I really loved the bard type in Allods Online.
Lets put aside for a moment that AO was (is) ultimate pay to win game. IF we disregard that, AO is amazingly designed game, especially classes wise, and really FUN to play. The only reason game is ruined is if you are unwilling to invest 10,000$+ to not suck against anyone else. Otherwise, without that it would be one of best designed games ever made.
Bards in AO had passive songes they could play, one offensive, one defensive, but with choosing a talent build, this could be expanded. Talent builds for bards went either in direction of more support (more songs, more utility spells), or in direction of more offensive playing (keeping basic support but specialising in more damage dealing, or survival).
Absolutely all bard skills were connected with music, even the offensive ones, they were called by song type names, and executed with playing animations.
If someone is looking into designing bard types, I'd definitely reccomend getting familiar with AO bard, because that is how bards should look like.