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Choose Champion Build:
- Laner.
- Support.
Recommended Items
Runes: Hail of Blades.
+10% Attack Speed
+6 Armor
+6 Armor
Spells:
Barrier
Flash
Items
Ability Order Abilities!
Traveler's Call (PASSIVE)
Bard Passive Ability
Threats & Synergies
Jhin
Jhin is a meta ADC. He will simply outperform you in most ways, especially damage. Play safe until you can (hopefully) Q + HoB burst him.
Pantheon
Any CC heavy support for Bard is incredible as they allow you to set up your Q cc on top of it.
Pantheon
Any CC heavy support for Bard is incredible as they allow you to set up your Q cc on top of it.
Champion Build Guide
+ Great double CC + Scales decently even if behind in gold + Game winning ultimate + Great at impacting the entire map health/mana sustain As you might know, more CC more GG. Bard's entire kit is built around roaming. It allows him to gank mid in ways that other ADC's will only ever dream of. With your E, you can even take your support (For example, Nautilus) with you and surprise the enemy Yasuo with a hail of CC he will never forget. In lane pair your CC with your support's CC or vice versa. It is important to keep these things in mind as Bard effectively lacks in all other areas. You win the game by snowballing everyone with you, you don't play these roles as a normal ADC/Top laner which just sits still and farm. Roaming. Ganking. CC'ing. Burst'ing. are all things Bard excell in |
- Bad wave clear until Tiamat - Very macro dependent - Game losing ultimate - Horrible extended fights early The biggest problem with adc is that he has bad AP and AD scalings, we counteract this with bruiser and on-hit items as they're much more gold effective. One of the hardest parts about playing Bard in these roles is to keep up your farm while simultaneously ganking and collecting chimes. This means that he is a very macro heavy and skill expressive champ to play well. So don't discourage yourself too much when you lose, Bard is a hard champ! Don't forget to tilt the enemy midlaner as much as you can! One quick top, don't rush the chimes in the unwarded enemy jungle the very moment they spawn, they last up to 10 minutes. Take your |
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Kraken Slayer This item is incredible for Bard. It gives him a great on-hit item which scales with your AD. The main reason we take this item is due to one of it's passives giving us 10% attack speed for each legendary item. You can choose to opt for tankier items, however as an ADC it is your job to deal as much damage as possible and nothing else. It's not your job to protect yourself. |
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Trinity Force Trinity Force is the alternative I'd choose whenever I'm in any other role aside from ADC. Bard uses the Sheen passive pretty well and he gets lots of AH from the item which improves his utility. You can definitely choose to go this item instead of Locket if you need the extra edge, even with Guardian build. I do NOT recommend this item if you're going ADC as it has less damage output compared to Kraken Slayer. |
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Tiamat Tiamat is an item you should love on laning Bard. It improves his waveclear to insane levels and makes him an actually playable laner. I will nearly always recommend this item and if you're not building it, you're at a disadvantage. If you're going crit build it can be better to go Noonquiver but I'd only recommend it if your support has enough braincells to help you shove the wave. The faster you can clear the wave and push it under the enemy tower, the earlier you can roam to other lanes, getting both of you ahead. |
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Noonquiver This is the item that you preferably can buy the very first time you back as an ADC. Otherwise, build the items which lead up to it. It allows you to much easier last hit minions as well as giving you more AD and attack speed. Easier time last hitting also means, more gold in the end! As noted with Tiamat, the more waveclear you have, the faster you can push in the wave the moment the enemy disappears and gank mid, which is great because they're going to tilt and play much worse. Just don't give him a double kill because you're diving their tower. |
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Berserker's Greaves I want to dedicate this section to the boots Berserker's Greaves. This is because of how important it is to not build other boots. 35% attack speed is something you cannot just throw away, especially as an ADC. Please don't build other boots if you intend to deal damage. (Even if you're going top with Trinity Force just go Berserker's Greaves it's too good to give up). If you're really behind, Ionian Boots of Lucidity may be an alternative. |
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On-hit Build Building on-hit is the best archtype if you need damage There's different variations of it, the first build is mainly built around increasing single target damage, while the other build is more focused on becoming an AoE teamfighting monster. You may ask, "Why not just build crit?" well that's because crit on Bard straight up sucks. Your AA range is way too short and you'll instantly explode the moment youre trying to kill someone with your short range. |
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Bruiser build When you're going Trinity Force, you're going bruiser! Bruiser is another archetype for Bard which you can build, however it's not recommended for ADC Bard. You are not building Noonquiver, so you can just immediately rush Tiamat and then start building Trinity Force. While you deal less damage overall, you are much more chunky and have a lot more survivability. I recommend this build whenever you're autofilled in another lane and still want to play Bard. This build is also in general easier to itemize as you don't have to solely focus on primarily dealing damage and rather focus on peeling for your teammates. It's also easier to itemize as it doesn't have as many items which synergize with each other. (See Runaan's Hurricane builds) |
Itemizing with Bard can be either incredibly frustrating or plain fun. Bard can build lots of different items depending on the occasion. In this section I'll talk about which items you should replace depending on the situation. You've most likely already seen the "Item Bible" and wondered why there's so many different items there or more importantly, when you're supposed to build those items.
To begin with, as a general guide, we're going to take a look at the two different main archetypes. All of these builds have a different amount of core items that differentiates between them. The items below the certain build are items I do not recommend switching, hence they are "Core" items.
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On-hit monster Kraken Slayer, Tiamat, + With On-Hit items |
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Chad Bruiser Bard Trinity Force, Tiamat + Any bruiser items |
Now you can see how many items you actually can switch around by comparing the core items to the example builds.
We can begin by introducing our Anti-Heal items.
These items are Chempunk Chainsword and Thornmail. To give an example of which items you should choose; Thornmail is the alternative you choose if you're going for example Titanic Hydra as you benefit from the extra HP. Chempunk Chainsword is the alternative you choose when you're an ADC. All build examples have replacement examples! Read the notes as they're the most up-to-date!
Ok, I think that you get the general gist of itemizing so I am going to stop writing. Have this MS Paint masterwork instead; it will "explain" everything super quickly directly into your brain. The arrows show which items are preferred with other items. So if you've built one item, the next item you can build is whatever the arrows point at, with a few exceptions of course.
Every build example notes has replacement recommendations if you're still a little bit confused. Just don't forget that specific items work better with other specific items in similar categories. Because this guide has so many different items, explaining all of them is something that I'd expect a very select few on Mobafire would read.
Passive: Traveler's Call Bard's passive is what allows him to scale even when behind in gold. Two chimes spawn every 50 seconds and they last up to 10 minutes until they despawn, so don't feel pressured to immediately collect them! Every 5th chime that you collect, your passive gets better. If you want to know exactly what improves at a specific amount of chimes, check out the wiki. |
Bard's passive is intended to work in a way which rewards him when he's roaming, by giving you stacking movement speed, a little bit of XP, 12% of maximum mana and of course scaling your passive. Bard's passive allows him to have great mana sustain during laning phase. When you're already maximum mana and you're about to pick up a chime, plop down a shrine [W] so you're not wasting any of it. Early game, a chime is nearly equal to a shrine. A lot of people think that there's specific numbers that you should aim for, which I am going to say there isn't. Collecting chimes should never be a primary objective and rather something that you do when you're for example; Pathing to your lane, Pathing to mid, Roaming with your jungler. It's something that should happen passively. As said before, they last for an entire 10 minutes. Combining your tunnels [E] and collecting chimes at the time while pathing to mid can make you move insanely quick which allows you to overwhelm the enemy midlaner with a sudden 3v1 or even a 4v1 if you're roaming with your jungle. In the areas that Bard lacks in as an ADC, it is important to fill those areas in by doing the things he's incredible at, which is roaming. While the enemy Caitlyn takes forever to go mid, you can go to mid and back without losing anything with proper wave management. | |
>> | At 5 chimes, Bard's meeps slow, at 15 chimes they gain AoE damage. At 35 the AoE cone increases even further! | |
>> | While Bard's chimes only slow by 25% in the beginning, at 85 chimes they slow by 85%! | |
>> | Sometimes it can be better to leave chimes alone for further use... Be experimental with them! |
///Q Ability
Q: Cosmic Binding Your Q allows you to slow and stun someone. However, unlike other stuns, Bard's Q works a little bit different. After you've hit someone with it, there needs to be someone else or terrain behind it to stun. This is the ability that you level up first. |
Bard's Q ability can be one of the more trickier abilities to learn due to how it interacts with with terrain. The terrain in League of Legends isn't entirely smooth as it may seem and has lots of corners. This allows you to stun people with your Q in ways which seem entirely ********. Corners on the map are the best places to see how big the terrain hitbox really is. • If you use your tunnel [E] and an enemy decides to follow through, try to time your Q projectile to hit the enemy just as they get out of it. You can use this trick to stun greedy people under your tower! • Albeit risky, you can use your Q to check if someone is for example hiding in a bush. No matter the vision you will still hear the sound of your Q hitting something.
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///W Ability
W: Caretaker's Shrine This is your W. Your W allows you to heal others and yourself. Your shrine heal with grow stronger the more your leave it alone until it finally reaches a maximum value, which is signified by a sound and the shrine changing. You can have a max of 3. You can still heal someone directly with your W without losing a shrine if it's directly applied to another ally champion. |
When you use your W the shrine will give a little bit of vision that disappears after a second or two. This could be helpful in a few cases but it's barely worth it most times. • One important thing to remember is that spamming your W is most likely going to be your downfall when it is to your mana management. So always try to let your shrines charge up! Unless your ally is in dire need, of course. • In matchups with lots of poke I can recommend putting two points in your W lvl 4 to keep each other healthy. It is however important to note that your healing falls off later.
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///E Ability
E: Magical Journey Your E is an incredibly versatile ability. It's an escape tool, it's a mobility tool, it's a trap tool. Learning the many different kinds of tunnels is life saving. During laning phase, if you're precise, you can tunnel from the bottom middle part of the lane, all the way to your turret! |
While using your E might seem easy at first, making certain specific and important tunnels can be hard. I will not show any specific tunnels here in this guide, so my main recommendation is going on your search browser and searching those things up online. • Ping your E ability to let your allies know that your ability to tunnel exists, so you can gank the enemy right behind them not just yourself, but with a friend, or two, or three. • Just because you used your E, does not mean you have to go through it! Bait enemies chasing you by placing a tunnel, going towards it, but not actually entering it. This can take a bit of time to properly master.
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///R Ultimate
R: Tempered Fate This is your ultimate, Tempered Fate. Easy to learn, Hard to master. Your ultimate puts everyone inside it, including wards, monsters, minions, towers, into stasis for an entire 2.5 seconds! This ultimate can turn entire teamfights in your favour but it can also give the enemy the advantage if used incorrectly. |
Bard's ultimate is in my opinion the best ability in the game, in terms of fun. You can do so many different things with this extremely versatile ability. (See a theme for Bard here?) If you want to learn how to use this ability, the biggest tip that I can give you is that you should always use it. If you wait a few seconds deciding if it's worth spending your ultimate, the time window is most likely already over. It is also important to note that you can use your ultimate as a zoning tool, you do not have to actually hit the ultimate for it to be useful. • Use your ultimate to save your teammates which are about to be killed or for example dived by the enemy. • Use your ultimate when you're diving someone else to shut off their tower completely. Even the enemy will instinctively avoid your ultimate, even if it would save them. • Use your ultimate to save your teammate from dying from for example Ignite, Teemo's mushrooms, Brand's burn, etcetera. • During teamfights, use your ultimate to engage the enemy by hitting as many people as possible. By doing this you're allowing everyone in your team to set up their skillshots. • A good combo to know is, Q + Ultimate + Q, This will CC the enemy for 6.1 seconds total!
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If you have something special you want me to add, or have questions regarding the build or even better item optimization then feel free to comment and I'll try to check on them and reply if needed.
I want to keep this part to all the people that helped me create this guide in many different ways.
Thanks to Katasandra for code and early feedback!
Thanks to PsiGuard for the review and inspiring me to make this in-depth, albeit most likely not intended to do so. :=)
Thanks to all the guides which helped significantly when it is to guide making, especially jhoijhoi's guide.
As a last note I'd like to finish this guide off by giving thanks to a player named Izzy for trying this build out after hearing about this and due to his success I wanted to make this guide.
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