While I've included build options in the previous section, I don't really go in depth and they're more examples than guidelines. Bard is such a versatile champion that anything is viable on him, although the "meta" picks are rather boring. Taking any rune other than Guardian or Fleet is "off-meta", though some are less meta than others. With that said, here's some basic ideas you can run with.
Supportive
With a supportive build, you're likely going to be building
Locket of the Iron Solari,
Evenshroud,
Imperial Mandate, or
Shurelya's Battlesong as your mythic. You can opt for
Everfrost as well, but it's likely that you'd rather spend 300g less for one of the effects of the other items, since a lot of the stats go to waste, relatively speaking - the extra AP it gives you doesn't scale too well on Bard unless you're building full AP.
Radiant Virtue is a new item added in Season 13 that's seeing some good success, and is a great pick if you want to spec into a more tanky build.
For items, you're always going to want to be building
Dead Man's Plate and
Chemtech Putrifier, no matter what else you're doing in the build. Dead Man's improves your roams quite a lot and fits into pretty much any Bard build, and Chemtech is a cheap way to get Grievous that's easily procced by your W.
Rapid Firecannon is another solid item, and pretty much any build that's not meming on support will want to build
Vigilant Wardstone because of the insane vision control that it gives you.
Anathema's Chains is a great pick if you're on a tankier build and want to be able to teamfight better versus a fed enemy carry.
Redemption is a great item that's synergetic with your ultimate ability, as explained in the Items section of the guide. If the enemy team is weighted heavily towards AP or AD, build
Abyssal Mask for AP and
Randuin's Omen for AD.
Knight's Vow and
Zeke's Convergence are both great picks if you have a particularly fed person on your team that you want to amplify.
Recommended Runes: Guardian, Fleet Footwork
Tanky
So you saw the supportive section, and decided that you wanted to actually build more tanky, rather than full support. As a tank Bard, you want to build
Evenshroud,
Radiant Virtue, or
Iceborn Gauntlet - which depends a lot on who's on the enemy team, and how much gold you have.
Iceborn Gauntlet is really only viable if the enemy team is lacking on AP.
For your second item, you'll probably want to build
Dead Man's Plate second, as it's just too strong as a roaming tool. I cannot understate how powerful this item is on Bard, and how fun it is to zoom around the map with your Swifties/Mobis, Dead Man's Plate, and chime speed - especially if you're also running Celerity.
Past that, you'll likely just be going with standard tank itemization.
Randuin's Omen or
Frozen Heart for heavy AD, especially autoattack based champs,
Force of Nature or
Turbo Chemtank for heavy AP (the former for especially heavy AP, the latter if you need a bit of utility as well),
Knight's Vow or
Warmog's Armor are great if you just need health, the former being a cheaper option that works in a more supportive role, while the latter is just pure HP that gives you staying power after ganks because of its passive.
Thornmail is a great way to bully ADCs and particularly lifesteal-y champions, and
Anathema's Chans is a solid pick against any champions trying to 1v5.
Recommended Runes: Guardian, Fleet Footwork
AP Burst
If you want to run a burstier build, you're in luck - Bard's passive means that he excels at short auto trades with a limited number of empowered autos, so shorter trades running Electrocute or Hail of Blades work phenomenally on him. If you're going with a bursty AP build, I highly recommend taking
Nashor's Tooth as your first item - it'll give you consistent damage on your autos even when unempowered, it gives you a whopping 100 AP to start your scaling, and the attack speed makes it much, much easier to get your empowered autos off. It's a great first item on any damage-oriented Bard build and I cannot stress that enough.
When it comes to mythic, you have a few options.
Crown of the Shattered Queen seems like an obvious choice, with a great ability and a mythic passive that gives you movespeed and AP, both stats Bard enjoys. I recommend going Crown if you're against a comp that can burst you down, just because of how damn good the stats are on you. If you feel like Bard doesn't have enough lockdown, you can also go with
Everfrost, giving you even more CC on top of the slows and stuns of your kit. Both of these options are a bit tankier than the rest, so they fit more if you're not trying to go full mage-assassin.
If you only care about damage, your main options are
Night Harvester or
Luden's Tempest, though you can also justify
Hextech Rocketbelt. Night Harvester is notable for making your ult do damage, which isn't very useful a lot of the time, but it is very funny and I do highly recommend it. The movespeed it gives you on proc is also pretty nice for you if you're chasing or escaping, and it gives 10% more movespeed than Luden's. Luden's Tempest is generally my go-to because of its great passive and magic penetration, which both increase the power of your Auto-Q combos on enemies. Hextech Rocketbelt is a bit of a gimmick on Bard, as he generally has no issue with extended chasing because of his autos naturally slowing and his portals allowing you to cut people off very easily, but it can be very fun to use and play around with. It also has the benefit of being built out of
Hextech Alternator, just like Night Harvester, so you can pivot from one to the other if you don't know which you want to go and want to leave the option of MPen open.
When it comes to non-mythics (that aren't Nashors), Bard has a lot of options.
Dead Man's Plate and
Rapid Firecannon slot pretty well into any build, even this, as both give burst damage and Bard loves the stats they give him regardless. For build-specific options, very few items can give Bard the incredibly easy burst of
Lich Bane. You're Auto-Q-Autoing most of the time anyways, so this just makes your life a lot easier. You can even weave in self-cast Ws if you really want to push the spellblade passive to its limit, since the heal and movespeed isn't ever going to be wasted in a 1v1.
Cosmic Drive is a great item for fights that extend beyond just an Auto-Q, as your passive's on-hit counts as a unique instance of ability damage. The extra movespeed is nice, but having 40 extra AP in fights turns this into one of the most stat-efficient items in the game for you, for something so easy to proc and keep up.
Horizon Focus is just free extra damage for you, as your passive autos automatically slow anywys, so it's no extra work to proc it.
Shadowflame,
Rabadon's Deathcap,
Zhonya's Hourglass, and
Void Staff are all generally great items that are no better or worse on Bard than they would be on any other mage. You go Shadowflame for some nice flat magic pen (especially versus targets with shields), you go Rabadon's last item if you want pure damage over utility, you go Zhonya's pretty much every game for survivability if you're actually trying to win, and you go Void Staff to deal meaningful damage to tanks.
Recommended Runes: Hail of Blades, Electrocute, Arcane Comet, Dark Harvest
Consistent AP Damage
If you don't care all too much about burst, you can go for a more teamfight oriented AP build. For your mythic, you can go
Riftmaker or
Liandry's Torment, or just pivot from a tank mythic into AP when starting with items like
Evenshroud or
Iceborn Gauntlet.
Imperial Mandate or
Everfrost also serve pretty solid purposes as cheaper mythics that still give you the power to do consistent AP damage in teamfights while giving utility to your team.
Nashor's Tooth is still a great item in these builds, though it's probably better as a 2nd or 3rd item, not worth building over your mythic.
Demonic Embrace is a solid pick option versus tanks, but it's not an "every game" item because of the reduced damage on ranged champions.
Abyssal Mask is a surprisingly solid item here if you'll be taking magic damage, since the reduced resists is obviously a great help for you -
Banshee's Veil fulfills a similar purpose (of providing MR) but is mostly good if the enemy team keeps engaging on you with CC. Naturally,
Cosmic Drive and to a lesser extent
Lich Bane are both good options too, as both will give you pretty consistent damage in fights. See the previous section for comments on
Shadowflame,
Void Staff,
Zhonya's Hourglass, and
Rabadon's Deathcap.
Recommended Runes: Arcane Comet, Electrocute
Bard ADC
So, picture this - you see a support with purely AP scaling, but a lot of utility in his abilities. You ask yourself "well, how do I make Kraken Slayer work?". You are met with silence from the Heavens above, but thankfully this guide goes against the wishes of any gods that may be watching my every move.
You have four mythic options, in my opinion.
Galeforce,
Kraken Slayer, and
Immortal Shieldbowl, obviously, but
Trinity Force is a surprisingly great option on Bard too. He likes all the stats it gives him, and the passive for extended trades and a spellblade passive are both things that an ADC Bard really enjoys. I'd say that in most games, you want to go Galeforce for the mobility. It's a pretty nice dash with homing projectiles, but what really looks sexy to Bard is that sweet, sweet 2% movespeed off of every other legendary. With this,
Celerity,
Boots of Swiftness, and your chime passive, you're going to be roaming around the map with a terrifying speed. Kraken Slayer is the most obvious use case, as you take it when you have enemies stacking resists up the wazoo when you want to be melting them as much as possible. Immortal Shieldbow is probably the weakest of the four, in my opinion, as the lifesteal is a lot weaker on Bard than other ADCs (as he does less damage, and mostly brings utility to the table). Naturally,
Trinity Force is what you want to take if you're building something a bit beefier than the standard ADC, and is generally good if you want to build a more ADC-Bruiser hybrid build.
When it comes to attacking, Bard really likes to build on-hit, because his base autos leave a bit to be desired, and his passive is an on-hit effect anyways. This means items like
Guinsoo's Rageblade and
Runaan's Hurricane (as well as the new, reworked
Navori Flickerblade), and as always he enjoys
Rapid Firecannon.
Blade of the Ruined King is a really good option for dealing with tanks, and it's even pretty solid against squishies.
Essence Reaver is a really good pick as it's a spellblade item that gives crit, synergizing well with the 3 crit-amp items and helping Bard's naturally affinity towards spellblade passives. Further on-hit options include
Wit's End,
Muramana, and even Nashor's - Bard appreciates the AP in any build due to his passive, Q, and W scaling, and the attack speed isn't going to be wasted on him.
Phantom Dancer and
Mortal Reminder are notable for being cheap items that provide both movespeed and crit, stats than an ADC Bard enjoys quite a lot.
Recommended Runes: Hail of Blades, Lethal Tempo, Fleet Footwork, Press the Attack
Bruiser Bard
When it comes to bruiser, there's a lot of overlap - you can justify pretty much any item on a bruiser build, be it AP or AD, more tank-focused or more damage-focused.
Trinity Force for AD and
Riftmaker for AP are the obvious first choices, but you can also justify
Stridebreaker,
Divine Sunderer,
Imperial Mandate,
Evenshroud,
Radiant Virtue,
Iceborn Gauntlet... I could keep going, but I think I've made my point by now. With how flexible Bard is, and how broad of a class bruiser is, I honestly think you could mix and match these into almost any build and get something that works. Because of that, I'll just go over some of the items you'd build if you need more of one specific thing.
Damage:
Nashors Tooth for consistent on-hit AP,
Essence Reaver for an AD spellblade,
Lich Bane for an AP spellblade,
Muramana for a ton of raw AD,
Phantom Dancer for faster hits if you're in long trades,
Titanic Hydra if you're building rather tanky,
Wit's End if you need some MR with your damage build.
Survivability:
Dead Man's Plate for armor + roam,
Turbo Chemtank for MR + roam,
Warmog's Armor for pure HP,
Abyssal Mask for a bit of increased AP damage on top of MR,
Thornmail and
Randuin's Omen to bully ADCs,
Anathema's Chains if one person is particularly fed,
Frozen Heart if you want to make every AD champion cry,
Fimbulwinter if you're desperate to get shielded off of your stun.
Utility:
Rapid Firecannon and
Dead Man's Plate, as always, are great for this.
Umbral Glaive if you really need vision control and are willing to have a mostly useless item in your build for it,
Mikael's Blessing vs. CC heavy teams,
Knight's Vow to protect a carry.
Recommended Runes: Lethal Tempo, Conqueror, Grasp of the Undying
Lethality Bard
This is probably the least viable one so far. Bard has no innate AD scaling, so you're definitely going to need to build some attack speed - this is difficult, as no lethality items offer attack speed. You'll need to spec into at least one attack speed item, and most likely runes like
Hail of Blades and
Legend: Alacrity. Unfortunately, in a build like this you can't really afford to go attack speed boots, as you really want either Swifties or Mobis for the roam. I recommend
Runaan's Hurricane or
Guinsoo's Rageblade as options for your attack speed item.
For your mythic, you want to go
Eclipse - this will get procced by just your auto and passive. Amazing synergy with
Ingenious Hunter, too, since reducing its cooldown is very useful when its so easy to proc.
Duskblade of Draktharr is justifiable, though it's not as strong, and
Kraken Slayer is understandable as your attack speed item with the rest of your items being lethality oriented.
Prowler's Claw is not good on Bard.
For your first (non-mythic) item, you almost always are going to want to go
Youmuu's Ghostblade, since the speed it gives you is very nice, especially on top of the lethality stats.
Umbral Glaive is obviously amazing on Bard as always,
Serpent's Fang should have very obvious applications, and
Black Cleaver is a solid lategame anti-tank item.
Muramana is an amazing item purely for its raw stats, giving a lot of AD and some on-hit that scales with attack damage.
Ravenous Hydra is good for waveclear. If you want to spec intro crit,
Navori Flickerblade or
Infinity Edge are takable - with Collector and Runaans Hurricane you've already hit the 60% threshhold without needing to splash much at all.
Recommended Runes: Hail of Blades, Lethal Tempo, Predator, Dark Harvest
Please note that this is by no means exhaustive - the only way to know what items work for you is to play with them, and I can't go in depth enough to explain exactly when you should pick certain items. This section is meant to be more of a guideline where I express my own experiences with each build, and I highly recommend you experiment to find out what items work for you. However, I am free to answer any questions you have on itemization![/i]
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