Firstly, the bard instrument of defence is broken neither the passive or crescendo work.
The description when you hover over the instrument says:
“Instrument of defence: An instrument which places a debuff on nearby enemies, causing their projectile attacks to deal less damage.
The crescendo of this instrument will remove one beneficial effect from nearby enemies”
When it was initially revealed (https://blog.orbusvr.com/orbusvr-reborn-dev-spotlight-bard/) the description was:
“Instrument of Defense : An instrument which places a debuff on nearby enemies, causing their projectile attacks to deal less damage. The crescendo of this instrument places a protective shield on the battlefield which can absorb enemy projectile attacks.”
So it should be fixed and I suggest the original crescendo should be added giving the bard a viable shield ability. The bard has some issues in the healing department (see long thread Relooking at Bard Healing with multiple good suggestions and details) and adding in a viable shield option can help out a lot.
I would rather have a skill based shield ability added to the bard then to have the passive healing become stronger as its un-interactive and doesn’t feel interesting to play.
Secondly, the level 20 upbeat talent doesn’t work. it’s supposed to make notes play 10% faster but it doesn’t work currently. When testing the difference at level 30 between with upbeat, without a talent and with the other talent (sheet music) there’s no difference in speed.
I have a memory from during the beta of feeling overwhelmed the first time I picked the upbeat talent so I’m sure it used to work, no idea when that stopped being the case.