Guild Wars 2

Bard’s are a special breed of Mesmer who use both musical and magical talent to sway the minds and hearts of allies and foes alike with their hypnotic melodies. Visually I would expect the Bard to have a lot of effects similar to Trident one, but on land and mor cone shaped. Waves of sound would also be very present with aoe effects such as the shouts or the detonation of a unique mark applied by warhorn and one trait called “Reverb.”

New Shatter: Captivate 60s recharge

Illusions run into about 300 range of their targets and root themselves, dancing and taunting them for 1/2/3s (scaling with illusions) after which they dissipate.

It just makes sense. Good for support. Good thematically.

New Weapon: Mainhand Warhorn (new sounds would be closer to a trumpet)

The goal here is to give Mesmers another mainhand option that also specializes on mid – close range aoe damage, soft control, and healing with potentially excellent clone generation and self boon application. Mesmers don’t really have a weapon designed for support. Nor do they have all that much aoe. Hopefully this can fill that role.

Auto – Ear-splitter > Diminuendo > Serenade (chain can be cast while moving)

1: 1/2s – Damage up to 3 foes in a 90 degree cone with a booming tune.
Damage – 4 mini-instances
Range: 600

2: 1/4s – Blast 3 foes in a 90 degree cone in front of you with a demoralizing
melody, dealing damage and inflicting 1.5s of Weakness.
Range: 600

3: 1/4s – Play a soothing hymn that damages 3 enemies in a cone in front of you
and heals up to 5 allies.
Range: 700

Arcane Echo – 18s recharge Cone range/radius: 600/90 degrees

Damage and mark up to three enemies in front of you with Reverb for 2 seconds. When the timer’s up the mark will burst and hit them and up to 2 adjacent enemies. This skill summons a clone that casts Serenade for each mark that damages an enemy besides the first. Gain 1s of Retaliation for each clone created.

Crescendo – 10s recharge Projectile range: 700 Pop radius: 120

Send out a bolt of sound in a straight line that stuns its mark for 1s and detonates to damage up to five foes in the area. Gain 4s of Might per enemy hit by the sound wave.

New Utility Type: Shouts

Bard shouts would ideally be sung and have instrumental backgrounds and impressive visual effects. Mechanically they also all grant boons. Some of them even grant two!

Heal – “From the Top!” 25s recharge
Hum a soothing tune that breaks stuns, heals you, and grants allies 3s
of Regeneration. Heal for more and grant that bonus healing
to surrounding allies if you do break stun.

1 – “Allegrissimo!” 30s recharge
Sing a swiftening song that grants yourself and surrounding allies Swiftness
and Quickness for 5s.

2 – “Brioso!” 30s recharge
Whistle an energetic ditty that cleanses up to 3 conditions from yourself and
nearby allies, granting 1.5s of Vigor per condition removed.

3 – “Ostinato!” kitten recharge
Chant a centring aria that grants allies Aegis and 2x Stability for 2s.

4 – “Staccato!” 20s recharge
Perform a strengthening chanty that grants allies 3s of fury and 7% bonus damage
on their next attack.

Elite – “Face the Music!” 90s recharge
Belt a moving chorus that knocks back foes and projectiles around you while
granting allies within earshot 5s of Retaliation.
Blast finisher.

Traits:

I decided to take the Reaper approach and chose three separate themes as the Bard’s focus: healing, control, and boons out the wazoo. I did my best to include some synergies with shatter builds, interrupt builds, phantasm builds and support ones especially. The only play-style or weapon this trait line doesn’t have any means to enhance are condi builds with scepter. I think some of these traits are a little crazy because of how much I tried to tie existing mechanics in with the Bard’s areas of expertise. It almost feels like there isn’t really a downside to taking this line over another which is a problem. Feel free to provide feedback as to how I could change anything here to make it better!

Minors:

Virtuoso – gain access to Bard mechanics. When you stun an enemy, they dance for
the stun’s duration! Just a flavor thing. No real impact.

Perfect Harmony – gain 2% increased outgoing healing per unique boon on you.

Lasting Impressions – boon strips only reduce the duration of boons applied by you
by 33% instead of removing them immediately.

Adepts:

In Tune – Interrupting a foe casts “Staccato!”

Tempo – Warhorn skills recharge 20% faster and grant 3s of Swiftness to allies that
don’t already have it. 8s recharge per individual ally.

Amorous Volume – 15% increased outgoing healing. Increased to 20% towards
allies with Regeneration.

Masters:

Acoustic Aggression – Critically hitting a foe marks them with
Reverb which will strike adjacent foes and spawn
a clone after 2 seconds. 12s ICD

Belt It Out – Shouts recharge 20% faster and the boons they apply have 33%
increased durations.

Resonance – 33% chance when gaining a boon to create a note that can be picked
up by you or an ally that restores health and copies one of your boons
over to them.

Grandmasters:

Capriccioso – Grants illusions retaliation when you shatter them with “Captivate.”
“Captivate” heals allies near your illusions whenever a taunted foe
strikes them.

Illusionary Ensemble – Phantasms take 10% reduced damage per every phantasm
alive. Summoned phantasms’ first attacks inflict 3s of cripple
and blind.

Stolen Masterpieces – Removing boons from enemies deals damage per boon
as well as randomly granting you and up to 3 nearby allies
one of the stripped boons. 3s ICD.

I really like the idea of a stunbreak on heal skill.
Also, warhorn + OH pistol interrupt build with 2 stuns on demand… yummy.

Seems really cool imo! Altho I can only imagine the horror of constantly hearing a trumpet while fighting >.<

keenlam.4753:

I really like the idea of a stunbreak on heal skill.
Also, warhorn + OH pistol interrupt build with 2 stuns on demand… yummy.

Maybe Crescendo should be a skill shot like the new lightning orb. That way you can’t wouldn’t be able to have two certain stuns.

The V.8759:

Seems really cool imo! Altho I can only imagine the horror of constantly hearing a trumpet while fighting >.<

Idea is if you were to be using every weapon skill and the shouts it would sound more like a one man band with your trumpet, your background trumpeters playing serenade, and your shouts providing some string and woodwind sounds. Even with the AA on the warhorn I was going over the possibility of there being multiple sequences and short little 6 note tunes in it alone. You’ve got four separate ticks of damage with Ear-splitter and one on Diminuendo and Serenade. I think if they were to ever do something like this they would either have it so that if you were to use the chain over and over again it would eventually all link together to become one out of a set of songs. Or it could just play random sequences of notes. I would just want it to actually sound musical. Anyways, thanks so much for the feedback!

Thank you for taking the time to post this very imaginative and fun concept.

Mikkel.8427:

Thank you for taking the time to post this very imaginative and fun concept.

Thank you for taking the time to read it all

Brilliant Concept. I really like the synergy it would have with our lesser used builds.

CptnDrunk.8361:

Brilliant Concept. I really like the synergy it would have with our lesser used builds.

Thanks a lot!

Anyone have any idea for a cool build that could utilize some of this stuff? Staff obviously has major synergy, but what would your choices for your other two specs be? I wanna know what ideas you guys have on how to use this!

The V.8759:

Seems really cool imo! Altho I can only imagine the horror of constantly hearing a trumpet while fighting >.<

Lol, imagine how an entire party of Bards would be! Lowers volume all the way to 0