Bard
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Bard
Bard is an Episode 2 adventuring skill school built around party support and musical performance. A combat bard keeps songs running for a group, weakens nearby enemies, and helps companions recover during long fights; away from danger, a performer can turn time spent adventuring into benefits for an audience. The school received a large rebuild in September 2026, retiring much of its original tree and making instruments, performance, and party play central to the role.[1]
Older Bard skill pages on SotAwiki may describe the pre-rebuild tree. The overview below describes the system reviewed through October 4, 2026; exact values should be read from the current in-game tooltip until the individual skill pages have been checked and updated.
At a glance
| Part of the role | What it means in play |
|---|---|
| Party songs | Two songs can run at once. Friendly songs support party members rather than the bard, pets, summons, or tamed creatures. |
| Enemy songs | Dirge of Dissonance and Requiem of Ruin reduce nearby enemies' physical and magical resistance respectively. |
| Instruments | Bard songs require an instrument. Crafted instrument quality and enhancements can improve their strength through Instrument Proficiency. |
| Combat commitment | Dealing damage or using a non-Bard combat skill silences songs temporarily. Being hit does not begin that lockout. |
| Performance | In towns, a bard can perform for an audience, accept tips, and convert the audience's banked Inspiration into an Inspired bonus. |
| Vigor support | Performances speed Vigor recovery in towns, while Melody of Mending can help the party's Vigor during combat. |
Learning Bard skills
Bard is an Episode 2 school. Bard trainers can be found in Vikland and the Ruins of Utheim; trainers elsewhere direct players to those locations and mark the requirement for players who do not have access.[2]
Like other specializations, Bard Specialization is selected near a skill trainer or an Oracle Confirmatory. A character may have two active specialized schools. Changing that choice does not erase the levels retained in an inactive specialization.[3]
Songs and combat
The rebuilt school is deliberately a party role. Its remaining friendly songs cost Focus, require an instrument, and affect party members rather than the performer or allied creatures. Two may be maintained at the same time, and their effects use the same limited buff space as food and potions. This makes song choice part of the group's preparation instead of a free stack of every tune in the book.[1]
A bard cannot freely mix sustained songs with an ordinary damage rotation. Dealing damage or using a non-Bard combat skill begins a ten-second song lockout, displayed on the song runes. Merely taking a hit does not trigger it.[4] A support bard can still travel with the group at full speed while a song is running, rather than being held to the slow walk used for free-form music.[5]
Friendly songs
The post-rebuild source summary explicitly retains the following friendly songs. Their individual SotAwiki pages predate the rebuild, so their numerical effects still need verification.
| Song | General purpose | Page status at the research cutoff |
|---|---|---|
| Melody of Mending | Party healing and combat Vigor support | Existing page is marked last seen in R109; values need review |
| Savage Sonata | Party combat support | Existing page is marked last seen in R109; values need review |
| Rhapsody of Recovery | Party Focus recovery | Existing page is marked last seen in R109; values need review |
Resistance songs
Two songs were added by the rebuild:
- Dirge of Dissonance lowers the physical resistance of nearby enemies.
- Requiem of Ruin lowers the magical resistance of nearby enemies.
Each reduction combines a base amount with a share of the affected enemy's resistance, making the songs relevant against tougher targets instead of merely adding another flat debuff.[1] SotAwiki pages for these songs were not found at the cutoff.
Instruments and specialization
Crafted instruments now have a quality roll influenced by Carpentry skill and luck, with a better result possible on a critical craft. They can receive up to five masterworks and five enchantments, do not wear out, and can be salvaged into scrap wood. Instruments made before this system were assigned middle quality. Through Instrument Proficiency, a better instrument produces stronger songs; the official summary describes a perfect, fully enhanced instrument as reaching twice the contribution of a plain one.[6]
Bard Specialization lengthens Bard abilities—up to 25% in the published rebuild summary—and reduces song casting times.[1] The old specialization page lists bonuses attached to several retired songs and therefore should not be used as a current effect list without an in-game check.
The Bard bar
The optional Bard bar keeps the school from occupying every convenient corner of a combat deck. Its first row contains trained Bard abilities and their cooldowns; its second holds sheet music. The bar can be moved, arranged horizontally or vertically, and opened from the Interface options, the window list, the Bard page in the Skills window, or the Toggle Bard Bar key binding.[7]
Bard runes can also be placed in a combat deck. While Performance Stance is active, songs and entertainer runes can be charged from locked combat-deck slots; this interaction received a specific fix on October 4.[5]
Performing for an audience
Combat support and public performance share the instrument, but they are not the same activity. A performance that pays out audience benefits must take place in a town or player-owned town. Performance Stance or the /perform command opens the performance, sheathes the bard's weapon, and readies the instrument. Songs, Flourish, Dance, and Group Dance can be used without ending the music; Group Dance requires a band.[8]
Adventuring accumulates Inspiration, which remains through logout. An audience member can right-click a performer and select Watch Performance, or use /watch, to convert that reserve into Inspired. The published launch description gives Inspired a 15% adventure-experience bonus and says that about five minutes of watching also strengthens and lengthens carried blessings, food, potions, and songs. A crafted Performance Stage makes the conversion 50% faster. Audience members can tip through the performer's right-click menu, openly or anonymously.[9]
Performing in town also accelerates Vigor recovery. At launch, watching a performance recovered Vigor in roughly half the ordinary town time, and active use of Flourish, Dance, or Group Dance shortened it further. Nearby listeners now receive the performance recovery without having to remain locked in Watch Performance; the watch action is still used for Inspiration and Inspired.[10][5] Published timings describe the tested system and may change with later balance work.
Music beyond combat
Player music can be performed from sheet music or played live. The 2026 music work added an on-screen instrument keyboard and USB MIDI input, while a collection of period pieces can be learned from Stan Clarke the Bard in Soltown. Thirty collectible song cylinders and broader performance tools also arrived alongside the Bard rebuild.[11]
These systems overlap with Bard presentation, but a character does not need to reproduce a tavern's entire songbook to fill the party-support role. Conversely, a social musician may use the performance tools without building an adventuring deck around every combat song. New Britannia has room for both the raid conductor and the person who just brought a lute to the pub.
The 2026 rebuild
On September 19, 2026, the Bard tree was rebuilt around party support. Experience spent in eight retired skills was refunded in full:
- Atonal Aria
- Anthem of Alacrity
- Psalm of Stagnation
- Mesmerizing Melody
- Concussive Canticle
- Refrain of Resistance
- Rhythmic Readiness
- Voice Training
The rebuild introduced the two resistance songs, two-song play, instrument-dependent song strength, a defined combat lockout, revised specialization benefits, and the performance and Inspiration loop.[1][9] Later September and early October work shortened the lockout, kept bards moving with their parties, clarified Vigor displays, and fixed several interactions involving Performance Stance and charged runes.[4][5] See Release 154 for the wider release in which the rebuild arrived.
The following pages remain useful as historical records but do not describe current skills: Bard Innate, Chorus of Conservation, and Ditty of Detection. The first is a placeholder; the latter two describe unavailable or unimplemented ideas. Bard Skills contains the former tree image and should likewise be treated as a pre-rebuild reference.
The current status of Musical Fortitude and Resounding Reach was not stated clearly enough in the reviewed primary summaries to rewrite their pages safely. They remain linked for follow-up rather than being presented here as confirmed current mechanics.
See also
- Bard Skills — the former skill-tree page, pending a post-rebuild update
- Bard Specialization — existing detail page, pending a post-rebuild update
- Music
- Vigor
- Release 154
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Catnip Games, “Bard rebuilt as a party support school”, September 19, 2026.
- ↑ Catnip Games, “Trainers tell you where a skill is taught”, September 23, 2026.
- ↑ Catnip Games, “Specializations are chosen at a trainer and swapped for free”, September 23, 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Catnip Games Work Log, week of September 21, 2026, Bard song lockout entry dated September 25.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Catnip Games current Work Log, reviewed through October 4, 2026.
- ↑ Catnip Games, “Crafted instruments have quality, masterworks and enchants”, August 12, 2026.
- ↑ Catnip Games, “A bard bar for bard abilities and sheet music”, August 15, 2026.
- ↑ Catnip Games, “Bards keep playing through their own songs and through a fight”, September 20, 2026.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Catnip Games, “Bard performances: watch a bard for bonus experience and stronger buffs”, September 19, 2026.
- ↑ Catnip Games, “Vigor: long fights wear you down, and towns and bards restore you”, September 20, 2026.
- ↑ Catnip Games What's New, Audio & Music entries through September 28, 2026.