To emphasize the focus question, I'll just leave that here:
Quote Originally Posted by Irinis View Post
The Bard Build Spectrum:

You're going to get a lot of advice and most of it conflicting. Bards are very personal builds. Not like Barbarians or whatever... and there's still lots of discussion there.

Before you roll ANY kind of Bard, decide what you want to do with it.

1. Crowd control SPELLS
2. Heal
3. Fascinate and buff
4. Melee THF
5. Melee TWF

Every Bard is good at #3. Now, the closer you get to either end of the spectrum I just posted, the harder it will be to do things at the other end of the spectrum well.

If your first priority aim is the best Crowd Control spells, that's very specialized on a Bard. If your aim is two-weapon fighting at 5. that's really specialized and you won't be able to afford all the feats or stats to do 1. or 2. as effectively as a Bard that decides to specialize in 1. or 2.

What's this? Specialization? On a Bard, the Jack of All Trades?

Yes. Generalist doesn't work so well in DDO, it's a min-max environment. So we gotta build our Bards a little different than in pen and paper or other D&D games.

1. or 2. you build a Spellsinger, max out Charisma, and only put enough in STR to not get enfeebled easily.
3. The best fascinate is Enthrall, which is only available to Virtuoso (which doesn't get much love because it's special song is more oriented for soloing or 6-man parties than for raids)
4. Two-handed fighting makes for a melee Bard that has room in the feat list for some feats to support healing.
5. Two-weapon fighting takes a lot of investment into feats and starting stats, and doesn't leave you much room for much else.

Some people build Warchanters with the same build stats as I'd build a for aims 1. or 2. but the Spellsinger gets extra DCs for spells over a Warchanter. So Warchanters are more suited to melee bards and Spellsingers for CC/healing bards.
And point you toward the thread where this quote is coming from, namely the bard primer linked in my sig.