Electrocute provides Bard with insanely high early laning phase damage. It can be easily procced with his auto attacks plus meeps, and Cosmic Binding. It's the best rune for him to take to dominate early game and snowball his ADC.

Bard uses Cosmic Binding, Cheap Shot will proc, granting up to 45 bonus true damage (based on level). It also procs with your Traveler's Call passive slow, beginning at 5 chimes.

Bard is very damage focused, so choosing Eyeball Collection is the smartest choice in this column. Every champion takedown provides you with one eyeball, gaining a bonus of 1.2 AD or 2 AP per eyeball. You gain up to 6 AD or 10 AP when you finish your collection - giving Bard another increase to his damage.

Bard is a highly mobile champion with his Traveler's Call passive, and Magical Journey, Relentless Hunter helps provide him with even more mobility, increasing his roaming potential even further.

As I've already mentioned, Bard has very high mobility, and what does Celerity do? Increase it even further! A must have for Bard.

Scorch increases our high damage output during laning phase, dealing up to an extra 35 bonus magic damage. Exerts more pressure early game, and helps to wittle down your enemies.

-OR- -OR

Boots of Mobility > MOVEMENT SPEED These are the cheapest boots in the game, but often the most useful - especially on a support, and one that can engage at that. Bard wants to be roaming a lot, and catching enemies out, so having the bonus movement speed is invaluable. He also takes Relentless Hunter and Celerity, increasing his movement speed further, helping land Cosmic Binding's. Mercury's Treads > MAGIC RESIST/TENACITY If the enemy team has a lot of CC, or a lot of AP damage, you can trade Mobi's out for these. They offer +25 magic resist, along with reducing the effect of stuns, slows, taunts, fears, silences, blinds and immobilizes by 30%. Ninja Tabi's > ARMOR If the enemy team has a lot of physical damage threats, and you need some extra survivability on top of Aftershock, Ninja Tabi's are the way to go, offering 20 armor, and reducing incoming basic attacks by 12%.

Redemption > CDR/HP+MANA REGEN/SUSTAIN Redemption offers an aoe heal in an area, adding an aoe health sustain for his allies that Bard's kit lacks, outside of his single use Caretaker's Shrine. It also offers HP and Mana regen, meaning you can stay in the fights longer, recall less, and you can help out even while dead. It also offers an extra 10% healing power, which synergizes with your Caretaker's Shrine.

Knight's Vow > SURVIVABILITY/SUSTAIN You gain extra HP, 40 armor and 10% CDR with this item, not including the extra 20 armor and 15% bonus movement speed when your chosen ally is nearby. If your ally is nearby, you heal for 12% of all the damage they do (increasing your tankiness), and redirecting 12% of the damage they take, to yourself (increasing their survivability]. Usually a core item to take vs physical damage. Healing and damage reduction is halved due to the fact Bard is ranged.

Zhonya's Hourglass > UTILITY/SURVIVABILITY/DAMAGE If the enemy team has a lot of burst damage threats, you can take Zhonya's Hourglass to keep yourself alive longer, or negate damage spells such as Zed's Death Mark or Ignite. It can spell the difference between living or dying, you also gain a nice chunk of AP for your burst damage, 45 armor and CDR.

Mikael's Crucible > SURVIVABILITY/CDR/UTILITY A good pick when facing an enemy team with hard CC that you need to Cleanse on allies, such as Impale, Dark Binding, Cocoon etc and grants bonus movement speed for 2s after successfully cleansing an ability. Increases your Mana and HP regeneration, while granting you 40 magic resist, and 20% healing power - good synergy with Caretaker's Shrine.

Twin Shadows > UTILITY/DAMAGE A great item to help you chase down enemies faster with the slow, up to 40%, synergising with your Traveler's Call passive, and your high mobility - or if you want vision of where enemies could be, helps you not to face check brushes or while taking objectives. You gain 70 AP, adding onto your burst damage window, 10% CDR and extra movement speed.

Locket of the Iron Solari > DAMAGE/UTILITY/SURVIVABILITY With Locket of the Iron Solari, you gain 30 armor and 60 magic resist, increasing your overall tankiness, while providing a shield to your allies upon use - using +20% of your maximum health, which Redemption and Knight's Vow both increase.

Athene's Unholy Grail > SUSTAIN Athene's Unholy Grail is a niche pickup on Bard, it only proc's with his Caretaker's Shrine, which his allies have to utilize themselves by walking over it.. you see why this is a problem?! You can stack the charges fast with the damage you do, and it increases your MR by 30, but you do have better options before taking this.

Dead Man's Plate > SURVIVABILITY/UTILITY A decent pick up for extra movement speed - up to 60 at maximum stacks, which has good synergy with Celerity. It's increases your overall survivability by increasing your health, and armor - so it's a good pickup vs physical comps. You also gain Crushing Blow passive - your basic attacks deal 1 magic damage per stack of Momentum, discharging all stacks. Very good synergy with all the burst damage Bard has to offer.

At level 1, you will choose to level up your Cosmic Binding,
as it's your primary poke and catch tool.
You can collect chimes from Traveler's Call while waiting for minions to spawn, if there is no danger of being invaded, granting you extra experience and your meeps.

During laning phase, you can harass with your meeps, proccing Electrocute easily, dealing a huge chunk of damage - and landing your Cosmic Bindings. Use the enemy caster minions to proc the stun onto the enemy ADC, or if the support is stood next to them, get a double stun for a potential engage.

Put your Caretaker's Shrines near the tower, away from the enemies - as they will be destroyed if stood on by an enemy. Don't use these sparingly, or risk losing a lot of mana. You can use them as a targeted heal, or as an escape as they do grant movement speed.

You can use Magical Journey to grant an engage path for your ally jungler when they want to gank, or as an easy escape if you get engaged on. You can use this to set up ganks in other lanes
if you decide to roam, while collecting your charms. AS OF 9.14, Magical Journey has had a travel speed buff, increasing the power of early game ganks, along with increasing Bard's base health, making him slightly more durable.



Outside of laning phase, you're going to want to be setting up a lot of wards around objectives, such as Baron Nashor and the drakes. If your team is ahead, and it is safe to do so, you can set up deep vision in the enemies jungle, allowing yourself and your team to get important picks, that allow you to take the previously mentioned objectives.

As Bard is still a squishy, backline mage, you generally want to be around your team as much as you can, especially late game, where warding alone can get you caught out and potentially lose the game in a 4v5 teamfight. Use Magical Journey to gain vision control, and clutch escapes if you do get caught out - you gain movement speed while travelling, the enemy doesn't!

Tempered Fate can be utilized in many different ways, depending on how you want to go into a teamfight. You can put enemies in stasis while they're taking an important objective, giving your team chance to catch them - or engage in a Smite battle. If the enemy is coming while your team is taking an objective, you can use it to stop them engaging.
You can use it to protect falling towers, giving your team a chance to defend if they're elsewhere on the map, you can protect fleeing allies by casting it on chasing enemies - or vise versa.
It can be used for peeling your ADC as an enemy assassin tries to engage, such as Zed or Kha'Zix - but be very careful of putting them into a vulnerable spot where it could give the enemies a chance to move forward to help their assassin.

Prioritize using Cosmic Binding for peel, and try to aim it towards a wall, or between two enemies to proc the stun. Remember, your meeps slow with your auto attacks, so be sure to take advantage of this. Use your active items to keep your team sustained.

The main thing to be aware of, is making sure your teams threats stay alive, while removing, or zoning, the enemy teams threats.

Control Ward's are a staple part of any support, both to deny your enemies vision, and to provide your team extra vision. You should make sure to buy one at least every time you back, preferably to have 2 on you at all times.

I hope you enjoyed, and learned enough from my Bard guide, to play him as well as the pro's.

If you enjoyed my guide, you can check out my other guides here, in which I've covered more styles of supports, incase you want to branch out on supports such as tanky engagers ( Nautilus, Thresh etc!).

If you're interested in seeing more of me, please follow my stream! I stream every day but Saturday, from 12:00pm - 11:00pm GMT. I play a wide variety of supports, and I am always engaging with my stream chat.

Please DM Mossey#6340 for guide creations.