Bard Build - Critiquing RequestedFollow

What is the purpose of your build, PvP or PvE. Or just leveling.

I think, seeing your build it is for PvE. With this in mind I would take the Assassin soul instead of ranger. With 5 points in assassin you still have extra crit but you can take the T2 skill which gives you an extra DoT on your critical hits, which will get buffed in next patch. You could take 3 points out of Blood rage for that. On point of that, you get another weapon enchant (you can have 2 active), which will increase your DPS.

Also remember that the max level of your ranger pet will be level 30.

You could also think about Verse of Joy. This skill is awesome and will help your party/raid a lot. You need 7 points, which could be taken out of the NB soul.

Seeing you made a level 50 build, I would not take ranger because the benefit is not that great, especially after level 30.

For PvP I wouldnt take NB and ranger at all, but focus more on the riftstalker and/or PvP soul.

AAdded Note. Look at the Bard guide. The poster has some very good builds and advise.

You might also consider dropping ranger for Bladedancer. You ca get 5% more hit, which is more valuable than crit until you're hit capped, along with some really useful survival CDs for soloing. For a pure PvE build, I'd recommend something along the lines of this:

Sample PvE Bard

You get Verse of Joy, along with Combat Pose from Bladedancer, giving you more options when buffing. Your finishers won't do as much damage, but in PvE, most of the time you'll be using the debuff and group heal Codas.

A note on Extended Grief - the main reason this talent is far better than it initially looks is that our debuff Codas are all AoE. In a group situation, having an enemy take 5% more damage from everyone in the group will add up to far more than a DPS coda could do, especially when you consider that all the enemies in the group will be taking the extra damage.

If you're going to solo, Bard can work, but I'd really recommend buying an extra role just for soloing and taking other souls instead. Much of a Bard's power comes from our group healing and buffing, and that won't help as much when solo. Since it only takes 2 seconds to swap between roles, there's no reason to have suboptimal solo spec if you can avoid it.

A further note - unfortunately, Deafening Music and Coup De Grace won't affect the output of Coda of Restoration, Coda of Distress, or Coda of Cowardice. While Coup De Grace can be good for a solo Bard or in PvP, in a PvE group it's just not worth it.

For the same reason, I don't recommend Assassin for PvE either. Aside from the crit boost from Ruthlessness, all its talents buff Physical Melee attacks. All of our Bard skills are Ranged Life based, so we won't see much help from it. The only way we'd get the proc from Serrated Blades is to be in melee, and we're better off at a distance, in between the melee and the casters so we can buff everyone and CC loose mobs.