Need bard advice

[Swimfan]

For my second playthrough I wanted to play something totally different to my Sorcerer in playthrough no.1 so I picked a female dwarf bard which just looks on point.

I have real trouble actually seeing where my journey with my dwarf lady will take me. I gave her +2 to CHA and +1 in DEX and picked Lore as my subclass but now I feel like a tankier wizard if that makes any sense.
Is there a reason for the bard hype?
I saw tier lists with bards in very high spots so now I'm wondering what a bard's real strength is.

Some bard main who can enlighten me?

[zpc]

I love to have a sword bard around (Karlach is the perfect match - as she always hums a song anyway). I use them for heavy crowd control (laughter, hold person). As an example - I "cheered" a certain Gith patrol up (that nasty mage in particular) and it was way easier then without a bard.

[Swimfan]

Edit: Oh and I never said bard feels weak :-) The class plays very well so far but I have to wonder what I will do lategame with ~16DEX. With that my bard will basically be a weaker caster and depend on high CHA, no?!

[Swimfan]

Originally posted by zpc:

I love to have a sword bard around (Karlach is the perfect match - as she always hums a song anyway). I use them for heavy crowd control (laughter, hold person). As an example - I "cheered" a certain Gith patrol up (that nasty mage in particular) and it was way easier then without a bard.

Yeah, I can see that and I already noticed how the class is potentially a great buffer/debuffer.

Do you think Lore was a good decision? It feels like fighter bard should be more geared towards DEX instead of CHA?!

[Metadigital]

Lore bard's strength comes from the combination of having a lot of skill proficiencies, skill mastery, and being able to get spells from other classes. It's the Swiss army knife of classes.

They're especially good at crowd control and buffing the party, which lets you dominate battles even at higher difficulties or when underleveled a bit. After all, a lot of battles have you severely outnumbered.

They fit any team composition and can act as the main character for dialogues.

So, while the bard isn't the best at any particular task, they are good at just about everything and that flexibility makes them useful all the time.

[Swimfan]

Originally posted by Metadigital:

Lore bard's strength comes from the combination of having a lot of skill proficiencies, skill mastery, and being able to get spells from other classes. It's the Swiss army knife of classes.

They're especially good at crowd control and buffing the party, which lets you dominate battles even at higher difficulties or when underleveled a bit. After all, a lot of battles have you severely outnumbered.

They fit any team composition and can act as the main character for dialogues.

So, while the bard isn't the best at any particular task, they are good at just about everything and that flexibility makes them useful all the time.

Yeah true, that's what they feel like.

I only hope that higher levels grant me better buffs for my music points (the music notes) as buffing for one attack/defence feels good but a little "lacking" after a while.

[yuzhonglu]

Cutting words cancels enemy attacks that would otherwise hit, and help allies hit when they otherwise miss. Don't even need to actively use bardic inspiration because cutting words will do it for you.

Give the lore bard two hand crossbows and use them to pick off low HP enemies. Otherwise the bard is there to buff and summon.

[Swimfan]

Originally posted by yuzhonglu:

Cutting words cancels enemy attacks that would otherwise hit, and help allies hit when they otherwise miss. Don't even need to actively use bardic inspiration because cutting words will do it for you.

Give the lore bard two hand crossbows and use them to pick off low HP enemies. Otherwise the bard is there to buff and summon.

Uhh very good idea (weapon choice).
Why summon tho? I wasn't offered any summon spells yet?!

[jonnin]

you can take a bard any of many directions. It gets you an extra short rest at level 2 which empowers your warlock to reset spells, and heals the whole party 50%, and so on ... pretty nice and that is a lowbie trick. You get a mix of healing, buff, debuff, and damage spells. Outside of that, you get skill expertise, so you could be the party rogue at level 3+ with slight of hand / dex. Or be a scout, with perception/survival to spot things. You can grab racial perks (gith or dwarf to get medium armor and various weapons) to be durable, or the college to get armor/shield use. You can be a decent archer, and use that spell thief bow to get a free spell. Don't forget the magic prodigy feats, you can, as a charisma caster, get eldrich blast or more healing spells or whatnot and be a bit more of a rounded out caster. College of valor and swords both offer extra attacks, while arcana offers a nasty debuff (better version of your insult) and a couple of bonus spells + a some skills. Arcana is a bit weak, but the other two are both nice.

Bards also can fill in the gap to be your grenade/barrel/scroll/wand/etc toy user instead of trying to be an archer or dual wielder squishy.
Bards can also be an excellent multi-class choice, with cha heavy characters able to excel as warlocks (pack of the blade on oddball weapons that no one else wanted but which were awesome and reset your own spells with that short rest), paladin, or a sorcerer who can heal the party some.
I didn't even mention inspiration, which is of course a key tool in all kinds of situations.

The trouble is that you need a PLAN to shine as a bard. Your choice of race matters (weapons? armor? cantrip? something else?) as does your stats (what besides cha? Dex is usually right, but wis for scouting or str for melee + some con all are valid). What is your role, healer? Semi -mage? buffbot? Toy user? These choices need to play off each other and give you a solid build that reinforces itself.

[Quillithe]

Most of the power is more obvious as a valor bard at which point you're basically a hybrid fighter/mage with a ton of skills, since that gets you martial weapons, medium armor, and two attacks per action and the ability to use inspiration for more damage or for +4 AC bonuses against attacks that would otherwise hit.

For a Lore Bard, you're a bit less of a fighter and you're more like a support mage. You get an ABSURD number of skill proficiencies so you can do pretty much anything, you can get extra outside spells to supplement your spell list with whatever looks good, and where some spellcasters don't always have great ways to use bonus actions and reactions, you get to use them giving buffs to allies and debuffs to enemies.

So yeah, kinda like a tankier wizard that passes all the skill checks in the game and has heals, which is pretty sweet.

[Torpex]

Playing Lore Bard feels like an easy mode.

I liked how you can convince 2 minibosses in Act 2 to kill themselves. Get all the XP and loot in 3 dialogue choices.

[Edstyles]

Originally posted by Swimfan:

For my second playthrough I wanted to play something totally different to my Sorcerer in playthrough no.1 so I picked a female dwarf bard which just looks on point.

I have real trouble actually seeing where my journey with my dwarf lady will take me. I gave her +2 to CHA and +1 in DEX and picked Lore as my subclass but now I feel like a tankier wizard if that makes any sense.
Is there a reason for the bard hype?
I saw tier lists with bards in very high spots so now I'm wondering what a bard's real strength is.

Some bard main who can enlighten me?

Bards strength is doing everything others do almost as good and some stuff even better. like support/utility. I went with 10 swords bard 2 paladin and it wrecks so hard. You play it as a ranged char with meele capabilities.

swords bard gives you double attacks with ranged weapons. So you fire 2 projectiles with 1 action. You also get extra attack so you can do this several times. You could also go 2 warlock if thats your flow but it might suit better with lore bard.

Counter spell is such an awsome reaction ability very much a must if you dont have any1 else in the team with it.

If you want a more support oriented bard you could go with a cleric level as well for some extra utility.

[Kryldost]

I made a game with a bard and my friend joined later and concidently made a bard too. It's fun, I went college of swords and she went more support. We play songs together :)

[doublejesus]

Originally posted by Torpex:

Playing Lore Bard feels like an easy mode.

I liked how you can convince 2 minibosses in Act 2 to kill themselves. Get all the XP and loot in 3 dialogue choices.

You can do all 3 of ketheric thorms family dialogue only.

[Edstyles]

https://steamcommunity.com/id/Edstyles/screenshot/2058761143124345103/

Another + as a Bard is having an extra short rest and the obvious inspirations and just being able to do it all.

[jiggityjosh]

I was 2 Warlock (The Great Old One for aoe frighten on melee crit) which gives Pact of the Blade that turns your STR/DEX attacks to use your CHA instead.... which is huge for a bard. Can focus less on dex and STR and go all in on CHA as it is your melee stat now.

Then I put 6 points into Bard, Sword College, for the extra attack in melee, and 4 points into Sorc. Could probably put that into bard instead and go 10 bard 2 warlock or some other combo, the sorc was only for the CC

I was hitting stronger in melee with my off hand attack, than any melee combo I tried with lae'zel and she was using a 2 hander and had 25 STR where I had only 23 CHA. All because of the 2 points in warlock / pact of the blade and 6 points in bard. Using mace of devotion(level 10 cleric divine intervention 1 time spell choice) for main hand and the sword from Orin as the offhand