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I'l be taking a paragon Bard to the table this weekend, and I wanted to check if my idea has merit. 

The build has 2 encounter dominates through MC Druid for Charm Beast and the Heartwarder paragon path. This lets you enable your allies by making dominated enemies run past them, generating OA's with combat advantage all over the place. That beats most other ways a Bard has to generate attacks at that level. As an added bonus, you also stun the target for a round. 

Because it's a Prescient Bard, it also gets to turn 2 misses into hits every combat with Prescient Aid and Rhyme of the Blood-Seeking Blade. (I know War Chanter is better for preventing misses, but the paragon path is already taken for the dominate plan)

Lastly, Echoing Weapon lets one ally do a doubletap. 

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The thing I'm not too happy about is the defenses. Because it's a Wis/Cha build, the AC, Fort and Ref are in the toilet (although Mantle of Unity does help). Being able to use my dagger as an implement so I can use a shield would help somewhat, as would being able to take Combat Virtuoso so I can assign some points to Int and/or Con, but the build appears to be too feat-starved for that. 

I could change race to Human for the extra feat, or take Elemental Initiate instead of Halaster's Clone so I can use a ki focus, but then I lose a LOT of initiative (have to use Dex instead of Wis and no +6 bonus). Dominating enemies before they can take their turn seems pretty important.

I can also lose Acolyte Power, but Eagle's Splendor is just nuts on a Bard. 

Should I just suck it up, watch out and stay in the back line, or is there something else I can do? Maybe there's a good hybrid I missed?

Why not do a Bard|Sentinel?

Warlock is cool, also with the dominates, but I like Charm Beast more than Touch of Command because you have far more control over who you get to dominate. And I want Bard to be a major part of the build, so no Warlord this time. 

I've rebuilt it as a Sentinel hybrid, and it actually works pretty well! Frees up 2 feats (still need one of the three for Hybrid Talent),  so I can at least take Improved Defenses. And Magic Stones and Wall of Thorns are pretty yummy powers for a leader|controller to have. 

AC is even crappier than before (Hide instead of Chain), but that just means I've got to stay out of melee. And now that I have room for MC Sorcerer (dagger as implement), I can at least carry a shield.

EDIT: and a Bear Companion for a +2 to all defenses also helps a lot.