The Bard deals light damage of its own but carries a tower aura and a shared song that speeds up every tower-mate's attacks and refills their mana. Standing alone it pours the full bonus into one ally slot; sharing a tower splits it evenly among everyone there. Playing a Bard is about placement: you park it in the busiest tower so the most allies benefit, and you cast to swell the whole group's output at the right moment. It does not clear waves by itself, so its strength scales entirely with the teammates around it.
On a team: The Bard raises everyone around it. It makes a stacked tower hit faster and cast more often, turning a good group of players into a great one, so it belongs wherever your team's firepower is concentrated.
Base attack
The three kits
LuteFree default
Songs that speed and refill your tower
Lute is the free default Bard kit: on top of light attacks it shares a pool that grants attack speed and mana regeneration to everyone in its tower, split evenly among them, and that pool follows you when you move. Playing it is about standing where the most allies are so the buff reaches the most guns. Its spells are Encore, which makes every other player in your tower instantly repeat their attack at double damage, and Fortissimo, which doubles your shared speed-and-mana pool for 6 seconds. The loop is to stack into the busiest tower and time Encore and Fortissimo to swell the whole group's output at once.
Lute: A steady tune: a 100% attack speed and mana regen pool split evenly among everyone in your tower, you included. Alone in a tower, that is +100% attack speed and +100% mana regen for you; with two tower-mates, +33% of each for all three. While you walk between towers, the whole mana regen pool travels with you (you alone get +100% mana regen; tower-mates get their shares only while you are settled with them); the attack speed resumes when you settle. (13.5 damage every 1s, range 10)
Spells: Encore · Fortissimo
Dark BardUnlockable kit
Weaken notes that pay off on kills
Dark Bard is an unlockable kit that plays Weaken damage instead of ordinary hits: the damage only scores if the enemy dies before it returns, so you race to finish marked enemies. On top of that, when a tower-mate lands a killing blow the rest of the tower gains attack speed, so kills feed the group's tempo. Its spells are Dark Encore, which repeats the tower's attacks like Encore and adds a Weaken rider to each enemy struck, and Requiem, which collects every outstanding Weaken at once for 45 and makes it permanent. Where the Lute steadily buffs, the Dark Bard rewards a tower that keeps racking up kills.
Dirge of Fading: Your attacks deal 24 Weaken damage instead of normal damage, on top of the pool. Weaken counts toward your contribution only if the enemy dies before the damage returns. When a tower-mate lands a killing blow, every non-bard in the tower gains +10% attack speed for 3 seconds, stacking up to 2 times. (24 damage every 2s, range 10)
Spells: Dark Encore · Requiem
Stage MasterUnlockable kit
A spotlight that marks a shared target
Stage Master is an unlockable kit whose beam marks one enemy at a time so the whole team deals 30% more damage to it, turning the Bard into a focus-fire director. It still keeps the shared support pool, but its identity is choosing the target everyone should hit. Its spells are Encore: Limelight, which marks a target and makes every tower-mate fire one shot into it, and Pyrotechnics, a plain firework nuke dealing 70 to one enemy and 35 to up to two nearby. Where the Lute buffs its own tower, the Stage Master coordinates the entire team's damage onto a single priority enemy.
Spotlight: A beam that marks one enemy for 7.3 seconds in a 5-player match (shorter with more players): while marked it takes 30% more damage from every source on the team (half that on the boss itself). 8.75 damage every 1.35 seconds; targets unmarked enemies first. Keeps the pool. (8.75 damage every 1.35s, range 10)
Spells: Encore: Limelight · Pyrotechnics
Upgrades only the Bard is offered
These draft picks are locked to the Bard. Full details on the upgrades page.
- Amplifier: Your Exposes last 60% longer.
- Curtain Call: Your Exposes last 50% longer, and when an enemy dies while Exposed by you, the mark leaps fresh to the nearest unmarked enemy nearby; if everyone nearby is already marked, it refreshes the nearest mark instead.
- Signal Flare: Adds Signal Flare to your spell bar. Free, every 9 seconds: a flare hits one enemy for 40 damage and Exposes it: plus 30% damage from everyone for 7.3 seconds in a 5-player match (shorter with more players). One mark per enemy; it aims at unmarked enemies first.
- Opportunist: Gain 4 mana every time your attack hits an Exposed enemy. Any player's mark counts. Spells do not count.
- Encore Maestro: Each tower-mate's Encore repeat strikes twice instead of once, and each strike hits for 3.5 times their attack damage.
- Flare Coating: Your arrows carry signal-paint: every shot Exposes its target for a short time (about 1.2 seconds in a 5-player match, shorter with more players), so it takes 30% more damage from everyone. Empower makes the mark last longer.
- Standing Ovation: The crowd joins in: each time your Encore repeats a tower-mate's attack, that mate also gains +100% attack speed for 8.5 seconds.
- War Banner: Plant the standard: after you have held a tower for 8 seconds, everyone in your tower deals +12% more damage. When you arrive at a new tower, your next attack deals +150% more.
Numbers on this page are the live base values from the game's content files; wave scaling and drafted upgrades change them in play.