In Ultima Online Outlands, the Bard Tamer is skilled in crowd control and attrition. The Bard Tamer offers a playstyle that prioritizes battlefield dominance. While Mage and Archery Dexxer tamer focus on direct support or secondary damage, the Bard Tamer uses Musicianship, Peacemaking, and Discordance to neutralize threats before they can reach their pets. By weakening a monster’s resistances and suppressing its aggression, a controlled environment is created where followers can dismantle even the most formidable foes.
This build is valued for its “safety-first” approach to high-tier dungeon farming. The synergy between barding and taming allows for the management of multiple aggressive mobs simultaneously. Peacemaking can freeze enemies, providing room to heal or reposition a pack. The addition of Discordance acts as a force multiplier, stripping away a creature’s armor and offensive capabilities. This buffs pets damage and survivability without offensive spells.
The skill Template
The Bard Tamer skill template focuses on battlefield control and survival. It sacrifices direct personal damage for the ability to neutralize enemies. This template balances high-level taming with effective barding to maximize pet survivability and crowd control.
- Animal Taming (120): This is essential for controlling high-tier pets and maximizing the Underdog Bonus.
- Animal Lore (120): It directly boosts pet damage and is required to unlock advanced pet abilities.
- Musicianship (120): This is the foundation for all barding success chances.
- Peacemaking (100): This freezes mobs in place, allowing for safe application of Veterinary bandages.
- Discordance (100): It heavily debuffs enemy armor and damage, acting as a force multiplier for pets.
- Magery (80): This provides utility for Invisibility, Gate Travel, and emergency heals/cures.
- Herding (80): A common addition to boost pet damage and damage resistance
Best Pet Teams
The Bard Tamer uses barding skills like Discordance to reduce enemy armor and damage. This can turn mid-tier pets into strong attackers. Unlike other tamer builds, the Bard Tamer often uses teams that can take advantage of the defensive debuffs applied to monsters.
The Double AoE Powerhouse (Skeletal Dragon + Water Drake)
This is a top choice for bards because Discordance works well with the Skeletal Dragon’s armor-shredding breath. The Water Drake provides extra crowd control with its cripple effect, making discorded targets easier to manage.
The Skeletal Dragon and Water Drake combination is widely considered the premier “AoE Specialist” team for mid-to-high-tier dungeon farming. This team maximizes the synergy between armor debuffs and multi-target damage, making it perfect for clearing crowded dungeon rooms or handling “trash mobs” efficiently.
The High-End Bossing Duo (Sun Wyrm + Sun Wyrmling)
When a bard uses Discordance on a high-health boss, these two pets deal extreme single-target damage. The bard can also “peace” or suppress nearby “adds,” allowing this duo to focus on the main target.
The Sun Wyrm and Sun Wyrmling combination is the premier “Single-Target Burn” team. This setup is specifically engineered for bossing and high-end hunting where the goal is to dismantle a single, high-HP target as quickly as possible through ramping fire damage.
The Efficiency Swarm (5x Blood Hunter)
Discordance makes targets more vulnerable to all damage. A swarm of five pets hitting a discorded target creates a rapid damage spike. This is best for fast dungeon farming. The bard’s crowd control prevents the relatively weak crabs from being targeted by too many mobs at once.
The 5x Blood Hunter is the undisputed “Glass Cannon” king, offering the highest raw single-target DPS potential in the game. This team is designed for high-APM (Actions Per Minute) players who want to melt bosses and high-HP targets through sheer volume of attacks.
Why These Teams Work for Bard Tamer
- Damage Amplification: Discordance causes creatures to take % more damage from all sources. Pet teams with high attack frequency benefit greatly.
- Increased Hit Chance: Barding lowers the target’s skills, making it easier for pets to hit, which increases their Damage Per Second (DPS).
- Survivability: Discorded creatures deal % less damage. This reduces the need for healing and allows the bard to focus on maintaining Lyric Aspect songs or debuffing the next target.
Aspect Choice
The Bard Tamer build uses a synergy between the Lyric Aspect and the Bard Codex. This transforms musical debuffs into power for the pet team. The Command Aspect is also an option for pet damage.
- Lyric Aspect:
- Increases Effective Barding Skill, making it easier to use Discordance or Peacemaking.
- Enhances bard song effects, providing defensive and offensive buffs.
- Lyric procs can trigger Effective Barding bonuses, which increase the damage targets take and reduce the damage they deal.
The Bard Codex
The Bard Codex allows customizing how music interacts with pets. Up to 20 Upgrade Points can be earned.
- Self-Taught: Allows the lowest barding skill to replace the Musicianship requirement for success checks. At Tier 3, it can replace up to 120 points.
- Sing Your Own Praises: Increases bard song effects by up to 150% for the user and followers.
- Ensemble: Grants a damage bonus of up to 30% toward creatures that are both Discorded and either Pacified or Provoked.
- Perfect Pitch: Increases the base barding success chance by up to 24%.
Final Thoughts
The Bard Tamer is a strategic character build in Ultima Online Outlands. It offers a different approach from the direct combat of a Archery Dexxer tamer or the healing of a Mage tamer. By using Avadon’s melodies, the Bard Tamer can influence encounters before any actions are taken. Discordance and Peacemaking skills weaken powerful enemies. This turns boss fights into manageable victories for a team of pets.
This build is useful in group play and high-level dungeons. The pets, such as Skeletal Dragon or Blood Hunter, provide the main attack force. The barding skills offer protection. With a developed Bard Codex and Lyric Aspect, the Bard Tamer boosts the performance of allies. At the same time, the Bard Tamer weakens the enemy.