteed (not random like in PoP) rune turn in from GoD raid mobs. They also require Qvic access (or can be purchased in the bazaar). We want you to have this song if you don't, and are willing to help you get it. The Zoo in Qvic is well known for being a one groupable way to get the rune, but was recently changed. It's hard to imagine it still being easily one groupable with the recent changes. Now all four mobs get fought at once and cannot be singled. Other than making sure they all get tanked, it shouldn't be too hard, and is probably one groupable with the right set up.
Chants: Fire, Ice, Magic, Poison, Disease
The individual chants each debuff their own element. The debuff component has not been upgraded since PoP (and never will be), so the only advantage to a higher level chant is the increased damage component, which is fine. If for some reason you're missing your highest chants though, anything pop or higher will accomplish the same levels of debuff, which is the important element of the song.
Typically, fire, magic, and cold are the most important ones. Even then, being able to sing any chants at all is usually a luxury earned only by having 3 or more bards in a raid. Even more so than with HoS and Chaos, which are often sung for good measure anyway, knowing which chant to sing when you have that option is based on the event you are doing. Getting feedback from casters on how their spells land on a boss will help you learn which chant or chants are going to be the most useful.
In both TSS and SoF, chants are vendor purchasable. Fufils is available in pok and abysmal sea at level 30. A higher damage version with the identical magic debuff is available at the north ro ldon camp for 600 ldon points I think.
Denon's Disruptive Discord
Outside of chants, the other debuffs are far more situational. DDD is a pbae dot with an ac debuff. I believe that with a high brass mod, it is the largest ac debuff in the game. If it seems that it's hard to land hits for max or maxish damage, it may be due to the mob's ac value. DDD increases a raid's total melee dps by making it easier to do more damage against the mob's ac check. In many cases, the melee will already be hitting for the upper end of their damage range most of the time, making the effects of a lower ac score have very little noticable value. When that's not happening though, this song will lower the ac. Be warned though, as a pbae dot song, it can have a negative impact on the raid if used at the wrong time, and as a magic (0.) check, it will need other debuffs on before it will usually be able to land.
Purchasable in PoK.
PBAE SLOWS
Bards are very well suited to the role of pbae slowing. We're a plate class (get some defensive aa's before you consider yourself one though!), we can cast while moving, and if we get too much aggro, we can fade it off and continue to slow without taking damage. PBAE slows are useful when there are a lot of mobs spawning at once. In raid's we have done for instance, it's useful on waves 1, 2, and 4 of Sendaii. It is not useful on Draygun adds as they spawn one at a time, and are slowed as they spawn. PBAE slows will be used on a couple events in Demiplane.
There are 3 different pbae slows with which you should be familiar.
Zuriki's or Melody of Mischief is a 45% pbae slow with a dot component. It's the highest % pbae slow we have, but is compromised by the dot. When it's important not to break mezzed mobs within the song's range, like in waves 1 and 2 of Sendaii, this is not the song to use. When mez isn't an issue, the highest % slow is favored.
Largo's Melodic Binding is a 35% slow with an ac debuff. It has no damage component and is the slow of choice when there are mezzed mobs in the mix. If 35% sounds low compared to a shaman slow, it is, but ask a tank if there's a difference between 35% and 0%, and they'll tell you yes, in a big way. As an ac debuff song it is often preferred over DDD due to the no damage component. On large trash clears, when pbae slows are needed, it's a 2 for 1 song in this regard. The ac debuff does stack with DDD, and both can be used if that's ever needed.
Selo's Assonant Strain is a 30% slow with a snare component, and no damage. It is safe to use around mezzed mobs. The snare component makes it unusable against mobs that are immune to changes in run speed. Also it can make it harder to land on resistant mobs that are snarable, because the mob gets to make not one resist check, but two, one for the slow and one for the snare. If either is resisted, the song is resisted completely. The only real advantage to the song is the snare component.
Largo's Melodic Binding can be purchased in PoK/Abysmal Sea. Selo's Assonant Strain can be purchased in PoK. Zuriki's is the result of a lesser muramite rune or lesser shadowspine rune turn in. I believe it's the first reward of the turn ins. Melody of Mischief is a random ethereal parchment reward in PoK.
Denon's Bereavement
Denon's Bereavement is a pbae magic resist debuff with a dot component. The stun component doesn't work on mobs higher than....55 I believe. It is string modified. Often pbae slows are resisted, and worth singing more than once in a single twist. Twisting in bereavement with a high string mod can help the slows land. Due to the damage component, Bereavement should not be used around mezzed mobs. Unfortunately, Bereavement can be resisted quite often as well. In a four song twist, I'll often sing bereave, slow, bereave, slow - or bereave, slow, slow, slow, to maximize your opportunity to land and refresh slows. If 75% of the mobs resist slow, that's still 25% slowed. Singing slow more than once in a single twist helps land it on more. Bereavement is resisted a depressing amount in places where it's needed most. Ask a chanter to apply ae tash when you're pbae slowing, it makes the biggest difference in whether slow lands or not. If a shaman is willing, a totem will help as well. Ask them if they mind, makes a huge difference. Bereavement can be used to further debuff magic. Landing the slow is the real priority though. If Bereavement is not needed, other songs may be better playing.
Now the surprising angle on Bereavement....even though it lowers magic, it itself is a poison check. This can make it more useful than fufil's in landing a solid magic debuff on mobs that are highly resistant to magic (and therefore slows) but not poison! And it stacks with Fufils! This can be critical on boss mobs when every ounce of magic debuff is needed, and for when you're having a hard time trying to land fufil's. The downside is the pbae range, as opposed to fufil's single target range. This can be a very handy tool on a raid in the right situation.
Denon's Bereavement is sold at the Firiona Vie outpost from Balik Wolftrot.
Requiem of Time
You are no doubt familiar with this song in and out for soloing and grouping. This doesn't get used much on a raid. However, it has one extremely significant use. Sometimes we will pull a mob for tanking that hits like a freight train. Bards have the unique advantage of being able to slow during the pull, before it arrives in camp and starts taking down tanks. When that's an issue, we want it slowed before it gets to us. Bards can use hos and chaos and fufils if needed to land the requiem of time on incoming, and can fade as needed if it gets resisted, until it lands. Sometimes, dispel will be desirable as well.
Requiem of Time is a 64 spectral parchment PoP turn in reward and is also researchable.
AA Debuffs
Bladed Song is a reverse damage shield, lasts one minute. It's a physical resist check. Refresh time is 1 minute. Bards with this AA should coordinate to ensure that they don't do it at the same time, thus wasting a shot of it. It's most effective on mobs that ae rampage.
Funeral Dirge is a 30 second buff with a 30 minute recast timer (shortened with further aa's.) Also should be coordinated so it is used at separate times. Funeral Dirge increases melee damage on the mob with this debuff by a % that increases by 1 per rank. 6 ranks, ranging from 1% to 6%. Most useful during burns.
Dance of Blades
While this is primarily a self melee dps buff, with the release of SoF they added a new proc component to it called Bladewhirl. Bladewhirl is an ac debuff and lowers magic, fire, and cold resists as well, and is modified for maximum effect by um, I think percussion, might be brass, pretty sure it's percussion. Lasts 6 ticks. Even nicer it's a -20 chromatic resist check! $$$ This is fantastic on a burn. This is best to be coordinated with other bards as well, when possible. The debuff component is identical for all 6 ranks of Dance of Blades, higher ranks cause the damage component of the proc to be higher.
Song of Stone
This isn't a debuff at all, but it seemed like a good place to mention that these swarm pets have a very high push component, so much so that it is usually important to move around and arrange them in a way that they can balance each other's push. However, it can be used as a PUSH aa, when push is needed. This is a utility function of the aa, and is useful for guiding a mob into a corner (or away from a cliff) or whatever.
DPS SONGS - CASTER
Aura of the Artist - Aura of the Muse
Performer's Explosive Aria - Performer's Psalm of Pyrotechnics
Garadell's Fatesong - Weshlu's Chillsong Aria
Arcane Anthem - Arcane Aria
Erradien's Psalm of Potency
Mana Song
Kaerra's Spirited Crescendo - Veshma's Lively Crescendo
Spirit of Vesagran - Kinsong
Fierce Eye
Lots of Miscellaneous songs to share with casters in your group. Some of them, like pyro or chillsong, are only useful for certain classes, and only if they plan on using those spells. Consult your group to be sure that you are using songs that are useful to them. Ashengate for instance, is largely if not completely immune to fire. Also, for hybrids like rangers and beastlords, they may or may not be nuking. If their gear and aa's suck, but their weapons are good, they often do more dps by not nuking. Good rangers though spam nukes as fast as they refresh, and it's a 0.5 sec cast time. Check to see how your hybrids play before deciding if these caster songs are right for them. If they nuke a lot, these songs have a huge impact, more so than on casters even.
Aura of the Muse - Aura of the Artist
Aura is your number one "song." It increases the damage of nukes and dots for group members who hear it by up to 30%. Pets who hear it also benefit from the overhaste portion. The Aura is the biggest increase to caster damage you have, but is compromised by its short range, not affected by extended notes. You will need to make sure that your casters stay close together to benefit from the song. If they are ignoring it, they're wasting your talents. Tell their division leader or get a new group. If they can't be bothered with aura, they don't deserve a bard. If it's convenient to pack them in close to the mob so you can melee, by all means encourage them to do so. If there are factors in play that require your casters to stay at range or maintain a position, cater to them and work on your throwing skill instead. You're in their group for your aura mostly, and they need to hear it.
Aura of the Muse is the reward for Sky 3, which takes all of about 15 minutes to do. Especially for a bard. Aura of the Artist rank 1 drops in tier 3 SoF zones. Rank 2 is purchased with Crusaders of Veeshan faction.
Perfomer's Explosive Aria - Performer's Psalm of Pyrotechnics
Adds to the damage of nukes. Wizards, Mages, Rangers, and occasionally druids use fire nukes on raids. Both are vendor purchased at rank 1. Rank 2 pyro drops in tss zones, Rank 2 explosive drops in tier 2 sof zones.
Garadell's Fatesong - Weshlu's Chillsong Aria
Adds to the damage of cold nukes. Wizards, Rangers, and Beastlords use these nukes. Both are vendor purchasable at rank 1. Rank 2 Fatesong drops in tier 2 sof zones. Rank 2 Chillsong drops in TSS zones.
Arcane Anthem - Arcane Aria
These add a mini mana flare component to nukes. Whenever a nuke is cast, even if it's resisted, a second nuke "procs" and can crit. Arcane Aria is a 200 dd proc. Arcane Anthem is more, I'm not sure how much more, I don't have this song yet. Doesn't stack with the mana flare line, if your casters are getting flared anyway, this song won't be much use. Arcane Aria is the result of a fairly quick and soloable quest in devastation and rage. Arcane Anthem is dropped, presumably in tier 3 SoF zones. Rank 2 is purchased with Ladies of the Light faction in Dragonscale.
Mana Song
There are a lot of mana songs out there since it keeps getting upgraded. Even if you don't have the highest mana song, it's still better than no mana song. Higher versions will overwrite lower versions. Mana song is often an important song, and sometimes if range is an issue, we'll assign a bard to casters to sing mana song, specifically so that that bard isn't meleeing but is covering healers and casters with mana. Sometimes the melee bard, who has less songs to cover in a group in general, will do mana song, when range is not an issue. Otherwise, a bard may very well be dedicated to this role along with debuffs and/or group buffs. Get some throwing weapons!
Some things to remember, mana song is the fire that fuels the raid. If we have no mana, we're not going to do much. If there's a wipe and everyone is rezzed, mem this song and get it playing as soon as possible, even if you weren't assigned to it during the raid. Mana song is more mana regen than seers, and makes a very big difference in how fast we can get buffs going again. During trash clears, mana song should be pumping. Only when mana song is dropped for more specific needs should it not be playing. Also it should be off on important named pulls to avoid rampage, aggro, and trains.
Pullers should have ae mana song blocked to prevent aggro transfers. If the puller is somewhat new to raiding, it can be helpful to remind them to block it if they haven't already. If we are singing ae resists, those should be blocked by the puller while pulling as well.
Sometimes when the raid is split up, we may have two bards singing mana song, in different areas, for total coverage. Many times this can be skipped, melee don't need mana that bad, even the hybrids, on many fights.
Mana song is available in more places than I wish to count. In SoF and TSS they are both vendor purchasable.
Kaerra's Spirited Crescendo - Veshma's Lively Crescendo
These put a promised renewal type of buff on you. When the doom effect wears off, it fires a group heal and mana heal on everyone in your group within range. I believe the range is 50, and unaffected by aa's. The heal portion is string modded but still gimp. The mana heal portion is on par with necro mindflay however. This can be used in a group to help keep up the mana. Don't count on it as a heal that's going to save you though.
Veshma's is vendor purchased in TSS. Rank 2 drops....somewhere in TSS. Kaerra's drops presumably in tier 3 SoF zones, Rank 2 is purchased with Rebel Brownie faction in Steam Factory.
Spirit of Vesagran - Kinsong
Epic 2.0 click is easily one of your absolute very best "songs" you ever get. For casters it increases their crit rate on nukes and dots, letting them have a field day of impressive critical blasts. If there are any pets, they'll enjoy an increase to accuracy as well. It lasts 1 minute and has a recast time of 3 minutes. Epic 1.5 has a similar but lesser effect, and is about two-thirds as powerful for casters. It's important to consider that casters will often dps slowly at the start of a fight, giving the tank plenty of time to build aggro. It's a waste of a click to use it before they're casting heavily. It could be anywhere from 20 seconds into the fight to a minute or so. Ask them when the best time to start clicking epic will be for maximum effect.
Fierce Eye
Fierce Eye is an SoF AA, recast time is 10 minutes, duration is 1 minute. It has a similar effect, less powerful than 2.0, more powerful than 1.5. Using it when epic click is down gives a second free epic click, back to back, for a longer total duration of increased spell crits in a fight.
DPS SONGS: MELEE
Aura of the Artist - Aura of the Muse
Warmarch of Muram
Storm Blade - Song of the Storm
Spirit of Vesagran - Kinsong
Quick Time
Fierce Eye
Ancient: Call of Power
Psalm of Veeshan
Jonthan's Mightful Caretaker
Coldcrow's Spy Sonata - Aviak's Wondrous Warble
Dirge of the Darkvine
Aura of the Artist - Aura of the Muse
Provides 25% overhaste. We are the only class that can buff overhaste, so bards are very popular in melee groups. This and epic are our most powerful contributions to a melee dps group. Range is much less of an issue because the melee all tend to be stacked on top of each other anyway, and you'll be right up there with them. Bonus for rangers who like to nuke and enjoy increased spell damage as well. And if they're not in range cause they're using a bow, you need a new ranger. Let a class leader or the raid assistant know that the ranger in your melee group thinks he's a caster and shouldn't be in a bard melee group, as the effect is lost on him. Aura is so powerful, we want to squeeze as much additional dps out of it as we can.
Warmarch of Muram
This is an atk buff with a ds component. Melees love atk, although sometimes atk is overrated and provides marginal returns. For newer melees with relatively low atk though, this will be a very welcome boost. Even for those with high atk usually love to see it higher, mostly because they don't understand how atk works, but more atk never hurts! Damage shield can be very bad though, depending on the event. On some events, we won't allow damage shields at all, and unless specifically instructed otherwise, that means this song cannot be used. If you want to buff atk without a damage shield, use verses of victory, although the increases are much smaller.
Warmarch of Muram is a reward for muramite and shadowspine rune turn ins.
Storm Blade - Song of the Storm
This adds a 100 or 75 point dd, depeding on the song. It has a fairly high proc rate. This also works on pets, and everything that is meleeing will proc this dd a lot. It's not a huge dps boost on a raid, but it's something. It's probably one of the first songs to consider dropping if you need to sing something else.
Song of the Storm is purchasable from a DoN vendor for...120 crystals I believe. Storm Blade is the Tier 2 DoN reward after completing Emoush.
Spirit of Vesagran - Kinsong
For melees, they enjoy +140% accuracy with Spirit, or +130% accuracy with Kinsong. Uber! Bard melee groups often have a shaman as their healer, who also is boosting their dps. Shammy epic increases their chances to score critical hits and increases crit damage. Use your epic click in conjunction with shammy epic, Prophet's Gift of the Ruchu, for maximum effect. Of course, hybrids can enjoy increased crits on their nukes at the same time.
Quick Time
2 minute duration, 15 minute recast time. This aa gives your group a hundred hands effect, with an increase chance to hit with all skills by 10%, and a 150 atk boost as a bonus. Think of hundred hands as a stackable overhaste, and the increased hit chance as stacking with accuracy. This is a good one to use on an epic click. Even better is to use it with epic click followed by fierce eye for its second minute.
Fierce Eye
Fierce Eye for melees is like a mini shammy epic click. Well, sort of. In addition to increased chance to crit with a spell described earlier, it gives an increase to crit on heals, a 10% skills modifier to damage, increased critical hit damage, and a 300% modifier to procs. Nothing overwrites it, but there are some stacking issues to watch out for. Auspice and Shammy epic mostly. The 10% damage bonus doesn't stack with mammoth's, so that's really for groups and solo, on raids you all should have mammoths. The increase on crit damage doesn't stack with shammy epic, which is better than fierce eye. In fact zerker aura is better than fierce eye for that mod too and doesn't stack. The crit damage bonus is really ridiculously small. The 300% proc mod is pretty nice. Bottom line, if there's no shammy in your group, use it with epic. If there's a shammy, use it when his epic click is down.
extras
Ancient: Call of Power
Sometimes you'll want to sing call of power in addition to the aura. They have the same effect and do not stack, but the song has a bigger range. If the event has a lot of running around or if range is an issue, you can use call of power to give the melee the same overhaste they would otherwise be enjoying from the aura.
Psalm of Veeshan
This song gets used a lot less than it used to. It provides high group resists and a damage shield. The resists are useful when snare or root prevents melee from dps'ing, or even FD maybe. The damage shield is good for doing more damage against a mob that ae ramps a lot and is hard to avoid getting hit by. PoP ethereal parchment reward.
Jonthan's Mightful Caretaker
This is a self only haste buff that overwrites Warmarch. Your group will still hear warmarch if you're singing it. Jonthan's gives you less atk but a bunch of other great stuff. It's really more of a luxury though, when there's nothing else to sing, for you to enjoy a slight personal dps boost. Jonthans is purchased after a mere handful of katta missions (rank 2), or tbs missions (rank 1).
Coldcrow's Spy Sonata - Aviak's Wondrous Warble
These two songs are better known for their ac buff. However, they also mitigate damage shield damage. Some mobs have extremely dangerous damage shields that cannot be removed. These songs will save your healer mana keeping your melee alive. Coldcrow rank 1 is an upgrade over Warble rank 2. They also have a chance to resist any spell, even unresistable spells, a la the vish aa. This is a separate, additional resist check made after normal resist checks. But it's really a bonus, for melee dps the value is to mitigate damage shields, and is highly situational. Coldcrow is SoF vendor purchased. Warble is from TBS/Katta factioning.
Dirge of the Darkvine - Song of the Dryads
Some relatively small vie effect that mitigates spell and melee damage for your group. This "may" be worth singing to mitigate ae spell damage. There is a recast on this song, short enough to make it possible to twist, but long enough that it has to be the last song in your melody. Darkvine is SoF vendor purchased. Dryad is TSS vendor purchased.
Curing
Bards are some of the best single target curers in the game. We have no refresh time between casts. With max wind we cure 16 counters in every pulse. Depending on the effect you are curing (how many counters it has) and the difference between your worn wind mod and your equipped wind mod - sometimes it takes less casts to cure with a flute, sometimes it does not. I have a "Your target has been cured" audio trigger to let me know when that happens, without having to try to see it in a window. Let's me know when to start curing another target. Sometimes you'll have a curer assigned to your group, who doesn't need any help curing. In these cases, let him cure while you focus on other roles, but it's always good to have the appropriate cure memmed "just in case." Both of these songs are MUST HAVES for raiding.
Aria of Asceticism
LoY quested, starts in Gulf of Gunthak, drops are from Dulak. This cures poison and disease counters. Tash is a poison counter, which is cured by this song.
Aria of Innocence
Cures curses. Quest starts in Gunthak and takes you to Torgiran's Mines to Qeynos and back again.
Corruption
There are two corruption cure songs which are just copy paste jobs. These won't be used until TSS raids. They're more of the same but can be vendor puchased or dropped for rank 2. There is no quest to acquire them.
Other Utilities
Purifying Chorus
Area of effect buff increasing the resists of magic, poison, and disease. Does not stack with Elemental Chorus. Percussion modded.
Elemental Chorus
Area of effect buff increasing the resists of magic, fire, and cold. Does not stack with Purifying Chorus. Percussion modded.
Mez
Mez stuff when it's needed. Pre-Mez if you think it will save a life. Many times the lower level mez push versions are preferable on a raid over the static stay in place mez songs. They let chanters visually identify which mobs are being mezzed by bards (so they can take over on them). Also, the push can be handy for moving mobs around to where you want them to be, away from the fight, closer, or wherever. Sometimes you may be asked specifically to use the push on mez to move mobs or fine tune their positioning.
Kazumi's Note of Preservation - Fermata of Preservation
Kazumi's is group divine aura. Fermata is single target divine aura. There are times when these may be called on. If you're really quick with single target, you might even be able to save a caster. Do not use group da without good reason, this da's the entire group who won't know why they can't cast spells or can't hold aggro if that's what they're trying to do. In the time that their da'd, the tank may die when they can't cast their heals, your group may die when they can't cast their cures, the clerics may die when the tank can't hold aggro. You are probably already using these songs a lot outside of raiding, there are events where we will ask you to use them.
Tank Bard
Occasionally you may be grouped with a tank to provide him with buffs. He'll want the overhaste aura, and will probably tell you it increases his hate generation due to swing aggro. You're probably in his group to sing psalm of veeshan for himProbably for a prismatic or chromatic resist check. Sometimes you might . be grouped with healers for this reason too. While you're there, you might as well sing some ac songs for him if you have the opportunity to. Here are some ac songs you might consider:
Coldcrow's Spy Sonata - Aviak's Wondrous Warble - Niv's Harmonic
This line is the highest ac buff of them all but has a downside. It comes with a 10 point spell rune. Any time he takes damage from a spell, the song buff drops off him till it's refreshed.
Verses of Victory
Guardian Rhythms
Psalm of Veeshan
Dirge of the Darkvine - Song of the Dryad
Doesn't stack with cleric vie, but in most fights, they probably don't have it anyway. Disappointing maximum damage absorption with a recast timer, but it's better than nothing. This is straight mitigation, and does not provide ac.
AA's
Again, this list of AA's describes those most valuable to your contribution as a raider, and doesn't include pulling or personal dps, or defensives, which are aa's you may want to work on concurrently.
Extended Notes 3/6
Your songs are only useful if people can hear them. Song range without this aa is ridiculously small. The first 3 ranks affect ae songs as well as group songs, the last 3 further increase the range of group songs only. Get them all, but the first three are the most critical, especially for raiding.
Instrument Mastery 4/4
Built in increase to all instrument mods, boosts them by 0.2 per rank, up to 0.8 max. This is most important for debuffs and cures, and to a lesser extent, ae resists, atk, and ds.
Ayonae's Tutelage X/6
This increases your instrument and singing cap. By default it's capped at 3.6. Each rank of this aa raises the cap by 0.1. So if you're using a 2.0 which has a 2.9 mod, and let's say you have instrument mastery 2, which increases it by 0.4, then you have an instrument mod of 3.3, which is under the basic cap. As your mod gets higher, it will become capped at 3.6 regardless of where it should be. Buy this one as you need it and when you can use it. 6 ranks, 0.1 each, for a maximum cap of 4.2.
Mnemonic Retention 2/2
More song gems means more tools availabe. Ten's not enough even. You'll be really glad you bought some.
Quick Time
DPS Burnage. You'll be using this a lot.
Fierce Eye
DPS Burnage. You'll be using this a lot.
Fading Memories
In the course of your duties, you may pull some aggro without meaning to, this keeps you from dying. If you're getting hit, and you think it's a bad thing, fade. In hard content, keep your fade key where you can reach it quickly, for hair trigger fading. Fading will kill your aura, and you'll need to recast it, but it's better than a dead bard. Also, if you are on RAMPAGE (not wild rampage), you can fade off it completely. Most classes can't do that, enjoy it. If you think you can handle the ramp tanking, fading may end up dumping it on someone less equipped for it, so it's not always a good idea to do. But if it hurts, and hurts bad, you can always fade it.
Shield of Notes 1/6
For 3 aa for the first rank, this is a very good buy. If all you do is buy the first rank, you've done yourself a big favor. Pop this defensive ability for godly tanking ability. Lasts 1 minute, recast time is 36 minutes. Rank 1 mitigates 25% damage up to a total of 4000. This includes spell damage from ae's. If you're not going to be getting any heals (dead healer, out of range healer, healer has no mana) this can make the difference in surviving it.
Dance of Blades 1/6
Used as a debuff for burnage. All ranks have the same debuff, which is the primary reason the raid wants you to buy it, so one is enough, for now. Burnage!
Mystical Attuning X/7
Increases your buff slots. Raiding means lots of buffs, those buffs help you raid better, you want them all and have room for hot and detrimentals as well.
Bladed Song 1/2
Cause you know people are going to plow anyway!
Funeral Dirge X/6
The more ranks, the bigger the melee damage increase.
Singing Mastery X/4
This one is much less important than it used to be, and isn't as important as instrument mastery. This affects psalm of veeshan, some of your ac songs, and that's about it for common raiding. Not much use for it in modern day groups or solo either, but it's something you probably want to get just for psalm of veeshan, albeit later on down the road.
Remember, don't neglect your defensives, offensives, and FUN aa's. These are in response to, well, which are most important to raiding? These are. Improving your melee dps is important, but it's not why you're a bard, and it's not why you're on the raid. Improving your defensives is important, but it's not why you're a bard, and it's not why you're on the raid - better to learn how to avoid getting hit. As these improve however, they will continue to be assets to the raid as well.
I can't encourage you enough to buy defensives, get the first 8 ranks of each at least, without them you are more than naked, they make a huge difference. Combat Agility and Combat Stability that is. If you like pulling, you need boastful bellow, long range insta cast dd. You'll probably want to work some on your mana regen unless you want to hold pulls to med, if you're going through a lot of mana. The better you get at pulling, the less you'll use fade anyway though, and the less mana you use, it's funny like that. I'll do a write up in the future on good aa paths for offensives if you'd like too. The first five ranks of Harmonious Attack are a really good buy at 2 each, increasing your double attack, and is probably worth dumping some points into early. Ambidexterity is a little expensive but well worth it.