Bard is one of the most unique classes you can learn how to play in Dark and Darker, and we’re here to help you play the best music possible!
This class can use some of the best buffs and debuffs available in the entire game. Despite that, they’re not merely a support class, either. They can handle their own in combat quite well, and they have good speed for exploration.
In this guide, we’ll give you our recommended setup for the best Bard build and explain how to play it. We’ll make sure that you hit every note flawlessly.
Best Bard Build Guide & How To Play
Perk Selection
For our Perks, we will primarily focus on making your music even more useful. At the same time, we’ll pick Perks that make using music easier and boost your overall versatility. This is our Perk selection for this build:
- Superior Dexterity – Increases your weapon and utility swap speed by 50%. Particularly important since you will need to swap between multiple instruments to make the most of your music scores.
- Charismatic Performance – The game simply states that this upgrades “good” music score performances to “perfect”. But, more specifically, it seems to accomplish this by letting you fail one note every three notes. Keep that in mind when using your music.
- War Song – Increases Weapon Damage by +3 for 6 seconds whenever you successfully perform a song. Applies to yourself and all allies within 4.5 meters.
- Fermata – Increases your Resourcefulness by 5. Resourcefulness increases your interaction speed and buff duration. It also reduces your cooldown duration.
Charismatic Performance and Superior Dexterity are by far the most important of these Perks. They make it much easier to use your music and also allow you to quickly swap between items and weapons. We highly recommend keeping those Perks on at all times as they’re the best for every build. They’re great even after you mastered how to play the Bard class effectively in Dark and Darker!
Skills and Music
Bard doesn’t have a lot of choice when it comes to Skills, but they do have the unique Music Memory Skills. Equipping one Music Memory Skill will allow you to use up to 5 music types, and slotting both will allow up to 10 music types.
Using a music score will initiate a rhythm minigame and your performance will define how strong the effects are. The better you do, the better the effects! This is why we will list up to three values for most music effects, with the highest ones being the best performance.
For this build we will use both Music Memory Skills as follows:
- Rousing Rhythms – Gives +2 to All Attributes for 30/60/90 seconds depending on performance. This includes increasing your Knowledge, which is why this is the first score you want to equip. Also applies to allies if you’re in a party.
- Beats of Alacrity – Grants +5/+7/+9 to your Move Speed for 30/60/120 seconds. Does not stack.
- Ballad of Courage – Grants +5/+7/+10 to your Physical Power for 30/60/120. Does not stack.
- Shriek of Weakness – Applies a debuff to nearby enemies, decreasing their Physical Power by -3/-4/-5 and their Armor Rating by -10/-20/-30. Lasts 6/12/18 seconds.
- Unchained Harmony – Automatically opens all nearby locked doors and containers. Doesn’t work on doors requiring special keys, though.
- Piercing Shrill – Deals 15/20/25 Physical Damage to your target. If they’re a player, it also causes an echo sound effect for them which impairs their hearing for 3 seconds.
- Lament of Languor – Reduces the Move Speed of all nearby enemies by -10 for 6/12/18 seconds.
- Aria of Alacrity – Boosts your Action Speed by 4%/6%/8% for 30/60/120 seconds. Does not stack.
Going beyond your selection of music, it’s now time to look at the best gear and stats for this Bard build.
Gear and Stats to Look Out For
For this build, we’ll be going for equipment that best enhances the Bard’s versatility. As such, you’ll want to pick relatively light armor, since Move Speed is still king in Dark and Darker.
For weapons, we recommend the Rondel Dagger with a Buckler for melee combat. This allows you to block attacks somewhat, while also allowing for very fast attacks. As a second set, use a Survival Bow to have ranged options.
Overall, the recommended gear setup looks like this:
- Head – Straw Hat
- Chest – Troubadour Outfit or Wanderer Attired
- Legs – Cloth Pants
- Hands – Reinforced Gloves
- Feet – Lightfoot Boots
- Weapon Set 1 – Rondel Dagger and Buckler
- Weapon Set 2 – Survival Bow
- Utility – The most important thing here is to get a Tier IV Lute as soon as possible so that you can reach 20 Knowledge.
As for which stats to prioritize, here are the ones that work best for Bards:
- Knowledge – You mostly want to get this from your Utility Items. As we mentioned previously, a Tier IV Lute should be enough to get you to 20 Knowledge, which is all we need for this build.
- Move Speed – The Bard class is relatively squishy and you have to weave in and out of combat to use your music scores. As such, Move Speed is always welcome.
- True Physical Damage – Basically all of your damage is Physical, so this is your best bet for damage output.
- Dexterity – Improves the “casting” speed of music. Try getting this to at least 30, which is the soft cap for playing music scores.
- Health and Armor Rating increases – Get as much as you can fit within reason. They’re great for overall survivability.
With everything in this build laid out, it’s time to dive into the general playstyle you can expect!
Partying in the Dungeons | How to Play Bard in Dark and Darker
As usual, we highly recommend reading our top 10 tips for beginners in Dark and Darker. It’s best to have a general idea of how to play the game before diving into the specifics of this Bard build.
Regardless, the Bard class is very versatile with the build we’ve laid out. You have access to some of the best buffs and debuffs in Dark and Darker, which is especially great when you team up with other players. Beats of Alacrity will allow you to move around quickly, while Ballad of Courage will drastically increase your Physical Damage.
This makes the Bard surprisingly efficient in combat, especially considering that you have a powerful Area of Effect option thanks to Piercing Shrill. What’s more, you can apply the Shriek of Weakness debuff to enemies to massively increase the damage they take. This debuff alone can be brutal, making it much easier to deal with tanky players and bosses.
Even our tanky Barbarian axe build would have trouble with this Bard!
Outside of combat, you have pretty decent Move and Interact Speed. This allows you to explore dungeons with relative ease, especially since you can use Unchained Harmony to automatically open doors and containers near you. It makes it fairly easy for you to get good loot and extract before slower players.
That said, you’re still not as fast as our best Rogue build!
Music Isn’t Easy
Now, when playing as the Bard, you need to be aware of some big flaws. The first one is that your music is very loud and gives your position away. Since Dark and Darker is best played trying to be somewhat stealthy, this puts you at a big disadvantage. This is why the Bard is best when you are playing with a party of allies that can protect you.
Additionally, playing your music requires you to complete a rhythm minigame. This isn’t too bad on its own, but it can be too much to deal with during combat. It makes things even more hectic than they usually are and requires you to multitask more than other classes. It’s one of the main reasons that Bard is usually only recommended for experienced players!
If you want a class with a more relaxed playstyle, check out our Ranger build guide.
You’ll also have to be careful when dealing with enemies, as you are rather squishy. The Bard class has innately low defenses, and they don’t get access to very resilient armor. You’ll essentially have to learn how to play as a glass cannon, which is very risky in Dark and Darker.
Ultimately, the Bard has extremely high potential due to having some of the best buffs and debuffs in the game. They are very versatile and can be good both in traversal and in combat. However, you’ll need to learn how to play your instruments at the same time as you deal with the many hostile players and mobs you’ll encounter in Dark and Darker. Nonetheless, we hope our build helps you get a good start in your musical journey!
For more help, we also have a guide on how to deal with the tricky enemies in the Crypt and Inferno.
