This guide is under heavy construction! Hard hat required!
I was just frantic that I may lose all of this hard work! More to come - including extensive answers to the following questions, cleric skills, as well as the role in the party and of course reformatting.


What are the benefits of a bard/cleric?
A bard cleric is one of the most, if not the most wanted build in a party. The reason is because you are a versatile buffer. In parties, you can either restore mana, absorb damage, nuke monster, and increase damage as a bard or heal HP, resurrect party members, buff party members with Int and Str as well as physical and magical defense, and protect against harmful statuses. That’s a mouthful! No wonder a bard cleric is wanted in so many parties, especially 90+! You will shine as a bard in group pvp with your lightning fast nukes and players will always want you on their team!

What are the downsides?
Unfortunately there is no good without bad. Although they may shine while jobbing in groups, bard clerics are not much of 1vs1 pvpers. They may stand a chance against wizards, but against other builds it will be tough to win! Also, during the lower levels, not many players realize the benefit of having a bard in their party – many would rather another wizard or attacker.This build is also not much of a solo leveling build. Sure, you wont need any MP and only a few HP pots, but bards must 2-3 hit mobs their level.

Pure Int or Hybrid?
I would recommend going pure int. Mana orbit at level 90 requires around 15K MP to cast and that extra mana will sure come in handy when healing as a cleric when you are unable to switch back to bard. Pure int will also increase your damage from your nukes, which is vital if you plan to be a battle bard!

Although a Hybrid is not bad, this will severely limit your ability to heal and you wont be able to “buff” to your full potential. A little bit of Str won’t harm you that much, though. It will increase your survivability by a tiny bit, but it will decrease your damage. Every INT counts!

Armor

Light Armor! Wearing Light Armor will give you a good balance between physical and magical defense as well as give you a 10% moving speed boost (that’s 120% speed at 100) and 10% mana reduction! Also, the cleric passives for Light Armor give around 150 phys defense and 200 mag defense boost. They also increase the defense and and str and int on a buffed target!

Weapons:

Harp and Cleric Rod of course! You may think that since you are a buffer build, the magical damage on your weapon does not matter – but that is NOT TRUE! The amount of health and mana you can heal depends on your magical attack and reinforce on your weapon! So it is important to always have at least a +3 harp and Cleric rod with decent magical attack percents. At the cap, I would recommend to +5 each of your weapons.