He's bottom tier 3. Bought him, played him, he's really fun but also not influential at all. You can't put that much power into a passive which requires you to wander off away from your team, and without your passive stacking up quickly your damage and cc are practically nonexistent.
The best way I found to play him was to max shrines, place 2 or 3 down, go roam to get mana back, come back bot, repeat. If you max q you just don't do damage anyways, and the stun is too situational for it to work. It needs like a 50% range increase AND a damage increase. His chimes need to appear more often and in larger numbers. His shrine mana cost is a little ******ed but it seems fine due to chimes.
As for his ultimate, it has a lot of potential but is practically unusable. The travel time is ridicolous, the circle diameter is EXTREMELY big for a spell meant to only target a few people and the only real use for it right now is to stop ignites/karth ult/other periodic damage from getting the last tick on someone or just disengaging from a fight. It's a horrible initiation tool and half the league champs can dash out of it due to the extremely obvious range indicator /and/ painfully slow travel time. I dare you to try and catch out a kayle,graves,ezreal,aatrox,rumble...or anyone else with a speed boost/dash. You can only pick off special immobile cases like maybe Syndra, malzahar, kogmaw or like maokai but even then, the ap mages have luden's echo which makes it even harder to use to pick them off.
His e is good as a general mobility spell and the E>max range Q combo allows for some nifty escapes despite the fact that enemies can follow you. I think it would be good to make allies travel a little bit faster ( I already know they travel faster than enemies but the difference is very miniscule) and it would end up being great.
The best way I found to play him was to max shrines, place 2 or 3 down, go roam to get mana back, come back bot, repeat. If you max q you just don't do damage anyways, and the stun is too situational for it to work. It needs like a 50% range increase AND a damage increase. His chimes need to appear more often and in larger numbers. His shrine mana cost is a little ******ed but it seems fine due to chimes.
As for his ultimate, it has a lot of potential but is practically unusable. The travel time is ridicolous, the circle diameter is EXTREMELY big for a spell meant to only target a few people and the only real use for it right now is to stop ignites/karth ult/other periodic damage from getting the last tick on someone or just disengaging from a fight. It's a horrible initiation tool and half the league champs can dash out of it due to the extremely obvious range indicator /and/ painfully slow travel time. I dare you to try and catch out a kayle,graves,ezreal,aatrox,rumble...or anyone else with a speed boost/dash. You can only pick off special immobile cases like maybe Syndra, malzahar, kogmaw or like maokai but even then, the ap mages have luden's echo which makes it even harder to use to pick them off.
His e is good as a general mobility spell and the E>max range Q combo allows for some nifty escapes despite the fact that enemies can follow you. I think it would be good to make allies travel a little bit faster ( I already know they travel faster than enemies but the difference is very miniscule) and it would end up being great.

I played him and feels he's underrated. Max W, leave and gank people post 3, return for the adc now and then (mostly to place W and dragon control). His ult a lot of uses: saving people, splitting the enemy team, picking up isolated targets, screweing enemy jungler while allowing yours to smite something,...
My biggest issue is the Q. Either needs more range or faster travel time. I feel his greatest weakness is, obviously, lane phase and the fact that he is 100% utility without many ways to make himself be the focus of damage (besides his global taunt passive)
My biggest issue is the Q. Either needs more range or faster travel time. I feel his greatest weakness is, obviously, lane phase and the fact that he is 100% utility without many ways to make himself be the focus of damage (besides his global taunt passive)

Pls how do you go and gank people when the second you're out of lane people instagib your adc? Also, in 90% of all of my games saving people from an enemies damage just meant I'd give the enemy time for their CD's to finish so they wound up getting a kill anyway ._. And it's so hard to /just/ hit an enemy, as you'd have to aim with the edge of the circle which will more than likely end up being a wasted ultimate.
I did ok with him in normals but people there didn't really give a **** and capitalize on my weaknesses. Definitely never taking him to ranked again until bufferinos :<
I did ok with him in normals but people there didn't really give a **** and capitalize on my weaknesses. Definitely never taking him to ranked again until bufferinos :<

I think his ult is really strong for picks, initiates, and team fight repositioning
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Thanks a lot for the sig, jhoi! :)
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Thanks a lot for the sig, jhoi! :)
I've ulted people just at the edge so my people leave and theirs doesn't <.<
I think it depends on the laners. Bard can work vs poke botlanes, he's just really bad versus all ins because, well, they all in your carry as soon as you step out.
People could try laneswapping with him though, but that's definitely not soloQ material. I've already seen him in good hands and was very impressed.
I think it depends on the laners. Bard can work vs poke botlanes, he's just really bad versus all ins because, well, they all in your carry as soon as you step out.
People could try laneswapping with him though, but that's definitely not soloQ material. I've already seen him in good hands and was very impressed.

Lugignaf wrote:
But if you stay with the AD, you don't ever deal any damage. With only
Cosmic Binding doing damage, and not a whole lot, you're hardly useful in lane either.
Magical Journey is only useful out of lane, to set up ganks.


You're also forgetting the slow that he can apply in a large cone once he's collected enough chimes. The key with



This is not to say that he's great.

If you're not backing when your laner is you're going to be severely behind in items. The W and chimes aren't enough to sustain Bard back to full health as well.
I'd be interested if any pro teams pick him up and force lane swaps, although that basically means you HAVE to lane swap for the duo to not be behind
I'd be interested if any pro teams pick him up and force lane swaps, although that basically means you HAVE to lane swap for the duo to not be behind
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I don't know, it just feels like he's not that good really.