Bard Combat Strategy

[Mystified]

So I've never played a bard in D&D (video games or tabletop) and I don't feel terribly efficient at it. My bard's subclass is in Swords.
If any of you have any combat tips (what abilities/spells are a must and when to cast them, etc.) I'd appreciate it! Right now, she is Level 6 and I have her with 2 hand crossbows for ranged and a duelist for melee (although it won't let me use shields, guessing that's a swords or duelist thing).

[Metallicus]

It’s a bard thing. You need to dip into another class or a different race to pick up shields. You could also take a feat like medium armor or something that would allow you shield proficiency.

[Moonbane]

Human or halfbreed elf for shield
Shield Dwarf or gith for medium armor

[The1Kobra]

College of Valour gets shield proficiency, I assume you're single class?

Optimal combat strategy may vary by build, but here's what I did with mine:

My bard was DEX based. Dual hand crossbows can be useful for damage output if you have the DEX to back it up. Get in melee when it's time to, though I prefer sword and shield.
For College of Swords, be sure to use the various flurries with your songs for the tougher foes.

Around L5, you get more options. Hypnotic pattern is a good debuffer to daze groups. Even if you have a CHA of 16 and aren't going full CHA focus, it should be good enough. You get your songs back on short rests around that time. It's kinda like balancing smites.

Be sure to keep longstrider up for everyone. Otherwise, I mostly used my spellslots on heals/lesser restoration. But be sure to keep see invisibility up, there's a lot of invisibility using enemies in act 2.
Otherwise, hit stuff until they go down. College of Swords can use medium armor so be sure to get the best no-dex-restriction armor you can to keep your AC good.

[Mystified]

My character is a half wood elf. If anyone has tips on combat as a bard, please do share

[KalkiKrosah]

I made a half wood elf Bard. Weapons are rapier (with a shield) and dual hand crossbows. Light armor with the Bard specific items getting preference. But I went down the lore pathway, so my build is more of a caster than a melee fighter. Great at dialogue prompts but kind of subpar in a fight, atleast by themselves.

The way I use my Bard in a fight is as a dedicated support. Most of the spells I went for are either crowd control spells or disables with a few heals and area of effect damage spells. When not spell casting I stand back and attack with the hand crossbows. You can fire the alternate hand bow for a bonus action to pick off a low health enemy then use a spell to setup a kill or rescue a friend.

Wyll is one of my favorite allies to pair with the Bard, the Warlocks are versatile. There is one spell he can cast called Hunger of Hadar which is a concentration spell that is a large area of effect that causes those in it to be blinded and take cold damage each turn they remain in it. Well I have him cast that then my Bard will cast plant growth inside that area which slows enemy movement down to 1/4 speed. The enemies just get withered down to nothing inside the darkness and just when they are about to exit the area Wyll will Eldritch blast them right back in or my Bard will thunderwave them back into it. It is kind of cheesy but its been working so far!

I haven't done it yet but either the warlock or the sorcerer would be the most viable hybrid classes. Warlock would give you eldritch blast and the empowered spell slots but Sorcerer I think provides more utility which is what a Bard really needs in combat. Lightning Sorcerer gives mobility and wild magic will give damage. I don't think Draconic would mesh well with it, its more for tanky spell casters and the Bard is more of a battle field commander how I play them. The grunts get dirty, I watch overhead of them.

[MacKot۞]

Most powerfull is multiclassing in paladin and smite with high level spell slot's, other way's just supportive options and other class will do it better, alternativly you can multiclass to Warlock for 3rd atack in pact of sword plus hex, and also eldritch blast with charisma modifier

[wendigo211]

Personally, I prefer a pure sword bard with longbows as opposed to hand x-bows for the extra range. The idea is to use ranged slashing flourish to hit the same enemy twice with one attack. Since at level 6 you get 2 attacks per action, that's a potential 4 attacks against the same target as long as you have flourishes (8 attacks with Haste). For a character like that, you want Sharpshooter.

Alternatively, if you want to melee, then add a couple of Paladin levels, pick defensive style and grab GWM. Use slashing or defensive flourish with your weapon and, while you can't hit the same target twice with the melee slashing flourish, you can put out a lot of hurt and you have smites on top of it.

Finally, you can add a wizard level or two and go high int, with one of the int scaling weapons equipped. In this case you get to cast all the wizard spells you can learn from scrolls (which are better than the Bard list) and you use your bard spells for support and healing (which don't care about your DC).

In all three cases, you play them aggressively.

[Quillithe]

Unless you multiclass or pull some tricks you're likely to be weaker at any specific thing in combat but versatile.

You get multiple attacks, flourishes, medium armor and a fighting style, so you're generally pretty good in combat. Honestly if you put your stats more into dex you'd be very close to an actual fighting class and I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to focus on dex.

Outside of combat you have a bunch of charisma and skills, and are good at everything pretty much.

On top of this you're full caster with a decent spell list. Not a lot of brute force but buffs, disables, etc are pretty solid, especially with some items really designed to mix melee and magic you find. Hitting enemies with disables while closing to melee is an option. Not quite a sorcerer in power or anything, but still not bad.

Oh, and you can use bonus actions to buff your party with bardic inspiration so they aren't wasted when you're casting a spell.

Also your party gets an extra short rest which is really nice for some classes (warlocks for example).

They're not a raw power class, but in exchange you're good at literally everything.

[The1Kobra]

2 Paladin/10 College of Swords bards is a very strong combo. I made mine DEX based, but you can make this combo work with a STR based character, although STR based gives you more melee weapon options, but hoses your ranged combat options.

Using a rapier or finesseable melee weapon plus dual hand crossbows is what I did on mine.

[Hex]

I just used buffs for teammates and kept spellslots for counterspells while shooting arrows at stuff. The singing sword you get from underdark is so busted.