Hero Siege Bard Leveling Build - Season 10

A quick and dirty guide to leveling bard without hating life as an early flicker enjoyer.

Leveling as lightning bard is a safer experience in terms of your sanity than trying to level as physical->flicker bard early. You will want to reach level 100 and probably even some hero levels before you convert to flicker bard. This is due to the way some mobs, specifically lightning enhanced mobs, will delete flicker bard the second they are jumped on. You need correct resistance, suppression, and good leech to make it feel decent to play. This guide is meant to be roughly followed until you get there.

Attribute placement is Intelligence(2) Energy(1) Vitality(1) Once your mana isn't dropping on every extended fight, you can change to Intelligence(2) Vitality(2) per level. Finally, once you have at least 2000 life without Vitality, I recommend swapping all points into Intelligence as that will spike your damage for any tanky mobs.

New Comer Tips: Keep up on your flasks while leveling, they save your life Open any white/blue/gold chaos pillars, they are a great source of satanic items and extra XP Make sure you have on a companion in the customize menu, reached from hitting ESC and clicking the top hat Damage Taken Reduced by # is the best stat you can get for survival early on. It is exactly what it says, flat damage reduction Doing early quests, Act1-2, will grant extra XP and multiple random satanic items for leveling ease

I would recommend watching MisterSleepyCat's new League Start video for additional assistance for new players: [link=https://]www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXjrh41nT0w][/link]

Leveling will be quite simple, all points into Slaying Riffs, putting one point each into Insane Riff, Amping Up, Satan's Melody, Sounds of Silence, and High dB to gain the benefit of those passives getting the +All Skills from any items. At level 30, you get to start putting in points into Progenies of the Great Cataclysm, which will be used on any tanky mobs/bosses. Every 5 levels, you receive a point to use in the subskill tree, which is already in the skill planner above in each section.

At 40, we get our augments in the subskill trees. These are generally a massive jump in power for the skill, sometimes even completely changing how the skill plays. In our case, the Slaying Riffs augment is going to be Symphony of Destruction. This adds many extra projectiles, which stacks with the small passive of extra projectiles, and additional cast radius, making it possible to drop the amps further away. And for our Progenies of the Great Cataclysm we go for Crushing Sound Levels which turns the note casts from the super amp into shockwaves that hit multiple targets with each part of the shockwave.

Once we reach level 100 and work our way into some hero levels, our skill priority will change. We will be swapping Slaying Riffs augment to Satanic Notes to group our enemies together. Clustered enemies get deleted with the Progenies of the Great Cataclysm that will be dragged along behind you at all times. If desired, you may also pick up Sacrilegious Symphonies to make use of the Free Will sub-skill that grants extra movement speed.

While there are items put into the guide, these are just satanic guidelines. The follow stats are the target stats for the build while leveling, in order of importance: Damage Taken Reduced by # +All Skills +Lightning Skills Life(Both flat and %) Resistances Flat Lightning Skill Damage(NOT Additive Lightning Damage, that only affects lightning attacks) Faster Cast Rate Movement Speed Intelligence Lightning Skill Damage == Magic Skill Damage

Alongside these stats, here are a few sets that have useful items, including the lightning bard set: Traveler (Leveling Specific Set) Metal Vocalist's Symphony (Bard Lightning Set) Thunder Caller's Wrath (Stormweaver Lightning Set, helps but we don't get the {Stormweaver} stats) Odin's Demise (Useful stats, no class specific) Uabel's Majesty (Another useful set without class specifics) Thunder God's Wrath (Lightning Paladin Attacker Set, but it does help us some) Valkyrie's Battle Gear (Lightning Amazon Attacker Set, but does help us some)

Q: Why not flicker at level 18? A: Because without a full set of leveling gear, early flicker doesn't survive many different mob types as well as most bosses

Q: Why Slaying Riffs and not Visceral Growl? A: You can, but in my testing Slaying Riffs is better for clear and bossing while leveling

Q: When do we use Satan's Melody and Progenies Of The Great Cataclysm? A: If the enemy survives you casting three Slaying Riffs, I would cast one. Both aren't needed at the same time outside of bossing...Amended: Once high enough spell haste, you will swap to using Progenies of the Great Cataclysm on cooldown, running around and letting it kill things for you. Slaying Riffs at that time will become your support skill, used to group mobs together for the kills.

Q: Why are my relics lower value than what is in these guide? A: Relics have 10 levels in total. You level the relic by finding it again and picking up the copy. Relics you have active have, at least in the past seasons, had a higher chance to drop than active relics.

Q: Is X worth buying on the marketplace? A: While leveling, I wouldn't worry about trying to buy gear off the marketplace. Just go back a few zones until you are blasting through the monsters and farm a few levels. You can reset your world in the ESC menu to reset all zones. The reset also has a hotkey of Shift + R

Q: Why am I dying so much? A: Most deaths in the game will come from projectiles multi-hitting you, as there is a micro-stun on being hit. Keep your eye on your character and avoid any projectiles you see. There isn't any forward tracking on the enemy attacks, so as long as you are moving away from your current position, you will avoid most attacks, minus the lightning caster in Act IV, they are just dumb and you pretty much have to tank the hits.

Q: What happens after reaching leveling 100? A: You keep gaining XP, with each full bar granting you a point for the incarnation tree. The tree is changing in Season 10, so the points in this guide may be incorrect. I will update them as soon as this site has the new tree.

Q: Is X item better than Y item? A: There are combat dummies in every town, you can test your DPS against them. Talk with the NPC near the dummies to activate the DPS meter.

Q: Which set is better to focus on getting? A: Outside of the marketplace, there really isn't a target farm for set items, but the best set for this build is the lightning bard set, Metal Vocalist's Symphony

Q: Which mercenary should I be using? A: I always use the Act I mercenary, as he is the tankiest. I load him up with magic find gear to help farming. You are free to hire one whenever, but it does cost 10,000 gold to hire and every time they die it's another 3,000 to bring them back. They do come back with all the gear they had, so no need to worry about that.

Q: What gear for the mercenary? A: Magic find, and survival stats. You get 100% of your mercenary's magic find stat. Anything else is just to keep them alive.

Q: What does "Replenish Life" and "Replenish Mana" do? A: Scales your flat regen of life and mana respectively.