Hello Everybody,And Welcome

To my guide on the most OP support in the game,

Bard

I'm currently at 225k mastery score, I used to say this champion was worthless and only trolls play him, but after a few games I realized how amazing this champion is.
Bard is an underrated support who can use his kit for a variety of situations. I'll keep this guide as updated as I can. I'll explain each choice I've made here in the guide and if you think I missed something say something in the comments.

This is your passive, Traveler's Call, it spawns ancient chimes around the map near you. These chimes will last up to 10 minutes after they spawn, they will show as upside down yellow question marks and will turn red if they are about to disappear. Each Chime collected will give you 12% of your maximum mana and give you a slight movement speed boost, stacking up to 5 times.
This passive gives you Meeps, these little beauties help you slap the bot lane a little harder. They deal 30 damage right away, but increase every 5 chimes collected. At 25 chimes your Meeps will deal AoE damage in a cone behind your target and increase in size at 65 chimes. Your Meeps also slow the target for 1 second, starting at 25% and increasing exponentially the more chimes collected.
Summary: Collect them.

Your Q is Cosmic Binding, a stun that works differently then any other in the game. When you hit a target, your stun will travel through your target and if it hits a wall, a minion, or another champion it will stun your initial target and whoever else it hit for 1 second. The stun duration increases by .2 seconds each level.

Your W is Caretaker's Shrine. It's a heal that can be placed on the ground or instantly on a champion. When placed on the ground, your heal will build up and after 10 seconds will heal double to triple the health. Example, level 1 heals 30 HP but if placed and built up will heal 70 HP. You may place up to 3 Caretaker's Shrine on the ground. If all 3 heals are on the ground, you can still heal directly on a champion without replacing a previous heal. Caretaker's Shrine also gives movement speed along with healing. At all levels it will give a 50% movement speed boost that decays for 1.5 seconds.

Proper name for your E, Magical Journey. This allows you to create a one-way portal through any wall and traverse through it. The one bad thing about this ability is that enemies can go through it as well as allies, but you can use this to your advantage, stunning them as they come out of the portal. The reason we max this ability second is because of it's movement speed it gives allies inside the portal. Allies travel 10% faster inside the portal than enemies and it increases by 10% every level, helping your allies engage or get away.

Your ultimate, Tempered Fate, is your R. This is mainly a massive AoE Zhonya's Hourglass, if that means nothing to you yet, I'll explain. You cast a large circle spell and after a small delay, everything in that circle, towers, minion, champion, even Baron and Dragon, are put in a golden stasis for 2.5 seconds, making them untargetable and invulnerable, but they also cant cast any abilities or perform any action.

Always start Cosmic Binding first, it will give your jungle a good leash and you'll be able to apply lane pressure at level 1. Landing one stun, AA, and Thunderlord's Decree on the ADC can end up taking a quarter to a third of their health. The early lane pressure it helps you apply can make the opposing ADC struggle to farm, putting them behind and letting your ADC farm without harass.

Level 2 get Caretaker's Shrine. These use up a good amount of mana and don't heal too much unless you let them charge up, but your chimes will give you mana, creating beautiful sustain. Place these near you tower so they cant be stepped on to be destroyed and they can build up in a safe location to increase the amount of HP healed.

At level 3 get your Magical Journey and starting looking to roam to get your chimes. This ability will be the second skill you max because of the escape potential and the cooldown reduction each level.

Your ult is very unique, Tempered Fate, it's a AoE Zhonyas...that's awesome. You'll be able to unlock this ability at level 6. This skill can be amazing if used correctly, or kill your teammates if used wrong. A good use of your ult would be tower diving. To tower dive, when you start fighting, ult only the tower, try no to get any of the enemies in your ult. Once the tower is ulted, you have around 3 seconds to fight before the tower starts firing again.

Early game can suck with Bard, he's squishy, heals aren't strong enough to withstand heavy harass, and you don't have any chimes, BUT no other champion can offer a 2 man stun at level one. By starting Cosmic Binding you can take out up to a third of the ADC's health by using Q, AA, and activating thunderlords. Use your Q and passive to apply lane pressure.

Be sure to be constantly moving and trying to set up a stun, the fear of being slapped by Bard should be a constant worry on their minds. Positioning also matters on who the opposing bot lane is. Vayne? stay away from walls. Blitzcrank or Thresh? Stick behind minions. try to send a Cosmic Binding at the ADC when they try to farm or throw an AA, your chimes will give you back 12% of your maximum mana.

Collect Your Chimes

Traveler's Call make Bard strong, but it also can leave your ADC alone. Knowing when to roam is a big part of playing Bard, supports like Thresh and Blitzcrank and ADCs like Lucian or Vayne can run down or dive your ADC if you're gone. I will go roam if I see my ADC is backing safely and possibly gank mid. I'll also go collect them on my way back to lane, since Traveler's Call gives you movement speed that will help you get back to lane faster.
Make sure to know when to roam

The reason I start Spellthief's Edge instead of Ancient Coin is because Frost Queens active is amazing; it helps Bard chase down and stun enemy champions and who doesn't like more cc? The Boots of Swiftness are a must on Bard because they will help you collect chimes in the jungle and return to your ADC faster.


Sightstone is pretty self-explanatory, vision wins game. Start Stealth Ward, constantly ward,vision control is extremely important. When you buy Sightstone, Get the Sweeping Lens as you buy Sightstone to deny vision. Upgrade to Ruby Sightstone later in the game for extra HP. This is something I recommend doing more often, since you will be roaming for chimes and warding, a few extra wards only helps your team.

Zz'Rot Portal offers both armor and magic resist plus an active to help push lanes. This item can help you control your lane when you're gone collecting chime. Later in the game if you're behind and the lanes are pushing, that's when you get this item. Zz'Rot Portal will apply strong lane pressure along with the gold that any of voidlings collect.

Ardent Censer works decent with your W (the heal). This item makes your heal give 15% attack speed to whomever receives the heal along with 30 magic damage on hit for 6 seconds. This isn't an item I build often, if ever.

Locket of the Iron Solari is my 2nd favorite item to build on Bard right now. This item offers a lot that works well with his kit. Locket will give a large amount of HP, cool down reduction, magic resist for you and any of you teammates near you, and an active that is an aoe shield. Aegis of the Legion's passive is a big reason we build Locket, it will passively protect not just your ADC, but your whole team which can come in handy in teamfights.

EDIT. After the nerf of Aegis of the Legion, removing its aura effect and CDR, Redemption offers a decent replacement depending on the situation, but remember, Redemption is OP.

This bring me to Redemption. This item's a beaut, 10% CDR, 400 HP, mana and HP regen, and slightly increases your heals. The active on this item is pretty unique, it can be used even if you're dead and gone. When activated, it creates a large glowng circle that, after a short period of time, will heal you and your teammates for a pretty decent chunk of HP. If any enemies are caught in the active, they are dealt true damage based on their max HP, that's a beautiful item.

Frozen Heart. This item makes you tankier, while gaining 10% CDR. As I stated above, [Bard] needs CDR, a defensive item with a good unique passive along with cooldown reduction is strong, but not perfect.

Randuin's Omen gives 60 armor and 500 health with the same unique passive as Frozen Heart, Cold Steel: If hit by a basic attack, you slow the attackers Attack Speed by 15% for 1 second.

Randuin's Omen or Frozen Heart? This is situational, but for the most part, I've been building Randuin's Omen more often. The health that Randuins gives is nice on Bard because he doesn't have a large amount of HP without items. The reason Frozen Heart would be nice is because of the CDR it gives, 20%, and it gives 90 armor, which is 30 more than Randuins, and 400 mana. The trade off is 500 HP and the active for Randuins or 30 more armor, 400 mana, and 20% CDR. Theres also a slight difference in their passives.

Its a small but situational difference. Frozen Heart has a passive that will reduce surrounding enemies attack speed by 15% (700 range), while Randuins is slightly different. Randuin's Omen has a passive that reduces the attackers attack speed by 15%, not surrounding enemies, and also has an active that slows nearby enemies (500 range) by 35% for 4 seconds.

Dead Man's Plate is an item you will only need if the enemy team is more on the AD side and you want to float extremely fast. It will give you 50 armor and 500 health. The movement speed it gives you is very good for catching up to people or running away, the extra damage also is good for when you AA next, dealing meep damage and Dead Man's damage.

Pros

• 2 Person stun
• Heal and chimes for sustain
• You can take magical journies
• Effective ult if used correctly
• You have little meeps following you

Cons

• Weakest early game
• Tanky hard engage supports beat Bard
• Roaming at the wrong time may leave ADC vulnerable bottom lane
• Ult can troll, deny teammate kill or leave teammate to die
• Not much peel
• Burst beats Bard

Top 3 Best

Lucian is a champion that can burst very well, so if you stun anyone when he is with you, he can land his combo, abusing his passive, Lightslinger. You both can give out quick effective damage for small trades, letting you push them out of lanes at times. Lucian has good mobility with Relentless Pursuit so your lane wont be too immobile.

• Mobile with Relentless Pursuit
• High burst damage
• Capitalizes on chances you create with Cosmic Binding

Caitlyn is a long range ADC that should be abusing her auto attack range early on to harass your opponents, occasionally using her passive, Headshot. When an enemy champion steps on one oh her Yordle Snap Trap, it potentially sets them up for a perfect stun, letting you and your ADC trade off a chunk of damage. If you're in sync with your ADC, when you stun they should trap under the target to chain your CC and do large amounts of damage. You can also combo your Tempered Fate with Caitlyn's Yordle Snap Trap, and your Cosmic Binding. Caitlyn work well with Bard because of her mobility and range along with her harassing damage, currently my favorite ADC to lane with.

• high range
• Yordle Snap Trap sets up your Cosmic Binding or vise versa
• Good harass during laning phase
  
  
  
  
  Kalista's Sentinel's passive, for whomever doesn't know, is when you and your ADC both attack the same minion, monster, or enemy champion you deal bonus magic damage. At level 2, if you and Kalista just AA once on the ADC, it will chunk off about a third to half of their health. Kalista's ult can be useful too; she can ult you in and knock them up, giving you time to set up quickly to get a stun off when the knock-up ends.
  Kalista's Rend is also good with hard slow and stun, giving your ADC enough time to get stacks for Rend.
  • Rend is op
  • Kites well with Bard
  • Sentinel's passive offers high damage trades
  
  
  
  In this current meta, Caitlyn is my preferred ADC, she can play safe while still using her long range to harass her lane opponents. The fast damage you two can deal out if an enemy is smart enough to step on a trap could bring them low enough to back.